No Hype, Just Standards · Client story
Brain fog over 40: the F-18 pilot turned doctor who needed a coach
What this episode says
- Monlux saw Top Gun in the theater with his father at ten and decided that, unlike Star Wars, it was a job you could actually do. He made it through the Navy pipeline, where jets require the top half of the class to be eligible and considerably better to be selected, flew F-18s for about ten years, and instructed at VMFAT-101 at Miramar. Combat missions out of the Gulf ran three and a half to four hours: an hour to tank over Kuwait, ninety minutes in country, an hour home, preceded by hours of chart study because the battlefield changed daily. He was shot at, and says the thing that gets you is never the one you see.
- He had always wanted to do medicine too. He did not want to be an airline pilot or an admiral, so he studied the prerequisites while instructing, resigned his commission as a lieutenant commander, and started over as an ensign in the Medical Corps to attend medical school on the Navy. He is now board certified in family medicine and aerospace medicine, and his company, Wingman Med, gets pilots with a new diagnosis, or a recovered heart attack or stroke, through FAA certification in months instead of years.
- The slide was insidious. Fitness was part of the job when pulling seven Gs made his body weigh 1,500 pounds. In medicine it mattered less, so he prioritized it less, until he went for a run and had no spring, his belts were moving out a notch, and he realized he had been out of any consistent discipline so long he did not know where to start. He was still showing up, living by a tight calendar, and compartmentalizing: getting through the things he already knew how to do on coffee, sleeping badly, and losing the ability to think creatively. His rule is that nothing stays the same; you are always on a trajectory, and his was down.
- What moved him was watching his own patients and peers, men his age, have heart attacks and strokes. He wants to be around for his wife and kids. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for men and women, and most of it traces to obesity, diabetes, sleep apnea, and a sedentary life. He was doing nothing to prevent any of it and could have muddled along for another five or ten years into retirement.
- On the gap between knowing and doing: as a physician he can tell a patient to eat less and move more, but that is a template, not a plan. Standing at the refrigerator, which food? At the gym, which weight, how many reps, ten minutes of cardio or thirty? He uses the same reasoning he uses for an attorney or an accountant: he does not have time to build expertise in everything, and paying someone who has it is the better use of his time. Tiger Woods could have won the Open without a caddy; he used one anyway.
- As a doctor he is a prescribing minimalist, and he says it about testosterone specifically: some men absolutely benefit from treatment after a proper workup, but obesity, poor sleep, sleep apnea, diabetes, and chronic inflammation all lower testosterone, and those get addressed first. The standard panel targets the percentage threats, lipids and A1C, and stops there. A comprehensive panel lets you look at inflammation, liver, kidney, and hydration, and do something with it if you are interested in performance rather than only in what will kill you.
- The data changed his behavior. He had never tracked HRV, resting heart rate, REM, or weekly blood pressure. When the app showed a three-hour sleep deficit one weekend, he went to bed instead of brewing another pot and working two more hours, slept nine, and had the best workout in weeks the next day. His favorite thing about the program is the removal of decision fatigue: called to a last-minute trip, he tells Zac the hotel and the city, opens the app, and hits start. The same for a business dinner: which order hits the targets, so he can be present at the meal.
- Results at about ten weeks, by his own account: pants looser, shirts tighter in the chest and arms, and a life-insurance blood draw compared with one taken just before he started showed LDL down 20 percent, HDL up 20 percent, and A1C down to 4.8. He skied for the first time in five to ten years over the holidays, got up early while the group slept in, kept up with the teenagers on advanced terrain, trained on the mornings in between, and did not need ibuprofen. He falls asleep within minutes. His advice to the man who thinks he has got this: a little humility goes a long way. He did not know what he did not know.
I know exactly what I ought to be doing. But the execution is way more specific than eat less, exercise more.
Who Dan Monlux is
Dr. Daniel Monlux saw Top Gun in a theater with his father at ten years old and understood that, unlike Star Wars, this was a job a person could actually do. He got through the Navy pipeline, where you need to be in the top half of the class to be eligible for jets and considerably better than that to be selected, and flew the F-18 for roughly ten years, including combat missions over Iraq and a tour instructing at VMFAT-101 at Miramar. He had always wanted medicine too, and did not want to be an airline pilot or an admiral, so he studied the prerequisites while instructing, resigned his commission as a lieutenant commander, and started again as an ensign in the Medical Corps. He is board certified in family medicine and aerospace medicine, still holds an airline transport pilot certificate, and runs Wingman Med, which takes pilots with a new diagnosis, or a recovered heart attack or stroke, through FAA medical certification in months rather than years. Zac found a 1994 essay in his hometown paper, the Ukiah Daily Journal, in which a graduating Monlux wrote that experience has its own lessons to teach. Thirty years later, his summary of those lessons: you can do just about anything if you show up and keep working toward it.
Combat
A mission out of the Gulf ran three and a half to four hours. An hour to transit and take fuel over Kuwait, around ninety minutes in country doing close air support or a pre-planned strike, then fuel again and an hour back to the carrier. Before that, hours of chart study, because the forward line of troops and the threat picture changed every day. He was shot at more than once, and could see on night vision goggles anti-aircraft artillery tracking him through the sky. His observation from that: you are never going to be shot down by the thing you can see.
The slide
When you pull seven Gs, your body weighs 1,500 pounds, so fitness was simply part of the job in his twenties and early thirties. In medicine it mattered less, so he prioritized it less, and he stayed active enough not to notice. Then he went for a run and there was no spring. His belts and waistbands were moving out a size. And he had been out of any consistent discipline for so long that when he showed up intending to train, he did not know where to start. He was still executing: living by a tightly scheduled calendar, compartmentalizing the way aviators are trained to, getting through everything he already knew how to do on coffee. But he was sleeping badly, he was tired more than anything, and he felt he had lost the ability to think creatively and innovate. His rule is that nothing stays the same. In relationships, finances, fitness, or career, you are always on a trajectory, and his had been down for years while he did nothing about it.
What moved him was his own patients and peers. At 49, going on 50, he was watching men his age have heart attacks and strokes. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for men and women, and most of it traces back to obesity, diabetes, sleep apnea, and a sedentary life. He was doing nothing to prevent any of it, and he says honestly that he could have muddled along for another five or ten years into retirement and accepted it.
Knowing versus doing
As a physician he can look at vitals, an exam, and labs and produce a solution. The solution is eat differently and move more. That is a template, not a plan. Standing at the refrigerator, which item? At the gym, which weight, how many reps, ten minutes of cardio or thirty? The execution is far more specific than the advice. He reasons about it the way he reasons about his business: he could represent himself in court or do his own taxes, and instead he pays an attorney and an accountant because he does not have time to build expertise in everything. He uses AI himself when working with patients and respects it, and says it has given him more respect for the human who makes correct general information actionable for one specific person. Zac’s version: Tiger Woods could have won the Open without a caddy, and used one anyway.
What a physician thinks of the panel
Routine care screens for the percentage threats. Lipids, because cardiovascular disease is number one; A1C or glucose, because diabetes is common; and then it stops, partly because chasing more can send a patient down a rabbit hole he does not intend to act on. His view is that the more data you have, the more you can do with it, provided you are interested in performance and not only in what will kill you: markers of chronic inflammation, liver and kidney function, hydration. On testosterone he is, by his own description, a prescribing minimalist. Some men benefit enormously from treatment after the right workup, and he had one such patient. But obesity, poor sleep, sleep apnea, diabetes, and chronic inflammation all lower testosterone, so the number is an outcome to target, not a reason to jump to a prescription. In the program, anything hormonal sits with the program physician, not the coach.
He is blunt about what American medicine is good at and what it is not. Trauma, acute problems, and identifying what will kill you: excellent. Things that cause a slow death or erode quality of life: much less, because the answers are nuanced and the data is thinner. He believes every man in his forties should have a primary care doctor who knows him as an individual, and that the more engaged a patient is with his own data, the more testing makes sense.
Soft data
His workup for a tired, foggy patient begins with a history, which he calls the most effective diagnostic tool in medicine. Sleep, stressors, weight changes, three weeks or three years. Then labs to rule out anemia, organ dysfunction, undiagnosed diabetes, or heart disease, and a sleep study if there is snoring or disrupted sleep. Zac’s point is that almost all of it rests on soft data: ask a man how much he sleeps and he says six or seven hours, and he does not actually know. Monlux answers from his own experience rather than his medical one. He had never tracked HRV, resting heart rate, REM, or weekly blood pressure. Once he could see his behavior in his physiology, it changed what he did. One weekend the app showed a three-hour sleep deficit; instead of brewing another pot of coffee and working two more hours, he went to bed early, slept nine hours, and had the best workout in weeks the next morning. Zac adds the observation he makes on every call: everyone sets a time to wake up, and nobody sets a time to go to bed.
Decision fatigue
Almost every interaction in his day is someone asking him to solve a problem. What he values most in the program is that training is not another one. He gets called on a last-minute trip, the planned gym session is gone, and he tells Zac the hotel and the city. When he walks into the hotel workout room he opens the app and hits start, without inventorying the equipment or working out whether it was chest day. The same for a business dinner: he asks what to order, hits the targets, and is present at the meal. He compares it to being mission focused. On accountability, he notes that every time in his life he was in excellent shape it was with a running partner, a training partner, or a team, and that at 50 nobody in his circle invites him to the gym; they invite him to happy hour. Knowing that a missed day gets a message replaces that.
What changed
The first week he looked at the volume of work and, when he met Zac in person a week or two in, could barely stand. He recovered. At about ten weeks, by his own account: pants looser at the waist, shirts snug in the chest and arms, and Zac says the abs are coming. A blood draw for life insurance, compared with a basic panel taken shortly before he enrolled, showed LDL down 20 percent, HDL up 20 percent, and A1C down from the fives to 4.8. BMI, body fat, and visceral fat down. He went skiing over the holidays for the first time in five to ten years, got up while the rest of the group slept in, kept up with the teenagers on advanced terrain day after day, trained in the mornings in between, and never needed the ibuprofen his younger self would have. He falls asleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow. And, in the words Zac says every client uses at the end rather than the beginning, he just feels better. Individual results vary.
Humility
To the man who thinks he has got this, Monlux offers the investment-portfolio argument first: small deposits early compound into something that carries you through storms, and he could have cobbled together a program from ChatGPT and lost some weight, but he knows with certainty he would have kicked the can down the road. The likelihood that he would be seventy days into an effective program on his own was, in his words, precisely zero. Then the harder point. Fighter aviation runs on brief, execute, debrief, and the debrief never involves high fives; it covers only what went wrong. The more demanding your profession, the more you understand what you know that others do not, and this is no different. He thought he knew a little about training and diet. Once he accepted guidance from someone with real expertise, he found out he did not know what he did not know, and he is better for admitting it. Now, he says, it is like brushing his teeth. Nobody has to remind him.
Zac’s close: Monlux flew combat missions, went to medical school, is board certified in two specialties, and helps other people with their health for a living. Even he hit a wall and even he needed help. So if you are sitting there thinking you should be able to figure this out on your own, let it go. This is not willpower or discipline. It is biology, and biology does not care how tough you are. You are not broken; you are misaligned, and most of it is reversible.
Transcript
Full text, timestamped
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0:00 Fatigue, brain fog, stress. You’ve built success, but at what cost? Your energy crashes at 3 p.m. You rely on caffeine to power through your day. Deep down, you know you’re not performing at your best at work, at home, in the mirror. I’m Zac Armstrong, former Marine, naval officer, fighter pilot turned, elite performance coach, and this is no hype, just standards. We are here to have real conversations about what it takes for high performing men to get their edge back. Today’s conversation is a little different. My guest is Dr. Dan Mullenex, and his resume reads like a movie script. Dan started his career as a F-18 pilot in the US Navy. He flew missions out in Iraq, logged over 3,000 flight hours, led divisions of aircraft in high stakes combat operations. Then he went to medical school, became a flight surgeon, and now he runs a company that helps pilots keep their medical certifications. He’s board certified in both family medicine and aerospace medicine. He’s still an active pilot
1:00 With an airline transportation certificate. This man is a legitimate elite performer trained to operate at the highest levels under the most extreme conditions. And even he hit a wall. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. Because if it can happen to a combat fighter pilot turned doctor, it can happen to you. And that’s actually good news. It means this isn’t about willpower or discipline. It’s about biology. In biology, it can be fixed. If you’re a high performing professional who knows you’re not operating at your best, hit subscribe. Let’s get into it. Hey Dan. So, tell me, how did you end up in a cockpit of F-18? Great question. I I think first off, why did I end up there? You know, and I think I was I was somebody who was really lucky. I got to see Top Gun in the theater with my dad when I was 10 years old and realized that that was actually unlike Star Wars
2:00 Or Star Trek and all these fantasy things. It was a cool job you could actually do and I was pretty sold on it from from that point forward. So, you know, I think that was a that was a focus and a dream from the time I was in in early childhood. And I just was was lucky enough to to make it in through the selection process and perform well enough in in flight school that um you know find myself with the opportunity to train and you know and made it through um got to live out a childhood dream. Yeah. Did you uh want to be Maverick or Iceman there when you watched it? I think everybody, you know, uh, responsibly, I should probably say Iceman, he’s the better role model, right? But I think, you know, obviously, you know, I think the, uh, Maverick’s the protagonist for a reason. Everybody’s got a certain amount of romance with him. Sure. Um, for those who don’t know, can you kind of run us through what it takes through the selection process and how to become a F-18 pilot? Sure. Uh I mean obviously uh I think there’s some amount of misnomer that you
3:01 Have to be perfect academically and genius level or intelligence something to make you make it through and and that’s not really the case. There’s there’s a I think you have to be have do above average in terms of academics and but there is a fairly rigorous uh selection process and a big part of that is just the physical attributes they look for. Right? So for a military flying you you’ve got to have good eyesight. uh you can’t have any major medical medical history or significant injuries. And so uh there’s a lot of people that get weeded out from the from eligibility just on the basis of of those things. But once you have your your foot through the door and you meet those those standards, uh it starts out with everybody going through an academic portion of of ground school training and you start just accumulating grades and class rank against against other pilots going through the the training process. So you go from academics into uh a training pipeline usually uh beginning in a in a single engine propeller-driven airplane. Back when I was going through through
4:02 Flight school that happened in the the T34C Turbo Mentor, you know, which is iconic airplane. It was it was in service for decades. and and based on how you do in primary flight school, then you’re selected into depending on what it’s based on not only your class rank, but the number of training slots the Navy happens to have at that time when you’re being selected. And you can train to to you can be selected to fly in helicopters or big wing maritime uh platforms. In my time, that was the P3. Now there’s the P8, but these are these are bigger multi- crew airplanes that people fly around or jets would is the other uh carrier based jets is the other major major platform. Tail hook. Yep. Tail hook uh carrierbased uh aviation. And and generally speaking, you have to be in the the top 50% or so of of people in uh of selection candidates. But then again, depending on the quotas they have, typically you in reality, you have to be in the top half to be eligible. But then you have to do
5:02 Significantly better to to actually be selected. Yeah. Kind of weed yourself up. You flew combat missions in Iraq. Without getting into anything too classified, what did that look like? And how demanding was it physically and mentally? Um it’s I think you’ll you’ll probably hear from from just about every combat pilot that there’s always a significant portion of just monotony, you know. So a typical mission would last three and a half four hours and we would we would start launching off the carrier in the in the Gulf and then transiting to uh to do some aerial refueling usually over Kuwait before we would actually make it into uh go into country into Iraq and do the the mission itself. And so that that transit and getting gas would usually be, you know, call it an hour on the on the front side of the mission. And then you would you would go in and uh execute the actual mission, whether that be close air support or pre-planned strike or um
6:02 You know, there was there was different uh other support roles that would fill some sometimes. And that would be usually be maybe an an hour and a half in there. and then we’d have to get gas again and we’d fly back out to the, you know, back out to the carrier. And so that would add another hour onto the onto the flight. And so, uh, there’s just, uh, you know, so that was the mission execution itself. And and I think um before that um I think probably what what people don’t really appreciate is just the amount of pre-flight planning and preparation and chart study and that that goes into every every single mission because battlefield’s changing rapidly and you have to before you go in there and try start trying to fly through that that battle space, you have to understand where the enemy positions are, where the where the forward line troop advance is um and all the different threats and resources that you have out there and that in a dynamically changing environment. I
7:02 Think you have hours of preparation that goes into just understanding what the mission is and then hours of execution to do it and then of course uh you know then you come back and get ready to do it again the the next day. Yeah. Just downloading all the missions into the card before you put it in. And then uh what about any close calls? Uh any two any bingos fuels there when you’re on the way back? Um, you know, it was we I got shot out a few times and and uh there’s it was kind of I think unlike conflicts back in the past, there was the um the Iraqi air defense was not really super well coordinated and and I think the United States does a very good job of confusing enemy air defenses. So, Sure. Uh but there is still a large volume of fire. So you would see US artillery going off and missiles being launched and uh and there was just things flying through the air all around you and you could see it especially on MVGs you could see for miles. I think it sort of
8:03 Amplified the the volume of fire that was actually there. But there’s definitely a few times where I could tell there was there was uh anti-aircraft artillery that was aimed specifically at me and was tracking me through the sky. Uh so that was a little bit harrowing. You know, it’s interesting. Uh, you know, there there’s a saying that you’re really never going to get shot down by the thing that you you see. Yeah. And and in a lot of ways, seeing things shot at you is much like trying to catch a fly ball in in the baseball field where you can tell coming off the bat that it’s, you know, it’s coming to me in right field or now it’s going over to the, you know, right? And so, um, but it’s still, you know, uh, the reality check of of knowing that there’s, you know, people actually trying to shoot at you and feel you is a little bit, you know, not a little bit outside your typical day-to-day. Sure. And then, uh, yeah, there was there was a few times where we really, you know, got fairly low on gas and and that’s usually there’s options obviously. you have divert options and if we can’t make it back to the carrier there’s other you so
9:03 I don’t think I was ever really an extremist to the point that I thought I was going to fall out of the sky for not having gas but uh but definitely there’s a few times that it got got interesting. Yeah. Okay. Um then you went to medical school, became a flight surgeon, got board certified in two specialties. When did you sleep? Well, I wasn’t doing it all at the same time. Right. though, you know, I I I think again I feel really lucky that in that uh I got to live really two childhood dreams and I even though I I had been focused on aviation from uh from very early on um I’d always had a had an interest in going to going into medicine as well. And uh as I was getting toward the end of my initial aviation commitment, uh I never got bored of flying flying airplanes. I think that’ll always kind of be my uh my first professional passion anyway. Um but I also looking down the road 10 or 15 years from there at at the time didn’t didn’t really want to be just an
10:04 Airline pilot. I didn’t want to become an admiral. I wasn’t uh you know quite driven for the career progression in that way. And it’s Maverick and uh Yeah. Exactly. So you see these themes coming together, right? Exactly. and uh and I had an opportunity where you know um you know I was uh I could stay in the military um you know m maintain a salary go to med school for free it’s a fantastic program and and so I was able to uh to to study for the the prerex while I was an instructor um actually just down the road at uh 101 that at 101 yeah vat 101 which is a a Marine Corps F-18 instructional squadron up at in myar California and um yeah um So was able to get into medical school of course and so careful what you wish for I guess and uh and from that point I transitioned out of the uh the line military. In fact I had to resign my commission as a as a lieutenant commander to start all the way back over as a as an enson in the medical corps uh to begin med school and and go
11:04 Through that process. Uh, so from that point forward, I was I was pretty much, you know, as I as focused full-time as a as a medical student and and so, uh, there wasn’t a lot of sleep, but at least I was on a schedule. I wasn’t having to fly as well as do all that stuff. Gotcha. Um, I dug up something from 1994. You wrote an essay in a Daily Journal when you graduated high school. You wrote, “Experience has its own lessons to teach. 30 years later, having flown combat missions and become a doctor. What lessons has experience actually taught you?” You had to dig for that article. Yeah. Yeah, we uh Yukaya Daily Journal was my hometown newspaper and and they I think they went out of business in 2009 if I’m not mistaken. So So I’m impressed with the uh with the with the research, but uh no, I think um what has experience taught me? You know, I I think I I’ve had great opportunity. You know, I got to fly F-18s. I got to go to medical school. I was, you know, lucky enough to get my residencies of choice. Um, I’ve been able to start a successful
12:04 Successful business. And I think, uh, you know, I think what all that has taught me is that you can do just about anything. And I think America is about the greatest country on the face of the face of the planet as long as you just show up and, you know, and have kind of faith in yourself that if you just keep working toward a goal, you can accomplish it. Okay. And, um, can you tell me a little bit about your business? What does that look like now after you transit out transition out of the military? Yeah. So I I basically combined uh th those those two professions, aviation and medicine into a consulting company. And and what I do now with most of my professional time as I help pilots who are struggling with some aspect of their FAA medical certification to navigate that process without any undue delay. And that can be something as simple as someone who is newly diagnosed with a relatively call it benign condition like diabet or at least common condition like diabetes that has some paperwork to go with it all the way up to someone who has recently suffered from a from a heart
13:04 Attack or a stroke and is recovered from that condition but then needs to demonstrate to the FAA and the and the flying public that they’re they’re safe to fly. And that that process without any any guidance uh can stretch out into years sometimes and and by streamlining that for our clients, we can usually condense that down to less than a few months. And you do that here in San Diego? My my office is is here in San Diego and our corporate headquarters is actually up in in Fallon uh Nevada. So I I do some some amount of face-to-face certification interviews for uh for for pilots, but the bulk of our consulting business is actually uh you know, we can we can do worldwide, certainly nationwide as a as a remote consultation service. That’s great. So you’re able to help everybody from United States to nation worldwide. Yep. With their FA certifications. That’s great. So like here you are a guy who’s flown combat missions, went to med school, built a business. Um what at what point
14:06 Did you kind of realize like, hey, you know, I’m not this my same self. I don’t have the same energy levels. I maybe I can let’s define it this way. Um you’re not an average guy. Um um but I think a lot of us can understand as higher achievers, we will look out in the mirror and say, “I feel average for me.” Mhm. When did you kind of look in the mirror and go, “Maybe I’m feeling average and from myself and that’s not who I want to be.” I think it’s hard to pinpoint. It’s it was pretty insidious for me. I think um I I think a big part of it is ear early on in my career. Uh and you know, I flew the F-18 portion of my career was really, you know, started in my early 20s toward my about through 10 years through about my early 30s. And as you can imagine, physicality is kind of an important part of that job. Sure. As you’re as you’re pulling G’s and twisting around and, you know, trying to maneuver an airplane and pay attention to stuff when you might be pulling 7 G’s and your body weight is not 200 lb, it’s 1500 lb.
15:08 Sure. um it just requires a lot of uh it just requires a lot of physical strength and endurance, you know, and and so I think exercising, preparing for that mission was just kind of part of my my day-to-day profession. And then as I got into medicine and and more uh you know more more academic pursuits, um I think physicality just became less important and I I just pri prioritized it less and less and and I was still active enough that I don’t think I really noticed much. But then it just got to a point where, you know, I I would go out try to run or do something. and I realized I just didn’t have the, you know, the spring in my step or, you know, I was I was starting to get a little bit my waistline was starting starting to think about, you know, going up up a size my and uh, you know, my uh my my waistband, my belts and pants and stuff like that. And uh and it was just uh and and I
16:09 Realized too that unlike in the past, I’d been really out of any kind of consistent uh exercise discipline for for so long that I could show up and with the intention of working out or trying to get back in shape and I just didn’t even really know where to where to start. Yeah. And you know, especially in the aviation community, you’re really taught to compartmentalize um and it has a certain mindset. How did you kind of, you know, push through some of this stuff in the beginning of feeling, you know, average for yourself or feeling, hey, something’s not right, there’s not pep in my step or not the energy or not who I used to be. How how did that kind of I I think the the comp the compartmentalization that you that you mentioned really is is a big aspect of it. And for people who don’t completely understand that, you know, that’s just you focus on the task at hand and no matter what else is is going on and stressors in your personal life or um you know, financial strains
17:11 Or career challenges, you just you know, you’re you’re focused on what you’re doing in in the moment and you’re you sort of a discipline that you develop to push that stuff out to the to the side. And so I think for a long time for me, I was still showing up. I was living my life by a pretty tightly scheduled calendar and I was I was doing the things that uh that I set out to do. I was focusing on those, you know, on those things and and I think I was I was basically getting through the day and and accomplishing most of that. But none of that was was really u focused on actually caring for myself and making sure that I would be able to sustain that performance over over time. And I think I think what I finally really realized is I’m I’m a firm believer you can’t you can’t ever just stay the same, right? Like you’re always on some kind of trajectory, whether you’re talking about relationships or finances or fitness or career, you know, you’re um things are improving, things are getting worse, they’re never staying the same.
18:12 And and I think I I just realized that, you know, over over time, I’d been on a trajectory with my with my fitness, with my body composition of getting worse and worse and worse, and I wasn’t really doing anything about it. Did you find that this was going kind of affecting the way you with your your business, your family, your your own energy? Any interactions you felt like it was kind of starting to impact? I I I think so. I I think in in some ways I think it was affecting all of it. I was just probably just tired more than anything, you know, and I could still show up and and got got through the day with a bunch of coffee and and uh you know, but I just wasn’t uh um you know, I wasn’t wasn’t sleeping as well as I as I wanted to be. Didn’t have the energy that I wanted to that I wanted to have. I was busy all the time with with work and uh I things were just I could get through the things that I I I already knew how to do well, but I felt like I was had lost something in terms of my ability to really think
19:12 Creatively and innovate and it just uh it’s really hard to put a finger on exactly. Um but it just felt off. Yeah. And and I think realistically, you know, had I not decided to focus on on getting back into shape, I probably could have just muddled along like that for another five or 10 years and got into retirement and and just honestly just accepted it. But I I think it was uh it got to a point where, you know, I realized that I could there was really something I could do about it. And I I knew that if I actually got some help along the way um you know appeal to somebody who had the expertise to point me in the right direction that uh that I you know that I could actually do it a lot faster than I could on my own. Yeah, that’s um speed of result, you know, coming from an F-18 guy. That pretty big deal there. Um you’re a doctor. You have uh two, you know, two board specialties. Um you literally help pilots with their health.
20:12 What was it realizing you needed help yourself in this area? So, I kind of Okay, so I’m I’m 49 years old right now, going to be going to be 50 next year. And um and I think working with clients and and and and patients uh I I just started seeing people my age group, my peers starting to have these these health conditions and bad outcomes, things like heart attacks, things like stroke that um that weren’t u weren’t unusual for our our age group, I guess. you know, and um and I think so I look at it from the from the standpoint I would I would like to be around for for a long time for my wife and for my kids and you know just because I I I enjoy being on the earth, right? And and uh and I think you look at it from the you know from the standpoint of what are the one of the number one killers in the United States and cardiovascular disease is is number one for both men and women. And behind that
21:14 You have various forms of of cancer. Um men tend to to suffer from from death from unintentional accidents and imagine that. Yeah, imagine that a little bit more impulsive, right? Watch this. So women are a little bit wiser on that thing in that regard. And then and then from there it kind of um respiratory diseases are are you know kind of kind of round round that out and and then there’s some uh you know the but those are the the big ones and the leading causes start to drop off from there and and really it those are all pres preventable things. you know, almost all of the uh the the cardiovascular complications people have are directly relatable to things like obesity and diabetes and sleep apnea and uh and and really the what ties all those things together is typically obesity and body weight and um you know and then sedentary lifestyle, right? And uh and and I realized for me I just wasn’t really doing much to to prevent any of
22:15 That. And uh and I was seeing a lot of my peers start to, you know, start to suffer from from some of those those consequences and really, you know, they were they were starting to look down the the reality of having a shortened lifespan or reduced quality of life and and I didn’t want to find myself in that same situation. Sure. Um why is there such a gap between actually knowing what to do and then actually doing? Well, um, it’s a great question, you know, and and I think, um, you know, as as a as a physician, I’m trained to, you know, to to look at look at people’s vital signs and physical exam and height and weight and lab values and kind of figure out what’s going on with them and and provide provide solutions And and I realize even though you know and and so it’s it’s one thing to say, “Hey, you need to to eat less or eat differently and exercise more, right? I mean, that’s
23:17 That’s sort of the template for the solution, but then it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s something very different to say, okay, you’re now you’re standing in front of your resid, you know, refrigerator. What food item are you going to pick up? You know, what what recipe are you going to make? Um you’re at the gym. What weight are you going to pick up? How many reps are you going to do? Are you gonna do 30 minutes of cardio or are you gonna do 10 minutes of cardio? Are you gonna, you know, and and so it’s it’s one of those things the devil’s in the devil’s in the detail. So it’s, you know, I I know exactly what what I ought to be doing, but but actually the the execution is uh is is way more specific than just eating less, exercising more. Sure. And um I think what’s and I noticed a lot of this too especially on my end is like we don’t live in a time and era where it’s hard to find like knowledge or you know what to do or but the the vast amount of what you should or shouldn’t do it varies like somebody will tell you this or somebody will tell you that. Um finding someone who kind of puts it in perspective for that person
24:17 Is a kind of a big deal that I’ve noticed. Um even with AI, right? You could go to AI and ask AI, but AI is taught to give you an answer whether it’s right or wrong is something else. Um, have you ever noticed something in that regards of like with a too much information and not enough like actual good information. Yeah. Well, I think I think what we’re talking about here is actionable information. Yeah. You know, and and I think um I think that’s that’s something with you with sort of the the professional breath that I’ve had. Um, starting a business was a I think a big eye openener for me in that um I I don’t have time to develop expertise in everything. No. Right. And and there’s so many people out there that have developed deep expertise in specific areas and and so I think with you know with business formation stuff I could go on legal zoom. I could figure out how to represent myself in court, right? But I it’s, you know, it’s it’s much more safe and a better use of my
25:19 Time to pay a well-qualified attorney to to make sure that our operating agreement and, you know, and and the business formation documents actually line up and, you know, and and are going to protect us and the, you know, and um, you know, down the down the road. And same thing for um, I used to do my own taxes, right? and it’s gotten a little bit more complicated now that I have, you know, different different investments and different business interest and um you know and and so and I think it’s it’s kind of the same thing where yes, all that stuff and and it you know I think uh medicine’s gotten to the point where there’s a lot of great information on on AI and and to be perfectly frank I oftentimes when I’m dealing with patients will look look up questions on AI am look up questions on on chat GPT or another AI platform myself because it makes information so so accessible. But I think um through those examples that I that I mentioned and knowing, you know, kind of how how AI touches medicine, um I think I’ve
26:21 Developed a much greater respect for just how you bring that human touch and expertise to, you know, to to make to make generalized correct information actionable and accessible for, you know, for the for the person who needs to use it. Sure. I’m up a thousand% sure if I went to a doctor and it was an AI robot that my care of what they judge me on would be way different than there was a human being sitting there looking at me. Um, you know, and that you I use a term all the time that I like um I’m sure Tiger Woods could have won the US Open without a caddy, but he sure as hell used one. Right. Right. Exactly. You might need something like that to help. Speaking of that um or help as a physician when you look you know how we run a comprehensive uh blood panel of you know 54 biomarkers compared to the standard one which is you know usually in the teens or light 20 uh 20s on uh blood markers how does that you know what is your reaction to that and like what do you think that well I think the the way the way we should you know typically approach
27:22 Laboratory testing when when you’re you’re caring for somebody on a routine basis is you’re you’re targeting things for the percentage threats so to speak. So you’re always going to screen for for cardiovascular disease I mentioned. So you know cholesterol panel is almost always going to be going to be part of the equation. Yeah LDH you’re always Yeah. So that’s your LDL and HDL total cholesterol triglycerides that those types of things. Uh diabetes is another really really common health condition. So you’re almost always going to order an A1C or a blood sugar. And then beyond that, um, you know, most the time you’re not as as just a in in usual clinical medicine, you’re you’re not really going to go chasing a bunch of a bunch of other things. And oftentimes it can kind of drive you down a, you know, kind of a rabbit hole, rabbit hole that you don’t necessarily need to go on, especially if people are not interested in in pursuing or correcting those things. But I but I think u but I think as the more data points you have um the more you can the
28:24 More you can do with it and and so you know I think actually take being able to take a look at hey you know am I suffering from chronic inflammation there’s there’s you know there’s a number of markers in that panel that that kind of go to that hey how’s my you know how how is my liver function doing um you know and and oftentimes maybe you’re not going to do much with that information, but at least it lets you start thinking about okay, like how energy, you know, right? Energy, you know, um you know, and you know, it can it can feed information. Then maybe you’re not going to not going to prescribe something, but if you’re actually interested in optimizing your performance, hey, you know, I’m a little bit dehydrated, you know, based on my kidney function pain, I’m going to drink more water, right? And and so I think there’s a I think there’s a lot that you can you can do with that. Sure. And I think you said something interesting right there that uh I really try to harp on is like a lot of our and I don’t think it’s a big secret. Our our medical industry as a whole is kind of um reactive, not necessarily preventative. And when we look at these panels are more of like the checking
29:26 Checking boxes. They’re for reactive or hey does this person need medication? Do they have any allies? Not built for performance. Um when you look at this and you know how you know how like my team and I frame the blood work to make the program about somebody how would this be advantageous to a person to know these things or to have a program that’s prescribed to them based on their blood blood actual biomarkers their actual genetic makeup right well I I think u testosterone is always a hot topic right and I I tend to be somewhat of a philosophically somewhat of a minimalist in terms of my prescribing patterns and um and supplementation. But I think I think testosterone brings up a a great discussion where uh some level of testosterone deficiency is super super common in middle-aged men and testosterone levels tend to decline over time, right? We we you know, we know that there’s good data on on that. Um why that happens is is somewhat somewhat variable. um you know and so
30:28 There’s certainly people who absolutely benefit from testosterone supplementation and that’s a you know and can make we were talking about the the specific patient of mine before the before the show who had life-changing results from beginning testosterone supplementation after going through the right diagnostic change right for many many other people you know what else lowers testosterone is obesity, lack of sleep, sleep apnea, diabetes, chronic inflammation and all these things that we you know we kind of uh you we kind of talk about so yes um the low testosterone is a is an issue and something to target as maybe kind of a you know as a as an outcome or you know really important biomarker but it’s not necessarily hey we’re going to jump right to testosterone supplementation based on that right it’s like hey let let’s get this data let’s you know actually put put some time to thinking about for you indiv individualized for you what do all these things mean and and what can we do to address that ideally, you know, through uh, you know,
31:28 Kind of lifestyle interventions before jumping right to, you know, medication and prescriptions. That’s true. Um, I think a question I’d like to ask here is if you you order labs for patients, um, what markers do you wish more doctors would? Is there one specifically or a couple that you would like, hey, this might be advantageous for more to look at, not just the basic what insurance may or may not cover? I I think it depends on the on the individual and and I think um a as you alluded to we don’t we don’t do a great job of preventive medicine in the United States. It is it is very uh we do a fantastic job of uh you know trauma treatment. Yep. fixing fixing acute problems and and saving life in a in a crisis. And we do a great job of identifying things that are gonna that are going to kill you, you know. Um but for things that just kind of cause, you know, um
32:28 A slow death, slow death. Yeah. Just or just reduce quality of life. Yeah. we there’s a lot less um we don’t have as much data on it because it’s the what to do about it is is much more nuanced and and so many of the it’s it’s really hard um you know it it’s really hard to determine if you’re if you’re down you have poor energy you’re having trouble with concentration is that is that a physical health issue or an issue that you can address through lifestyle changes and exercise or through a medication or is it a mental health ition or and so I I think um you know I think um um I I’m a I’m a big believer that that almost everyone and you know in their their 40s and above and even starting earlier should really actually have a a primary care doctor who knows about them as an individual and can help to to make some of those decisions about which
33:28 Which labs to order which ones are appropriate because I I think it I think it really um I think the more motivated you are to engage with your own care and investigate and the more interested you are in what those things mean, the more it makes sense to do to do testing, you know, where if you’re just going to say, “Okay, I’m if it’s not going to kill me, I’m not going to do anything.” Then then, you know, we’re just kind of wasting wasting money on it, right? Yeah. Um obviously working in the medical system, when a patient comes in, he’s feeling tired, foggy, by themselves, what do you what does a typical work uh workup look like for you? Uh so fatigue is a really really broad differential diagnosis and so um you know it starts with I think the the most effective diagnostic tool in medicine is usually a good history from talk just talking to the patient about what’s going on in their life. So you know but where I where I start with something like that is how much are you sleeping? Are there any stressors going on in your life? Have you had any big
34:29 Weight changes or or you know did this change happen over the last three weeks or the last three years because on you know just not not getting enough sleep is a really common cause of of decreased energy on on one hand and that’s that’s a huge problem I think in our our society people tend to pride themselves on on how little sleep they can function on. Got five hours I’m doing this. Yeah. And it’s and it’s just it’s but that’s a recipe for disaster in the long term. uh you know on the other hand you chronic diseases diabetes or even cancers are another really you know really those are a a cause of fatigue as well and and so I think uh you know in addition to that interview I’d you know order some labs looking to make sure they don’t have things like like anemia or there’s no major organ dysfunction going on they they don’t have an undiagnosed uh disease like like diabetes or some you know some form of um you know some form of heart disease
35:30 Um you know um particularly if people are somewhat o overweight um obstructive sleep apnea something that interferes with sleep a lot. So, you know, sleep studies are, you know, important diagnostic tool to to rule that out. It uh at least if uh if people particularly people are having disrupted sleep or snoring a lot and and so again, a lot of it’s based on on what the what the patient actually says. I was actually hit on that. So, you’re you’re relying a lot on soft data, right? Patient like how many hours you sleep? I don’t know, six or seven. In reality, they don’t know. Like you said, if they had sleep apnnea, they could have slept been in bed seven hours, but how much they actually slept, they probably it’s a soft data pool. It’s them. So, you’re well aware that, you know, in inside the program that I run that we we’re very dataentric. We track things like sleep, recovery, HRV, RHR, um, from a medical perspective, why does like ongoing data like that, uh, being measured and given to you and telling you how what’s going on with you, how would that help some? Well, I won’t even
36:32 Talk about it from a medical perspective. I’ll talk about it from my perspective because that’s that’s not something that I was really tracking all that closely for for myself. Uh, you know, as I got started in the in the program, I got um, you know, I got a device to to monitor all those all those metrics that you mentioned and and so I started actually looking at, hey, what’s what’s my blood pressure on a weekly basis? What’s my body weight? How am I sleeping? What’s my heart rate variability? What’s uh, you know, how much REM sleep am I getting? and and and you can you know and it’s it’s amazing when you’re actually looking at it you can really see the effects how the your beha behavior affects your your actual physiology and and it’s and and it’s you know when you have that data like um you know I think um it it lets it gives you a lot of power in order to you know to to change what you’re doing and it can be uh example this weekend is you know I had my open up my app and I’m looking in, you know, through the the program and
37:32 It’s saying, “Hey, you you have a sleep deficit of of three hours or something like that.” And and so rather than brewing another pot of coffee and working u working two hours in the night, I I went to bed early and I slept late and, you know, got nine hours of sleep instead of the seven that I kind of had planned. And lo and behold, I went to went to the gym the next day and had one of the better workouts I had and you know in the last couple weeks. And so I think it’s I think it’s amazing when you when you bring that data to bear and you actually incorporate it and make make behavioral changes based on what it tells you. It it really enhances the effectiveness of the you know of the of the program you’re trying to run it. Um, and I I always laugh at this one because I I’m a crazy person when it comes to sleep sometimes. Um, we always set a time to wake up. Like if I ask you what time you wake up in the morning, you you’ll be exact 6:15 because you set your alarm. If I ask you what time you go to bed, h I don’t know, like sometime between like 8 9:30, something like
38:33 That. You never set a time to go to bed. It And it’s funny from a perspective point. Why would we do that as humans? What would what would you say on that? I know it’s a open-ended question, but for me it’s always fascinating how we set our time to wake up and never go to sleep. Yeah. Yeah. That is an accurate observation. I don’t I don’t have an answer for you. Yeah. It’s uh I always find that funny because we we know precisely when we go wake up, but you ask them when they go to bed. It’s always a good range, an hour, hour and a half. It’s uh funny. Um you’re an aerospace medicine guy, right? Pilots track everything. Is there a parallel here you think between like aviation obviously given some of my background too like I’m a data centric person so you don’t know if what you’re doing is a is effective at all unless you’re you’re tracking in some way and measuring it right I mean it’s um so yeah I mean I think there’s a there’s a there’s a direct correlation I think there’s a direct correlation you know I think that’s that almost goes without saying you you kind of mentioned this earlier like obviously you’re a very intelligent man you could probably
39:33 Do this on your own design something your own obviously takes mental fortitude or maybe not mental fortitude but mental capacity to do it as you said I can make $500 an hour doing this or I could waste an hour or two doing this when I could have made this right and that’s kind of how I put that frame with people too but that’s so like you have the knowledge but why is having someone like in your corner or you know run helping you run through this why is it so advantageous I think uh what you Woody Allen quote right 80% of life is just showing up you Um, I feel like I have the ability to show up and but but I it’s it’s a bit of decision fatigue. You know, I go through my I go through my I go through my day-to-day life and almost every interaction I have is somebody asking me to solve a problem for them or asking me to figure something out or uh and and I have a I’ve developed a lot of expertise and I’m able to do that. Um, but you know, I um I mean I think some some great example things I really appreciate about being in the in the in the program is u
40:35 I’ll get I’ll get called on a on a last minute trip and so the workout I had planned at the gym that I know is is now just gone away and I know I’m going to be staying at this hotel in I don’t let’s call it let’s say Tucson, Arizona on Tuesday, right? and and having the ability to say, “Hey, Zac, I’m staying at the this hotel in this city on this day. Give me another workout that I can do.” And then and and so that way I can just, you know, and I I know you’re going to get that done for me so that when I go when I go walk into that uh when I go walk into that work room or the the workout room for that for that workout, I don’t have to look at what weights are available, what equipment they have, and figure out was it chest day and this and that and just go through the, you know, because my my I know my schedule’s going to be busy. I open up the app, there’s the workout for me and I just hit start and I’m going to do that thing and then you know and so I can I can actually execute and I’m not trying to develop another expertise and put all that mental time and energy into into figuring it out. I can just
41:35 Execute. And that’s that’s so so important. And I I think just just that alone is uh is incredibly beneficial. And you know, and then and even even stuff with, you know, with uh with planning meals, right? You know, hey, Zac, I’m going to I’m going to this restaurant on this day for this business thing. What what should I order? you know, and and then I can I can actually focus on being present at that at that meal rather than worrying about how I’m gonna hit my macro targets that day, you know, from a from an F-18 guy, it helps you be mission focused, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, but having the accountability and support kind of, you kind of just talked about this a little bit, but just the accountability aspect, what did it provide you that you couldn’t give yourself? Well, I think, you know, I I’ve had times in in my life where I’ve been in really excellent physical physical condition and I’ve run I’ve run marathons before and I’ve been, you know, I’ve been really good uh really good uh shape from a strength and
42:35 Flexibility perspective. And this has now been decades ago that we’re talking about, but but there was a time, you know, and but I think I as I look back on that um you know, we’re as as humans, I think we’re social animals, you know, and it’s% felt that way. And it’s it at at times in the past where I I’ve been on a on a good fitness regimen, it’s always been with a running partner or a workout partner or as part of a sports team or and there’s been some sort of social aspect to it that uh you know that helps to to get me there and and I maintain accountability to somebody. Whereas now, fast forward to pushing pushing 50. There’s fewer and fewer people in my age group that are entertaining themselves by, hey, let’s go to the gym or let’s go for, you know, people what I’m getting invited to do in my in my social circles is let’s go let’s go meet for a happy hour, right? Let’s go out to a meal. And and so I think, you know, I think we’re helping out sleep, right? Yeah. Right. And so, you know, so I think I think having somebody that’s like, hey, actually, you
43:35 Know, uh you know, every day we’re checking in, right? and and uh and and I know that if I miss more than like a day in a row without, you know, without saying something, you’re going to be, “Hey, hey, you know, what’s going on here?” And so, you know, so I think just, you know, having the accountability and the and and the, you know, even though I don’t necessarily have somebody to go work out with physically, um it it makes it more of a right social event and and brings it, you know, the just the accountability piece is huge. When speaking of that, like since you started, what physical changes have you actually noticed? Uh my pants are getting a little bit looser in the in the waist. Yeah. Uh that that’s pretty good. And then uh I’ve noticed that some of my my shirts are actually fit fit a little bit snug in the you know the chest and the arms which is which is kind of a kind of nice and I’ve noticed some uh so yeah I think you know lost some weight around I think you’re selling yourself short a little bit. I obviously know a little bit more. You definitely starting to show some abs getting the six going. It’s coming. I’d like to think so. I think, you know, one of one of the things I’m I’m most uh
44:35 I was most pleased with is we we went a a ski trip recently uh right after Christmas before before New Year’s. And I had actually not been skiing in in five or 10 years. So, I was uh but I’ve been in the in the program for probably I don’t know a month and a half, two months at that point. Oh, when you just went it was about three months, right? Did you start in November? Uh no, I think I I think uh well, I don’t know. We could we could we could figure out what the time was exactly. Two and a half months. Yeah. But point I mean for for a couple months anyway, you know, we’ll we’ll just say two months for u for the sake of conversation. But um so I was you know but I hadn’t been on the mountain in in quite a long time and so I was wondering how that was was going to go and and so I was I think that was uh really really pleased with that because number one I had the energy to get up and go go hit the slopes when a lot of people that I was there with were were sleeping in or not not doing it. And then uh you know then I was able to keep up with the with the teenagers on some of the some of the more advanced terrain and didn’t come back crippled or done after the you know after the next
45:35 Couple days. So I mean that was a really tangible thing where you know even even in even in my youth the first day of skiing would have you know kind of put me on laid me out a little bit required some ibuprofen and I was able to kind of go up there ski pretty hard and keep doing it day after day without um you know without skipping a beat. Yeah. And again, I think you’re selling yourself short a little bit. I’m pretty sure you worked out a couple of those days, too. Yeah, you woke up to work out, then go skiing. Um, as a doctor, how would you interpret your own results? Like, what do they tell you? Um, I Well, so let’s talk biomarkers, right? Um, I happened to have shortly before I uh enrolled in the program, I went and just did was wasn’t the the as comprehensive a panel as the as as um as as you provide in the through the program, but um but I done the basic stuff. So, I had a cholesterol panel, right? And and then I happened to uh several weeks or actually just last week, it was last week um end up having to um I was redoing some life insurance stuff, so they did a blood draw for for that. And I was
46:36 Comparing those results, you know, my my LDL, which is the low density lipoprotein, the bad cholesterol, so to speak, that actually went down by by 20% since I’ve been exercising and and doing, you know, and eating right. Uh the HDL or the high density lipop uh lipoprotein, which is the so-called good cholesterol, actually provides some cardiovascular protective factors. That went up by 20%. Or excuse me, 20 points. And then even my A1C, which is the kind of tracks blood sugar. Y that’s the like a diabetes marker basically. Uh I was I was I’ve never been close to the the pre-diabetes, you know, but it Yeah. So like above above 6.0 you start to worry about, you know, glucose intolerance. I wasn’t I wasn’t touching those numbers, but I was in had been in the fives before and that was that was down, you know, below uh I think 4.8 was my was my most recent one. And so um really I mean that that delta was I mean really a tangible change in terms of that. So, no data there. Full data. Yeah. Well, yeah. And then,
47:36 You know, and then I can tell, you know, things that we look at in medicine, right? My my BMI is down, my body fat percentage is down, my visual fat is down, you know, and and uh and more than anything, I just feel better. And and I think that’s um that’s a good thing. what you know expounding on that because I I often tell people everybody comes in to the program almost everybody not everybody but they come in with the ideology of I’m going to look this way physically but at the end of the program no one actually ever talks about how they look they do a little bit but they always talk about how they feel amazing how that always works about how much better they feel and you know that comes from energy and focus like do these show up differently now for you now and how you work with your you know with your children like when you were skiing and or with patience or just overall life. I I I think so. Yeah. I just uh and it it’s uh I think it’s really subtle in the in the beginning. Uh I’ll be honest with you, the first the first week I looked at the
48:36 Volume of work I was going to be doing. And I think the first time we actually met in person was was after after I’d been in the program for a week or two and I could barely stand or walk. would have loved to do some labs to see how much my how much muscle tissue was impacting my kidney function at half that point but I recovered from the initial week and you know but um and it’s just you know just just getting the gym and doing the the workouts themselves have gotten you know gotten easier my you know when I got to lay down to go to sleep at night I’m you know pretty much just out a matter you know a matter of minutes and which which is fantastic you know, I I wasn’t somebody who ever like laid awake staring at the staying at the ceiling all night, but you know, but it’s it’s it’s pretty nice now to be able to just lay, you know, go to sleep at night, put my head on the pillow, and then five minutes later, I’m, you know, I’m out. And then um and uh uh yeah, I had a I had another really
49:37 Salient point that I just completely escaped my mind. I’ll get back to it. All right, how about this then? um for the guys that are watching right now um and they’re thinking, “Hey, I’ve got this. I don’t need help.” As a not just from a, you know, person who’s doing the program, but as a doctor, what would you say to them? Well, I think you you used the example when we were when we were talking at some point in the past of of looking at this kind of like an investment portfolio, right? where you know you know if you if you start early you start putting you start putting small deposits in the bank and it builds up over time you know before you know it you’re sitting on a really substantial nest egg that you can kind of you know allows you to weather some storms as you as you go through it and I I look at it the at the same way you know um I I could have come up with a program on my own I probably could have lost some weight by going to chat GPT and figuring out like which which macros I had, you know, I had to do. Um, I probably could have cobbled together a
50:38 Decently effective, you know, workout program. Um, but I can tell you with certainty that had had I I probably would have just kept kicking the the can down the road. Yes. We’re like and I think yesterday was actually national quit day where people who start in January 1 end on January. But so so I I think I think for for me the biggest thing I I I know for certain I with all the same great intentions. Had I tried to come up with a, you know, with a workout and and diet program on my on my own, u the the chance that I would or the the likelihood that I would be 70 days into an effective program already is precisely zero. You know, I would showed up. I might have done it for a couple, you know, couple days here and there. where I would have like, you know, had something else happen on vacation and just fell off the rails and then, you know, been back into it just, you know, and and I just wouldn’t had the I wouldn’t had the like the focus and and direction where like um I think, you
51:39 Know, I started like by, you know, by by getting involved in the program with with you, all of a sudden, you know, on the next day, I was in the gym and I knew what I was doing on day two and I knew what I was doing on day three and I’ve been able to stick with it and, you know, and Now I’m you know actually um I’ve got some money in the bank to fall back on so to speak. Yeah. No. And and I just think um you know I don’t I don’t think um so I would what I would say is yeah do it do it now because you you know the the later you get started uh the the less chance you’re going to be successful. It’s it’s a little more than that too. Um and I always say this to almost every person who joins program at some point you look back and you go who the hell was that guy right? Because you start changing small changes lead to something like you change the fabric of your being like there’s no chance it’s like hey you’re flying to a weary little hotel in Tucson Arizona you’re working out there’s no chance you’re you’re working out before you’re skiing at almost 50
52:41 Years old going out with your kids. Um from that perspective do you even have to ask yourself like or do you even have to say I got to do this tomorrow or is it just like all right what am I doing after this? Do you feel like you’ve gotten to that point to where that’s who you are now? Yeah. Yeah. I I think uh that’s just something I do every day, you know, like it, man. You know, it’s like like no nobody has to remind me to brush my teeth anymore, you know, like and and now getting to the you know, you know, like an example from from yesterday, we were looking at getting together with some some friends and, you know, we’re kind of figuring out our our day and I was like, “Oh, shoot. If if this evolves, I I’m not going to get my my workout in.” So, I just kind of like real quick ran off to the gym, you know, got got my got my hour workout in and then came back and, you know, and then kept on with my day. But it’s just, you know, when you when you know you have something to do and you know, you’ve committed to it, it, you know, it’s uh, you know, yeah, that but no, I don’t I don’t even think about it anymore. Okay. And then I think I’ll ask this for the last question for you. If you had
53:41 Any advice to the viewers to as a both uh if they were a client and as your you know as your physician if you were talking to the person out there maybe thinking about something this what would you tell them to do or advise them to do like in terms of of contemplating like getting into the program specifically or uh you know I I think um um I guess can you focus the question a little bit? Sure. you know, if for the guy who’s like you in your position like, hey, noticing he, you know, he’s a most people are pretty high achievers. They’re, you know, high standards, maybe considering themselves average right now, maybe considering themselves like maybe need help or on the fence. What would, you know, you tell them as a doctor and as a, you know, someone who’s a client now, what would you tell them, advise them on? I I think probably that that a little bit of humility goes a long way. That’s what’s funny about being a people would think being a pilot doesn’t give you that but it well and and I think um and I and I
54:43 Think people in um and sort of uh high high performance careers, you know, I think F-18 finds a great example because we have a a brief execute debrief structure and you might go out and do a mission that to all the world looks like you’re the best in the world and there’s maybe only people involved in in that in in that mission and there’s you know it’s small percentage of military pilots get to do this type of thing um can really tell the difference between perfection and you know near near mission failure you know and and when you debrief these things you only focus on on what goes wrong right you never come back and just slap high fives and say everything was great you know you’re you’re focused on how can we do things better and you’re you’re preoccupied with um you know with with failure And I think um the more the dorm the more dynamic and demanding your career is and the more you know the more it’s like that where you know you you
55:44 Understand the um you you understand what you know and your profession or your discipline that that other people don’t know. It’s kind of the same thing with this. I I thought I knew a little bit about working out and fitness and diet. And I and I think as I as I get into it and start, you know, and and kind of actually accepting some some guidance from somebody who does know something about, you know, fitness at that level of of expertise. there there’s a lot I just I didn’t know what I didn’t know, you know, and I I think I’m I’m much better for just admitting that and accepting the guidance and and uh and and kind of putting some faith in the program and just marching on with it. All right. Well, I appreciate you uh coming on today and you know, for anybody that’s out there looking to get a FAA certification, um how how could they reach you? Sure. So, the best thing so particularly for if you’re struggling with an FAA medical certificate, get some help there. Uh wingmanmed.com is our is our website and we offer free consults to people who who need them. So there’s a big button if you go onto the the web
56:44 Page and just click on it. Um that’s the great way to um to to get in touch there. If you are a pilot who’s in San Diego or um either because you live here or might be traveling through uh I do certification exams uh most days out of the out of the week my office is uh is near beer uh Bay Park or Mission Bay. And so again uh don’t necessarily go to the the internet but if you go to if you go to Google Maps and same thing Wingman Med uh look look for that you’re gonna you’re gonna see me on Google Maps. Good. So we got you there. What about any anything on social media that can touch you? Yeah. Yeah, we uh I mean wingman.com. We’ve got all the social media links. We’re on, you know, we’re on X and LinkedIn and Facebook and all those things. So, okay. Well, we appreciate your time and uh see you talk to you later. It’s a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thanks, man. Dan, thank you, brother. I think a lot of guys needed to hear this. Here’s what I want you to take away from this episode. Dan flew combat missions in an F-18. He went to medical school. He’s
57:45 Board certified with two specialties. He’s literally a doctor who helps other people with their health. And even he hit a wall. Even he needed help. So, if you’re sitting there and thinking, I should be able to figure this out on my own, let it go. That isn’t what this is about. This isn’t willpower. This isn’t about discipline. This is about biology. And biology doesn’t care how tough you are. You’re not broken. You’re misaligned. And most of this is reversible. Your kids don’t want your money. They just want you to play with them. And that window is closing. Don’t waste another year watching from the sidelines because you’re too tired and too proud to ask for help. If Dan’s story sounds like yours, if you’re a high performing professional who knows you’re not operating at your best, I want you to know that meaningful change is possible. Go to my website and schedule a free strategy call. We’ll look at where you are, where you want to be, and whether you are right fit for us. No pressure, no pitch, just a real
58:47 Conversation. If this episode meant something to you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever you listen. And remember, you cannot lead others if you’re running on empty. Empower your body. Invest in yourself. I’m Zac Armstrong. See you next week. W.