No Hype, Just Standards · Client story
Mark Orvis of Big River Steel reversed type 2 diabetes and lost 110 lbs at 57
What this episode says
- Orvis joined Big River Steel when it was a soybean field with a farmer still collecting his last harvest. Eleven years and ten billion dollars of investment later it is the largest steel-making facility in North America with 1,700 employees. Startup meant twenty-hour days for weeks at a time, and "exhausting" is the word he uses for the decade.
- His job is root cause analysis: when a product fails at the end of the line, you work backwards station by station until you find where it broke, fix it, and then change the process so it cannot happen again. Fishbone diagrams, the five whys, control plans, FMEAs. He now applies the same method to his own body.
- The diagnosis was gradual. The home scale stopped giving a number around 300 pounds; the first weight he remembers is 297. His A1C, a three-month average of blood sugar where most doctors call anything around five acceptable, was 10.2. The doctor said congratulations, you're a diabetic, handed him metformin and a second prescription, and sent him home. Then came blood pressure medication, then thyroid and hormone medication. Nobody mentioned exercise, and nobody told him it was reversible.
- His audit of the health care he received: no control plan, no failure mode and effects analysis, the same questions asked of the ten patients before him, and one data point a year used to declare an entire biological system fine. In steel, one out-of-range test is assumed to be a bad test and rerun. In medicine it is a diagnosis. His conclusion: the system is excellent at acute care and built to manage chronic conditions as a revenue source, so chronic care is an engineering problem to be solved, not a medical problem to be treated.
- He started in May 2024 with one change: he stopped eating bread. Ten pounds in two weeks. Then sugars, one step at a time. Four months and 25 pounds in, he realized he already felt better and no doctor had told him to do any of it. Ten months in, his blood pressure normalized. Within a year he was off the diabetes medication. He wishes he had started strength training a year earlier, because fast weight loss without it cost him muscle, the organ that processes sugar.
- He found the program through a LinkedIn ad while sitting in an infusion chair, because it talked about blood work and data rather than throwing weights around. He texted from the chair and Zac called him on the drive home. He was skeptical of online coaching until the second or third week, when he felt stronger and realized the follow-up was constant: heart rate, reps, and a message when something needed adjusting. He trains on an electric smart gym at home; he had no conventional equipment and would not have walked into a gym cold.
- Since starting he has lost 110 pounds in total, put back five or six pounds that his testing says is muscle, and his A1C is 4.5, full remission. He has fired his endocrinologist and his family doctor and keeps an internal medicine physician who is also a toxicologist. His wife says he needs to calm down: he has energy again, he is clearer, and he has more time for his family and his team because the day is no longer consumed with feeling bad.
- Biological age when he started at 55: a hair over 65. Today, at 58: 45.2. His goal is to be in the top five percent of healthiest men in the country at 60, having been in the bottom five percent at 55. To his younger self: you will be 58 faster than you think, and it is far easier to maintain than to repair decades of damage.
In no other world other than allopathic medicine do you take one data point on one day and say the entire system is good.
Who Mark Orvis is
Mark Orvis is a director at Big River Steel, part of U.S. Steel, where he has spent eleven years across quality assurance, technical service, and advanced product engineering. He started in the industry as an operator on the line and still thinks like one: when the product at the end of the line is wrong, you walk backwards until you find where it broke. He was part of the team that built Big River from a soybean field, with the farmer still collecting his last harvest, into the largest steel-making facility in North America: ten billion dollars of investment and 1,700 employees. The word he uses for that decade is exhausting. Twenty-hour days for weeks on end, fifteen hours on an easy day, and the first meetings held in the conference room of a bad Holiday Inn.
The diagnosis
It was gradual. The home scale stopped returning a number somewhere around 300 pounds; the first weight he remembers seeing is 297. The first blood marker he ever paid attention to was an A1C of 10.2. A1C is a three-month average of blood sugar; most doctors call anything around five acceptable and start using the word pre-diabetic near six. Ten is off the chart, headed for insulin. The doctor said congratulations, you are a diabetic, and Orvis walked out relieved it was not the injectable kind, carrying metformin and a second prescription. Then came high blood pressure and several medications for that, then thyroid and hormones and more medication thrown at those. No exercise was recommended. Nobody said it was reversible. He compares it to a frog in slowly warming water: he never noticed he was boiling.
The audit
Zac asked him to audit his health care team the way he would audit a production line. His report: no control plan, no failure mode and effects analysis, no written record of inputs and outputs, no scored risks and no mitigation. The same questions asked of the ten patients before him, most of whom have the same problems and keep coming back with nothing fixed. One blood draw a year used to declare an entire biological system good, when in steel one out-of-range test is assumed to be a bad test and rerun before anyone acts. Medications stacked without knowing the interactions. His conclusion is that the system is superb at acute care, if you get hit by a bus or struck by lightning, and built to manage chronic conditions as a guaranteed revenue source. So he reclassified his own: chronic care is an engineering problem to be solved, not a medical problem to be treated.
Bread
The change started in May 2024 with one variable. He stopped eating bread. Nothing else moved, and he lost ten pounds in two weeks by taking the buns off his fast food. Then he cut sugars, one step at a time, no strict elimination and no going hungry. Four months and about 25 pounds in, he realized he already felt better and that no doctor had told him to do any of it, which made him ask what else they were not telling him. He went down the rabbit hole: Attia, Huberman, Bikman, Hyman. Ten months in, his blood pressure was normalizing. Within a calendar year he was off the diabetes medication. When he returned to his endocrinologist forty pounds lighter, her first reaction was not what are you doing but are you sick.
His regret is the order. He lost the first large block of weight through diet alone, and later testing showed significant muscle loss alongside the fat. Muscle is the main tissue that processes blood sugar, so for a diabetic it is the last thing to give up. He did not start strength training until a year into his journey. Zac adds the program-wide observation: every client who arrived on a GLP-1 medication and came off it took six to eight weeks to clear it, and the worst of it was the insomnia.
The infusion chair
He found the program through a LinkedIn ad while sitting in a monthly infusion appointment. What caught him was that it was about blood work, markers, and data, not throwing weights around a gym, which at the time did not appeal to him at all. He texted from the chair and Zac called him on the drive home, which he says removed the chance to second-guess himself. He had no conventional equipment and would not have walked into a gym cold; he trains on an electric smart gym at home, and Zac built the program around it. His skepticism was about online coaching, the assumption that you need someone standing next to you. By the second or third week he felt stronger, was lifting heavier for fewer reps instead of the same weight forty times, and had discovered the follow-up was constant: heart rate, reps, sleep, and a message when something needed to change. He was surprised that a man he had never met, two thousand miles away, could produce that kind of teamwork.
Data
He is, by his own description, a fanatic. He has worn Whoop, Oura, and a third device at the same time to compare their outputs, bought the body-composition scales, and run DEXA scans to check their accuracy. A program where all of it feeds one app, where he can look up what he lifted and what he ate on a given day in October, matched the way he already thinks. Zac makes the point that this happens to every client within about four months: you pick up a product labeled protein, read fifty grams of carbohydrate on the back, and put it down.
Where he is now
By his own account on the episode: 110 pounds lost overall, then five or six pounds regained that his testing says is muscle. An A1C of 4.5, which is full remission, not pre-diabetic. Off the diabetes and blood pressure medication. He has fired his endocrinologist and his family doctor, who did not want him off their prescriptions and did not approve of how he eats, and keeps one physician who is on board, an internal medicine doctor who is also a toxicologist. His wife says he needs to calm down: he is constantly moving, has energy the way he used to, and is no longer on the sofa with a tube of Pringles. He is clearer, has more time for his family and his team, and can focus on the task in front of him because the day is no longer consumed with feeling bad. Individual results vary.
Biological age
When he started, at 55, his measured biological age was just over 65. At 58 it is 45.2. He puts it plainly: at 55 he was probably in the unhealthiest five percent of men in the country, and at 60 he intends to be in the healthiest five percent. What he would tell his younger self is that 58 arrives faster than you think, that he went from 30 to 65 biologically in what felt like a year and a half, and that it is far easier to maintain than to repair decades of damage. Despite everything he has accomplished, he is still repairing.
To the man in the parking lot
Rapid fire: harder quality problem, the steel or the body? The body. One thing his doctor never checked: fasting insulin. What breaks first when a high performer stops paying attention: focus. Would his body have passed the same audit as his production line two years ago? No, multiple findings. Now? A couple of minor non-conformances, no majors. The biggest lie men tell themselves about a chronic condition: that they cannot do it, that they need the medicine or the system. To the man who just got the diagnosis and is sitting in the parking lot: put down the burger in your hand. Small things first. It can be reversed.
What he is most proud of is taking a fear off his wife, that she would find him laid out in the front yard after cutting the grass. Zac adds what Orvis will not say about himself: he leads a lot of people, and several of them have changed how they live because they watched him do it.
Zac’s close: Orvis already had the diagnosis, the doctors, and the system. What changed was not the diagnosis, it was the standard. He stopped settling for management and demanded precision, and his body responded. If you are sitting with a condition and a doctor who says you are fine when you know you are not, the answer is not to try harder. It is to demand a better system.
Transcript
Full text, timestamped
Auto-generated from the episode audio and lightly formatted. Each timestamp links to that moment in the video.
0:00 But it’s the system as a whole. They don’t want you to get better because then you’re not a revenue source. Okay? They want I mean you’re a guaranteed customer. Here is what nobody tells you about getting a diagnosis. They tell you what you have. They give you the prescription. They hand you a pamplatement. And they send you back in the world to do it on your own. My guest today has been inside that health care system for years. He’s had the doctors. He’s followed the protocols. And through that experience, he realized something. The system is built to manage those conditions. It’s not built to help a guy who won’t perform at his best after 40. Those are two different things. I’m Zac Armstrong and this is no hype, just standards. Mark Orvis is a director at Big River Steel that’s part of US Steel. He has been there for over a decade, rising through three roles such as quality assurance, technical service, and advanced product engineering for one of the most advanced steel operations in
1:01 Our country. His career is built on root cause analysis, continuous improvement, and the idea if your process is not delivering the result you need, he picks the process. Mark is also living with diabetes. And for a long time, the health care system was managing his condition the way it manages everyone else. standard markers, standard advice, and standard results. But Mark does not think in a standard way. He thinks in precision. And when he found a system that finally matched the way his brain works, everything changed. Not because he tried harder, but because the approach got better. Today we are going to talk about what it is really like to manage diabetes at the executive level and what happens when the standard playbook meets a guy who thinks in data and recalls analysis and what changes when you stop managing addition and start optimizing a life. If you’re getting something out of this show, subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever you listen. Share with a guy who needs to hear it. You know who
2:02 He is. Mark, thanks for being here and let’s get into it. Hey Mark. So, you know, let’s give you the quick version here. Big river, uh, Big River, uh, still quality assurance, advanced product engineering. You know, what is your world like? How does it look now? Well, it’s been crazy for about the last 10 or 11 years. We were a green field startup. So, we were a soybean field, okay, 11 years ago. And, um, so we’ve been growing exponentially every year. We’ve gone from, you know, literally being when we were there digging our first holes, the farmer was still there collecting his last harvest to, you know, uh, 10 billion dollars in investment in the largest steel making facility in North America and,700 employees from one. So, it’s been it’s been a crazy decade and a little more for sure. So, exhausting is probably the word. How were you? Nine. Nine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So exhausting, how many hours you think you pull there? Well, during startup and construction, you can’t count. Um, you know,
3:03 Or you don’t want to. Well, you don’t want to, but you know, you know, when it I mean, it’s 20our days, you know, for weeks on end. Easy. You know, 15 sure 15’s a good an easy day. Um, you know, there’s so much to do. It wasn’t just building, you know, a manufacturing facility and assembling equipment, assembling buildings, which that was part of it, but it was building a company from ground up. We had nothing. You know, our first meetings were in the conference room of a Holiday Inn. Yeah. So, a good one or a bad one? Bad one. Um, I’m sure that though there was some excitement when you’re building a company, excitement about doing it, you know, maybe not notice the hours or the wear and tear on what’s happening. Would you kind of describe it as such or? Absolutely. I mean it’s very exciting. It’s very entrepreneurial. You know that’s why we all when we left we we had built a mill previously about seven years prior and uh the uh founder of that mill had left and was starting this one. So we all followed him to go with him and do it again just because of that because it is super exciting and you can
4:04 Build your own culture and you don’t have to worry about coming into a place that’s got a broken culture and trying to fix it. You can build it right the first time. Those kinds of things. So it was it was really exciting. Yeah. I would say from somebody who’s had to go into bad cultures, that is by far the hardest scene to go into a company and fix is something that’s um broken and people were down and uh yeah, I think once it’s broken, it’s broken. Yeah, it’s I’ve definitely been part of uh rehabilitation for multiple places when I during my time in the military and I I can say those were the hardest ones because when somebody’s already beaten up and down, it’s hard to get them back and excited about something. Yeah, for sure. Um, speaking of, you know, excited or like fixing things, quality assurance, what does that actually mean at your level and um, what’s at stake when things slip in at that level? Well, it’s uh, it’s about the repeatability. So, it’s quality, making sure you’re giving a good product out to the customer consistently, reliably, every time. Materials got to perform the same. Uh, you got to get it
5:04 There on time the same. You know, they people don’t got people who purchase whether it’s steel or anything else. They don’t like surprises in supply chain. You know, they they it’s got to be there. It’s got to be precise. It’s got to be there every time. And it’s got to be right every time because otherwise then you have, you know, just a whole host a cascade of potential issues from from their perspective that, you know, you you don’t even you don’t even really know what impact you have on their business with just the slightest. You know, if you say, “Well, that’s not too bad.” Or, “Well, it just happened once.” It could be catastrophic, you know, in one of their manufacturing facilities. Of course, that a business owner or something to where Well, even the large ones, you know, even if you’re we’re shipping into, you know, a major automotive manufacturer, which we do, okay, and they’ve got to shut down an entire assembly line in Greenville, South Carolina or something. You know, those consequences and the dollars associated with that add up really quickly. Yeah. And I think a lot of times we look at it from a dollar and you know perspective like that but then we don’t
6:04 Realize the impact on the human being. Well that’s true too behind it. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Um and that that there can make somebody stay up at night for sure. Um I get on the question with this just because you said it. How bad was the last year during the whole tariffs uh up and down? You know what the the tariffs is a like a place in industry like steel that hadn’t been for domestic companies. It was it was good. It wasn’t as good as the tariffs during the last Trump administration. The steel market just shot took off. It was like the best year we’ve ever had in the history of steel in 2021. This year was good. Uh or last year was good. Um, you know, a lot of the American manufacturers that were assembling in Canada or Mexico had a and not just Americans, the, you know, foreign national companies that were assembling in either one of those com countries that then wanted to ship the material or the final product back to the United States have been scrambling to resource domestically. So to that extent, the tariffs have been successful
7:04 For sure. Yeah. For you though, it didn’t put a big constraint on the logistic standpoint. No, no, no, no. It’s just uh it was a business opportunity. And so with the quality assurance, how would you kind of describe the way you solve problems? So I so I’m a I started in the steel industry as an operator. So I was a guy on the line and so I sort of worked my way up into the roles I am now. So I still think about things through that lens. And that means if a piece of equipment or she machine breaks down or something’s happening to your product at the end of your line, you start working your way backwards. Find out where it’s broke. Okay, it’s good here. It’s good here. It’s good here. It’s good here and here. Okay, right here in the middle is where whatever is going wrong is going wrong. And so it’s still that. So I do that now. I just do it for, you know, kind of plantwide. And I kind of we do my group does it for customers, too. So if we go into a customer and they’re having an issue, it may not be our quality issues. It might be them. And then we go in that into their facilities and help them try to just find do root
8:04 Cause analysis, five W’s, fishbone diagrams, those kinds of things. um to get to the root cause and fix the problems. So fair to say you’re a process type of guy. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely a process type of guy. So for you a process um is not only the way you and I know this cuz I know you a little bit, but the process is how you live your life, but at work it’s how you can help people solve problems. It’s through a process. Not actually like the end result, but how you get to it. Like if you don’t have a process, you’re out of control, right? either statistically out of control or actually out of control. And once you’re statistically out of control, it’s a matter of time before you’re actually out of control. And so it’s uh you know, numbers don’t lie, trends don’t lie. So you got to have processes, you got to have controls, you got to have things in place, you have to have plans. Um they have to be written, they have to be audited, they have to be managed actively. Um, and you know, I I’ve kind of taken the approach on my health journey the same way. That’s probably what you want to talk about in
9:04 A in a minute. But definitely process focused because otherwise you’re just sort of floating around. Yeah. without um you know I’ve referenced it I think once or twice already on the show but um I’m an Alabama fan because I grew up in South but um Nick Sabin is somebody who I admire as a coach and from a leadership standpoint not necessarily because I was a fan of the team but he always focused on the process. He never focused on like the game on Saturday. He always focused on how you did Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, right? If you treated those days all the same for no matter what the game was, the game on Saturday was treated like everything else. And when you got there, the process was in place and you were ready to play. And I think that’s the way you live. I way the way I live life, that’s the way I do my program. Um, and when you think in that way, it helps with that end result like you’re talking about. It helps you get to that point to where you’re you’re coming up with the problems with fishbone diagrams and helping people solve their problems because the process gets you there. Yep. Um, too often when we focus on the beginning or the end result, it’s all you focus on and you lose sight of the
10:05 Actual trust. Um, and see that like that that lead cause analysis is your job. Um, when something goes wrong, um, what’s the first thing you do? Well, you know, the first thing is you got to understand what the problem is, you know. Okay, I’ll use the customer example. You get the angry phone call or the panicked phone call. You know, this is going crazy. we don’t know why it’s got to be the material. So the first thing is you just sort of have to calm down, take a deep breath, step back, look at what the situation is, and then you just start digging backwards. You look at the controls that went into let’s say we do think it’s something with one of our products as an example. We started we go back and look, okay, what when we made it that day, what were the conditions that we that we were operating under? Could be. We look at weather even. We look at uh atmospheric conditions. We look at was there unplanned maintenance. Was there did something break? You know, um we we go back and we look at everything and then start triangulating ourselves down and
11:07 Tightening the sort of like concentric circles till we get to the to where what we believe are maybe a couple possibilities of root cause and then, you know, finally identify that and find out why it happened. And then you know once once you fix the immediate problem then you go through and you look at how do you make it not happen again and maybe that’s changing your processes maybe that’s you know changing something else that’s kind of the post-mortem of you know after the fact. So sure and you know talking about you know diagnosing something coming up with problems like you know I know you had a challenge yourself in life being diagnosed with diabetes um you know when you first diagnosed what was that moment like for you? Well, it’s interesting. It was kind of gradual. And not just diabetes. I was I was I was fat, dude, too. I mean, I was I was I I don’t even know what my top weight was because there were times when I get on the weight the scale at the home scale, it wouldn’t give me a number. And I think most home scales, I think that’s right around 300 lb. Mhm.
12:07 You know, so the first uh weight that I recall st standing on the scale and getting a number was like 297 lbs. And that’s right around the time that I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I never did have to take uh insulin, but I was probably close because my A1C, first time I ever really had a blood marker that I paid attention to was A1C. And if I’m memory serves, something like a 10.2 or something like that. Mhm. Um, but I remember going to my family practitioner prior to that and doing the basic blood work, blood panels they did, you know, pricking your finger or looking for your glucose, that kind of stuff, and saying, “Hey, you’re creeping up there. You’re creeping up there.” Finally, I do remember the day when I was, he said, “Well, congratulations. You’re a diabetic.” You know, I said, “The kind that has to take insulin?” “No.” I said, “Okay, I’m all right.” And I, you know, it was funny. I didn’t even I just thought I walked out of there thinking well at least I don’t have to
13:07 Take insulin and I just kept trucking on my way, you know, and I walked out of there with a couple prescriptions, metformin and something else and you know then had to go through processes of tweaking those and and then the next thing you know I’ve got high blood pressure you know and I’m on multiple medications for that and then you know thyroid and hormones are out of whack and I they start throwing darts at the all putting medication me medications on that. It was all sort of just cumulive. Yeah. And I got there very slowly. It’s not like I woke up like that. Well, but I got there very slowly, but it’s it’s like putting a frog in water, you know? I I I I didn’t really realize I was boiling and alive until I got there. Yeah. And so I think for me like talking about boiling someone that makes my blood actually boil um with what you said and we’ll get into I want to ask those questions first but just for you know the audience’s understanding for those who don’t know when you say 10.2 your A1C can you explain how that kind
14:07 Of works so everybody understands what Yeah. So, the A1C is basically your three-month average of your blood sugar, right? So, a a pin prick is just a single moment in time, and it it it’ll tell you something, but it really doesn’t tell you much. If you just pounded a six-ack of Mountain Dews before you come in there, your blood sugar is going to it’s going to be spiked. So, it’s it’s a more BAC. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, that’s a more I I would say accurate result of your true nature of your blood sugar. Unfortunately, it’s probably the least important one of the least important blood markers when it comes to determine if you’re diabetes. Sure. You know, and fasting insulin is the real number and no doctor’s prescribed that or call for those, right? And so when you say 10.2, like how where is that on the scale for somebody who doesn’t understand like where that means? So where does diabetes usually start? So most doctors will tell you as long as you’re at at around five, Yep. you’re not diabetic. I don’t believe that’s true personally. I think you got to be below five. But if if they’ll if
15:08 You’re in a 56 range, they’ll say you’re okay. If you’re getting close to the six and maybe a little bub, they’ll start calling you pre-diabetic, which I think is another madeup term, but uh um so 10 is like off the charts. It’s like, you know, I was headed towards needing, you know, insulin injections, right? Um and I think what makes I don’t think I’m a thousand% sure. I know what makes my blood boil is they just threw medicine and not even like you know just medicine they’re throwing a bunch of medicine to see what works with one if you’re as an engineer you understand troubleshooting if you throw a bunch of stuff you don’t know what works until you start taking away you got they don’t know the interactions none of it so one that makes me it just it’s it’s indicative of our medical system it’s all reactionary it’s not preventative and they just wait for the diagnosis and they give it and then they just throw medicine at it they do and and when you get one one blood sample let’s So you go into your doctor once a year and he runs whatever blood test he runs and you get whatever results you get and let’s say he’s calling you normal. And of course normal
16:08 In the scope of the American population is not normal cuz we’re all fattened and obese and diabetic and sick. Okay? So I don’t I don’t want to be that kind of normal anymore. Okay? I was a poster child for that kind of normal for a long time. Um but see you in a year. Let’s say you’re normal. Okay? You’re good to go. We’ll see you in a year. Okay? Well, in no other world other than alopathic medicine do you take one data point on one day and say the entire system is good. It’s it and here’s what I know the answer to this. What kind of nutrition did he tell you to start following plan? Well, what kind of exercise regimen did he Well, there was no exercise uh recommended. Um, you know, I think they said I think he talked about calories. I think he talked about uh he probably did mention cut back on the Cokes and things like that if I’m eating that, but not a whole lot of advice. It was mainly just here’s some pills you got to take. Exactly. And people don’t understand
17:08 Too, there’s always side effects with those pills, too. Just because a doctor says here, take this for this med doesn’t mean Yeah. that it’s not indicative that it’s going to have causation of other things. He certainly didn’t tell me it’s reversible. Yeah. And if I lost weight, I could make it could go away. It’s a Yeah. And it’s absolutely it’s troubling to hear it like lose weight, do this and you can reverse it. You can go into remission on your diabetes. Y right. That is that is a path and not even like one that’s even that time consuming. Uh we can get into it more but you know just right now while we’re on it. How long did it take you to reverse that? So once you got on it she said hey I’m sorry. So once I got on it and it was May of 24 is when I really started. It was a gradual start, but it probably took me it probably took me 10 months to get down enough weight where my uh high blood pressure was starting to normalize. Mhm. And I’d say within a calendar year uh I
18:09 Was I was off that those diabet diabetes medicine. What’s amazing is that would have been that calendar year that you would have to see in the doc, right? Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Hey, let’s see if you can make some improvements. Let’s see you in three months. Not a year or in six months, right? Yep. um just it’s it’s um it’s heartbreaking to hear those kind of things. Um especially today where we have another medication that doctors love to prescribe and that’s GP. Yeah. And the people that don’t know the adverse effects of it is just does it lose weight? Yes, of course it does. But does it lose just fat? No. When you’re losing weight fast, whether you’re on GOP ones or not, if you’re losing weight fast, you’re not just losing No, you’re not just losing fat. That’s one of my regrets. You know, I didn’t find I didn’t hook up with you and start strength training till a year into my journey. So, you know, I had I had there was significant uh muscle loss that uh people don’t understand took place as well too. Like my personal opinion and I I tell all my clients this and every client understands this like my two biggest
19:10 Things for longevity that my personal opinion is is big not just a longer life but a quality life is lean muscle mass and B2 max. max obviously measurement cardiovascular system but less mass comes for strength training and those things are given quality of life and that GLP1 it takes away from people and I will I didn’t realize because you know I had never been a patient of GOP um but every client who’s come on with me has gotten off GOP I think the most detrimental thing I’ve seen is it took six to eight weeks out of every client that came on that got off of it for it to dissipate out of their system sure everything’s got a halfife for sure six to eight weeks was astounding to me and the the worst condition that it gave to every client was um I would say energy but the problem was is it’s hard to tell because of insomnia that it created and yeah obviously that’ll have a factor on but um 6 weeks of insomnia well the worst part about the you know whether it’s GOP1s or just losing weight
20:10 Loss from starvation um you know and if you’re a diabetic you know muscle is the number one organ that processes sugar metabolism. Yeah. So, um yeah. So, talking about managing diabetes, um while running a a major operation like you were, how hard was that? It was in hindsight, it was very hard. I didn’t even realize it. You know, it I I I felt terrible all the time. I was tired all the time. I was sore all the time. You know, my joints ache, my muscles achd. Um and I didn’t realize it was it just became it was just life. It was just is I woke up feeling like crap. I went to bed feeling like crap and I felt like crap in between. And um so I didn’t I didn’t know any different really. What was the hardest part of that for you? You know, I I think the hardest part was um you know, I would say within the couple years prior to me getting started, you know, kind of my peer group, you know, and I’m I’m 58 now, so
21:12 I don’t I’m suspecting I probably skew on the maybe on the older side of your your clients. I don’t have that. Okay. Not even close. Yeah, we got about um 10 over 70. Okay, that’s great. Well, in in my basic age range, the example is I use like my graduate high school graduating class Facebook page. The post always used to be, “Oh, so and so got married. Oh, we had kids. Oh, we had grandkids.” Now it’s, “Oh, so and so died. Oh, so and so had a stroke.” And it’s to the point now where the only time anybody posts is when another classmate, you know, has died. And then I had co-workers roughly my age who have had heart attacks and died. One on the way home from work, one getting an oil change at a dealership on the way into work. And um you know, and my wife was nervous uh about my weight and my health and was talking to me about about it a lot. And I, you know, I finally got to the point where I I didn’t want to, you know, make her a widow premature, you know, prematurely.
22:12 Yeah. And um, you know, it took me a long time to get to that. But back to your question about when I was working, I just didn’t even know it. I just it was it was it it was it was who I was. Yeah. You just live life to what you can. Yeah. As human beings, the human condition does, we just whatever you’re given, you kind of sometimes accept. And we’re bad about that. That’s right. Like we were talking before the show, accepting what a doctor says they’re accepting what’s being told because it, oh, they must know what they’re talking about. That’s right. And we disaccept things sometimes when we should push back. Um, and that’s funny you mentioned that about Facebook and because I’m not a big social media person, which is kind of weird, which most people probably wouldn’t believe, but I actually don’t get on social media that much. Um, but whenever I do with classmates from high school, what’s funny is I see a lot of them posting. I’m, you know, I’m about a little over 10 years younger than you, but I see people in my talking about GLPs or which one to take or this. I’m like, “Oh my god.” Like, you’re not even you’re at a age where this shouldn’t even question right now. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but you already talked about how it affects your energy and we’ve already kind of went into the how the medical
23:12 System work for you. But here’s a great question for you as an engineer, a process guy, a quality guy. If you had to look at that health care team and audit the process in which they did for you, what would your report say? Well, they would they clearly don’t have a control plan in place or a FEMA P FEMA in place. Can you explain that? Yeah. So, basically those are written documents where you’re you literally write down every input and output of your process, your control plan. Okay. and what are the various types of in our case commodities if you’re a human food drugs atmosphere you know what’s going in and what’s going out all right and then the FEMA basically analyzes risks okay and you numerically score risks and so if you’ve identified a risk in your process then you have to go through a process to uh how are you going to
24:13 Mitigate those risks how you going to you know you may not be able to get rid of that risk but how you going to deal with it? What happens? Well, none of that goes on in your traditional healthc care practice, okay? They just they just bop in. They ask you the same kind of questions, the same kind of questions they’ve asked the 10 people before you and the same kind of qu the same people that were there before you have the same problems you have. And you keep coming back and you keep coming back and they keep coming back and nothing ever gets fixed. Nothing ever, you know, nothing ever improves for acute care. If you get hit by a bus or struck by lightning, we’re really good in our society at taking care of that. What’s funny is we had a doctor on not too long ago. He say exact same thing. Oh, did he? Yes. Yeah. Not those exact words, but the acute injury. Exactly. Sure. To a te. But but we suck at at chronic, you know, chronic care. And to me, as I got into this, it’s because they don’t the the it I’m I don’t necessarily say I’m saying it’s an individual medical
25:14 Practitioner. I don’t believe this, but it’s the system as a whole. They don’t want you to get better because then you’re not a revenue source, okay? They want I mean, you’re a guaranteed customer. And so, you look at it like the Matrix where you’re plugged into the system, right? It’s the same thing except they’re not drawing your energy, they’re drawing your money. That’s exactly right. Yeah. So chronic care to me and this is kind of how I approach it whether it’s di in my case diabetes and obesity there’s some others you could even take that out pain management pain management even types of cancer or Alzheimer’s or you know you know Alzheimer’s type three diabetes more and more people say now it’s metabolism and I yeah that that’s a very dear one to my heart cuz my grandmother Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it’s the way I look at it as chronic care is a it’s a it’s an engineering problem to be solved, not a medical problem to be treated. Yeah. And they don’t and it’s not just a doctor’s assistance that’s in place, too. Right. Yeah. Um,
26:15 And when you know I think one of the reasons I was one of the most excited to get you on is because you’re the most maybe the most knowledgeable client I have and I have multiple doctors as clients too but the amount of knowledge you have in this space is unreal because uh like many people who are um wavelengths of your engineering they want to diagnose the issue and get to the root problem and you call like I’m a fan you know I call me a fan and what a fan is is fanatical right and I will call you that about longevity now and uh how to get to the secondary uh levels of medical practice and what is actually beneficial. So knowing that you know when did you realize the standard approach of manager and diagnosis and was not something that was helping manage all your issues like and what was the thing that led you to start that initial change at in what would you said May of 24 right? Yeah it was. So, I was there’s a couple things going on. I was at my worst at feeling terrible. Okay. And um I was
27:19 Starting to think about, well, what can I do? You know, how can I what are my kind of first steps? And there was it was social media, some podcasters like uh Dr. Berg, Dr. Ken Barry, things like that. It was a ketogenic type diets. And I was listening to that. I was starting to listen to some things about some intermittent fasting and things like that. And so, you know, the first thing I did is I just stopped eating bread. That’s it. I, you know, nothing else changed. And in like two weeks, I lost 10 pounds by just taking the buns off my Burger King. Mhm. You know, and so I didn’t go strict elimination elimination diet right away. It was one thing. I took away the bread, then I started cutting out some sugars, and it one step at a time. And I’d say I was probably 4 months into it, okay? And I had probably lost 25 pounds by then, something like that, just by modest changes in my diet, not going hungry, not doing anything like that. When I realized, I already I I already feel better.
28:19 Yeah. Nobody told me to do this, you know? I never had a doctor say you can still go to Waterburg, just don’t eat the bread. Yeah. You know, and and so it made me start thinking, well, what else are they telling me? In the meantime though, Zac, I was going down the rabbit hole with, you know, some of them were bro Science guys, but you know, a lot of them were legit doctors. Peter Ailla, you know, Huberman, you know, Ben Bickman, all of those kinds of guys. And um, you know, one step at a time. And I started applying some of those things they’re saying and reading up on it and studying it, trying these things on my own. And I don’t I don’t think there was a Eureka moment, but you know, well, maybe one of the moments was I was maybe 40 lbs into it and I went back to my endocrinologist who I hadn’t seen in a while since I lost weight, all that weight for sure. And she’s a very smart doctor, okay, but very traditional. And um you know, her first reaction wasn’t, “Oh, wow. You look great.” Or, “What are you doing to lose weight? Are you sick?” You know, and it’s like something had to
29:20 Be wrong. I couldn’t have lost that amount of weight, you know, and I guess she wouldn’t be surprised that I had lost all that weight because she thought I was still on all the drugs she was giving me too, right? So, um, so I don’t know that I had a s singular Eureka moment, but you know, it was kind of gradual. So, obviously a lot of frustration there. Um, you know, he started looking at things differently there. Um, when did you actually start questioning all the stuff the doctor said and like what did you start questioning about what they said or the medications? So, you know, I I guess I I was uh I was reading a lot of Mark Heyman, Dr. Mark Heyman, and a lot of the things he was talking about really struck me. You know, your food, okay? Okay. And if food is medicine and Well, people discount that for sure. 100%. They 100%. I did. Yeah. The first question was funny. So
30:22 Many times people will ask me, “What’s the best supplement to take?” Let’s just let’s worry about what you’re eating first. That’ll fix more than the the sleep the sleep and the food will fix more than your than any supplement will off the bat. Yeah. The supplements adds to this. Like they say, you can’t out exercise a bad diet and you can’t out supplement one either. Right. And sorry, sorry for cutting you off there, but you were saying um I forgot where I Yeah. No, no, so you started questioning their medications. Yeah, questioning the medications and why I, you know, when I was getting better, you know, like, for instance, when I when I went back and I lost weight and the blood tests, even the ones they gave me, they still didn’t give me a fasting insulin at that point. Okay. I didn’t realize I could go out and get one myself. Um, but I my A1C was like down to like 4.5. Mhm. Well, you still got to take it. We can taper your dose back a little bit, but you’re always going to have to take this. Why? See why? When I when if I was six and hadn’t ever been on the medicine, you would have told me I was normal. I’ll see you in a year. So, I think there was those kinds of
31:22 Things. And it was a series of those kinds of things where I’m like, look, I I this is on me. I can figure this out. There’s enough information out there now. There’s enough out people out there doing this now. the longevity space, you know, the age reversal, you know, expan expanding that delta between your chronological age and your biological age. Um, you know, I I think we’re at a a good time in history now where more and more people are accepting that and it’s growing and it and it’s great too and I love that people do that and um, you know, a lot of people you mentioned are great in pushing back on those and we talked about it right before the podcast right before we started this is you know part of the human condition is we hear stuff, we hear things we like and then we’ll regurgitate it either as factors if it’s you know our own idea and that’s no doctors are no You know, usually doctors are pretty smart individuals, but they do the same thing. They’ll hear it, they regurgitate it, and they think it’s fact or they’re worried about who themselves, right? As
32:22 We all are as human. If I take them off medication, something happens to what happens to me. Open myself up for liability. So, sometimes like that they’re not going to move medication. Yeah. Because they don’t want to potentially get sued. Well, while you’re while you were talking, one I was thinking about this and I don’t know if we talked about this earlier or maybe it was even since we’ve been here, but you know, when you get a blood test and you get one bad marker, that’s all that’s all they test. And I think that really struck me, too. In my world, if we get, you know, we’ve got we we know what the chemistry is of the steel. We expect a certain set of mechanical properties. And if we test it and it’s way out of whack one way or the other causations, we assume it’s probably a bad test. Okay? And so we’ll test it again. There’s no testing again. There’s no there’s no duplication. There’s no redundancies of tests. It’s a singular data point. It’s a snapshot in a point period of time. And they’re basically defining your whole life for you on one data point. And you don’t do that in the
33:23 Real world. No. You know, big sigma, right? Yes. And so in in my world, you know, with you need re of data, multiple data taken continuously to make sure you’re trending in the right direction. You can’t you can’t determine trends testing once a year, right? Um and so you you got all to this point, you know, you saw my you know, you connected with me on the program. What was your first reaction? Well, I remember so I know I know where I was too. I don’t remember the exact uh uh um ad I saw. I was, you know, on LinkedIn, but I was at the uh infusion clinic. I was getting uh NAD+ and glutathione. I get that. Okay. Uh once a month. So, I’m scrolling through um uh LinkedIn and you popped up and I don’t remember which one it was, but I know you were talk you talked about blood work, you talked about markers, you talked about you weren’t just talking about getting in a gym and throwing around a bunch of weights, which at the time I’m not sure it appeals to me now, but at
34:25 The time I don’t think it that was what I was looking for. I I knew I had to I knew I was losing muscle. I had started I started to build a sort of mini sort of exercise equipment and gym assemble that at the house but I didn’t know what I was doing certainly and I wasn’t about to go to a gym somewhere. A I don’t think I’d have the time and b I just couldn’t see myself doing that. Maybe now I could do that but certainly at the time I wouldn’t have walked in to a gym just cold. Right. And so I don’t know. I think you’re talking about the precision, talking about the blood work, talking about data. I think dad is the word you said in that several times and that appealed to me. And then it’s funny. So I texted you while I was sitting there in the chair and uh I’m on the way home and you called me. Yeah. And so you didn’t give me a chance to second guessess myself which is good. Yeah. That’s um I I don’t think people understand the amount of hours I work. You do. I do. But um I’m always almost uh on on it.
35:25 Uh, what was a moment you where you thought like, I think I’m ready to do this. I’m ready to try to do this. I mean, obviously we had a conversation, but was it in that conversation or something click that I said or what do you think? I think it was both. I think I said I said, okay, this is a guy I can work with. Um, you know, I appreciated your background. Um, clearly you’re, you know, fit and you’ve been fit for a while and so you know what you’re talking about. It’s a subject matter expert. Um, you know, I don’t pretend to be a subject matter expert on everything. You know, I can’t go program AI. I’m not going to try to do that. I wouldn’t know where to start. It can do itself now. Yeah. Yeah. You can self about this close to sky, man. I’m not a thoracic heart surgeon. I would never attempt that. And to me, this is no different. And uh and I just after talking to you I felt like okay I think this might be a fit personalitywise you know and I you know we we seem to agree on a lot of things and yeah you know different lives but sort of had sort of similar approaches. Yeah I would agree like definitely um a datacentric focus and
36:26 Not a gym bro type stuff right uh very analytical from my perspective and yours. What went for those first few weeks what changed for you there? Um, I I’d say the first few weeks, well, what the first few weeks that changed and the thing that I was surprised about, and honestly, one of the things I was most skeptical about was the whole online thing. Mhm. Cuz I was falsely laboring under the idea you had to have some guy next to here, next to you here screaming at you or whatever. But I didn’t how effective the app plugging in all your wearables and stuff in there and you know your level of followup. You know, I felt like you were there all the time and you know, okay, let’s I can tell by your heart rate or I can tell by your reps. Why don’t you try this? And I could start to see some differences and I would say maybe by the end of the second thirdish week I started to feel stronger. Mhm. you know, um I started to push myself with maybe fewer reps, higher
37:27 Weight, which I hadn’t done before. I just sit there and lift the same weight 40 times or something like that. I know because I didn’t know what I was doing, right? That’s okay. Yeah. And um I think what and I will always remember you because you explain to people what your workout system is at home. So yeah, so it’s the it’s a it’s called a e a smart gym. It’s the speed gym monsters. And I had to go look this thing up. I’m not going to lie. Yeah, it’s electric. It’s a cable workout, but it’s electric motors and so it can simulate eccentric, bentric chains. I really love it. And it No, what’s funny is is um I had not known about it. I kind of when you explained it on the phone, I kind of knew and then I went and looked it up and I was able to create a program based funny like two weeks later it was another guy. Same thing. No worries, man. Already know what you’re talking about. Yeah. But uh yeah, so I think what the thing is to point out there, you had never really worked out uh at least not in a long time. You’re coming back into it. You didn’t have ideal what traditional people would think as far as gym equipment at home. I didn’t have any. Right. And so you just had the speedant switch, which if somebody can go look it up, it’s not what I would call like an
38:27 It would be like um a more advanced bow flex where it does multiple tasks within a certain thing. Right. Um and you were still able to get it done. Yeah. Right. In a high amount of fashion and start seeing results. Well, and and they they not turning in advertisement, but they do have like video trainers on there so you can watch that. And so that’s what then I was able to translate that with you because you know on your on your app you’ve got actual video of you showing the correct movements and things like that. And so I got that and I got the sense of community and you know and be honest with you I didn’t think that I would probably accountability is the right word but I know you’re watching. Yeah. A lot. And so, uh, I was I’m surprised that a guy I’d never met in person that lived 2,000 mi away, I would I I would, uh, feel that sort of teamwork. Oh, yeah. With It’s amazing. And so, we we had the the doctor that was on the podcast the a couple episodes ago. We live four miles apart. Mhm.
39:27 I met him twice. One time was when we did the podcast. Yeah. So, like Yeah. And it works. And we live four miles apart, right? And it’s crazy. We’ve only seen each other twice. Um, when you had someone build this protocol and using the data as an analytical engineer person, how did you kind of perceive this as like, oh, this is definitely up my alley. This is definitely something like I can see being advantageous to a mind like mine. The the strength training portion, both the strength training and nutrition, right? As well as the data feeding into the app. Well, so the data really the data feeding to the app really appealed to me because I really tried to centralize data. Um, I went over the deep end with with variables. There’s a period of time. I got the Whoop on today and it’s I usually use the Hume, but Whoop’s got some new AI that I’m sure you’re aware of that I’m playing around with that I would wear all three at the same time just to compare their data. And um got all the body pods uh just to compare the data. and then did all the DEXA scans and all
40:27 The tests to compare those accuracies to find out. Well, had going through the app and having that component with it sort of just played right into what I was was what I was all about anyway. And I can track it. I can go back and I can see what I did. I can see, you know, okay, in October 24th I this is this is what I did. These were my reps. This is what I ate. Um that’s that’s super helpful for me. I I I I pay attention to that stuff. Yeah. I think and know what people don’t realize is once you start you do pay attention to those things like at the end of the day now you you don’t and it works for everybody. I’ll tell them like I’ll tell them in the beginning they don’t believe me like dude in four months you’re not going to be bothering me like you are in the beginning cuz you’re going to turn you’re going to see something that says protein on on a grocery aisle. You’re going to pick it up. You’re going to turn around you look at it but it’s got 50 grams of carbs in it and protein. This isn’t protein. Then you’re going to be like and then you’ll set it down. you go, “Oh crap, that’s how it come. I was going to do this and you’re going to be doing it because everybody does it.” Totally. Yeah, totally.
41:27 They don’t realize it. Expert label readers. Yeah. Beyond the di diabetes, what else shifted for you um in here with the program? You know, you got your diabetes down to 4.5, you know. Um that’s not even pre-diabetic levels for those young, right? It’s not even pre-diabetic level. Full full remission. Um, besides getting past that, you know, what improved once you started all this with the energy, the sleep, the focus, all those areas? Yeah. So, I lost 110 pounds through the whole process. Since I’ve been with you, and I got probably a little too low cuz I lost that lost that weight. And since I’ve been with you, I probably put on I don’t know, five or six pounds. Um, and based on all my results, it’s muscle. It’s not fat. Yeah. I would say it was definitely where we’re looking at the fact that you body recomposition, right? Like I can look at you now and I can look at your arms, right? You got a bane popping out. You got muscularity on your arm. Um that I wouldn’t have said the same thing, you know, back when we first started, which is coming up on a year now. How do you doctors react now when they see your
42:28 Numbers? So, one of them is really happy for him, really good. He’s on his own journey. um most of them and I don’t go to them very I don’t go to very many doctors anymore. Um I found a good one who’s all on board but the previous ones I’ve pretty much fired them all and I fired my endocrinologist. I fired the family medicine guy. Um you know cuz they you know they the they don’t understand. They don’t want me to go off their medicine, you know, and maybe they’re worried about getting sued or something like that. They don’t approve of ketogenic carnivore. um you know, they just don’t know. And uh so I I’ve sort of given up. Like I said, if I get hit by a bus or struck by lightning, I’ll go to the hospital. But outside of that, I’ve got a he’s not a functional health guy, but he’s a he’s actually a internal medicine guy and a toxicologist, which for anybody who’s looking for the perfect longevity doctor, an internal medicine toxicologist, that’s that’s the ticket.
43:28 That’s the blend. That’s the blend. Um, and I I know I’ve heard you say this before. Um, and I laughed the first time I think I heard you say it. How many hours of nutritional training do doctors get? Oh, uh, most of them like less than a day. Yeah. And in their entire medical school. And how long is usually medical school? Right. Years and years and years. Oh, one day, right? Yeah. And that’s that’s that’s where when you go and you listen to the doctor and I and I think we are an epidemic, too, where you actually see a lot of overweight doctors in their mid-4s and 50s, you know. For sure. Yeah. Because they do the same thing. They work hours. They have patience. They have they have stress, right? Um they have all the same and that endocrinologist was criticizing my diet, telling me it’s how dangerous I it is. And I’m like, well, look at you. Yeah. You know, I’m not trying to be crass about it, but you you’re the last person I’m going to take dietary advice from. What’s more dangerous, being 100 pounds overweight or being a certain macro level you’re eating, right? Yeah. Um, and this is a almost rhetorical question, but how much have people
44:29 Around you at work and home noticed? And I’m not going to say from the physical standpoint because that’s a very easy answer. Like obviously you’ve lost enough weight. It’s not unvisible. What would you notice is some of the things that they actually say to you, what they notice differently. Well, yeah. I just touch on the weight really quick. The I couldn’t get it. First it was, are you sick? Are you sick? Are you sick? And then I think some of that there was some sort of when they realized I wasn’t sick and what I was doing. Um, you know, they it kind of took them back. They’re like I think it I don’t want to say it scares people, but it’s kind of off-putting because it it can be jarring for if you’ve never tried it, you know, all the working out five or six days a week, eating right, controlling what you eat. But back to your original question, um, I I do think I’m able to focus more. I know my wife tells me that I need to calm down, you know. I’m I’m constantly moving. I’m I have energy again like I used to. I’m not just laying on the sofa cousing a
45:30 Tube of Pringles, you know, like I used to do, you know. So, she can definitely point it out. My my family can notice the difference in me and my my attitude. I think that I’ve got more time for my family. I I’ve got more time for my people on my team. At least I hope I do. Yeah. Um and uh I think I I’m more focused um you know in the time that I do have in the various aspects of my life. It’s not consumed with feeling bad. I can actually focus on my task at hand. Yeah. Um and that’s how I used to be. You know, I used to be pretty driven and focused and kind of singular in thought and then go on to the next thing and then go on to the next thing. And you know, brain fog. I think I think people have noticed that there’s I’m I’m clear. Yeah, it’s definitely clear. More high function. You’re already a high functioning individual and then when you let loose those constraints, you’re Yeah. people don’t understand. It’s just the start, too. It’s just the start. Yeah. And that’s was great hearing when
46:30 You know you’re you’re a your age and you’re that’s the way you look at it. Just the start. All of that. Um, I think a great question here to kind of start the ending this on for the last segment is, um, if you could talk to the old version of yourself and like sit down and sit down and have a little conversation with them, what would you advise them? What would you tell them? I would say to myself, that’s a tough question, but I think the gist of it would be you’re going to be 58 or in my case when I was 55 faster than you think. So, it seems like I went from 30 to 55 in about a year and a half. Okay. But the reality is I didn’t go from 30 to 55. I went from probably from like 30 to 65, you know, biologically in that amount of time. And that you’re going to miss out on so much. And you you’re going to you won’t you you’re going to feel terrible. You won’t know it until it happens. It’s so hard to get it back. And it is. It’s you know, I’ve I’ve done I’ve been able
47:30 To accomplish things, but it’s not easy. It’s still not easy. Um, I would tell myself, don’t let yourself get there in the first place. It’s a lot easier to maintain something it is than it’s trying to repair decades of damage. Oh, absolutely. And and that’s what I’m still doing despite whatever accomplishments I might have um achieved in this realm. I’m still repairing damage. Yeah. And I like to ask this um do you know what your age actually got to at any point? Yeah. So I was I was a hair over 65. Okay. Yeah. When you started out. Yeah. You were around what? 56 57. I was 55 when I took that mark. 55. Yeah. Okay. What is it today? Uh uh 45.2. Look at that. And so my goal is to increase that delta. So my So when I was 55, I was probably top 5% unhealthiest guys in the country. Yep. When I’m 60, I want to be top 5% healthiest. So I want to my goal is to get that down to like 40 or below.
48:30 Metabolically. I just want to say like that how inspirational people can need to understand that is you went from a guy who was sitting on the doorstep probably near near four or five year death like or at least probably not even that long, right? And you were 55 years old and you started to change. Um and not even at 55 did you start the change, right? It it took you a little bit. You went from being 10 years over your age and then a matter of less than two years. Within two years, you’re now 13 years younger. Yeah. Than your actual age. That’s that’s that’s amazing and inspirational. It’s inspiring to me. Inspiring me. That’s why I love what I do. All right. So, how I usually end this is um we’ll ask rapid questions, 10 questions. The whole point of it is uh no thought process behind it. First thing that comes to mind, uh, no answer. No explanations, just answer. Okay, are you ready? Yep. Um, production floor or corner office?
49:30 Production floor. Yeah, it’s a little meaningful, right? I know what you mean there. Harder quality problem. The steel or the body? Body. All right. This one’s a hard question for me cuz I have feelings on this. Bad data or no data? Bad data. Yeah. Every time, right? Yeah. It’s worse. Makes you make decisions that are uh hard to deal with. Center Diabetes Playbook in one word. Uh maintain. Yeah. One thing your doctor never checked. Fasting insulin. Okay. What breaks first when a high performer starts paying attention? Um focus. Yeah. Your body uh same quality audit as as your production on. Would it have passed two years ago? No. No. No. I’ve had multiple findings. Would would it pass now? Uh yeah, I think I would pass. I think maybe I might have a couple minor non-conformances, but no majors. Gotcha. Okay. Uh I love that. Always
50:32 Still improvement, right? That that six sigma 999.9 percentile, right? Biggest lie men tell themselves about managing a chronic condition. Say that again. Sorry. Biggest lie men tell themselves about managing a chronic condition. That you can’t do it. Yeah. that you need the medicine or them. Someone who just got diagnosed, whether it’s diabetes or anything like that, who’s sitting in a parking lot right now listening to this. What do they need to hear? Put down the whopper in your hand. You know, that’s it. Just just small things first. It can it can be reversed. It can be reversed easy. Like I said, I I just stopped eating bread. Yeah. And that was that’s what started my journey is just don’t eat a slice of bread. Yeah. And now you got a 20 year difference on your age. And that’s impressive. Um, and then the last one, same diagnosis, different standards. What does that mean to you now? Same diagnosis, different standards. Yeah. What does that mean to you now? Phrase that a little bit. Um, up. Yeah. So, let’s just put it this way
51:33 Then. I’m going to ask this in a different way. given everything that you’ve done now and you look back because I know this is gonna be hard for you to answer. What are you most proud of? Uh, I would say I hope what I’m most proud of and I hope it’s true is alleviating stress from my wife’s life that she was going to find me laid out in the front yard from trying to cut grass. It’s as simple as that. And I’m going to do you a little better because I know you a little bit better. Okay. And then um you’re a very good leader. You lead a lot of people, right? And you have a fact on them. And I’m going to say, and I know this to be a factual information, too, that you set an example for a lot of the people that have worked for you to help change their lives. And I know that to be factual, okay, in fact. Um and I think that’s something you should be proud of because you’re not just changing your life. You’ve had effect on other people’s life, not even knowing it most likely. Well, I want to I hope I can. It’s part of the reason why I came out to do this. Yeah. you know, the second the third
52:34 Part of my life. The second third third of my life, you know, start. Yeah. Yeah. I’d like to, you know, I’ I’d like to I’d like to be able to help people. Look, if I could do it, anybody can do it. I agree. Well, I appreciate your time and uh again, thank you for coming. Thanks. Appreciate it. Mark, thank you for this and not just for being here, but for being honest about what it actually looks like to live with this and to fight for something better than what the system was giving you. And here’s what I want you to walk away with. Mark had already had the diagnosis. He had already had the doctors. He was already engaged with the system. And through that experience, he realized the system manages conditions. It is not optimized for your life. When he found a mythology that matched the way he actually thought, that’s when everything changed. Not the diagnosis, but the standard. He stopped settling for management and start demanding precision in his body. It responded. And when he found that mythology that matched the way he
53:35 Thinks, everything changed. Not the diagnosis, the standard. He stopped settling for the standard management and started demanding precision. And his body responded. That is not aging. That is refusing to not rot. If you are sitting there right now with a diagnosis or with a condition, with the doctor who tells you you are fine when you know you’re not fine, this episode was for you. The answer is not trying to try harder. The answer is to demand a better system. Your kids don’t want your money. They don’t want they want you to play with them. And you cannot do that running around with a process that will fail you on your own quality audit. If this hit home, subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever you listen. Share this with the guy who needs to hear it. The guy who has had the diagnosis and is still being told he is fine. Do you know who he is? Send him this episode. And remember, you cannot lead others if you’re running on empty.
54:35 But it starts with you leading yourself. Empower your body and invest in yourself. I’m Zac Armstrong. See you next week. W hey.