Tales from the first tee
Stories about my life experiences and others as I work at one of the premier golf clubs in Charleston, SC. Interviews with golfers around the world that have one thing in common...the pursuit of excellence on a golf course and everything else that happens along the way.
Tales from the first tee
From Dead Nazis to Dynamic Bands: Josh Salzman's Unconventional Fitness Wisdom
Fitness expert Josh Salzman shares his unconventional but highly effective approach to health, healing, and performance through the lens of his philosophy-driven training method. We explore why most fitness approaches fail and how simple changes in thinking, eating patterns, and recovery can transform your physical wellbeing.
• 95% of fitness is mental—how you think, how you eat, how you sleep—only 5% is what you physically do
• Pain can sometimes be a path to healing through proper myofascial release techniques
• Forearm strength is critically overlooked yet essential for preventing injuries and improving performance
• Intermittent fasting gives your gut necessary rest periods and activates healing through ketosis
• Most anti-inflammatory medications and supplements create more problems by damaging gut health
• Sugar acts like "rust" in your body, creating inflammation and preventing healing
• Small muscles make big muscles stronger—focus on often-neglected areas like wrists and forearms
• Alignment and posture issues often begin in the feet and travel up through the entire body
• Recovery is where strength happens, not during training—"you want to get in shape quickly? Start slowly"
For more information or to work with Josh directly, contact him at joshsalzman@gmail.com or look for his upcoming book.
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You're listening to the 97th episode of Tales from the First Tee. I'm your host, rich Easton, telling tales from beautiful Charleston, south Carolina, carolina. Most of my episodes have been about golf or indirectly related to golf. This episode offers you a look into the future of a book that my buddy, josh Salzman, will be publishing in the near future. He and I have spoken about some of his wild and interesting experiences training high-profile clients, celebrities like Angelina Jolie, hugh Jackman, sir Kenneth Branagh, sir Paul McCartney, drug dealers, arm dealers and a dead Nazi.
Speaker 1:In this episode, I pick Josh's brain about fitness and diet. I'm considered an elder tribesman, which means I've lived long enough and experienced the best and not so best of humanity. I've dedicated my working years helping public corporations achieve their quarterly goals. Now that satisfies their board of directors, stockholders and the consumers that bought our products. And along the way, I helped raise a family and got horribly hooked on golf. Golf is an outlet for my frustrations, relationship building and need to compete an outlet for my frustrations, relationship building and need to compete. During the pandemic, I had this brainchild of sharing all of my experiences with the world through this podcast medium, mostly because my girlfriend reaffirmed that a book would just be minimalizing. All of my experiences wouldn't include others and, quite frankly, other than reading a hard copy of the Wall Street Journal every day, I'm not much of a reader, which was her way of basically saying if you don't read, please don't write.
Speaker 1:But first a segment I call what Annoys Me this Week Music. No, it's not Ted Cruz's well-thought-out response to the Texas school shooting Music by suggesting that his state's budget be focused on more effective, gun-proof, heavily locked school doors and windows protected by armed security. According to my research, there are over 5 million students in 1,247 districts in Texas. That would be around 7,500 freestanding buildings with over 75,000 doors and 500,000 windows, and his solution is to terrorist-proof the buildings instead of amending the gun laws. He also wants what would be tantamount to 30,000 mercenary-like trained defenders at the key entrance and exit points, and I think my specific numbers are as well thought out and researched as his solution.
Speaker 1:And no, it's not Marjorie Taylor Greene's obtuse petri dish analysis of the problems in America which reminds me you don't have to be the smartest student in the room to get elected to Congress. You just have to toe the company line and be gutsy enough to represent the thoughts and prayers from your district. I never thought that Trump believed half the things he said, but with Marjorie, I'm convinced that she doesn't need any help writing her own speeches. And no, it's not the Uvalde school chief of police, pete Arredondo, who kept his police force at bay, tackling parents who couldn't stand for the lack of action for over an hour since the shooter entered the building. And it's not tip baiting. On Instacart, too many customers were inserting very large tips when they ordered groceries or food from restaurants to be delivered groceries or food from restaurants to be delivered and then, once the delivery came to their house, they either wiped out the tip or knocked it down much lower.
Speaker 1:They did that to influence the driver into faster, more effective service to get their food quicker and then, once they get their food, food quicker, and then, once they get their food.
Speaker 1:They're like hey, screw you, buddy, and they take their tip away. It's not that and it's not wearing your golf hat backwards. I had a senior golfer tell me the other day how disrespectful of the sport it was for young golfers to flip their caps backwards. I mean, who cares how somebody wears their hat? Who cares how they wear their hair or how they dress on a golf course? Did this guy not remember plaid pants and yellow shirts on the golf course? 30 years ago was the thing. Plus, if you watched the match with the top four star NFL quarterbacks last week, tom Brady wore his hat backwards, and if that's what Tom does, it's good enough for the golf community at large.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to underscore any act of selfishness, blind leadership or boneheaded behavior this week. Instead, out of respect for those who've served and died for our country, I'll talk about what impressed me this week. First, let's talk about sports. If you're a Boston fan, the Celtics are back in the finals up game one after a 40-point run in the fourth quarter of game one. If you're a New York Rangers fan, the Rangers are back in it Up two games against the Lightning, who've won it two years in a row, and on a less popular sport but near and dear to my heart. Less popular sport, but near and dear to my heart NCAA lacrosse, university of Maryland men's lacrosse winning the finals against Cornell to complete an undefeated season. North Carolina Tar Heels women's lacrosse program beating Boston College 12 to 11 in a nail biter. And if you never watched NCAA D1 women's lacrosse, you have to look at Boston College lacrosse. You have to YouTube Charlotte North and see what's possible for women lacrosse players. I watched her play in two playoff games and have never seen an individual performance quite like her Sidearm bullet shots to the top corner while she's in stride. It's a sight to see.
Speaker 1:To me personally, the highlight of the week was Grace Potter at the Windjammer. She is the quintessential rock star. I place her in the same company as Stevie Nicks, joan Jett, pat Benatar, bonnie Raitt, sheryl Crow, except to me she channels music through her entire body better than any diva I've ever seen. I mean sure Grace Look could take an LSD and mushroom-taking crowd on a psychedelic trip. Joan Jett and Pat Benatar can get the crowd to their feet and Janis Joplin can raps the shit out of a song. But Grace has something special that feeds audiences while she feeds off the energy of the crowd. She performed every one of her hits which, by the way, has become a problem for a lot of new artists, who only want to play their new stuff when a musician talks to the way has become a problem for a lot of new artists, who only want to play their new stuff. When a musician talks to the crowd and says something like now I'm going to play a few songs from my new album that's coming out next week, my brain turns off Time to hit the bar of the vape pen. There wasn't a sedentary person in the entire venue when Grace started banging on her keyboards or ripping rock and roll chords on her v-shaped Stratocaster. She has ignited more lady crushes than Zoe Kravitz and Angelina Jolie combined.
Speaker 1:The first time I saw her play was during this 2013 July 4th bash downtown Philadelphia. John Mayer was headlining with the Roots, so I wanted to get down there early enough to get as close to the stage as I can and the beginning act they call out. And now we've got Grace Potter and she walks onto the stage and look, she's attractive to begin with. So you're going to look at her and she walks out with this electric guitar on her shoulder, pulls it around and starts hitting some Jimmy Page-like hard and heavy chords to shock the crowd into a dancing frenzy. From that point on, I vowed to see her anytime she came anywhere near any of the towns I lived in. There's no better way to start off a summer than a Grace Potter performance. That is what was good this week If I was from Paris.
Speaker 3:If I was from Paris, I would say ooh, la, la, la, la, la, la la.
Speaker 1:Josh Salzman has joined me in 11 out of the first 95 episodes and always has something interesting to share.
Speaker 1:I chose fitness and diet as a topic not only because it's what Josh does best, but because, selfishly, during the pandemic, I used food and my new learning of how to cook from greats like Gordon Ramsay and Wolfgang Puck as a coping mechanism, as a way just to get through the unknown of the pandemic.
Speaker 1:And here's a newsflash to all my listeners you do that for a long period of time. You're bound to gain weight, and excess weight just has a way of fucking with your golf swing, not to mention the horrible effects it has long term on your health. I mean, if you feed a mouse a cookie, I think you get it, and I'm guessing I'm not alone in this area. So if you're interested in listening to one of the best in his field and how he approaches his clients, this one, my friends, is for free. That brings up something we had talked about the other day and this is an interesting strategy philosophy. We were talking about reflexology. You were talking about tennis balls on the bottom of your feet and when you get to an area of discomfort, you stay there and you push until the area of discomfort goes away.
Speaker 2:I'd use a hard ball like a baseball, because that's even better than a tennis ball. But, yes, or a rolling pin. Yeah, go ahead, rich.
Speaker 1:But don't like. Do you think we tend to learn to? When you get to an area of discomfort, stop because it's not comfortable. It seems like if there's pain, stop doing whatever you're doing. And so how is this pressing on a pain area until it goes away? It seems to me counterintuitive to everything we've learned growing up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think that's probably true. But I would say this because if you look at most physios, you know, even you know Joseph Pilatus, first of all, was the first kind of osteopath, because he used to see that if there's something wrong with a person's shoulder, then it probably came. He was the first famous one, that's for sure. It probably came from their foot.
Speaker 1:Certain things on the bottom of the feet relate to other parts of the body. I think that's what reflexology is all about, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, they will relate organ wise and they relate to in certain parts of your meridian lines, but they also relate to rich, to posture. So if your foot's, you know, like got a lump on the bottom of it because the muscle is tight, then you're going to roll your foot, which is going to roll your knee, which is going to move your hip in a certain way and tighten your hip flexor you know the top of your quads and then, with your hip flexors are tight, your hips go back and your shoulders come forward. So then you get neck problems and shoulder problems, because posture alignment is the key, as your girlfriend would tell you. You know, yoga is a lot about postures, yeah, and breathing, so. So, but back to the pain thing. The pain thing is there's a difference between a bruise. So if somebody smacks you in a knee or you get need in your thigh, well, that's a bruise. So there's a bruise there. But if there's a tightness from overuse in a certain part of your IT band which runs from your hip to your knee and or your adductor best way to do that, say, if you were.
Speaker 2:I did it to a gentleman today that had a problem because he went out and played soccer. He's 50 something years old and he had this calf. So I had to go right into the calf and then also into the Achilles and also into the bottom of the foot to find those painful parts and then, when they were released, then the healing starts and then he could walk again better. He wasn't limping. So it's basically in that case it's kind of releasing muscles. It's called myofascia release. It's the myofascia needs to be released.
Speaker 2:And what happens? When there's a strain and not a tear but sometimes it could be a small tear the muscle rejoins together and it shortens, which is when you start walking. It hurts and because it's pulling on the nerves right and around that area, it's very, it's very. It's like in your sacroiliac joint, which you know it's the bottom of the spine. There's two little knobs on either side of your tailbone, where we used to have a tail and we used to walk before we started walking upright, that get tight from people sitting too much or biking too much or doing things, that they're tightening up their hip flexors and then when they stand up they feel like they're. You know, one hip is higher than the other and they're kind of limping trying to walk, which might have been your case.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I felt that before, sure yeah.
Speaker 2:So then you put a roller underneath somebody's hips like a foam roller, so you elevate their hips and then you have to. You know, if you're not strong enough, like I am or somebody else's, you have to make sure their trousers or their underwear is down far enough where they can find that little spot near your coxisx. That's really sore and if you push on it, push on it, push on it, it'll release it. It'll be very uncomfortable if your back's sore and then you'll be able to be freed up. Because what happens with your lower spine, your vertebrae one, two, three, four, where most discs get bulged in most people? That's the area that gets very tight because of tight hip flexors, which are the front and they correspondingly tighten up your sacroiliac joint. And chiropractors a lot of times will take you and they'll put you on one of those tables and they'll go. They'll bring one knee over the other and they go click, click, click, click, click. Now that helps because to relieve it. But the major problem is it's like painting the kitchen in many times, when the roof is leaking, the problem is in the tight muscle. The problem is is what the person is doing every day and unless there's a series of exercises that are progressive, and they stay with these exercises, stretching exercises and they address those things on a regular basis. They'll keep going from A to B and back to A again, so to speak.
Speaker 2:It'll never be a relief, though. You know, people go to chiropractors three times a week sometimes, and so some are better than others, and some chiropractors practice a bit of myofascial release and they give you exercises to do, and some just click you and take your cash and you go. You know I mean type of thing lake nona in orlando, where tavistock cup is. I remember going there with ernie and that place was had full of these people. Some were good, some were charlatans that actually played on the fact that a lot of golfers need to get back on the course and they'd pay $200 three times a week for the same treatment that wasn't doing anything other than to give them some relief, but then they'd come back to point A again. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So does massage work on myofascial release if you have a good massage therapist.
Speaker 2:If you have a good masseur but the masseur sometimes masseurs can be like massage by numbers. You know masseur, but the masseur, sometimes masseurs can be like massage by numbers. You go to a spa and they they ask you so where's the problem? And they end up doing the same thing they would do for everybody and they're not strong enough. So they really don't get much and it feels like you're just being, you know, massaged by numbers. Some masseurs are more intuitive and if you know them, like this lady, and she gets to know you, then they go into the spots that they know that are problems and they also give you exercises to do to stick with. So you do things for your rotator cuff of your rotator cuffs give you problems. She will give you, she will give people exercises to prevent this from reoccurring or at least while she's getting you better, she'll make sure that there's a course of action.
Speaker 2:Some people don't pay any attention to those Rich and I don't have to tell you. There's people that they're very good with their cars If they're in a health club and they limp out of their health club after doing a spinning class and their car makes a noise boy, they take it into the garage right away. If their body's limping, they'll go. Well, boy, they take it into the garage right away.
Speaker 1:If their body's limping, they'll go oh yeah, I'm just limping. It's like the guy who spends $550 on a driver instead of taking a few lessons or instead of doing all the things for their body that they need to do. Look, a new driver is more sexy than all the work that it takes. So let's talk a little bit about the work. So you and I talked last time and we didn't. This is the session I wanted to produce.
Speaker 1:It's really about the work that people have to do to be in shape for just regular life and or sports, right. So you find sometimes you'll a client will hire you and they're hiring you because something along the way has probably gone wrong. When they were younger they might've been really athletic, they might've been, you know, whatever that is. They might find you because a series of events that have happened over time, it's just gotten progressively worse. So tell me, like when you meet a new client and you know is, the first thing you do is talk to them about, you know, get their thoughts on what's ailing them, what they think is wrong, and then you start doing your physical Joshatron manipulations to figure out what you think the real problem is. You know, take us through it.
Speaker 2:I go through a protocol of a few things. One, I ask them how they're sleeping. Two, I ask them if they've had any injuries and I listen to the injuries. And sometimes the injuries aren't injuries, they're just tight muscles that are causing that discomfort, right. But sometimes there's a history of an injury there that needs to be addressed, like the person had a skiing accident, you know, and they never really went through the whole physio thing and we've got to, like you know, retroactively call this back.
Speaker 2:Usually it has to do with as long as the person has, you know, still both limbs, and I've had people without limbs that I've worked with and people with cerebral palsy that I've worked with, which you know everyone's a snowflake, everyone's different, that you know. You know that you know people fit into categories. So even the person's a professional athlete, they're going to have the same back problems that you and I would have, or Mrs Cohen would have if she's not stretching enough, right, but you have to. So then, after you listen to all these things like what's the sleep like, what's their food like, what is their activity like, or lack of activity like, so to speak, what do they do every day, then you take them through a series of exercises that you know. That will show you what I do is I put them on their side. You know this clamming up where somebody raises their leg in a clam.
Speaker 1:Sure yes.
Speaker 2:And so you know it's like a clam and it's working your outer thigh, so I'll put my hand on there the person is capable of doing that and I'll push that area there and I'll be the man of resistance while they're doing this. Jane Fonda leg lift, I'll be giving them resistance on it or I'll take them through a bicep exercise, depending on who they are for. So, because sometimes you have to show the person that you can do things with your hands, because they can't believe that you can do it, and some of these guys, like I, put something on my post today. This guy that's like this ex rugby player that's now, you know, pretty fit guy I saw that with all the awards.
Speaker 2:I saw your post today, yeah yeah, yeah, so he, you know, I had to show him that I could. I could train him really as harder than he would be training in a gym, just to get his confidence, just so he wouldn't think that he's pussying out with this guy that's 20 years older than him or whatever I am, and and that I'm supplying the resistance a lot of it with my hands, except for pushups and things like that. So, so sometimes you have to prove that you can do this, but you don't want to prove it in a way that you're slaughtering the guy, because the worst thing that happens with really highly qualified you know, supposedly qualified gym people go to the gym, they train the guy, the guy starts sweating, or the woman starts sweating. For three days they can't walk. You know what I mean after the initial session.
Speaker 2:So you have to work with a philosophy of exercise and a philosophy of well-being rather than a set of exercises, because the exercises change according to where they are and it's the philosophy that doesn't change. So the philosophy is this Ninety five percent of fitness is in your head how you think, how you eat and how you sleep. Five percent is what you do, or 10 percent at max, but five percent usually is what you're doing physically and some of those things you do every day. But how you think will dictate first of all if you're going to do anything, if you're going to be disciplined, how you eat. Food is a is is medicine and it can be, and food can be, it can aggravate issues, so, for instance. So, so back. So you know we're talking about the exercise.
Speaker 2:So I was taken through a series of exercises, but I'll make sure that the exercise that I'm showing them, that they'll go wow, I really feel that muscle.
Speaker 2:I've never felt that muscle like that, because they'll get on a, they'll do like kettlebells or something like that, and they're not working that specific muscle right. They're not getting that one specific muscle working and as you look at smaller muscles, they make the bigger muscles get stronger. So you have to work the wrists of people, the forearms of people, and what you find is nobody works their forearms, both the top of the form and the bottom of the form, because that's half of your arm and whether you're a man or a woman, if you don't have a grip, if you put your hand down for a yoga position or you try to do a pushup, that pressure, if you can't absorb it in your hand or your forearm, it's going to go quickly to that tricep and to that chest and you're not going to get many repetitions out of it and then, worst of all, you can hurt yourself. And in today's age, where I have young people that are 13 years old that I work with, they already have hand issues from texting too much and going on Instagram too much.
Speaker 1:You know it's interesting. You say the forearm and you said this the other day when we were talking and I think about all of the times, all of the hours I used to spend in a gym. It's far less now because I'm outside doing other things, but I see people doing bicep curls, I see people doing bench presses, I see people doing things that are not working on their forearms.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and if you know, in wrestling and lacrosse, so much of what you do with that stick is flipping around with your wrists and as we get older, rich. The truth is, scandinavians tend to do these surveys more than Americans do, because they're really into this stuff, and all my Swedish clients tend to be really into this stuff. Is that grip strength? They've done a survey of 20,000 Scandinavians or 30,000, and they found that people with the best grip strength when they go into their 70s, 60s, 70s and 80s, have a better quality of life.
Speaker 1:Do you ever use those stress balls for people to press down on? Is that something that works people's wrists and their forearms?
Speaker 2:They'll work a bit, but you're better off using a DynaBand. And what we can do Rich for your listeners out there, is maybe on the website we can send. We can do some taping, I can do some taping or I could do some pictures and send them to you and you can put them on the site. But what it is is basically you take a dinoban right like you take. The dinobans usually come in like red, yellow, green, yellow boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it.
Speaker 3:There's um shrimp kebabs, shrimp, creole shrimp, gumbo pan fried, deep fried, fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut, shrimp pepper, shrimp cave shrimp, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, cave shrimp. That's about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you're sitting in a straight back position either on a stability ball or on a comfortable chair and you just drape it underneath your foot and then you take the other end of the DynaBand and you grip it into your hand and you place one arm with the elbow down the elbow has to stay down and the wrist is just ahead of your knee and you just go up and down with that Dyynaband and actually you do try to do really high repetitions, both the overhand grip and the underhand grip, until it really gets you. You want to get up to what you find is the first time you start doing dynabands. Even my son, zach, who works for the Canadian health department he's 38 years old, he's pretty pumped up, he's got. He didn't have any forearm strength, he found cause. I said how many of these can you do, son, with a red Dynaban? And he can only do 30. Before he started aching I said no, you better do 180 of these. You better do 180. Got it.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant. That's so different than um most anything I've heard before for fitness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's the movement rich, because you can get these squeezy things. You know these things. You squeeze, but you want full range movement. So you want to have your wrist just over your knee. Or, if you're using a bench at a gym, you grab a lighter weight and you keep with one hand unless you're using a barbell, you try to keep your elbows down and you want to keep that elbow down with that wrist just ahead on the. You're kneeling on the floor and it's just on the other side of the bar or the bench. So you let that wrist drop and raise it up as high as you can. You don't do quick, you do really slow as high as you can until it's actually burning. And then, to make sure that you're going to stay away from the golfer's elbow, you take your thumb of your other hand and you stick it on the inside of your elbow and what you'll find is you probably a lot of people with the arm straight will find a spot that is really sore and it's connected to your thumb. So you move your thumb when you're doing this and then the other side it's usually near the top where your tennis elbow would be and you go up and down with your wrist. It prevents carpal tunnel to this stuff. And then you find the spot where you dig in with the other hand and you find a little spot where it's really uncomfortable and you play the piano with your fingers and you make your fingers move as much as you can. So thumb is usually connected to the inner elbow, the golfer's elbow and the other four fingers. If you have four fingers which you haven't had any accidents or something like that, because people don't always have five fingers yeah, you move your fingers like it's you're playing the piano, but most people never really stretch their hands.
Speaker 2:The other thing you can do which this is a really good exercise is, if you don't have things, you take a rubber band, a decent rubber band, you wrap it around like a closed fist and you you spray the rubber band open all the time you know. So you basically got a closed fist and you, you spray the rubber band open all the time you know. So you basically got a closed fist and you put your rubber band in a position. So then when you open your hand up to an open position, you're using the rubber band as a resistance. Yeah, and hand. A lot of people have, you know these trigger tendons happen after uses, years of using typewriters as we used to use, or writing. You know they get writer's hands, yeah, but the thing about it, the truth of matter, is most people will treat it with a leave or advil or um, you know, um ibuprofen and and other forms of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories steroids. Let's see who else we got here.
Speaker 4:Oh, adderall. Is that you Adderall, buddy? I haven't seen you since college. Everybody Adderall the only drug that makes you stay up all night so you can't have fun. Yeah, and opium. How the hell did you hear about this Telegram? And look, shrooms is here, kind of hey Ecstasy, give him a poke, make sure he's still alive. I said poke, not a full body cavity, sir Jesus. Thank God somebody tossed that kid a glow stick or something, but seriously Weed. I don't know what we'd do without you, besides, move out of our parents' basement, which they've just said over here.
Speaker 2:Finally, after 20 years of me knowing this, or 30 years of me knowing this because of my case of ulcerative colitis, they eat up your tissues. They eat up your stomach tissue. This stuff, right, it's a quick fix.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's a quick fix, like a lot of things are here, you know it will stop the pain. It doesn't fix the problem, but it will allow you to do if you're not doing these things that you're talking about for rehab. It allows you temporarily to do those things you like to do with less pain, so you can perform, and then you just worry about it later.
Speaker 4:You know you deal with it again.
Speaker 1:Right, but but what? You're saying is that that comes at a cost.
Speaker 2:That comes at a cost. But always remember this for your listeners out there your gut, your stomach, is a mirror for the rest of your body. So why we say that? Because if you use non-steroidal anti-inflammatories that go into your gut, they're going to affect your gut. Whatever affects your gut is going to affect your muscles, right, because your muscles feed off of your gut. Your gut has to digest food. It has to give it nutrients. So with that, if you eat too much sugar, sugar is an inflammatory thing. So if you have a back problem where you have achy muscles or you've injured yourself, cut the sugar down completely, cut the sodium down completely. We joked upon the last podcast that I had just finished, the Chinese with Sir Kenneth Brown. I don't eat Chinese food because a lot of it's got a lot of sodium in it, right, and it's got a lot of sugar in it hey, what about beer?
Speaker 2:I think the beer is easier than say spirit sometimes, because spirits are usually mixed with Coca-Cola and cranberry juice that's got a lot of sugar in it, or ginger ale.
Speaker 1:Ginger ale and grape juice. Yeah sure.
Speaker 2:And grape juice and all this stuff in that form, not pure grape juice. None of you get really good grape juice, not if you get great, great cranberry juice. But you can get the real crappy stuff. That's just like off the bar where you say I want to. You know, cranberry vodka or something like that, a Cape Cod or whatever it is, and they usually use really crappy sugary drinks that basically will cause inflammation. So the sugar is like a rust. It rusts you and this is why your listeners should think what I do in the morning once I get my every morning because I intermittent fast.
Speaker 1:Well, stop right there. Intermittent fasting I think that's a horrible marketing term. By the way, my son just flew in town yesterday and we saw each other and he intermittent fasts. Right, he's very healthy, he's very fit. I mean, his thing is, when he's on the road he's like insanity or P90X, which I think he's ruined his body. But he looks good. He just has some shoulder issues but he eats very well. And he's talking about intermittent fasting and I'm like well, tell me what you think it is. And he's like you've got eight hours a day to eat, eight consecutive hours. You pick the eight hours.
Speaker 1:For him it's 11 in the morning till seven at night and he goes once you get past those hours you don't eat, so your body could burn fat and I'm thinking why didn't they call it eight-hour eating? Why didn't they call it something else? That is what you can do instead of the thing you can't do, like fasting, is you can't eat during these hours. You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Well, I would say we got to rename it.
Speaker 2:Well, that's kind of like saying diets are deprivation and really eating right is discipline Right. Discipline is is a better term because you're disciplining yourself. Intermittent fasting is you're taking time and I get what you're saying, but the idea of intermittent fasting is twofold, is threefold or fourfold, Really One. Your gut needs a break Now. We used to always get up in the morning as little children and think like you gotta have your Wheaties right, you gotta have your cereal, you gotta pour that big bowl of Corn Flakes. No, you don't.
Speaker 1:So is breakfast not the most important meal of the day?
Speaker 2:No, it's not as a matter of fact what happens. That's a big misnomer. Now, I wouldn't agree with this for everybody, because there's some people like my mom and there's some people that are on certain medications and they have mental health issues, that they have to eat something else. They can't take what they need to take. But for the healthiest, healthier person, a normal person, the idea of intermittent fasting goes like this it's giving your gut a break so it rests, like the rest of your body, and the classic thing with intermittent fasting is better to be able to make sure that your bowels are completely empty every day.
Speaker 2:And then the first thing you put in it is because how you empty your bowels usually it's with a caffeinated pre-workout drink, or just you know a couple double espressos, right, or a double espresso, and then you get your bowels open. And then you pre-workout drink, or just you know a couple double expressos, right, or double expresso, and then you get your bowels open. And then you the best thing to do after that and I'm not sure if your son does it or not, but he sounds like you should because of his shoulders is have if you can, and then this will say well, this couldn't isn't necessarily good for your teeth, but I don't think it bothers your teeth if you do it right is lemon water. So you squeeze a lemon in hot water and you take the whole juice down with the hot water mixed in with hot water, and that alkalizes your gut. The next thing that I do is to take some oils, and the oils I happen to take are made from some lab that tests my blood tests and they give me the right omega-3 and 6.
Speaker 6:Oh, she came home one day with essential oils. Have you heard of this? A box of bullshit. It's a box of bullshit. And then it gives you a book to tell you what the bullshit is. She was all excited. Look what I got. Now I can heal us. I have rosemary tangerine lavender. Now we can sleep. I get the flu. Right, I got the flu. This one pulls her book out. Tell me what you got. Tell you what. Why don't you go to CVS and get me some NyQuil? Harry Potter, I don't need a potion woman, I need medicine. What are you a witch? Good, get on your broom, go to CVS and get me some NyQuil.
Speaker 2:So that's all that's in my gut until, say, for instance, I finished eating. Now I go longer than your son does. Sometimes I go for like 20 hours, sometimes fasting, right, so I don't eat. And then when I do eat, I start with a vegetable-based protein shake. So I'm not having whey protein which is from dairy, I have like pea protein or hemp protein and with that I have turmeric in there, I have ginger, I have all kinds of fruit, and in its raw form it doesn't raise your insulin levels. And the blended form, if you cook fruit, it's a different kettle of fish. It turns into the same thing that you know fructose and sucrose does. But so then when you put all those fresh fruits in because I start with fruit-based you end up getting all the vitamins absorbed.
Speaker 2:I don't take vitamins, I don't take vitamin C. In fact, vitamin C has caused a lot of stomach issues, right, because people in the 70s and 80s took too much vitamin C. Take another thing of vitamin C it rots your gut. Vitamin C, a lot of vitamins, aren't good for you. You have to know your vitamins Just to walk into a health food shop and empty the flipping place. A lot of that stuff can be very toxic for you, and even the non-fat soluble, the water soluble ones, can be very toxic as well, because your gut doesn't need this. So by giving your gut a break, it creates ketosis, which is the usage of fat she's on keto now.
Speaker 5:We've tried paleo, we've tried Atkins, now we're on keto. She wants to get into ketosis. That's fine with me. I got cookies in my office in the basement, I don't know. I'm telling you I can't keep up with the food anymore. Anyway. Gmo, non-gmo. You know we had food, didn't we, sir? We had food. That's when we were growing up food and you ate it because kids were starving in China. That's all you knew. Eat that. There's a kid in China starving? Oh, he's not getting my food. Now it's GMO, non-gmo. Organic, non-organic gluten, gluten-free kale. I never saw kale in my life until Tammy went on keto. Now it's ubiquitous. It's all over my house. You can't put enough ranch dressing on kale to make it taste good.
Speaker 2:But when you use ketosis, ketosis, or fat, is a very good healer, so you can heal faster. So a lot of MMA guys when they want to gain weight or lose weight, they'll go on fasting in order to heal their injuries and also to see how their bodies absorb glucose. Their nutritionists will do that. Their finely tuned nutritionists will say okay, so if you want to gain weight, we'll do this. If you want to lose weight, we'll do this. And guys like Frank Zane and Herschel Walker, for instance guys like that. You know Herschel Walker, the famous football player, frank Zane, the famous bodybuilder from 70. He doesn't eat. Frank Zane doesn't eat till like five o'clock in the afternoon. You know what I?
Speaker 1:mean, I used to have this guy when I was in Chicago. We decided to finish our basement and, you know, create some kind of you know TV room and stuff like that. So the guy who did it only ate one meal a day and he ate at six o'clock at night. Now let me tell you, he'd get there first thing in the morning because this guy was the greatest worker ever. He did the entire basement in under 30 days. It was really great.
Speaker 1:But what happened was he'd get there in the morning and he's really industrious. He had a cup of coffee right. So then he's working. He doesn't take a lunch break, nothing by four o'clock in the afternoon because he worked for two more hours. You didn't want to be around him because he lost. He had a horrible temper. He loses everything. I, you know. I remember he was finishing the basement or on the last few days, and I'm in there and I think I'm trying out this media system that I had put together and I'm starting to listen to stereo. I think I was listening to the Grateful Dead or something like that to see how it sounded and he was still working and he's thinking look, I'm working all day. I'm working from eight in the morning until six o'clock at night. This guy comes in and sits in this seat and turns on his stereo. He got so pissed he just came up to me and threw the bill at me and he goes this will give you something to do.
Speaker 6:So it's like if you eat once a day and it's late in the afternoon.
Speaker 1:Just stay away from people for the last few hours.
Speaker 2:I would just. I would just say it shouldn't do that supposed to be this guy sounds like he wasn't really. You know, it shouldn't make people like that. It could have been, he was eating shitty.
Speaker 1:He could have been eating like a double pizza with sausage and all kinds of stuff at night.
Speaker 2:It could have been bad food. Yeah, yeah, we went to KFC, where we call it over here. Can't find the chicken, okay.
Speaker 1:So you're talking about all these things. Your gut needs a break. You empty. You're talking about all these things the your gut needs a break. You empty your bowels. Lemon water, oils, vegetable-based smoothies where does the fun eating?
Speaker 2:come in like the going out to eat yeah, the fun eating comes in right after that. So then you eat whatever you want, and so I don't stay to this, this really militant 11 to 7 thing window. I know that if tonight, for instance, I watch a soccer game or a football game next door with my friends and I'll have a beer or some nuts, and I don't have that at 930 at night, maybe I'll come back and have a protein bar because I got the munchies from smoking a reefer on the way back, or something like that Right right.
Speaker 1:But you're pretty disciplined about your eating, aren't you?
Speaker 2:Yes, but I am, but I'll stop. But then if I have my last meal at 9.30 at night or last thing to eat, then I won't eat tomorrow until like 2.30. You know what I'm saying? I don't stick to this kind of like regimen, but the basic thing I've been doing for the last two and a half to almost three years now is this intermittent fasting and I fasting and I never felt better. It's an easy way to lose body fat because if the more muscle you have in your body, the more your metabolic rate gets geared up and so the more fat you'll burn during your, during your fasting, if you want to call it. And you, you got to get past that. Most people got to get past that stage where they go gosh, I got to have something to eat. So your brain you know the Pavlov's dogavlogs dog, the the thing rings the bell rings salivate you and the dog salivates yeah so.
Speaker 2:So you got to get past that kind of thing. Where, gosh, I got this bio clock that's telling me at 10 o'clock I gotta have, you know, smashed avocado with, with scrambled eggs, that kind of thing, and and then you go a little longer and you'll notice that you can do it. Now, yum kippur is a dawdle. I wouldn't want to do Ramadan, but you know, 30 days, but but I'll do Yom Kippur pretty easy. These days where I used to, kind of cause, I used to think I got to eat something, I got to eat something, I got to see, or we, you know, we had this kind of philosophy. You knowth birthday and you're slightly ahead of me. I want to have a six pack and since I moved into this place I've gotten a little bit, not lazy, but because I'm, I'm not. So I got my adrenaline pumping and I'm sleeping better and you know, things have settled down, with grandchildren and all the issues that I had over last year with my son-in-law passing away and then not having a place to live. You know, because something fell through, you know, your adrenaline stops and then you, you know, your body goes OK, let's just, you know, let's put on a couple pounds so I don't have a, I have a four pack. I don't have a six pack right now, but I had a six pack during, you know, filming for Super 8. But now I'm going to have a six pack again cause I got it all planned for my birthday. But the point I'm making is it's easier with the intermittent fasting and I don't hold back. Like I'll have ice cream Sometimes, I'll have pizza, I'll have a couple of beers I don't have more than a couple of beers and I don't have more than a couple of vodkas. But it isn't the vodka that bothers me, it's the cranberry juice, actually, if it's too sweet. So that makes my muscles feel stiff because I notice the sugar. But the idea of the intermittent fasting again, ketosis is a very good healer. So what happens? Your body fat will help heal muscles and everything else. And back to the healing process with ketosis and everything.
Speaker 2:If you keep your alignment right, rich, and if you keep your blood clean because you're not putting anti-inflammatories in it and you eat well and you don't eat too much sugar and you eat healthy, you know healthy, nutritious food and you still have your pizza, because pizza could be really healthy. Man, you don't have to have unhealthy pizza. You can have like pizza with egg on it and chicken on it. You can have broccoli on it, spinach on it. You can be really healthy. But if you, if you keep things open and your blood's clean tissues can heal, so cartilage can heal, tears can heal Rather than going to see a surgeon for a rotator cuff problem.
Speaker 2:You can open things up and if you keep it open, you keep working it, they can actually repair. You can repair your own cartilage. Severe pulls and severe twists and severe rips no, you can't, but small ones that a lot of people just end up getting aching. And so what happens with? You know the rotator cuff, like your son's talking about shoulders, a lot of that stuff, that PX90 and all that kind of stuff. That's crazy shit, you know. I mean I could throw the piano out of the house, the third floor window, and try to catch it, and that might work. My biceps could also just crash, crush me. You know what I mean. So there's a lot of fucking stupid shit. Exercise like cross training. I never heard more people in cross training with knee pads and bad elbows oh sure yeah there's a difference, you know.
Speaker 2:So what the fuck?
Speaker 1:man, it's over the top you want to do stupid shit.
Speaker 2:You know, go join Cirque du Soleil. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Here's what I find with people that are around. Well, first of all, I see the like weekend warriors people in their 30s, 40s, 50s that are in a very busy career, try and get as much in as they can on weekends, right, when they can. And then what I'm the weekend warriors. And then weekend warriors. And then I see a lot of injuries. And now when I'm seeing people in their retirement ages, I find like a lot of people are relaxing, they're going out to dinner a lot, they're done with their cooking, they are, you know guys, my buddies who are golfing. You know they're getting a hot dog at the turn, they're having a few drinks, a few vodkas or maybe a few beers, either when they're playing or right after.
Speaker 1:And I just find that all these things we're talking about probably translate to a healthier, better life, but it seems to be, to a lot of people I've seen lately, counter to the way they're living their lifestyle. Yeah, and when I say they, it's present company included. I'm part of that as well. So it's almost like people need to make a concerted effort. Either they know of somebody who's gotten into bad health because of bad habits, or it happens to them for them to like wake up and say I need a Joshatron, I need the Josh's mentality of a healthy life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's true, rich, and a lot of it comes down to how people are thinking about themselves, and so you go to hypnotherapists to stop smoking and all this other stuff, but what you got to come down to is why would a person, right this weekend warrior, want to have a personal trainer if he's 55 years old, or even 45 years old that's 25 years old that the 25-year-old doesn't have any children. He has three children, he has a tough relationship with his wife, he's a corporate athlete and he gets the shit kicked out of him with kettlebells, right, and he hurts himself, right. So the point of it is is that don't you like yourself? And what I would say to my clients working with a philosophy?
Speaker 2:I would say to people when I do seminars you want to get in shape quickly, start slowly, because you don't get stronger when you train. You get stronger when you recover from training. So the classic thing where you see I see it now outside my window here, though it's a nice evening in England and all these people have got a little bit of extra Milwaukee tumors and a little bit more. They're going south in the tush and some are only 30, 25 years old and they're running and they look like they're dying.
Speaker 2:They absolutely look like they're killing themselves or they're in a little pink outfit and they're get their little bicycles out and they're riding about 20 miles in the best gear, so they're not really pushing it and they end up at the cafeteria having a cake. So now they're eating a thousand calories of cake and they've only peddled off like 250 calories. But they think they look smart in their little pink, little Tour de France outfit, right.
Speaker 1:Look, if you've come to my podcast, it's not necessarily to look for ways to change your eating habits. I mean, there are countless websites, books, organizations that you could join for that if you choose. But here's the thing my buddy, josh, has made a living out of helping people make changes to help them help themselves. And at this point in time, this podcast is free Free from advertisement, free from subscription fees for now. So not all advice is worth nothing because you didn't happen to pay for it. If you invest your time to listen, that's a commodity you can't get back. And if you want to learn more from Josh, he can be reached at joshsalzman at gmailcom. J-o-s-h dot S-A-L-Z-M-A-N-N at gmailcom. Or you could wait to buy his book when it's published, or you could email him and set up a consultation or series of sessions to help you get back on track and help yourself. You've been listening to another episode of Tales from the First Tee. I'm your host, rich Easton, telling tales from beautiful Charleston, south Carolina. Talk to you soon.