Dean Pohlman: Hey guys, it’s Dean welcome to the Better Man podcast. I have Thomas S here today to talk about his health and wellness journey. Thomas is a relatively new member of man for yoga, but that’s exactly why I wanted to have him on the podcast. Because you don’t have to be doing this stuff for years and years to notice results.
Dean Pohlman: So, Thomas, thank you for being here.
Thomas S: Thank you very much for having me. Pretty excited to hear me do.
Dean Pohlman: So let’s start off with, your kind of your OSHA moment. What was it that caused you to go looking for a solution, like man, for yoga or to start thinking about your health and wellness differently?
Thomas S: Yeah, I’ve had a couple, I guess, incidents some more impactful than others. But I think the final straw for me was I had gotten on, so many different medications that one morning I was looking at my hand full of medications, and I thought, if I’m having to do this at 47, which I was at the time, what’s it going to be like when I’m 67?
Thomas S: Like, I’ll be having to take this handful of pills like five times a day. And I just I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to be that person. I didn’t want to be so reliant on, on drugs. And not that I have any issue with that. They’re very helpful. But, it’s just there’s ways to avoid that.
Thomas S: And that’s when I started really getting serious about, seeking out, personal health and wellness. Initiatives.
Dean Pohlman: Yeah. All right. So you were 47. How old are you now?
Thomas S: I turned 50 next summer, so I’m 49 right now.
Dean Pohlman: Okay, cool. So you’re about, a little over two years or between 2 to 3 years in your health and wellness journey. What was the first thing you did, when you started that process?
Thomas S: Yeah. So even even before that, I was diagnosed in 2020 as a type two diabetic. And, so initially I decided, okay, I’m going to start eating healthy. And I started walking a lot more. But that was the extent of the exercise I was doing. And walking’s absolutely phenomenal for, for weight loss and, you know, regulating a lot of your, your, your systems, as long as you are having a healthy diet.
Thomas S: Yeah. Glad.
Dean Pohlman: You mentioned that, because walking is like, that’s the number one workout in the world. Maybe gardening. Gardening might be number one, but walking in is like way up there.
Thomas S: Yeah. And and good for the mental health to be if you’re like, you know, just taking the time to like, be silent like. Yes. And think you.
Dean Pohlman: I’m not on one of these.
Thomas S: Exactly. Or listening to heavy metal or anything like that. Right. Yeah.
Dean Pohlman: I got those people in my neighborhood. They walk around, like, listening to heavy metal. I’m like, that doesn’t. That doesn’t seem fun. But they’re like, they’re into it.
Thomas S: I see the heavy metal for my workouts and stuff. So.
Dean Pohlman: Yes. Yes.
Thomas S: So, yeah, so had, And so that was January of 2020. And of course, within, a few months, the world was shutting down. And, as, as tragic as the pandemic was for a lot of, people in communities, I did use it to my advantage, you know, working from home to, to kind of focus a lot on, you know, the mental health and the physical health side of things.
Thomas S: And for a couple of years, things, things were going really well. My, my agency went from over nine, to within four months. It was down in the mid fives and and kept it on average above 5.6 for, for a couple of years. But then, you know, as time goes on, the world starts opening up again.
Thomas S: You become social again, which involves restaurants and eating and, you know, and alcohol for social events and that type of thing. And, you know, you’re back at work, the stresses there and the pounds start packing on again and the blood sugar starts, starts going up. And even though I avoided a lot of those, those medicines that I had referred to before because of of that, I ended up, I ended up on those, those meds.
Thomas S: Quite a few.
Thomas S: And so the first thing after that, was looking around to see, you know, what, what does someone my age do to, get healthy again. And before, you know, finding mental yoga, even though I only started man for yoga a few months ago, I had heard of it and done some of it in the past.
Thomas S: And that’s because, the first thing I came to was, Doctor Anthony Valdez’s stepfather project. I know he’s a he’s a friend of the mental health community.
Dean Pohlman: Great guy.
Thomas S: Yeah. So, I joined that near the end of, 2022, but, you know, it is a lot of a lot of information. And I needed kind of time to process that. And I think part of my entitled mindset was, you know, just being and I see this with a lot of people who who initially join, is that just being signed up and part of it, you hope by osmosis that things, things are just going to, you know, the pounds are going to start falling off because you don’t you paid some money to join a group kind of thing.
Thomas S: Right. And that’s not reality. Right. So. Yeah. So by May of, of that year, because I live in a northern, northern climate, I’m in on Ontario, Canada. Okay. You know, the the days start to get longer, the snow goes away, and then it, that becomes more, more easy, more, you know, natural to kind of be out and about.
Thomas S: So started, following the fit father, meal plan first. That that the whole fit father plan focuses first on. Kind of like why are you doing this? It doesn’t just drive you right into exercise and working out. So with that first you kind of settle on what your whys are.
Dean Pohlman: And yeah, so.
Thomas S: Importation into, you know, getting you part of the community there.
Dean Pohlman: What’s what was your why. What did you figure out.
Thomas S: So my initial why was that? I just felt like I was on track to be dead in 20 years. And, I thought I just had more to to give to the the world. Whether that’s, like, my wife and kids close by or just, you know, community wise or, or, you know, whoever in the future that I haven’t even met yet that I can help because I, I like to, like to be a helper.
Thomas S: I like to, you know, educate people who, who need help learning skills and stuff like that. So. Yeah. So, yeah. So another initially it was another.
Dean Pohlman: Quick follow up question there. So, you know, there’s a lot of guys like you who really enjoy giving and being of service. Did you find it hard to prioritize self-care?
Thomas S: I did like most, most men who are our fathers. They, you know, you get into a career mindset, you get into a, parenting mindset, you get into the okay, my starter house, and then I’m on to my next bigger house and renovation plans because I want my family to be comfortable and just all those things that, make you set your own personal health and wellness aside.
Thomas S: Obviously, that’s not the case for everybody, but I, I think culturally, that’s where, men are in North America right now. And, but when I started, you know, trying to focus on myself, I think I was in a place where my kids were a bit older. It was like, not I wasn’t in desperation mode, but it was like, every for however long I pushed this off.
Thomas S: That’s that’s taking time off the back end, for sure. Undoubtedly. Especially after being diagnosed with type two. So, it wasn’t exceptionally hard, to get into it at first. Now I’m not. And we’ll probably get into this more later. I’m not going to say that it wasn’t a challenge to always stick to it. I’ve had some some failures.
Thomas S: I’ve had some setbacks. But being part of that Fit Father Project community and I can see the same thing in the man flow yoga community. Like, there’s no judgment and you’re always welcome back. Like, it doesn’t doesn’t matter if you’ve been gone for a year and things fell apart. Like you can come back and say, hey, this is where I’ve been for the last year.
Thomas S: And like, I really I need help to get back. And there’s a, community of people just like you who, without judgment, are like, yeah, come on, let’s let’s go. What do you need? So so that’s been very helpful. So, so it wasn’t really a tough transition on the grand scale of things. But you are still changing your lifestyle right.
Thomas S: And I’ve tried in the past to do that and and failed because it wasn’t really a holistic approach, whether it’s, you know, the fad diets or, you know, whatever it might be. Right. So, yeah. Yeah.
Dean Pohlman: So as you’re going through so the first struggle that you had or the first, you know, big challenge for yourself was working with method or project. You found your why. What were you know. So the first things that you were doing was was it was it walking more. Was it dialing in your nutrition. What was it that you working on initially?
Thomas S: Yeah. So after the Y. Fit father focuses on dialing in your nutrition. So I got that down and started walking again. Just to kind of like.
Dean Pohlman: Let’s talk about can we talk about nutrition a little bit? So what were some of the big changes that you made to nutrition?
Thomas S: I think the the biggest things were just honestly trying to cut out the garbage foods. And, you know, I’m talking like, a lot of, carb based snacking. I’m not anti carb in any way, but there’s a lot of garbage carbs out there. Sugary stuff. You know, when the, you know, we’re we’re filming this not long after Halloween.
Thomas S: And when we, when the kids would come home from from getting all the Halloween stuff, there’d be a candy tax for dad at the door where, you know, a certain kind of candy had to be, Yeah. Right. And then instead of, you know, I’m a part of my, part of my challenge, and I’m just finding out.
Thomas S: In the last couple of years is that I’ve been diagnosed with adult ADHD. And what comes with that is, you know, it’s a bit of a they call it an executive dysfunction disorder, or, you know, you have trouble regulating dopamine. And, so for me, binging was one of those sources of getting that dopamine hit or, you know, other unhealthy behaviors.
Thomas S: Right? Because, you’re just always looking for that, that dopamine hit. So instead of like, oh, I got my candy tax and I’ll spread it out over the next while. It would be destroyed before I went to bed that night. Right. It just, you know, and difficult stopping. So, you know, I admit I’m like a recovering binge eater, to, you know, from that, from that extent.
Thomas S: So, like, not, I wouldn’t say like, it’s an anorexic type type situation. I don’t want to minimize people who have, those kind of issues. But, you know, as far as kind of mindless, uncontrolled eating just to kind of stimulate yourself, you know, stimming, whether it’s, you know, a bag of chocolate almonds or a big bag of, you know, popcorn that’s got caramel and salt on it or whatever, just that, that activity, so easy for me mindlessly to, to destroy the whole thing.
Thomas S: So, so those kind of behaviors is where I started to focus in more and over the last couple of years, working with my doctors, understanding and crystallizing like, okay, this this is this is an ADHD issue, inattentive ADHD. I wasn’t you know, I grew up at a time you probably did too, where someone who was ADHD was a hyperactive kid in class, and I was never hyperactive.
Thomas S: And that’s not really what ADHD is. It’s more of an executive dysfunction, dopamine regulation type, type issue. And it manifests different with different people. So, so that’s so that area of nutrition focused on I’ve always been good at having healthy meals. And my wife’s a great cook. You know, in fact, it’s the it’s the food eating in between, right.
Thomas S: So, like, every night demolishing either a bag of Doritos or a whole bunch of ice cream or. Yeah, you know.
Dean Pohlman: So it’s so let’s talk a little bit about that because it sounds like you had, you know, you know, ADHD related learning about that, recognizing that you, you binged as a result of that with the the dopamine deficit, how did you, what did you do when you felt those cravings as you’re making this adjustment period? Right.
Dean Pohlman: That’s the hardest part is when you’re doing something new and making changes. So what did you do when you had those cravings and didn’t satisfied? And did you have a particular, you know, process for for dealing with that?
Thomas S: I’ve tried a few processes. There’s lots of tips and tricks. I even had a few, I’d say six, zoom calls with a, with a psychologist, specializing with binge eating. You know, they had a lot of great suggestions. Didn’t necessarily work for me. I think what’s helped is focusing on the source of it. And that’s that’s the dopamine.
Thomas S: And, trying to find other ways to, to generate that more healthily. And so, you know, when I’m trying something new, obviously the first six months it’s new. So you’re, you’re, you’re starting to get those hits. So, you know, by the time, June of 20, 23 rolls around, I’m starting to actually execute these, the fifth order project, exercise strategies, you know, they go in, in phases and so and, and, you know, interacting with the community and that’s fulfilling it.
Thomas S: Right. And by, November of, 2023, I’ve gone from 217 down to 167. So a 50 pound loss. Hey, healing really good. And then the classic six month timer for myself goes up and it’s like I’m still doing the same thing. I’m not getting the dopamine from this anymore because it’s not new anymore. Seasonal aggression starts to,
Dean Pohlman: That’s something that I didn’t I didn’t realize that all. So do you feel like you have to keep changing things every six months? Like, your body adapts to it, and you got to keep changing it up.
Thomas S: Like you were asking. What? Like what kind of strategies do I use? Well, that’s what I’ve been I’ve been trying to do. So whether it’s, you know, going on a retreat or going down to Belize for, volunteer trip to, to help build a house, or I switched it up last, last year and said, you know, I’ve never been a runner, never done cross-country in my life.
Thomas S: I’m going to run a relay race. Yeah. And so with with a team, I, I signed up for, Ragnar, relay, the one in Minnesota that goes from Saint Paul all the way up to Duluth, about 210 miles with it, with a team of 11 other people. And so then I’m like, I’m at first I’m a bit in denial because seasonal depression had hit, had phased in in December, January, February.
Thomas S: And again, I’m being a little unhealthy. But then, you know, I get training. I do my first 10-K ever in in June of this year and the furthest I had ever run before that, even when training was about, maybe three kilometers, because I was I was doing interval training and I thought, well, this is this ten K, it’ll be a good it’ll be a good, you know, yardstick to, to understand how am I doing on my way to doing this, Ragnar.
Thomas S: Yeah. And I expected. Well, maybe I can get to five K and then walk. Run the rest of it. And to my surprise, I was able to run the whole thing, and I’m sure it was a bit of an old man jog, but there was no stopping, there was no walking, and it was one of the first times that I really felt kind of euphoric.
Thomas S: About the achievement, I yeah, it wasn’t a runner’s high because I was working the whole time to keep going. But, when I ended, it was just like, I don’t allow myself to celebrate my successes very often, but it was.
Dean Pohlman: You and every other man.
Thomas S: Yeah, exactly. So it was. It was a it broke through this time, I couldn’t stop. And I felt, so, like, it’s a big deal. I was FaceTiming, you know, some friends and my family and stuff like that because I hadn’t expected that I would have been able to do it right. And, you know, there’s people who run a ten K every day, and that’s great.
Thomas S: But we all have our, our, unique achievements. So. So, yeah, that’s kind of part of my strategy, trying to change it up.
Dean Pohlman: So and I, I wanted to I wanted to ask about that. So, have you been able to or was that the first time or I. So a lot of people aren’t comfortable trying new things because they haven’t had great experiences with being successful in this area in the past. Right. Do you think that did you have was your experience with losing 50 pounds?
Dean Pohlman: Was that for you? Was that, And I might be, you know, I do this all the time. I might be putting words in your mouth here, but do you think that there was a changing point where a certain experience or that certain achievement made you realize, oh, I can do new things? I am the type of person who can, you know, try something new and be successful versus maybe in the past you didn’t think of yourself as that type of person, or do you want to talk to that at all?
Thomas S: Yeah. Like what? One thing I’ve definitely learned from, that community of of men that I’ve been talking to, is to give yourself grace, right? Because a lot of time we, men, especially, we take a lack of success or an achievement followed by failure. As as the end all, you know, this doesn’t work. Don’t go back there again.
Thomas S: Too many bad feelings associated with it. Just don’t touch that third rail. And by learning to give yourself more grace, it’s like, okay, I tried and failed, but I tried, right? And some parts of it worked. Maybe if I tweak some things and come back at it a different way, it might work again. So like I, you know, even though I lost that 50 pounds and then, you know, I’m talking the next summer about doing all this running in between when I was dealing with that seasonal depression, I gained back about 35 of those 50 pounds I lost, right.
Thomas S: There was a lot of, just unhealthy behaviors over that winter when it came to, food intake that I was dealing with. Right. And, you know, I could have let that be the end all I give up, I guess I’m just going to die early. But with the community of men who have kind of taught me to give yourself grace, come back any time.
Thomas S: You know, it’s. These are just setbacks. You know, I didn’t. I didn’t hide from it. Like I was able to admit it like this. This didn’t go right. But I learned a lot last time, and I’m going to implement it this time and push, you know, push myself even further, get further down the football field until finally I get that touchdown.
Thomas S: Right. So so yeah. So so that is definitely helped have that mindset as far as being able to come back at something and, and not have it be a be all, end all if it ends. All right. The first.
Dean Pohlman: Time. Yeah. And it’s great that you had that community to help reinforce that and teach that. So that’s one of the questions that I asked. And you answered it. So, I’m glad you touched on how community has been helpful there. One thing that you were saying early on, that I wrote down in my notes that I wanted to ask you, you said somebody my age, and so I wanted to ask about this perception of, where do you where does your perception of or your ideas about fitness culture come from?
Dean Pohlman: And kind of why did that steer you toward instead of looking at, I guess, mainstream fitness, you’re like, okay, I need to look for something for a guy my age or, you know, yeah.
Thomas S: Yeah, definitely. Like, I’m I’m a kid of the 70s, 80s, 90s, pre-internet and, you know, at that time, the what you saw either was, young guys who were absolutely, you know, you know, lunk heads and it was like, you know, a lot of, super superficial presentation and not a lot of the backstory about how they got where they got the hard work.
Thomas S: It was it was more about, you know, here’s how I look. Or it was like some kind of corny Jazzercise or whatever. Right? The first time I ever saw something that was a little closer to, you know, what we have today is probably something like P90x. Remember when those videos came out and it was like, okay, this this guy’s kind of older, right?
Thomas S: Yeah, probably even older than I was at the time.
Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I forgot about that. I forgot that, Tony Horton was Tony Horton and my right, Tony Horton. Right.
Thomas S: I think so, I can’t remember who I played by.
Dean Pohlman: Yeah, he was probably in his early 50s or definitely late 40s when he. When he did that.
Thomas S: Yeah. So that was the first time that I had seen something that was not specifically geared towards someone younger or someone who just wanted to do cardio. So, type exercise that you might see on, on those TV exercise shows, for whatever. So, so yeah. So then, you know, obviously, as I’m getting older, pushing into the 21st century and ignoring my health and then come out and I’m like in my 40s and it’s like, well, I can’t work out the way, a young person does.
Thomas S: I, I had done some of that P90x stuff when I was in my early 30s or late 20s, early 30s when it whenever that came out, and it was great, but it just, not not really what I was looking for at the time because you are still very, solo when you’re, when you’re doing it there, there’s there’s no community, there’s no there isn’t even any opportunity to make adjustments to it depending on your own personal situation, maybe you have bad back, bad knees, bad shoulders.
Thomas S: You know, it’s it’s very, you know, it obviously at the time, like it’s burned on to a DVD. So it’s not it’s not going to is not going to change. Yeah.
Dean Pohlman: So that wasn’t what you were looking for. But what about so. So would you would fit for the project. Did that give you the workouts that you were looking forward to that.
Thomas S: Well, yeah. Like I, I think like a lot of people I googled you know, fitness for guys in their 40s and, that was one of the, the main hits that came up. And it just seemed very different because like I said, it wasn’t all, promising on in six weeks will blast your abs and stuff like that.
Thomas S: It was like, no, we’re going to figure out, you know what, why you want to do this. And then we’re going to lock down your nutrition. And then when you’ve got that go on, we’ll, we’ll we’ll start getting on the fitness the fitness train. Right.
Dean Pohlman: Gotcha. So it gave you it gave you a path and then the kind of progression and and then.
Thomas S: It gave me, it gave me, you know, emails to contact coaches to say, you know, like, I don’t know if I can do this. Is there a modifier we can do? And they’re responding within a couple days to help you adjust something. Right. So so yeah. So and you know, like I said, very, very similar to the man flow yoga community.
Thomas S: And you know, your, your, your team like Jesse and people like that who are very responsive and very positive. Yes. Sorry. So very positive and very responsive and, you know, just you can see that there’s opportunity. It’s not two dimensional. There’s, there’s, there’s multiple dimensions to it. And so you will be able to find something there that that works for you.
Dean Pohlman: Yeah. So it was so man for yoga was that kind of that was like the next phase of, okay, I’m getting bored. I gotta find something new or how did man feel yoga fit into this?
Thomas S: Yeah. So I mean, I had heard you guys on each other’s podcasts way back. Maybe, maybe a year ago or a year and a half ago. I can’t remember the first time you guys did each other’s podcasts and, you know, you had you had, provided a suite of, of yoga to, to the fit father, project that a lot of people on there, really, really like I had done some yoga last year in, in town at a yoga studio, you know, run by, run by young man.
Thomas S: Great. And all that. The timing wasn’t really awesome for, for my work hours and, just because I was in beginner yoga and, you know, constantly there were new people joining. It got very repetitive very quickly because they were having to introduce kind of the same things over and over again. So when I decided I wanted to still do yoga, to maintain my flexibility because I have very stiff shoulders, very stiff hip flexors, I remember well, hey, Dean, as a trusted part of this bigger family, I’m going to I’m going to go check that out and, signed up and, yeah, I’ve been I’ve been working on, getting more and more flexible
Thomas S: through, through your, your programs.
Dean Pohlman: And so as you when did you and, so you got started with that. How often were you doing the workouts?
Thomas S: I would say on average, it was four times a week. Okay. Trying to do them first, first thing in the morning. And I am not a morning person at all. So was very, you know, very, very strange at first. Very tiring and taxing. So, like, every Wednesday, I would kind of give myself a breather and let myself sleep in the extra hour before I went to work.
Thomas S: But then came a day. It was it was very odd where I opened my eyes and my first thought was, oh, I get to do yoga right now. And then, you know, I kind of when the rest of my brain kind of caught up, it was like a bizarre moment because I have never been excited about anything in the morning, even if I’m going on vacation.
Thomas S: You know, I wake up and say, oh, my goodness, I got a deal with the airport. I got to do all this. You know, it doesn’t matter how good the end might be. And this was more this was just a natural thing, unconscious thing, because it was the first thought and I was like, wow, maybe there’s something to this.
Thomas S: And then I, you know, over the next couple days, did a little more self-analysis and realized, you know, I’m in a better mood at work after I do this. And, you know, on a first, I was just doing the, you know, the intro, yoga, the beginner’s yoga, just to make sure I was getting technique down and all that.
Thomas S: So it’s not like I’m, like, pounding it out for an hour there to, to really, you know, drive up a lot of, you know, neurochemicals or anything like that. It was like 15 minutes at first, but it was part of it was the, the work. And I think part of it was, the fact that you.
Thomas S: Well, I call him Dean, 2D two dimensional Dean on, on on the screen there, he was with me the whole way. Right. Unlike other traditional, workout things, even with Fit Father, there’s lots of videos and explainers, but ultimately it comes down to, okay, we’ve taught you now go through these on your own. And with the yoga, you were there the whole time.
Thomas S: It’s like, okay, we’re going to do this move, and then we’re going to do that move. And here’s why we’re doing this. And you should be feeling it here and like, oh, don’t forget, don’t forget to keep, you know, pulling your head up on the when you’re breathing in and you’re breathing out, go a little bit more into the into the move.
Thomas S: And I think just having that, you know, superficial relationship in the morning with Dean 2D and myself getting this done was, was was a big factor in it as well.
Dean Pohlman: So I think it’s pretty cool that, you know, I think it’s a different kind of fitness high. Right. It’s like it’s you know, other workouts are going to be not all workouts, but a lot of workouts are intensity focused. And you get through it and you’re, you know, you’re really sweating. You worked a lot. You’ve got the sense of accomplishment.
Dean Pohlman: But yeah, when you get through a mental yoga workout, it’s kind of like, yes, you had that feeling of accomplishment, but you also feel better physically right then and there. And there’s also kind of this focus element. There’s this calm, focused element that happens when you finish the workout that yeah, really does provide a noticeable improvement to to the rest of your day.
Dean Pohlman: Do you, do you think that other people noticed that, like, did your did your family or did your wife say like, hey, you’re kind of in a better mood when you’re when you do yoga or. Well, did you notice that.
Thomas S: I noticed it at work? Because usually, you know, the my work got the benefit of my, my better mood because I’d be off after work. Yeah, I think.
Dean Pohlman: What do you do for a job?
Thomas S: So I, work for, nuclear power, facility. That’s cool. You know, Ontario, when, you know, it’s one of the largest operating sites in the world. And, I was certified for 12 years as a control room supervisor. Still act in that, capacity, but not not on shift. Put a pause on my certification so I can focus on my team.
Thomas S: We have a team of of of excellent people in operations who are helping do some multibillion dollar refurbishments on some of our reactors over, like, three year period for each one. So, you know, a lot of accountability there, a lot of leadership aspects to it. So having that, having that better mood, and I’ve been, I’ve been striving as a person in general to be more positive over this previous decade.
Thomas S: I think before that there was some negativity there. There was a lot of sarcasm. Although, don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy some sarcasm now and then. I think it’s quite fun, but, but I think it it manifested itself in, in ways that negatively impacted others. I wasn’t a mean person by it was just kind of unconscious, you know, not building up people the way I could have.
Thomas S: Right. And now I’ve been kind of focus on building up people, building up the team, keeping, people, positive. Right. So, so I think this just leans into that and helps, helps me, you know, keep keep that sustainability.
Dean Pohlman: Yeah. So, so one, one one other question I want to ask and I’ll move into the rapid fire questions. What’s the next big thing in your fitness? Do you have an idea of what the next thing you want to work on is? Or a next goal?
Thomas S: Yeah. So strength is kind of my next thing. So man, Flow yoga has been excellent in helping me because while I was doing all that running there, there wasn’t a lot of working out. It was just too much for me on my body to try to do workouts. So I wanted to get back into working out. I feel like, okay, I have accomplished what I wanted to with with running, and that’s still part of the repertoire, which is great, but I want it to focus on, on on strength again, but to just go right back into it after focusing on on running wasn’t, wasn’t a good idea.
Thomas S: So yoga was helping me start that transition to, you know, get my body flexible and, and and strong and resilient again. And, what I started, just, on this past Monday was, something called project 45. So it’s 45 days where we’re focusing on, you know, workouts for strength and conditioning, you know, minimum hydration.
Thomas S: Making sure that you’re eating properly. In this case, we’re using a primal diet as, as, as a focal point and something that doesn’t often happen with a lot of programs like this is mobility. So I thought this is perfect because now I get to wrap together my my man flow yoga, which I’m really liking, and keep getting into other things, plus getting back into workouts and conditioning and hits and kind of marry the two together and use them to benefit each other.
Thomas S: Because often it’s, I think it’s one or the other with a, with, with a lot of people because it does take time. So it’s understandable.
Dean Pohlman: I think that’s the hard part, is signing the, you know, finding the time availability. Like I think we’d all like to do more, but finding the right balance. And yeah, I hope that as you get into I hope that as you get into these things, these new things that you, you know, you recognize that, okay, I don’t have to keep doing as much of all these other things that I was doing before, but, you know, continuing to rely on manual yoga for certain things or, definitely using it as recovery workouts or even warm ups, like, those are all things that can, that can really help.
Dean Pohlman: And, I don’t think a lot of people realize that it can be a great warm up to.
Thomas S: Yeah. Yesterday I used your, old man testosterone builder, yoga set as a warm up for my, hit yesterday because it was just a 15 minute hip, so I kind of incorporated that, 50 plus testosterone booster, exercise, which I hadn’t done before. And so. So that was, so so that was good. You have one thing about your your, your app and, your material.
Thomas S: You have a lot of variety. You have a lot of content. Yeah, yeah. I don’t see myself getting bored with it any time soon.
Dean Pohlman: No, it’ll be, it’ll be hard to get bored with that. So, Yeah. So I have a few questions before I. I want to, before I want to close out. So let’s want to have a belief or mindset that has helped you the most with your overall health and wellness.
Thomas S: Leave your leave your ego out of it. You know, kill your ego. You don’t. You don’t have to be the best anymore. You don’t have to be the fastest. You don’t have to be the biggest. You know, you’ve you’ve you’ve made it this far. Get rid of your ego so that you can focus on the healthy aspects so that you can give yourself that grace that I was, that I was talking about earlier.
Thomas S: It’s just a better place to be.
Dean Pohlman: Yeah. All right. Second question. What is one thing that you do for your health that you think is often overlooked or undervalued by others?
Thomas S: Well, I would say in coaching, okay. I think a lot of people that I’ve seen, they, they try and do the same thing that they’ve always done, throughout the years. And maybe it worked before, maybe it never worked, but they feel like this is all they know. And, you know, coaching isn’t cheap, but it’s it’s value added.
Thomas S: It’s it is it is a means to extend the quality of your life, right, to have longevity and not just longevity, but quality and longevity by having good coaching, whether it’s online or in person. And if the first coach doesn’t work because, hey, not not all of them are good, not all programs are good. That doesn’t mean coaching is bad.
Thomas S: Check out another one and then check out another one right. Yeah.
Dean Pohlman: Yeah. There’s a lot of coaches out there. Find one that you vibe with I mean I say the same thing about Mantle yoga. Like if you don’t like me don’t go off. Go find someone else to you know. Yeah. Like find someone that you like. I’m glad you glad you brought that up. So my next question. What’s the most stressful part of your day to day life?
Thomas S: Most stressful part of my day to day life. I guess the most stressful part of my day to day life is having to wear that mask all the time. As someone who’s who’s ADHD and and maybe even a little bit, you know, Asperger’s adjacent, sometimes I really have to put on a mask and have realized that I’ve been doing it almost all my life to, to fit in, to kind of a normal flow of, of society.
Thomas S: Right. I know my default programing is, especially looking back when I was a kid is very insular, is not understanding of how and why people operate the way they do. But I’ve never I’ve never allowed myself to succumb to that. Right. I, I want to be successful person in life. And success comes in many forms.
Thomas S: So I’ve, I’ve been an observer of people all my life and, you know, create these little kind of subroutines of, okay, this is how a normal person operates under these conditions. And they become easier all the time. But it is always a mask of some kind. Right.
Dean Pohlman: And I’m thinking of Dexter right now.
Thomas S: Well, I hope I, Yeah. Not not quite that bad, but, but but. Yeah, it takes it takes energy. It takes energy. So, you know, from a stress point of view, you know, there’s good stress and there’s bad stress, and sometimes there’s just energy consumption. Stress. And and that’s probably most of most of my stress is just the energy required to, to wear that.
Thomas S: Wear that mask.
Dean Pohlman: Okay.
Thomas S: Yeah.
Dean Pohlman: Last question. What’s your best piece of advice for men who want to be healthier?
Thomas S: You know, I’ve always had this adage that, you only truly fail if you quit. So just don’t don’t quit on yourself. You can you can fail 20 times. Try all different kinds of fad diets, exercises, all that stuff. And I can say that because I’ve been that person, and even though a lot of them in the end turned out to be, you know, just useless or toxic or whatever it might be, I learned something from each of them, and those are those help build stronger foundations for my long term fitness, on which I feel like I’m starting to get traction on building, a healthy mindset, a healthy body, a healthy, you
Thomas S: know, spirit about things. And, yeah, just don’t quit on yourself. There’s, there’s, there’s there’s so many different avenues, so many different ways to live your best life. And, and, you know, your, your, your worth it. Your work.
Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I appreciate that. All right. Well, Thomas, thanks so much for doing this interview. I really appreciate it. All the contributions you’ve made to the community, again, I love that you’re being active in our, our Facebook group. Whether you realize it or not, it’s helpful. It’s inspirational. And so I just I want to say thank you for being part of it and giving mindful yoga a chance.
Thomas S: Yeah. Thank you, Dean, for having me. It’s been, a great, great opportunity to chat.
Dean Pohlman: Yeah, yeah. All right, well, guys, listening. Hope you enjoyed this. And, I’ll see you on the next episode. Hope this inspires you to be a better man.
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