RE4RGE: How I Lost 200 Pounds – My Weight Loss Journey & GLP-1 Story (Premiere Episode)

The past few months have been life changing. I'm looking the best I ever have. I'm stronger, faster, my energy is unmatched, and those around me are noticing. Linking up with Ryze HRT is the best decision I ever made. They set me up a blood work and one of their specialists reviewed it. We discussed my diet, my lifestyle, and my sleep. My test levels were low and we discussed how HRT could optimize it. In one week of treatment, I felt like a new man. After six weeks, my testosterone doubled. I'm feeling so confident. If you're struggling, don't hesitate to reach out to Ryze. They'll get you to your peak. - Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. And we are now trying a brand new podcast. Some of you might have followed me over here from the dear people of Earth, but with this one here is gonna be a little bit different. It's called Reforging. We're talking about health. We're gonna talk about my journey. And I'm gonna get to all that in just a minute. But here with me for my very first episode is The Uncomparable, the amazing Michael Ian Black. So welcome, sir. Thank you for being on here. - My pleasure, Steve. And I haven't seen you. I think in a while and I will say you do looks felt. You've clearly been on a journey. - I am felt now. I am so hot that my wife does not allow me out of the house anymore. - No. - I'm lock and key. I'm allowed to touch the animals, but that's it. - There's nothing else going on there. - Yeah, don't I wish. So yeah, so Michael, I have you on here just so people I'll give them a little background here. You and I came together a little over a year ago on a shared mutual interest. We're both UFO, UAP, Fanatics. I was running that podcast and I do a lot of work behind the scenes with some people that are trying to get disclosure out there to the public. And that's not what this podcast is about in even a little bit, but that's how we came together. And then over the past year we've become friends and we've been talking and we call each other names and we have fun and it's a complete and total disaster. No, it's fantastic. So I'd follow your career greatly and closely, you're on CNN now. You've been doing fantastic with that. Of course, if you don't know who Michael is, he's an actor, he's a director, he is a comedian, and he's done some producing and he's written a book or two that's done pretty well. So I can verify all of this. - Yes, I mean, it's verifiable. He also has two Super Bowl rings now. - Is that right? - Two Super Bowl rings. - Two Super Bowl rings, he's been, you know, MVP for I don't know how many times, but several times. I mean, this guy does it all, like everything. He's insane. Oh, and he is a Hollywood elitist. I mean, he is like the worst of Hollywood as to offer. I mean, he's just, I mean, if you go to his, any of his socials, people will tell you how out of touch Michael is. - That's right. Well, you have to be a little bit out of touch, I think, to be as deep into UFOs as I am. So I can't really argue with them. - No, I can argue. You're in touch. We touch. We're in touch. - Well, that came out very, very wrong there, but yeah, no. (laughing) If any of you haven't seen the trolls that Michael gets, it's pretty freaking epic. I gotta tell you, it's actually kind of a joy to watch Michael Ripom, and he does it so classy too. You know, it's like he just goes the discourse. And it's just like his horrendous spewing of spill and Michael just goes the discourse. You know, and he just brings it to lighten and. (laughing) - Oh my God, some of these people, I don't know what's going on. And of course, we had a little election lately. - We did. - We did. And that was certainly interesting. I don't really wanna go down that road because it was. - I was surprised you even brought it up. - You said you wanted to go down the road and I'm happy to put up that stop sign. - Yeah, so let's not do that. But we are gonna talk about, Michael, I wanted to bring you in 'cause some of this you're not gonna know because I've never told you before. But so I'm gonna kind of start with where I began with this and why I started this podcast. And the reason I did is because I went on Muncharo, which is a GLP medication, GLP1 and 2. So basically what it does is it makes you. It's not that it doesn't make you not hungry. It slows down food from your stomach into the rest of your body, into your digestive system. It also stops food noise, which is wild, right? Because my entire life, so for 30 years, I lived in the 350 to 400 pound body, right? And for me, food has always been a struggle. And I never understood why it was a struggle. I think that I probably had some unresolved issues when I was younger and I've been working on those as well. And as we go through this podcast series, I'll get more into those things. But for now, I can just say that I know that some of that was certainly trauma-related, probably relations with my own family, with my mom and dad were probably not great. And here I am at 51 complaining about it, but that's just the reality, right? I think we all go through probably moments in our lives that we don't realize are going to affect us quite the way that they affect us. And for me, my vice was not drugs, it was not alcohol, but it was food. So I'm hoping that with this podcast, one of the things that we can do, and we can kind of, or what I can do, and with your help here this evening, is get that message out to people. And one of the first things I wanted to ask you, Michael, was you have kept yourself in phenomenal shape. What I honestly, I mean, you're thin, you're healthy, you're glowing. I mean, you just, how do you do it in your life because you travel so much, right? It must be so easy for you to go out and grab the gonols, or whatever the day it is. Like how do you keep yourself from doing what I do? So it's funny, in a weird way, we have opposite stories. So one of the ways that I always dealt with anxiety and depression was to stop eating. And I was always thin, and I think I always felt like a thin person. So as I got older and started to put on some weight, there were times where I would go on like binge diets. I was never heavy, never for a moment was I heavy, but I developed body dysmorphia. And so part of it had to do with my career, because I see myself back on, reflected back at me, and it makes me anxious if my face looks bad or something. And part of it I think was just innate in me. Something about the way I self-identify had to do with my, like, fitness. And so I've always really worked at it. And so I've had like sort of complicated, I guess, relationship with food. So like you wouldn't see me like just go get McDonald's. That's not something I would do. And then a year ago I became a vegetarian for the first time. How's that been going? How do you vegan or are you vegetarian? Vegetarian. And not even like the strictest vegetarian. It's been surprisingly easy. Like I, I, I, I, I haven't struggled with it at all. The only times I stroke, the only times it's at all difficult is when I'm on the road. And as a comedian, I'm often on the road. But if I'm at home or if I'm in a city I'm familiar with, it's super easy. And that has made me more conscious of what I eat. And consequently, I think I'm eating better. - What do you think about a lot? There's a lot of misinformation out there and disinformation even about GLP medications. And as I have on TikTok and I'm now kind of getting a little bit into Instagram. As I shared my journey and, and shown my progression this way, right? I've gotten some pretty nasty comments, right? I've gotten ladies and gentlemen, this is an adult broadcast. So I'm gonna use some words you may not particularly love, but I'm gonna anyway. You know, I've heard, hey, you're just a fat ass and you're lazy and you're a piece of shit. And why don't you just go to the gym and stop eat it. And you just took a shot. And this is what happened, right? You just, you just, all you did is take a shot and just fell off. Well, first of all, I am here to say that that is not the case. That is not how this works in any way, shape or form. Does it help with the, it's not even cravings, I don't wanna say because I still love chocolate and I still love, you know, I would love to eat a big burger. I can't physically because when I eat it, It literally my brain says stop. right? It says don't eat anymore. It's weird. But also just that that whole like you can the experiences of sometimes you can take a bite or something right? Am I going to you're eating it and you're enjoying it and then all of a sudden with this medication, it goes no, no more. And you literally can't finish the bite in your mouth. Like I have to think about it to swallow it. Like I can't do it. But it is. It is. And it is come completely 180 degrees in the opposite direction of my last 30 years. It's it's I cannot explain just how paradigm shifting it is this medication for people like myself. What do you think about that? Do you think that you know, G.O.P. one is a step forward or do you think it's something that's going to be harmful in the long run? I mean, it's seems to be helping a lot of people. Help me. So you're obviously far more of an expert on it than I am because I'm not on it. What I know about it at least to this point all seems pretty positive. Like I haven't heard of any particularly bad side effects and moreover, I feel like what I'm hearing is that it might actually be good for other things as well. It is. Yeah. I get some sort of miracle truck. So I don't I don't have it informed opinion about it at all. My only question to you would be, do you do you feel healthier? Are you safer medically and are you happy? And if all three of those things are yes, then who gives a fuck with anybody thanks? And I agree with that. But it's I think that and I'll answer those questions. I think there's this. I don't want to say it's a jealousy factor. That's not it. I think that there is a propensity for us as human beings. Right. And I don't want to lump everyone in together. I don't think that's fair. But I think that there's certainly a group of people that maybe have never gone through specifics when it relates to food specifically that think and maybe they're in situations where they've never had a food issue. Right. You've never had a food issue. You may have body dysmorphia. No, I think it's right. But I mean, so you mine went one way. You always went the other way. So I can understand that. I can understand the physicality that you have because while I'm starting to now, but I can understand the mentality to a certain extent because what you saw in one way is what I saw the other way. I gave up. I mean, that's just that that's just a fact, you know. But to answer your question, happy much, much happier. Healthy. Well, the reason I went on when Jaro was actually not for my weight loss, it was actually because I am a type two diabetic. My fault, I ate too much. I gave up. It's my fault. I take full responsibility for that. And that's part of my journey forward is taking responsibility for the things that I know that I did. And you're going to hear, you know, there's a lot of a lot of information out there with body positivity, right? And I and I don't want to hurt that because I do believe that you can be anybody and be happy and be joyful. But I've also I've lived in that body, right? And I know what it's like. I know, now I can't speak for everybody, but I know the majority of my life when I was in that large body, there were certainly issues with myself, a steam. There was certainly issues with depression, anxiety. And the weird thing, I go back to Fat Bastard on what is it? Mike Myers movie there, where he goes, I'm an ex-motor of Fat Bastard. Yes, yeah, no, it was not max, no, what the hell was it? Austin Powers. Austin Day, you go saw I don't keep anybody, I didn't remember that, but I go back to that and there was a line on it that he said that he goes, he says, I'm unhappy because I eat and I eat because I'm unhappy. And it was kind of a profound thing to say, right? It was like, holy shit, like this goofy movie just said something completely profound and it's true. Like it, that's that was something that's always stuck in my mind, put the answer the last part of it. So yeah, so my health has, I've gone from an A1C of 14.9, which means my blood sugar was somewhere in the 400 range and would pop up to 500, 600 at times. What's an add? 70. So yeah, it was bad. And now my A1C after being on this for 10 months is 5.5. And so that puts me in the range of in remission. So technically, I'm still a diabetic. If I were to come off the medication, I'm fairly certain my blood sugar would pop back up and I think I'm probably going to have to at some point, whether I'm on it for life or whether I'm able to change some of my hormones around so that I can actually control this. I'll be on some form of something medication more than likely. I'm actually working with an HRT clinic called Rise HRT, the heat just came up. Sorry folks, be here a little noise, it's just my heat. I'm in the North Eastern, it's cold tonight. So I'm working with this company, Rise HRT and we're talking about some other home relationships that I'm having specifically testosterone, very low. So we're working on that. Is that a common side effect of being overweight or does it have nothing to do with it? So there's two things that occur. The first is aging, right? Anytime, once you hit the age of 30, any man, it has nothing to do with size or anything, any man. But it can have to do with sedentary lifestyle, right? Because the less you, and there's also cortisol levels, which is stress, right? And I'm a ball of stress half the time. So my cortisol levels will, you know, through the roof. So there's natural aging process. So as many age, their testosterone goes down, and it's usually something like one point per year, you should be ideally well over 300. But an optimal range is somewhere around 900 to 1,100 for men. So I was below 200. So yes, the obesity had a lot to do with it. I was able to naturally come up a little bit as I've taken the weight off and I've hit the gym. But it's not great. So the other part of that was feeling, right? I feel much, much better. Like, I walk around. I don't have the pains that I had. My back pain is gone. My neck pain is gone. My knee pain is gone. My hip pain is gone. It's gone. It does not exist anymore. I'm not living on. I be profan in violent on anymore. But that being said, I'm still tired a lot, right? I'm still, I'm like, and I shouldn't be well, you're old. I am old. Yes, you are correct. You're my regret. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm 51, but you know what? Michael's older. So I'm just, and I'm just throwing that out. But yeah, so I'm just gonna say, but I look younger, but now that I'm looking at you, I'm like, shit, Steve looks pretty young right now too. Yeah, you know what? 51, not bad, except for this damn tooth that I kidnap out, but I keep saying I'm gonna work on that, but $19,000 later, that's a little pricey for me. So that 19 ran to fix that tooth. Does it fix that broken tooth? I don't know. It has a cool kind of Boston Bruins thing. You know, it does. You know what? We have another friend in common, who is a Canadian who last year when the Bruins beat his team, Mr. Dave Foley. So if you're out there, Dave, hello, Bruins got you. And then the Bruins lost. So anyway, but yeah, so we had, it's funny, you bring that Bruins thing up. We had a guy recently that was from the years from Ireland, who came over and he went to a Bruins game. And he said it was the most filthy, rotten, disgusting crowd that he loved because they're so nice, but they would, I'm like, welcome to Boston, fucker, and I'm telling you, it's crazy over here. But yeah, so, so back to the feeling part. So the feeling, yeah, I mean, I talked to my physician and I said to him, why do I still, why am I still exhausted? Danny said, let's check your testosterone levels. And then that's what we did. We get into that. And like I said, I'm working with that company rise and they're doing a great job. So I actually begin the testosterone. Hopefully it'll be this week. I have a shipment on the way to start all that. And then there are other things that I've been working on to the gym. I know you're a huge gym rat, like you are constantly. I see you all the time just constantly. The gym just pumping iron with the boy. Here's the thing that you that would surprise you is that there have been many times in my life where I had been a gym rat where I'm going for five times a week for months and months on end. And, uh, A.I. never really seen you result in the end. Then I just get bored and then I'll take two years off and then I'll start the cycle up again. Do you do any cardio? Um, yeah, there have been times, like, I'll, you know, I do different things when I get into these routines. Sometimes they involve cardio, sometimes they do not. I never see much of a difference either way. I hate cardio. I hate it with a mask. It's just the worst. It's the worst. And I start getting on a treadmill and I just, I feel like a rat. I mean, like, I'm the gerbil. I mean, the hamster, whatever. I just, I hate it. I absolutely hate it. Weight training I love. Um, I love doing that. I like doing the heavy weight, but I don't like people bugging me in the gym. And it's nice when they come up and they say something nice to me, but I'm just kind of like, I want my headphones on and I want to face forward and just do what I'm doing. Um, but so now we're going to kind of move on a little bit and, and, you know, one of the things that I was why I'm doing this podcast and what I'm launching is because what reforred what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to help other people with this and, um, having now been through the past. Well, I've been losing now for two years, right? So I started out around four hundred pounds and I lost a good 90 pounds on my own, just, just cutting foods, but the problem was I, my A1C was still not coming down and my doctor had a friend conversation with me. He said, you have two options. Option A, excuse me, is within the next two to five years, you're going to have a stroke or heart attack. And it's you're going to kill you or it's going to make you probably fairly informed. You're just going to live out the rest of your life. Not great. I mean, he wasn't, he wasn't going to say, and, you know, as a vegetable or drooling or sitting, you know, he wasn't going to say that to me, but I mean, you could, you could catch the, the connotation that he was trying to do. Um, he said, or we can try controlling your diabetes and it's going to start with, uh, when we started out with, uh, insulin. Um, and I was not responsive. I was insulin resistant. Hmm. Very dangerous at that point. How uncommitted is that? Pretty uncommon. Um, that meant that my, my diabetes had progressed to a point where insulin would not lower it, would not affect it. Um, very dangerous. Uh, so we started that and then we started met Foreman, which is another diabetes drug, um, met Foreman didn't touch it. Didn't go anywhere. I was taking the maximum dose 2000 milligrams a day, 1000 milligrams in the morning, 1000 milligrams a night, didn't touch it, didn't move it. And I did actually start to change my diet at that point, right? I started to eat more protein. I started just then you decided to start changing your diet more. Yeah, more. I started to change it even more. So I had already cut out any sugary sodas, like I don't need, I have zero sugar sodas. Um, I cut sugar out of my coffee. I cut, I basically cut sugar out of anywhere I could and I took away, um, any sweets of any kind, um, and it still wasn't moving. So then I decided, okay, well, there's all these diets out there, right? There's keto and there's, uh, let's see, other one. Carnivore, which is basically you just eat all the fucking meat you can and cheese and dairy and whatever. And, and you don't eat anything else. You don't eat, uh, you don't eat vegetables. You don't eat, you don't eat fruit. You don't eat pasta, which is, you know, everything's okay in moderation, but these diets were extremely restrictive. But people were having luck changing and, and lowering their A1Cs and lowering their blood sugar. So the problem that I had with that is I said, that's not sustainable long term. Secondly, all the, all the work that I did putting into it, you know me, I, I like to do my research. Um, showed that over the long term, a carnivore diet is kind of not good for you. Um, I would recommend like, if, if you would say to me, hey, my son is getting married in, in six months and he's got 50 pounds, he's got to lose. I would say carnivore is a way to go. Like do it. Right? Because it's not a long term thing. You can drop that weight in that period of time pretty safely. But for a lifelong commitment to changing my diet, I didn't feel that those were options. So we talked about ozemic first. Um, and I said, so what's the difference between ozemic and mongaro? Now mongaro is a GLP one and a GLP two agonist, not antagonist. Everybody says antagonist. That's wrong. Um, it's an agonist, right? So what that does is it creates the GLP one and the GLP two they create and they work together to lower your A1C. It's not natural because you're still taking a medicine, but, um, it slowly brings you down, right? So I started taking it in the first two weeks was the most miserable two weeks in my life. It was. I had stomach issues that you I could I almost went off it. The stomach issues were so bad I almost went off of it. Now this is the segue into why I'm doing what I'm doing. Reforge is going to try and help people with not only that process, but also the entire process as they go through. And the reason for that is because there is a ton of information out there, but it's discombobulated. It's all over the place. And if I had had a one stop place to be able to go and get information, I think that would have been way more beneficial because really I think there are some people that are going to go on this and I don't want to use my wife too much here, but, um, her biggest fear of going on this medication is the stomach issues. She's concerned about that. And so I know that as she is, there's got to be literally thousands of people that are because like I said, I I wanted off of it. It was that bad. It was nausea vomiting. Other end, it was brutal. It was the worst thing. It was miserable. So you said it lasted weeks. Yeah, so two weeks, maybe three. It used up. It used up every year experience average, worse than average or better than average. So I've talked to a lot of people that have been on GOPs and are on and currently on GOPs. In fact, this young lady, Christy, is going to be on my next episode. She's lost over 200 pounds. And she actually I think she's lost a little more than that. She was able to manage hers. But yeah, she had those issues too. I'll let her tell her story. But yeah, I think I might have been the extreme. I don't know particularly why I was the extreme because I've heard other people that say they went on it and they just experienced some nausea and they were able to work through it. But for me, I mean, I might have gone into it if I'm being honest with myself and everybody. I might have gone into it a little too hard. I went from eating a good four to five thousand calories a day to when I went on it 800, 900 calories a day. That's starvation, basically. That's basically starvation. And it wasn't because I wanted to. It was because I didn't want to put anything in my mouth. It was brutal. And, but that being said, and again, I'm not trying to scare people. I'm really not because it has changed my life. I am healthier. I am happier. I'm down 190 pounds total overall. At this point, I'm at the gym five days a week. I am, you know, if one of the biggest metrics is happiness, it's it's night and day, right? It's just night and day. My outlook is happier. I love getting up in the morning, even though sometimes I'm still tired, which is what we're dealing with the TRT. But so I don't want to scare someone away. I don't want somebody to hear that and say, oh my God, it's going to be brutal. That's what I'm trying to put together to help with. But I had to learn, you know, in some of the tips if anybody's thinking about it is one of the first things that I was not doing was hydrating. I was letting myself eat what I could, but I wasn't, you know, hair I sit now, a couple of water. It's all it's in there is water. It's hydrate. And it is such a simple, I don't take a sip right now on that. It's such a simple thing, but you don't realize Michael how much your body needs water. I drink soda and I drink coffee which is a diuretic to begin with, which was not helping me in anyway. But it's amazing how much water the human body needs and when you start to give it the right amount of water, especially when you get on these medications, that's when things turn. That's when they start to turn. But there's also other things that There are stomach remedies and things that you can do that. So if you get nausea, you would think, one of the old wives remedies were to have ginger. For me, I even smelled ginger. I wanted to throw up. I couldn't even smell it. So there are other things that can be used. And now I do use some supplements simply because I gave them time to work themselves in. And I gave them time to work. And it was kind of surprising just how much I did not know about the human body. And I think probably the hardest part about coming to terms with the entire thing was facing-- and we don't have to talk a lot about this-- with facing those things inside my brain that made me want to eat. And I do think that the monger will help greatly with that. So again, I felt like I was going down a road scaring people there. And I didn't want to do that. But it's been a life-changing thing for me. Have you talked to anybody else that's been through that or has-- or-- No. Not that I'm aware of. I'm sure they're trying to think, I must know people. Well, they say that there's a lot of use in Hollywood. You don't live anywhere in your Hollywood. But I know that there has been a lot of use by Ozzentpec, which is-- so the difference between Ozzentpec and Mongerro, Mongerro has 2GLP agonist. And Ozzentpec has one. There's only-- Mongerro is a little bit better for weight loss. But the Ozzentpec is great for controlling A1C as well. So it is a miracle. I'm kind of blown away by it. And one of the things that I think long-term, there haven't been a lot of issues, but there have been some issues with some people because the slowing of the stomach, the contents of the stomach into your digestive system, is it has caused some problems with some people. They call it stomach parastesis, where basically your stomach becomes paralyzed, which is not a good side effect. But it's usually temporary. And you can usually back off of it. So the way it works is you start with Mongerro. I don't know exactly how it works at Ozzentpec, but with Mongerro, you start out with those at 2.5. It's a shot. It doesn't hurt at all. Can't feel it at all. It's subcutaneous. So it's not hitting the muscle around. You just press the button and it goes in. It's not a big deal. And then you work your way all the way up to 15. I'm on 15 now at this point. So you do 2.5 for one month, 5, 7.5, and so on. So you finally hit the 15 dose. But as far as experiences are concerned, it's been way more beneficial for me than it has been the other side. I still get some stomach issues every once in a while, but it's not. It's manual. And I know how to manage them now. So that's been a big push for me as to why I think that this is an important thing to do. And also just to have some open honesty. There's certainly places that you can go for guidance, but again, it doesn't feel like there's one place for guidance. And there's one repository of information. It's just all over the place. And it feels like people that I would love to be able to help maybe can't be helped because they don't have the right information. So that's just kind of the whole idea behind. What I'm at least attempting to do and to also highlight other people's stories. I think it's important. There's-- I think there's a lack of understanding out there for some of these medications. And I'd like to help try and change something around. Well, when I think about-- well, like my own mom, who struggled with obesity most of her adult life, and had a lot of health consequences as a result, or at least partially as a result, if there had been something that she could have taken that would have hopefully either abated that or prevented it, well, I would have encouraged her to do that. I mean, without my second thought, like there's no such thing as cheating. That's the thing that just sort of sticks in my crawl a little bit. Well, I don't understand what not cheating is. Like the body is a complicated, delicate instrument. I have not had your issue, but I have had similar issues. And you can reason with it. You can argue with it. You can do whatever you're trying to do, either eat more or eat less. It's very, very, very difficult to navigate in the best of circumstances. If you could have some help with that. And you're dealing with the physical component, meaning you're working out, which is great. And you're dealing with the mental struggles of it, which the underlying causes of it. Maybe that's also great. Like you're taking a holistic approach to it. It sounds like you're not saying take the shot, everything will be better. It sounds like take the shot. It will help you hell of a lot as you do this other work. And that's precisely it. There is work and it is work. It's not-- And I think that's-- and I back off of calling people ignorant, because I don't think that's a fair statement. I think they're uneducated, yes. And you could-- I know they're synonyms. But I think it's more about maybe just-- it is. It's that cheating thing. Well, you're cheating it. Well, you're doing it the easy way. I-- This is to interrupt you for one second, because I'm self-conscious about it. I'm in no way endorsing this medication. Oh, absolutely no. I'm endorsing the truth of what you're telling me, meaning I'm taking everything that you're saying at complete face value in a soup what you're telling me is true. And responding as a friend would. But I'm not endorsing myself. I have no idea. And honestly, I don't endorse it either, to be honest with you. Because that's the odd verse of this is that I feel like it's to a certain extent. I believe these companies are know what they have. And I know what the compounding cost for this is, because it's a compounded medication. So I know that the compounding cost is probably somewhere in the 80 to $100 range to compound these two. And they're selling it for $1,500 per month. So for me-- So I have a love hate with that, right? It's saving my life. It is. But at the same time, I see the greed. And that bugs the shit out of me, because so many more might be able to be helped. So I'm not really endorsing it in that way. Either in fact, I believe that if you're able to go to a clinic where you can have it compounded, you should probably do that. So it's one of those things that it's like, big pharma has pissed me off for years. Because every time I've ever gone to a doctor, what's the first thing that they do is they push a pill down and throw it. And that's just the way it goes. But I don't want that anymore. I don't want to be dependent upon medication. I don't even want to be dependent on the stuff that I'm on. It's just I am. It had to. Because honestly, my kids looked at me and said, it would be nice if you would be here when I get married and have kids and be around. So it's pretty tough when they come at you like that, right? It's not, what are you going to do? So yeah, it was certainly difficult. But back to your point, you get these comments that it's a cheat. And I hate to harp on it. But it's kind of hurtful to be honest with you. Even though it's a stranger, and at the end of the day, when a stranger says something like that, it's not going to have an effect on me in 20 minutes. But there's something in here, right? There's something in there that's saying, well, am I cheating? But then I have to remind myself how fucking hard I have worked to make this stick, right? And the shot helped. It did. And it does. And it keeps those thoughts at bay about wanting to wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning and put another thing. thousand calories in before I go back to sleep. But yeah, I mean, it's awful. If I'm being honest, it's not a pleasant thing when even a stranger says that. So if everybody's listening to this and I actually get anybody listening to this, but think before you speak, right, just a teeny bit of kindness can go a long way for people, because you never know what they're going through. You never, ever, ever know what someone's personal struggle is. And food is so personal to each and every one of us, whether we're the heavy side of the thin side, right? It's when we have a meal, we usually go around people, right? We come around family and friends and it's a personal thing. It's like your morning coffee, your morning coffee is personal, which is why people go to the Dunkin' Donuts and they get it wrong and people get so upset, get so angry, right? Because it's your personal thing. So when I hear those comments and I see them and I do see them, I see everyone on them. I want to fight back. I want to push back. It's heartful. So I'm sure you've dealt with your share of comments that you just want to throw a dart at somebody, not in this, but other ways. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's my daily online existence. So yeah, I know of what you speak. So I mean, it's certainly, I think moving forward, excuse me, pardon me, I think moving forward, it's certainly beneficial for people to at least look into this, but the other part of that would be to have all the right information. And one more thing that I wanted to talk about would be the psychological side of things. And you touched on it a little bit earlier that you had the body dysmorphia. Do you think that that is a trauma-related thing or was it just you in general stressing about your appearance? What do you think you personally? It may have had to do with, honestly, my mom's issues with food and how heavy she was and just being very conscious about weight in my whole life, I think as a result of that. And I sort of liked, there's something about me that likes being thin or small, even which is sort of a weird thing for a guy to say, but just sort of that, I don't know, because I'm not wiery, I'm just sort of thin. I don't know. Aesthetically, I just feel most like myself in this body. And so I just try to keep it this way as much as I can, but I've got a range of weight that I can fluctuate between, and when I'm at my heaviest, I really feel bad and I have to do something about it. So then that the mental becomes a physical compulsion. Do you ever find yourself truly happy with the way you feel? What do you mean by the way I feel? Well, like when you look in the mirror, do you see about my body? Yeah, as far as I've never, no, no, no, not for a moment. No, no, no, no, no, I'm older than you. No, not to this day. It's only going to get worse. I mean, I can look back at old pictures of myself and be like, what were you worried about? Like you were in great shape. That's amazing to me because when I see your body, and I'm not trying to be goofy here, but when I see you, I see an ideal fitness, that's what I see. So for you to have that thought process is like, it's crazy to me because I'm like, well, that's where I'm trying to get, you know what I'm saying? Now I'm trying to do some bodybuilding. And I don't need to be Arnold Schwarzenegger. I just don't, but I certainly want to have some muscle mass on me. When I was younger, I had muscle mass. You know, when I played football, I had muscle mass. So I'm trying to get to that stage to a certain extent. I know at 51 years of age, I'm not ever going to get to where I was at 17, 18. I also know I'm going to have to deal with the skin issue at some point. It's just a reality of losing that much weight. I already see it. So I can see it, you know, I don't really have a lot of fat left on my arms, but I have the skin, you know, I'm being honest there. I have the skin. I can see it. Stomach's got the skin. And I probably have another, I'm going to say 30 pounds to go. I think before I'm going to consider that type of surgery. So when you say that, that surprises me. I mean, I guess we used to go down our own path. Yeah, we all find our own miseries. I was all you find our own eight. Yeah, I know. They just manifest themselves in different ways. I mean, in a way, I'm a good first guest for you because the issues that you deal with, I deal with. And I think particularly for men, these are issues that we don't often have an opportunity to talk about. So your weight gaining journey is not so different than my sort of weight maintenance journey. Or sometimes weight like extreme dieting journey. It's the same thing. You know, it just manifests itself differently. And it is, and it is about how we feel as men. And I don't feel any less masculine because of the way I sort of present as like a thin dude. Like I don't feel any less masculine because of that. In fact, I feel most masculine in this body, as I said earlier, when I get sort of bigger, I feel ill at ease. But my masculinity to myself has never been in any question. And I just think that guys just we don't talk about the weight. No, no, it's not at all. And this isn't something that I've come to and been easy. I mean, even this is, I mean, we're friends, but even this is difficult. And it's not because of who you are, but it's difficult to just kind of put yourself out there and just say, okay, listen, I was this, this, and this. And I have my own personal journey that I'm trying to figure out exactly why I did, but I did. And I said when I was young, I mean, I was, I had a college scholarship to go play for Boston College. I lost it when I hurt my knee, but I was athletic, right? And then I think when I look back at myself and I see a turning point in my life, that certainly was a moment in time that hurt. That affected me mentally. It affected me obviously physically. I ended up having it. So I had my ACL, my MCL, and my kneecap was shattered. I got hit in a game. Kid came across and gave me a cheap shot. He spared me in the knee. And literally broke my knee. And back in 1989, the surgery for that was not like what it is today. So when you had that type of injury, you were done. Like even the pros, if you had that type of injury in the pros, you, the, the, the, the, the surgeries weren't there so that you could get back on the field and play again. So I knew that when I got that diagnosis of what had occurred, that I was done. Like there was no more moving forward with that. And that was what I wanted to do. And then later on, I wanted to serve my country. So I went and I tried to sign up for the Air Force. My dad was in the Air Force. They wouldn't take me. They said because if you need damage, you know, we weren't in war at the time. Very shortly thereafter, it was a. Operation storm. I can't remember. I don't want to. Yeah. So. But even then they didn't take me. I went to the army. Went to the Navy. But in date, finally, I went to the Marines. I did not want to be a Marine. No offense to Marines out there. I have friends that are Marines. I think we were calling this on the Marines birthday. Are we not? We are, as a matter of fact, yes. Yes. Yes. But nobody would take me. They wouldn't. It wouldn't accept me. So I had lost my scholarship to a school that. So my, I'll just give you a quick, quick little story about that. So my, my Peewee coach, my Peewee football coach was a lineman for Boston College. And he, he and I were just, he loved me. He just, I was a kid that was just going to, you know, hit cross. I was like, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, go to the leather kit, go to the leather." And he put in a word for me and that's how I got looked at for Boston College. It was an amazing moment in my life. And then that happened. And what year did that happen? 89. What year in college were you? I hadn't even gone yet. I hadn't even gone. I had the scholarship was already given to me. So I lost my school injury. So I was a high school injury. So I was in my senior year. I actually was in my junior year, I'm sorry. And I had already been recruited to go. I had a full ride scholarship. And they came across and that kid hit me. And I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember the hit. I remember watching it come in. I remember my not being able to get out of the way. I remember the pop. I father heard the pop. He was on the sidelines. And he heard the pop. I went down. And I was so amped up. I got up and walked off the field. I didn't stay down. I got up and walked off. And then of course I went afterwards. And I couldn't walk. It was like this. And only me was like this. No, he got a problem that kid. So yeah, I mean, I know that especially after the subsequent after my surgery, and after I tried to go into the service and was rejected from that, that's when I know that's when it started to get down. That's when I started eating. I didn't care. And I probably didn't have good eating habits at all as a kid because I could put in 5,000 calories. And then I was running sprints. Even in my off season, I was running. I was doing stairs. I was lifting. It was what I wanted to do. That was what I wanted. 17 years. Yeah. That was what I wanted to do. So I could pop down thousands of calories. And I couldn't put on weight because I was constantly on the go. But then when you do that and you get a little older, and now suddenly you're 21, 22, 23, and you're still eating that kind of food, and you're still putting in that kind of calories, the weight started to pile on. And that is the weight pile on. By 25 years old, that was 400 pounds. Yeah. 25 years old, that was-- I'll put some pictures up to for people. I know that people are going to be listening on both-- on the podcast networks, but also I'll put up on YouTube. I haven't even started the channel yet, but I'll put something together on YouTube. And how many of you have you had missed? Well, 400, but I went up from there. I probably went up. I didn't weigh myself, but I know I got bigger. So I was probably 424, 25 at my very largest. When I saw you at the show last year, I think it was March-- when you were up here in Boston, I think it was February in March, whatever it was. I was probably 375 pounds. I'm going to block my wife here. But here is one picture of me. I was at my head-- I was at least 400 pounds here. See if I can put that in there. Hang in there. I don't know if it's going to be-- I was at least 400 pounds in that picture right there. At least 400 pounds. I hadn't weighed myself. So I was 400 pounds there, easily. That was probably April 19, 2016. It's on the picture. So in 2016, as late as 2016, I was that heavy. So you talk about men don't talk about these things. It's true. I mean, it's not something men are really good at. I don't think some are, but I'm not that great at it. But I'm trying to change that. And I'm trying to-- so I know there's a long way around here, but it comes back to the shot. It's not going to do it all for you. You've got to do the work. You have to put the work in. All it does is it gives you a little bit of a help to get it done. But I think probably the biggest thing too is you have to want it. You really do. And I was sick of being in that body. And I just didn't want-- this is weird. I didn't want my friends to carry a casket with the 450-pound guy in it. You know what I mean? And that-- that is giving me all the fields here. I didn't want that to happen. I didn't want my mother-- my dad passed a few years ago, but I didn't want my mother to see them have to put an extra large casket in the ground. I didn't want my kids to have to see an extra large casket could put in the ground. I didn't want to see my family have to have me carried out of the house that I'd died in by 20 people or a crane. I mean, it was an embarrassment. And it just finally-- not only the weight itself, but the health issues just finally just got to me. And I said, look, either kill yourself. And those things did go through my head. Well, get your shit together. And I thought about that kid back at 17 years old that was so gung-ho about doing what he wanted to do. And I think that I finally just had to go back to that kid and forgive him for letting himself go. And I had to let myself off the hook with that. And it was-- I'm starting to break up a little. I'm sorry. I had to let that kid off the hook, because if I didn't, I don't think I'd be around for my family much longer. So that was quite a motivating factor for me. And I don't mean to get all emotional on you, but that's where I went with it. I think people need to hear it. I also don't minimize that that is a real choice that you have to make. It's not self-evident to me that somebody would necessarily make that choice easily between essentially letting yourself die or doing the work so that you don't. I don't think that's necessarily self-evident. And I think people do struggle with that decision. And you have to make that decision, I think. And I think the pain of making that decision is reflected back in what you're saying. And the fact that you're willing to go through that pain is a testament to how difficult this journey is, even with the help that you're getting. It is. And it's-- I'm not trying to pat myself on the back. That's not what this is about. This is about knowing that there are other people that have to live with this every single day, and knowing that there is a mentality. And whatever it is in your brain or whoever's brain that presents itself in such a way that there's a dysfunction in the body. And that dysfunction can come many ways. It can come from drugs. It can come from alcohol. It can come from food. It can come from-- there are sexual addictions. There are other types of addictions. And I think that if I can cut myself open metaphorically speaking, and lay waste into what I have had to deal with, and to be able to show it good, bad, and ugly that if that helps somebody else-- and it doesn't even have to be GOP. It can be whatever, right? If that helps somebody else to get on their feet again, well, get on their feet for the first time, maybe. I will feel that I have had a little bit of meaning in what my journey is, and also hopefully somebody that can hear my voice understands that they're worth it. It's not-- death is not an answer. Giving up is not an answer. I did it for 30 years. And I'm not saying I didn't raise a family, and I'm not saying we didn't have a house, and I'm not saying that we didn't do-- I'm not a complete failure. But it is a life-changing event when you get that size. Just buying clothes is a nightmare. It really is. It's a pain. I can buy anything off the rack now. I'm an Excel. This is an Excel. I haven't won an Excel since I was 14 years old. Even when I was 15, I was like, this is the most I've ever heard. But yeah, probably been 13, 14, I wore an Excel. So for me, this now is a never-ending quest to not only get myself right, but to put myself out there and offer that help to whoever wants it. And hopefully, hopefully I can do some good. That's the idea. Ciao. I know. I'm happy to be here, at least on the first step of this podcast, if not the first step of your journey. So congrats. Thank you Michael. It has been awesome having you. We're at about an hour. And Michael was so gracious that he did this later in the evening for me because he knew that I was running around. I won't tell you what time it is, but it's quarter or 12. So Mike stays up late anyway. He's a comedian like they're up till two o'clock in the morning. Yeah, I've done this. I'm going to go do several sets all around town. Yeah, I mean, he's going to be out and about. Do you actually have any shows coming up? You got to look at the website. Don't you? This has come out. So it's going to come out probably within the next seven days. I'm going to probably have some snippets of it online. There's no snippets. I don't think. But I met off cabinet. That's near you. That's where I saw you the last time. Isn't it off cabinet? What do you have? The 16th and 17th this weekend. Geez. All right. I'll come up and see you this weekend. Don't because it's you probably going to see most of the same material. I don't care about that. I'll still laugh. You know that. You know me. Bob Odin Kirk. That's an inside. If you go out. Yeah. Yeah. See, I remember. I'm not bad. Yeah. So anyway, I don't really spend a lot of time. That's a good bit. I like that one. But yeah. So everybody, thank you for listening. Thank you to my first guest, Michael Ian Black and my cat is meowing over. I probably want something to eat on a midnight or a Y. My pleasure. So it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you. I appreciate you coming on for my first one. I will get you all the good socials and stuff that you can let people know that you are here and being happy and will be fun. So anyway, anything else you'd like to add? Are you good to go? Good to go. Awesome. Thank you, Michael. Very much appreciate it having you. My pleasure. I'm stronger, faster. My energy is unmatched. And those around me are noticing. Lincoln Apple Dries HRT is the best assistant I ever made. My test levels were low and we discussed how HRT could optimize me. If you're struggling, don't hesitate to reach out to Rise. They'll get you to your peak.