 Hi, this is Debbie Daschinger. Welcome to Dear to Dream. Pleasure to be with you as always. And we're going to be talking about one of my favorite subjects, but one of the subjects I also find really befuddling. It reminds me when I think about fitness, exercise, and food, what we should do, what we shouldn't do, what works, what doesn't work. Like, we all know there's a gazillion things out there, the cutest industry. It reminds me of a really old Woody Allen movie. I don't remember the name, but he gets transported to the future. And he's growing up in a time when, like, you know, you shouldn't meet me. There's all these things you shouldn't do, and he gets to the future, and everybody's eating steak. And he's like, befuddled. He can't even understand. And that's kind of what it's like to be alive, like there's so many different ways and recipes. So I have an expert here today who can clear the air, because what if you could actually get your health in order? And what if you're a 440 or over? And you actually think, I'm done for. This is it. This is the best it's going to get. What if it could actually be better? And what if you can meet somebody who's been there, done that, and lives a very healthy, very athletic, slender, healthy lifestyle today? That's Jessie Walker. And that is my guest. And I want to thank Dr. Dane here at Access Consciousness for supporting the show and for being our sponsors. If you would like to delve into some more energy healing, go to drdane.com, also Access Consciousness. They've got class products all over the world. They're there for you. So Jessie Walker is an anti-aging warrior, fitness evangelist, transformation coach, and runs fit beyond 40 and fitness beyond. Jessie Walker is a number one best-selling author and speaker whose passion is sharing fitness and anti-aging strategies in a straightforward way that helps us overcome health and fitness challenges. He's developed simple habits he's going to tell us about for even-overworked entrepreneurs who are stretched way too thin between job and family. And he teaches us we can implement things to reduce disease, lose weight, and feel great. He's giving us all a gift today, which is his book. So if you'd like to download his book as his gift to you, go to fitbeyond40book.com. Jessie, welcome to Here to Dream. So great to have you here. Awesome. Thanks, Debbie. I'm really excited to be here. It feels like a minute since we connected. And I know that I got to hear a little bit of your story. And we're going to get there. We're not going to start there because I actually want people to just marinate what you look like first. I kind of like to reverse engineer, like just enjoy how great he looks. And then we're going to get to the real story. We'll pull back the curtain, right? So you and I, before this show started, we were talking, right? You were asking me about my life as an entrepreneur, and you were sort of alluding like, Deb, you're pretty damn busy. So OK, I'm there. I acknowledge busy entrepreneurs. That's part of who you help. 100%. How can people like myself and people who are watching who are super crazy busy, how can we get great help? Oh, that's a really big question. So hopefully we can attack a lot of those things. How can they stay safe? Exactly, during the course of this. But really the simple answer is just with habits. So the thing is that as busy entrepreneurs, we know that in order to achieve any real goal, any real thing we want to achieve, we have to work hard to do it. And so we spend most of our time working hard to achieve the physical goals as far as making money for our families and reaching our business goals and our dreams and those sort of things. But what we fail to do is we always put our health on the back burner. And then when we want to do something about our health, we tend as entrepreneurs to look for the easiest, quickest way to get it done. So we'll take pills or we'll get surgery or follow the newest fad diet or whatever it is. And the problem is that none of these things work. What really works is really the same sort of thing that you did with building your business and that's consistency. So what any busy entrepreneur needs to understand is that it's not a large time commitment. It's more of just a habit commitment. And the habit commitment can just be small amounts of time. We'll talk about some ways to do that. We're really just making some small amounts of time. And once it fits into your lifestyle as a small amount of time that habit is built, then it just continues to grow. Hopefully that makes sense. It does. And so what do you think was the secret for you to have consistency with your regime? Because I really think, I mean, forgive me if I'm wrong but I really think it's one of the hardest things we're surrounded by food all the time. You know, the USA and other countries, everything's a celebration, includes drink and food. And it seems like so many things are very restrictive so people do them for a short period of time and then say, you can't do anymore. So what was your secret to really aligning yourself, to get yourself to where you are today? All right, well, you bring up a really good point, Debbie, as far as right now the way the diet industry sort of teaches us to do things is a very restrictive sort of way. It's like in order to achieve this goal, you need to starve yourself or only eat chicken and broccoli and these sort of things. And personally, that was a roller coaster that I was on. So I spent years chasing the newest diet or doing the new crazy workout program like P9DX or whatever it was, and I tried all those things but again, all of those things you're unable to do in a consistent basis because you can't eat chicken and broccoli forever, you just can't do it. So for me, I had to start off slow. I had to pick one specific habit and the one specific habit that I started off with was just 30 minutes of resistance training three times a week. That's where I started. And actually for a lot of people- Do you mean like bands or do you mean actually weights or having- Oh, sorry, yeah, like weights. All right, like I went, I lived in a high rise on Miami Beach and we just had a small weight room in the high rise. So I would go down three days a week, I'd spend 30 minutes. And for me, that was doable. A lot of busy entrepreneurs think that I don't have 30 minutes to do it. I mean, how am I gonna fit that in? So what I have those people do is they either start off with like a 10 minute a day habit just because again, the idea is the same way you build confidence with doing anything it's by repetition. You're teaching your subconscious, you're the sort of person that is going to do this on a regular basis and whether it's 10 minutes or an hour, as far as your mind is concerned, it is now becoming a habit. And so that's how I teach them to start. So pick something that you can do even for 10 minutes. Make sure you do it religiously. You do not miss because once you start to miss and your brain starts going, oh, well, I could put it off. And then you build on it. Okay, I love that. Right. And it feels to me when you say that like you could feel so successful. Okay, this week I made it three times to the gym, 30 minutes, I'm doing okay. And you probably get to a certain place within that stasis and then you're ready for the next piece. And so was the next piece for you something around food or was it further around exercise? Well, food, that's a good point. So I had a lot of health issues. I was a pre-diabetic at high blood pressure, chronic inflammation, low testosterone, all kinds of stuff was going on. And really the only way to attack those things is through nutrition. The training is incredibly important that you have to do that as well, but the nutrition is really what's going to make the ultimate difference for you. And a lot of people don't realize that. A lot of people will spend two hours in the gym and they won't see any results, but it's because they still aren't taken in the right foods to support whatever their goals are. So for me, I had to figure out, well, I've got all these inflammatory issues. So I need to figure out what foods that I can eat to help me lessen those. Okay. Then also, I've got the issue where I'm fat, I'm obese. I mean, I've got to figure something out there as well. And you were how many pounds? I was 240 pounds at my heaviest, and I'm 5'10. So right now to put that in perspective, I'm 185. Wow. That's amazing. And I have a lot more muscles, so I lost a lot of fat. What was your choice? What was the avenue for you to lose weight but also to cut back the inflammation? Like did you figure out the particular foods that were issues for you or did you just say a little more generic? Yeah, so there was a book that I read. It's by Stephen Gundry. It's called The Plant Paradox. And that book helped me more than any other book as far as determining what foods were inflammatory and what were causing me the most issues. So that's a great book for people to check out. And the title's a little bit misleading because when people hear The Plant Paradox, they think, oh, this is a vegetarian book, but that's not what it is at all. What it is, he's saying that even though we think a lot of these vegetables are healthy for us, they actually are poisoning us. And the idea is that a lot of plants have these things in them called lectins. And what a lectin is is that the plant, their proteins are the plant's defense against predators, essentially. So maybe a certain insect will eat this plant and maybe it'll kill them or paralyze them or what have you. Well, the lectins in most plants aren't gonna kill us or paralyze us right off the bat, but they still cause other issues inside of our bodies that are not exactly good. So for instance, the most popular lectin is gluten. That gluten is a lectin, for instance, but there are thousands of other ones, right? And he has a whole list of yes foods and no foods. And his yes food list is pretty good, but the no food, you get surprised at some of the foods that are on the no food list, all right? You get also surprised no food. Yeah, like tomatoes, all right? Or like foods with seeds in them, for instance. So a lot of these foods are like, it's weird. Oats, I'm trying to think of other things that are on there that are just kind of funny that I wasn't expecting. Sorry, my brain's going blank. It's okay, no, I'm fascinated by this. But so here's the thing, when I first did it, I went ahead on forgetting, I didn't discount anything he said. So I went with, I got rid of all the no foods and it worked, you know, I started losing weight. Of course, part of the deal is you're more aware of what's going in your mouth too, all right? And you're not eating bread because wheat, of course, is a super dodo. And so I started losing weight and then I started feeling a whole lot better. But then what happens is after a couple of years go by, you start going, all right, well, listen, I kind of want to eat tomatoes sometimes, you know, I like, you know, so, but that's okay. You figure out what foods you still want to let in and you kind of go with it. You don't have to take it that serious, but if you're just starting, I would just go with all, just get rid of all those no foods for a little bit and go for it and it's a huge difference. Totally. Yeah, I'm thinking of other foods too, like eggplant has those tiny little seeds in it. Yeah, that's really interesting. It's also a nightshade, so I wonder how much has to do with that. But I- Nightshades, I think you mentioned, yeah. Yeah, because a lot of people have arthritis or advise not to eat nightshade vegetables that it can really bring up the inflammation in the body. The inflammation is like serious. I don't know if people realize, will you talk to that a little bit? So it's not just something like, I'm bloated, right? I mean, like serious health shift, right? Yeah, yeah. So inflammation is responsible for a lot of the chronic diseases that we suffer. You know, so arthritis, you know, is an inflammatory disease. Crohn's. There's, I mean, there's so many. Me personally, I had a lot of tendonitis, so I had a lot of swelling in my tendons and my joints, and I'm only, at the time, I'm in my early 40s, you know? And it's kind of silly I went through that. I actually ruptured a tendon in my thumb and they had to, you know, cut me open and replace it. You know, it's just silly stuff like that. But yeah, inflammation is absolutely no joke. Pretty much any chronic disease you can think of, inflammation is probably linked to it somehow. Yes, cancer as well, I know, is often inflammation. So yeah, no, it's really serious. And so let's go back there. So you say prediabetic, obese, all of that. And people go on his website, by the way, when you see the pictures, you will not believe it. I should have, I should maybe do a share because it's really pretty profound what you look like. And I might try to do it as we speak and do a little bit of a share screen. So talk about, you know, your before and how long the journey was for you to be so solid where you are today. All right, that's a good question. So my journey's really long and it's a roller coaster. Okay, so I started off as one of those chubby kids, you know. And, you know, I mean, technically in the 70s, I was a fat kid, right? However, back then, childhood obesity is nowhere near what it is now. All right, you know, I mean, now it's really common. But back then, there weren't a whole lot of me. So growing up, you know, people were, you know, making fun of me and that kind of stuff. And by the time I got into junior high and high school, I was like, all right, I'm gonna fix this. And I started being athletic in these sort of things. And through my 20s and 30s, I did a pretty good job of keeping the weight down, being like a normal looking dude, you know, keeping some muscle on, that kind of stuff. And it was great. Well, once I reached my 40s, late 30s really, I really started struggling. And of course, it's because I was married now and I was working all the time, you know, all that stuff that people normally use as excuses for why they came weight. And I reached a point where I started to get really sick. And I didn't understand how sick I was. I didn't, I couldn't quite equate it. And then I don't know if a lot of your, I know a lot of your listeners can sort of identify with this is when you see that you're getting sick, you think you have all kinds of time to go ahead and fix it, you know. So yeah, so I'm a little overweight now. Yeah, so I'm pre-diabetic now, no big deal. I'm just pre-diabetic, you know. I mean, I have a little bit of time before it actually goes to full blown diabetes. And so I was going through that, but I was still trying, meaning I would still try this diet, like I did an HCG diet at one point or I did P90X at one point. And I would try all these different things to try to fix it, you know, super fast. Well, when I was 43, my daughter was born. And one of those pictures on the side, I think has me holding my daughter. And at that point, I was like, okay, listen, I really have to do something because this is my only child. And I'm 43 now, which makes me an old dad, plenty of 43 year olds, I only have 20 year old kids at this point, you know. So this is, I gotta make sure I'm here for her. So I figured, well, I'm 63, she's only going to be 20. And if I'm going this way right now, where am I going to be in 20 years? You know, what's going to happen to me? And so I love to give you the story that like, all right, the second that happened, Debbie, I knew what I was going to do when I turned my health around instantly. That is not what happened. Unfortunately, what happened is I spent the next couple of years still struggling trying to figure it out. So when you ask how long my journey was, my daughter is now, she's five, she'll be six in September. I spent another three years really just figuring out what I needed to do before I finally hit on, you know, really what she was. And my issue was that I wasn't aware enough about what was, and actually I told you, I'm kind of turning on my gungery thing, but my issue was I wasn't aware enough about the things that were going into my mouth. And I wasn't consistent enough on my exercise, not that it needed to be this extreme P90X stuff because it doesn't. It just needs to be something simple that you can do consistently because the nutrition is ultimately what matters so long as you are still doing training. God, thank you so much. I've gotten into this with people, by the way, just that one piece about food versus movement. And there's so many people who have the idea that every day you better climb mountains and do this and that and look, nothing against that. I hike every weekend, I do a lot of physical things. And yes, I do it for my health, but honestly, I also have so much energy that if I didn't do movement, it's critical to my personality, right? However, I'm very clear because I see it in my body the difference between when I shift my food, what's possible to when I'm eating the way I wanna eat and I can exercise my tush off and I'll still have a tush, you know? This is so important for people to hear what you're saying that you can do consistent exercise, but not at a cray-cray level and still keep your food in a really healthy zone and that's what's gonna create the impact. That's exactly right, it's exactly right. And a lot of people, to your point, I get people all the time that will tell me, Jesse, look, I eat healthy all the time and I walk, right? How come I can't lose weight? And this question kind of eats me up a little bit because there's a difference between eating healthy and energy balance. So for instance, I can go have a peanut butter, spinach and avocado smoothie, which may be delicious and it may be extremely healthy, but it might also have 1,500 calories in it. And then if I add all the other stuff I ate during the course of the day, which was a nice healthy salad with maybe some chicken and avocados and some eggs on it, it was, you know, if I add all that stuff up during the day, I ate super healthy. I mean, I was a healthy eater, but I ate 3,000 calories and I only burned 1,500. So regardless of how healthy you are eating, your energy balance is still critical. And so what you said earlier about, well, you know, I hike and I do all these things because I have so much energy, that is awesome because there are a couple of main reasons why we start to get fatter as we get older. And one of the main ones is that our activity levels go down, which I'm sure you know. So if you're doing activity like that every single day, then that really helps you. But then of course the other thing is muscle mass. And so that's why I say, no matter what you do, the nutrition's super important, but the consistency with training is as well because the less muscle mass you have, the lower your metabolism is. Right. Okay, I so get this. And thank you so much, by the way, for sharing the truth. I love that you were able to say, you know, you'd hope that it had a happy ending that I took this on and, you know, I was there, but in fact, you struggled, which I think is the norm. Most people stay in the struggle. You finally found your way out. So you must have had some real strong commitment and drive to get to the other side of this. 100%, yeah. My why was clear. And here's the thing. So I've seen several people, I've had to do this myself, thank goodness, but I've seen several people become caregivers for their elderly parents. Okay. And since I'm already an older father, the last thing I want is for my 20-year-old daughter to have to become a caregiver for me, for something that I could have prevented. Wow. If I get hit by a car, that's one thing, you know, but if it's just because I couldn't stop going to Cracker Barrel every Tuesday, it's a whole other thing, right? It's a whole other issue. So being honest with myself, I never wanna have to put her through anything like that that's something I can prevent. And plus, I wanna be able to travel with her. You know, how many times do you say, hey, listen, we're gonna take a family trip? Let's, it would be great if grandma or grandpa could come, but you know what, they really can't. They're in a wheelchair now or, you know, they're on a walker so they can't walk around Disney World with us or, I mean, they can't do it. I don't wanna be the older person that can't. Wow. Damn, that's a good why. Thank you, yeah. I hope a lot of people just had a huge aha. I know like I got gooseies while you were saying that. I'm about to be a caretaker of a mother who, although did yoga and was a vegetarian, blah, blah, blah, her whole life, there's other things she did not do well. And so she suffers right now physically and it is so scary, the whole thought of where this is headed without a doubt and the fact that we, it's yet again, we choose, we decide, right? Right. It impacts our whole life and other people's lives. So that is so powerful. So when you share, Jesse, that that's your why, have you always done this? Have you always been a coach, a fitness guy, an expert in health, or were you doing something else before your transformation occurred? Yeah, that's an excellent question. No, I wasn't. So I'm not one of those people that's been healthy my whole life and I'm just saying, yeah, it's easy. You know, I did it, you do it. You know, and I get it, you know, I see a lot of these kids are, you know, 25 years old and they've always been shredded and they're just telling us, you know, how easy it is to do it. You know, they never had a real job, right? Yeah, that's not me. So my career has been primarily an automotive. I was a digital marketing director for automotive dealer groups. And, you know, I just did their marketing and advertised and helped run the stores and that. And the problem is that in that environment, automotive, people in the automotive industry tend to work a lot of hours. I'm not saying people don't work a lot of hours in other industries, but in automotive, it is pretty standard. And so, you know, working 50 to 60 hours in a week is pretty normal here. And in South, in Florida, unfortunately we're one of the states where dealerships are open on Sundays. A lot of states, which I don't even think in California, I think they're closed on Sundays. Yeah. But here in South Florida, we're open seven days a week. So you may work every single day for a month, you know, it just sort of depends. And we always eat really, really crappy food and, you know, you know- Do you always have donuts there? Oh yeah, and it's not always our fault because especially me, I'm in marketing. We have vendors that come through and they want to be nice, you know. They bring donuts and all kinds of crap and bagels and just whatever. And then we have Capay's there and everybody's ordering barbecue. I love barbecue. I'll do barbecue with you. Yeah, I'll do barbecue. Wow, very interesting. So have you completely left the auto industry? Now this one is. This is my passion. It's a different deal. So when I was making, you know, the transformation, you know, what would happen is people would constantly walk up to me and they still do. Jesse, what are you doing? What did you do? What did you do? What did you do? And I really enjoy sharing that information with people. The thing that made me a little sad was that, I'm not gonna say nine times out of 10, cause it's closer to 10 times out of 10. When people asked me what I did, most of them won't do it. And that, and that was an epiphany for me. So I was like, okay, well, maybe the issue is that they need more support to actually get it done. Yeah. So that's why now I'm a coach. You know, I provide the support because I can tell you to do something. I can tell you why it works, but who here doesn't know if you exercise neat better, you're gonna be in better shape. Who here doesn't know that? You know, everybody's kind of has that. But really, the details as to how, and then the support to make sure you get it done. And that's really where I'm showing you now. So does somebody need to be in Florida to work with you? Oh, absolutely not. I do coaching for people all over the country. Haven't had anybody internationally yet, but I'm sure that I will. But yeah, you can be anywhere in the world and I'm able to serve you. And the way it works is, we do 100% customized nutrition, 100% customized training. But the way that I look at lifelong health is it isn't just nutrition and training. In order for you to succeed, I look at it like a table. In order for you to succeed, there's like four legs. You've got the nutrition, the training, but you also have mindset and habits. So part of the training and coaching is centered around fixing your mindset or building your mindset to the proper mindset and then creating some habits for you. Way in on wine and vodka. I won't go into a lot of alcohols because I get it. But vodka, because it's so little carb impact and because it's goddamn delicious. So you stand on that. So I like to imbibe myself. I think that if you had to choose between the two, you would go with the clear. You would go with the vodka or tequila. That's where you would go. You're gonna have lower calories for the same, let's say effect, okay? You're gonna be a little better off that way because wine tends to have a few more calories you know in the glass. However, none of that really matters as long as you're in balance. So for instance, this week I had, because it was my birthday Saturday. So we went out to a yard table and I had ribs and I had chicken and waffles and I had a couple of drinks and everything's all good. You know, it doesn't really matter so long as you've figured out what your body actually needs and you do what it needs. Cool. And when you do have a vodka or a tequila drink, what do you mix it with? I'm assuming you don't have it straight. So normally, okay, that's an excellent question. So if I'm out at a restaurant I wanna try one of the drinks on the menu. Usually those drinks have a tremendous amount of sugar in them and I'll do one of two things. Usually it is the latter and what I'll usually do, usually what I'll do is I'll say, okay, well, I've already had a lot of bad stuff today, all right? So maybe what I'll do is I'm not gonna have this drink normally what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell them to give it to me no sugar and I'll go like that. All right, that's what I will normally do but sometimes I'll have the sugar. Yeah, so like there's something here that I order called a skinny girl margarita. And so when they make the margarita, obviously tequila but instead of that terrible mix that is so sugar laden they actually have a mix that I don't know what the sweetening is but it's like almost no impact. I didn't get it now in the stores in the liquor stores and stuff. So I'll do that or I try to do something which like really light grapefruit juice in a vodka because I don't like straight alcohol but I'm just wondering if you have, and I'm tonic and all that or... Well, tonics have sugar and I'm sorry I didn't answer your question, right? You're right. So I drink normally tequila straight and if I want any flavor at all I'll have a splash of pineapple and you have to watch the bartender because what they'll do is they'll try to pour some pineapple in there but you really just want to splash and just kind of adds a little flavor to it without adding a whole lot of calories. And just be careful with diet things like the skinny girl. I'm not sure what it has in it but see if it has aspartame or sucralose in it. So for the long term, and I know the diet industry is gonna hate me for this but for the long term, I mean, these artificial sweeteners are killing us. Yeah. And so if you, can you avoid poisoning your body with the artificial sweeteners? Cause we're getting all the stuff in our bodies just from random things anyway. Why add to it? You know, for instance, one of the strategy I teach a lot of people is intermittent fasting. Right. And people always ask me, well, during intermittent fasting can I drink Diet Cokes? Well, you can't, right? You know what I mean? Basically, and it's not gonna change anything. However, while you're doing that 16 hour period or whatever it is and you're cleansing with water and all that stuff and your body's going, oh, this is great. Now you're gonna poison it with a whole bunch of aspartame and sucralose. It just seems kind of silly. But you know, that's the way I look at it. Oh my God. Jesse, has anybody ever told you that you sound like Tony Robbins? No, I get it because my voice is kind of scratchy. That's funny. You really do, actually. You got a whole thing going on there. That's a good name. I gotta get a helicopter, all right. Right. He's also a Floridian, so not too far from you. Well, we're gonna take a very quick break and you are listening to Dare to Dream Radio and podcast. Go to patreon.com slash dare to dream and you can donate. I thank you in advance. You can donate to the show. We interview very successful, bold, fascinating leaders, cutting edge people who have created major goals. And what would you do if you knew that you could not fail? What would you do if you knew at the end of the day you could feel completely free and bold? That's where I wanna take you. That's why Dare to Dream was created because you can dream and create that dream, that one. So be part of the Dare to Dream podcast. Every week I bring you the most exquisite people who teach us things that we wouldn't know otherwise and people you probably might end up working with. You have a big purpose to fulfill. So at patreon.com slash dare to dream, you can support the show. It takes a lot to keep this mama engine going and bring you the people we do and all the business aspects. We wanna be sustainable. We wanna give you the best quality and for a dollar, a cup of coffee, whatever you wanna donate, we are grateful. The show will always be free to you. And if you're ready to give and keep us going after 12 years, we're grateful. It's patreon.com slash dare to dream. If you're tuning in after we've started, Debbie Dashinger, Dare to Dream and I'm interviewing Jesse Walker and his website is fitbeyond40.live. And for those of you who are actually watching the video as opposed to listening to the podcast, you can go to the video. It's youtube.com slash Debbie Dashinger, D-E-B-B-I-D-A-C-H-I-N-G-E-R because I showed some pictures, some before pictures of Jesse while he was telling his story. So I guess I wanna know some favorite fitness hacks. You talked about the three times a week. There's this saying which is it hurts now, but one day soon, it will be your warm up. Yep, it's exactly true, it's exactly it. So with that, with a three times a week, it's a compound effect sort of thing. And the compound effect is basically just doing small things, how they add up over time to a really big result. And so a lot of times I'll talk to people and I'll say, okay, well imagine if you only spent 30 minutes a day, three times a week, for the next month, just exercising, 30 minutes a day. So there's 168 hours in a week. 30 minutes a day, three times a week is 90 minutes. It's an hour and a half out of 168 hours. We all can find that. So if we start there in a month, where are you gonna be? Probably not a whole lot different, but you'll feel better and you've built some habits. In 20 years, where will you be? Where will you be? You'll be a completely different person. And if you're an older person, it means it's a difference between being able to stand up and sit down on your own. That's the benefit of the compound effect of that. But then I also tell them, what's the compound effect of you doing nothing at this point? And then imagine what you're gonna be like in 20 years. So I know it wasn't the question, it was fitness hacks, but when you said that, that's what it made me think of. So my favorite fitness hack for entrepreneurs is the Pomodoro Technique. So the Pomodoro Technique, it's really a productivity hack. And what it is, is Pomodoro is Italian for tomato. And it was made up by some Italian guy. I don't remember what his name is. The bottom line is you set a timer for 25 minutes. All right, so you sit down, you set a timer for 25 minutes, you turn off everything, your cell phone, everything. And all you do is focus on one task for 25 minutes, right? At the end of that 25 minutes, you take a five minute break. So you do the math, that's two five minute breaks every single hour. Now, during that five minute break, you can do whatever you want. You can meditate, you can get a glass of water, you can use the bathroom, whatever it is. But for a fitness hack, you take those five minutes and you do something fitness-like. So now you have this timer that goes off. 25 minutes has gone by, you were super focused, you got a bunch of stuff done. Now you got five minutes, you get up, and if you're at a place that has stairs, you go spend five minutes going up and down the stairs. You just amped your activity for that day and you really spent no time doing it. Because who doesn't have five minutes, right? Or you can stand at your desk and do chair squats. So basically, so you just stand up and down for a little bit. Or you can do push-ups. Or you can go take a nice refreshing walk around the block. I mean, there are so many things that you can do. One thing I preach is drinking a lot of water. Drinking way more water than you need. Which I see you are, you're on it, right? You're on it. Drinking a lot of water. So instead of keeping a big jug of water at your desk, like I see a lot of people do, just have a glass, you know, just like this. And then as soon as it's done or at the end of your Pomodoro, get up, go get another glass and that's movement. And then you're drinking more water. There's a lot of ways you can take that Pomodoro hack and use it to give yourself better fitness without taking time out of your schedule. And how many five-minute increments in general do you think a person might do during a day? So I don't expect anybody to do it for every five minutes they have in the eight hours, which would be 16, you know, but if you can do it 10 times out of that period of time, that's a good job. If you can do it the whole 16, that's a great job too. But think about it, if you do it just 10 times, that's 50 minutes, 50 minutes of activity that you would not have had. And that's on top of your regular exercise? Yes, you know, this is completely separate. This is just about increasing the amount of activity that we have during the course of our day. Wow, very cool, I like that. I can easily do that. Or turn on music and just dance around. I don't do enough of that. Yeah, and you don't have to exercise each time. You can meditate as I mentioned, just something. But when a lot of people are afraid of it, wait a minute, if I do that, I'm gonna be less productive because I took all this time out. But it has been shown over and over and over again, taking regular breaks will make you more productive. Over and over. So, we gotta let that go. I think that is hashtag genius hack. Thank you. Because I really do, I'm a firm believer in the magic of contrary action. The mind says, I must do this, I must get ahead. Look at my, I know it, I know it intimately. I have a skill list and I gotta crank it out. Oh God, the day's over and I never got to finish everything in another day like this. It's the worst. But literally doing what you're describing, which I love, because I know the meditation, I know walking my dog around the block, but you're taking it to another level. And I'm gonna really incorporate this, the idea of literally extricating oneself from a grind and doing something else. I really think the universe kind of comes in on wings. You know, they're like a 401K plan and like, you're taking a break and boom, you know. Here, let's move this project along while you're over there doing squats. It's just amazing what's possible. And I don't know what happens in our psyche pull away from, you know, getting so myopic. But I really feel that's another component that we pull ourselves away from that and something different energetically can be created from us. So five minute Pomodoro people. What's that? Italian tomato breaks, but don't eat the tomato because it exceeds. Tomato breaks, you can call it that, it works. Hilarious, okay. So I would love to hear about one of your clients and some kind of success that they had. There's something you say, which is that your platform is about transformation, right? And not just physical transformation, but an actual change in identity. And I find that very fascinating. So if we could change our body, if we could even change our identity, I'm not really clear what that means, but I know I'm compelled about it. So what is that transformation mean and can you illustrate that through somebody that you've worked with? Absolutely, the biggest thing that I see is confidence. Because especially when you're obese, if you've experienced it, that your movement is restricted, you feel uncomfortable, you feel uncomfortable around other people. You feel uncomfortable with the way people are looking at you, right? You feel uncomfortable every time you put food in your mouth and people around you looking at you. So all this is kind of weighing on you, besides all the health issues and all that stuff. And then if you're one of those people like me that thought ahead about what it can mean to my family in the future, you also got that guilt, maybe along. And so this particular person, same sort of thing, very, very obese, over 300 pounds and very self-conscious, because when people would look at her, then she would feel like she was being judged, right? And then of course also the way she was with her spouse, her spouse was overweight as well, but sometimes women tend to be more self-conscious about their weight than men do. So you can imagine how that sort of affects her and of course the bedroom and the whole deal. So the difference is that once you get a hold of it, first you get the confidence that I am now in control, and that's the first part, I'm now in control. Because a lot of us, we let ourselves get run by the excuses and then the excuses unfortunately make us feel helpless. The reason I'm like this is, I mean obviously I've got, and she has kids, I'm really busy, I've got my kids and then I've got my job and I have all these things, I just don't really have the time to take care of myself. But when you're like that, then you don't have any power. You don't have any power. You have to accept the responsibility that if you make it a priority, you have the time. So once she was able to do that, once she was able to become aware of the foods that are going in her mouth, it's a complete transformation. She's a completely different person. And that's really the key. Confidence is up there, smile all the time and she can eat what she wants in front of people within reason, within reason. She's not eating full red velvet cakes every day, but within reason. And did her man come along when he saw what she was doing? You know, no, and that's a good point. So it's really important, I think, for a spouse to support the other one when you're making the transition. And a lot of times the spouses don't. The spouses want to keep smoking. The spouses want to keep eating the same crap. They don't want to go to the gym. Luckily she had me as a coach and I was her support regardless of what he was doing. So that really helps. But for anybody that wants to get into shape at home, I know it is difficult if your spouse does not support you. So find somebody that does, you know, that's all I can say. Or just become really strong and be able to do it yourself. Yeah, yeah, that can make a huge difference to really have that kind of grit. We're gonna come back in a minute here and talk about a couple of steps that people can use that Jesse recommends for lifelong health and vitality. You can subscribe to this show. Go to, gosh, it's like it's all changing. I can't say iTunes anymore because iTunes is going away. It's like, ah, but you can go to Spreaker. You can go to YouTube. You can go to, my goodness, literally Google Debbie Dashinger comma Dare to Dream. You may already even be on my website as a subscriber. There's so many places and spaces that y'all can listen to the show and leave a five-star review because every time you do that, somebody who really wants to engage in this conversation can find the show based on your review. And I have an exclusive just for Dare to Dream listeners only. If you are an entrepreneur or a small business owner and you would love to have a platform to make some money, Thinkific is the place. It is so unique. And this is where you can create, market and sell your own online courses. It's powerful, it's an all-in-one platform. The biggest companies and entrepreneurs are using it today and it's so easy to share your knowledge and grow your audience, scale your business. Doesn't matter if you have 10 students or 10 million students, Thinkific gives the easiest technology and the best support in the business. They have put together a special just for Dare to Dream listeners. And when you go to thnk.cc-dambdeb, you will get three months of their business platform for free. Yes, you heard me right. It's only for you guys. Thinkific business plan, Dare to Dream. And you can set up your own online course. Just follow the link to the exclusive deal. It's thnk.cc-dambdeb. I'm interviewing Jesse Walker, FitBeyond40.life is his website. And Jesse, I'm curious, what allowed you through the journey that you've been on to actually move beyond expectations or setbacks and actually carve out the path that you're living today? Oh, that's a good question. Ultimately it was, I'm sorry, I may have to edit this. I hear all the kids singing in the background. Can you hear that? No editing. We're live, but those are the kids that you got all fit for. So we're gonna celebrate that they're there and shouting and happy and playing. Sorry, it just distracted me. Yeah, I have to tell him, let's start. Well, I'm gonna read something while Jesse is doing his thing. And of course you can see behind him is FitBeyond40, this beautiful green background. And here's the saying. The saying is, this is Nike, by the way. It takes four weeks for you to not notice your body changing. Eight weeks for your friends and 12 weeks for the rest of the world. Give it 12 weeks, don't quit. I love that Nike poster. So. Sorry about that. It's okay, saying that whenever you've had a setback or expectations, what was it that allowed you to keep really committed to yourself and have fortitude like, no, I'm doing this. This is where I'm heading. Yeah, ultimately it's the why. And every client I work with, we dig deep to figure out what their why is. Because if they aren't clear on what that why is, they're just not going to stay. So for me, my why was super clear. And then, and this is a hack that I was going to share with everybody with the entrepreneurs, most of the strategies that I come up with are strategies that give me more time in addition to whatever the health benefits are. All right, so for me, I want to eliminate my excuse that I don't have a lot of time. All right, because we all do. If we're entrepreneurs, we all have the excuse, I just don't have enough time. So instead of just beating my head against the wall, trying to beat the time thing, I came up with ways that would give me more time. So for instance, intermittent fasting is a strategy that I used that really helped me and I still use it. And the reason intermittent fasting is such a blessing for entrepreneurs is it actually gives us more time. Because if we are not preparing meals throughout the day and eating meals throughout the day, instead our meal-eating window is shortened, then the rest of the time, we're not going to find food, you know. We would get, I would get to the dealership at let's say 7.38 o'clock, nine o'clock, whenever I got there, spent on the day. But the first thing I would do is go to the cafe and grab some food. I would waste the first 30, 40 minutes while I'm there, going to get food, talking to people, eating the whole thing. It's a waste of time. So I take that whole part out of the equation with intermittent fasting. Another thing that I do is I have a morning ritual and this is something that everybody should have. And the morning ritual itself needs to be something that helps you save time. So you cram a lot of important stuff into that morning ritual. Like already have your glass of water right there by the bed. A lot of people hit the snooze button right away. I have this ritual where the second the alarm goes off, I get up and then I feel grateful immediately. Because why? Because the snooze button on an apple is nine minutes, I think. You do that twice, you waste 18 minutes. So again, another way to find more time in the day to exercise. That's the way I do everything. So that's what helped me. I always find hacks that will give me more time to do the things that are important to my body. Nice. Do you have like a blog with more hacks on your website or is there a place I guess your book? Does your book have a lot of those? My book has some of them. I wrote the book a while back. It's more about my journey. And so it's funny. People will enjoy it. It's a good time. The hacks and stuff. So I have a YouTube channel. They're cool. And they can go to the YouTube channel and see some of my videos. And also on my Facebook, if they go to Facebook, it's You Fit Beyond 40, they can visit that and they'll see me post things about my hacks as well. And your YouTube channel is what? It's Fit Beyond 40. Okay. Good branding. All the way across. My coaching's for this Beyond coaching. It all fits. Jesse, this is Dare to Dream. What do you next, Dare to Dream? What are your future dreams or goals? That's an excellent question. So I'm really passionate about this coaching thing. I want to be able to help as many people as I possibly can doing it. You know, a lot of people have this like I want to help one million people. I don't even know if I can quantify helping one million people. I don't know about that. What I do know is I want to have, I want to see, let's make it a thousand people smile at me because I was able to help them. That's really more what I want. I do a lot of these, I do a lot of these coachings on Facebook. You know, where I'll have a few hundred people on the group and I'll just sort of coach. And I get more pleasure out of that off times than my one-on-one coaching stuff because these people aren't expecting a whole lot. They don't know me. You know, they aren't expecting a whole lot. They just start, okay, well, this guy's got some stuff. But then after they go through the coaching they're just so excited and they're writing me for after one. I can't believe you helped me. And that's what I like. So as long as I can keep that part growing, that's amazing. I think everybody, everybody can be a little bit better. They just need the support. Nice. Thank you so much for sharing your brilliance today on Dare to Dream. It's been great to have you. Awesome, thanks, Abby. Yeah. I end today's show with this quote, which is, I will not let age change me. I will change the way I age. Next up on Dare to Dream Radio, I'm featuring Coach Melanie Benson who's gonna walk us through big goals, clearing overwhelm and creating money. Again, subscribe to this conversation. It's number one transformation conversation on podcasts. And I'm so grateful that you joined us today on Dare to Dream. Always post your comments and we read them all. We'll get back to you. Create your dreams and live big and bold.