 There he is, I hate having my face juxtaposed right next to yours. It just really accentuates like how old and fat I've gotten. Are you in your backyard? I'm in my backyard because with things being the way they are, can't really go to a studio space like we used to. How are you man? I'm good. How are you? Happy Easter. Thanks man. When I was doing this I totally forgot that it was A, Easter, and B, my birthday. Wait, it's your birthday? Yeah I didn't remember until yesterday. Happy birthday. Thanks man. This is how I want to spend it. Amazing. Oh I got coffee too. Oh nice. Cheers. Cheers. So how do you feel about big hair? Because it's happening. You're telling me. I'm used to getting a haircut every week. Well you're keeping it nice and tight still. Like look at my sideburns. Like what is going on? Why do they grow so much more aggressively than every other part of my head? So this is going to be fun I think. I'm looking forward to chatting with you. We have a, there's a lot that I actually want to talk to you about because I want your advice on things. And you might have questions for me too about what's going on with COVID. I'm happy to address whatever you want. But shall we just ask each other questions? What do you want to do to take turns? Okay so you seem like the right guy to talk to you about this sort of thing. And I think a lot of our listeners at the House of Pod would like to hear this too. You know it's, we always talk about how important it is to keep routines. Keep yourself as mentally fit as possible. It is really, really hard to do. So how, how are you doing it right now? What is your routine like? And how do you recommend people go about making their own? Well, first of all, I'm going to say that I'm an introvert. So it comes a little, this whole scenario comes a little bit more naturally to me than I'm sure it does to most people. It's not too far outside of the realm of like my normal routine anyway. But I definitely was like, when we first started to lockdown, I was like, okay, I need to make sure that I kind of set up some sort of structure for my life. And that I'm not just living in my PJs 24 seven watching TV and binging snack food all the time because that's not lead to anything healthy in the long run. So one of the most important things that I started to do was to re get into was my gratitude journal. That's something that I really did a lot when I was going through hard times, depression in the past. And so I knew that that's something that kind of like keeps me my perspective in a really good, healthy place. So that when I wake up in the morning, that's the first thing that I'll do is I'll sit down and I've got my little mole skin and I'll sit down and I'll just jot out five to 10 things that I'm grateful for. Oh, that's really awesome. Yeah, that's really great. How long does it how long do you spend doing that? Depends on how difficult it is for me to come up with things that way. It could be five minutes. It could be 10 minutes. Sometimes it's easier than others. Yeah. It's definitely better than just immediately opening up, you know, news articles and just reading headlines and social media and all that right away. Right? Well, that's sort of the other question I have for you is like how to manage social media at a time like this. I mean, I think it's sort of this cruel function of my phone now to show me how much time I spend on it. It's just at this point, it seems unnecessary and unusual punishment. And for me in medicine, I'm finding it really useful. It's an incredible tool for learning about what's happening. In fact, I will say this, you know, the doctors I know that were on Twitter, for example, they saw this coming in the severity of it much sooner than the doctors I know who aren't because we're seeing things from like other places. We're seeing what was happening in Italy, in Iran and in New York and everywhere else before it started going to other places. And I think it is really helpful in that way in spreading information, treatment strategies, things that are working because there's not a lot of real data out there. So we are using social media a lot as doctors to like learn things. But it is really a challenge to learn when to shut it off. It keeps us connected. It helps us do things like this, which make, you know, make my day. But how do you recommend we do it? How do you recommend we limit it? You're a social media guy. How are you making this work? I'm guilty of being on social media so often. And I can rationalize it too because I'm like, this is what I do. This is what I get paid to do. This is my responsibility. So it's so easy for me to just endlessly loop through Instagram, then Facebook, then Twitter, then Snapchat, then, you know, TikTok, whatever it is. But I'm living with someone right now, my partner, and I really make it a point that when, you know, especially in the evening when things start to wind down and we like might put on a TV or movie, have dinner together, that I'm not constantly picking up my phone all the time, that there's like dedicated space and time for other things where my phone is spaced down. I'm not going to pick it up. I'm not going to look at it and yeah. And that brings me to another thing that, you know, especially if you're living with someone who's like a romantic partner or couple or something, that even though we're stuck at home together all the time, that you still kind of structure your day in a way that's like, some of it's for recreation. Some of it is for if you're working from home to work from home and to have a designated area for that. And to communicate that with the other person and respect that space. But then also, even though you're spending time with this person, presumably every day, to still have designated time for like the date night or something, you know. Like we did that recently and we're like, we just got dressed up. I mean, we're going to sit on our couch and watch TV anyway, but we got dressed up and we made it a thing and it just felt a little more special than it would have otherwise. Yeah, you dedicate that time. It sounds like you do a good job of fasting on the internet and the social media. I think that's totally important. It is a strange time in terms of like relationships. I'm very curious to know what people are doing. You know, I'm married, I have kids. So it's not totally unusual. I've been in this place for a while, but this is the most time I've spent, like my wife and I have ever been like stuck together. We either at work, you know, the hospital or we're here. She's in the medical field as well. Yeah, yeah. She works with a lot of coronavirus patients, COVID patients. So she's, so she is getting out of the house in a way, but not for something really fun, you know, it's a bit stressful. It is, it is hard managing that space. And, you know, we live in a small San Francisco apartment. So it's not like there's a ton of space to begin with. So it's important. That's a good reminder to sort of set times specifically for our own thing, when possible, and then times together. I have to do a better job of turning my phone off, you know, and just walking away from it. I totally agree. Getting back to your routine. How are you doing with exercise? Exercise. You know, there was about three where I was just like not feeling it. I was really bummed that like, because I, every morning I would go to the gym and that was like an hour or two hours to really just give it everything I got. You know, that's how I started my day for years. So it's been hard for me to finally, and I always thought like working at home was like, I'm just strength training and bodybuilding and just the idea of doing bodyweight exercises wasn't appealing to me. So I kind of put it off for a while, but I finally got around to it. I've been doing actually live workouts on Instagram, which I think is kind of an accountability thing too. And it makes it a little more fun. And I'm actually starting to really enjoy it. And the days that I do workout and get my heart rate up, I feel way better. What about you? No, I've not been, this has not been the healthiest time for me. I was actually funny too, because before the started, you know, I was just starting to go to the gym again. I had gotten like a trainer and I was actually just starting to do exercise. And then of course I upset the natural balance of the universe by doing that. And I somehow caused this all to happen. That's what I think. You went to 5G towers. That's right. That's right. So I've been trying a little bit. So it's something I need to do. I mean, it's part of the reason I wanted to have this call with you and sort of get some advice on when to do that. It is a bit challenging, of course, because you know, we have kids, it's hard to do that in the house and exercise because they'll want to come climb on you if I'm doing like pushups or something like that. One thing I have to do more of is take walks. In my neighborhood, it's an option that I have. I'm here in LA, right? Yeah. I mean, is your neighborhood, is it like sort of walk friendly? Can you go outside and take walks? That's something I need to keep doing and really pushing myself. I mean, the one benefit to living in San Francisco is all these hills and sort of using them to my advantage is something I need to start doing more and really dedicating time to. So tell me, what should I do, man? Give me a strategy. Aside from walking, I mean walking is great. When I was personal training, it's like doing steady stay cardio, you know, three or four times a week or 30 minutes greatly vastly improves your health in the long run. So that's already really good. But even if there's ways that you can incorporate your kids into your exercise, like my sister, sometimes she'll do my live workouts too. But she has a, let's see, she was born in October. I should know. Like five, six months old. So she has the baby strapped to her chest and she'll do exercises with the baby as weight resistance weight. So even if you just make it fun or a game with the kids. Yeah, get creative. Yeah, that's a good idea. I think I'll join you for you. Tell me, and for anyone that's not already doing it or familiar with you and your website, where do people find you and when? On Tuesdays and Saturdays, I'm doing it through the AIDS healthcare Instagram. It's just AIDS healthcare on Instagram. And then I kind of just, I haven't been doing a set schedule lately, but I'll announce it on my stories like a day or two before when I do it online. All right. I like that plan. I like that plan. Do you have any questions for me about COVID? Yeah. Man, I mean, I first of all, I think it's really cool that you are able to communicate with other medical professionals at this time now with social media and how that's kind of informing your knowledge and how you're going about handling it. And a lot of times the information that's coming from higher up is kind of behind. It seems a little lagging. Yeah. Is that something you're experiencing? Well, totally, definitely. I mean, and you have to be careful where you're getting your sources from now more than ever. So generally in the world of medicine, things move slowly because that's how we like. We like to be cautious. We like to do the research. We like to have the data here. It's hard to do that. It's hard to create good papers, you know, to make a good study, to make a good paper really takes some time. You have to like really take your time to like do the study, research it, have it vetted, have it peer reviewed by other doctors, scientists. And it's hard to do that these days because of the way things are going. To some degree, while that's happening in the background, we also need to sort of be spreading as much information amongst doctors who are doing the treatment right now and currently working with them. And that's been really useful. Listening to doctors in New York and seeing what they're doing in Detroit and then comparing it to what doctors in Italy and China have been doing. It's been really useful. So there is a little bit of difficulty in knowing where to get that information for the everyday person who isn't in medicine, doesn't know people. I would say this. So Dr. Fauci, the guy who has been sort of at the podium with Trump, he's brilliant. He is a voice I trust. I mean, he is like the editor of one of the greatest medical tomes of all time, Harrison's. It's just like something we all read when we're in medical training. He's been at the front lines of every infectious thing since like 1984. So it's really useful. It's really useful to have him around. And I would listen to him in what he says. And I try not to get too political but these days it is hard to not get too political. I really feel like they're forcing my hand on this one. So I would say listen to those people over maybe the president, which is a strange thing to say. I know. And I can't believe I'm saying that but you really have to listen to the people in medicine and the scientists here on this one. It's going to be tough. It's going to be tough measuring because there's going to be two very different forces that are going to be coming in the next month or two. There's going to be on one hand what the scientists and what the doctors are going to recommend. And then there's going to be people who are looking from a different perspective. And I'm not saying it's not a valid perspective. We have to look at the economy. We have to look at other things. But there's going to be people who are going to be talking and using speaking points that aren't necessarily going to be aligned with those of us in the medical community. And I definitely think I'm biased obviously because I'm in the medical community but I think this is a time more than ever to listen to the doctors and the scientists. I think this is the time if you're ever going to this would be the time. We hear a lot about flattening the curve with the exponential growth of the virus. Do you see signs that that's starting to happen? Do you think that that's how do you feel that that's going to relate to as far as the timeline when we start to leave our homes and get back to work maybe if our jobs are still there or try to increase the prevalence of normal life? Yeah, that's a really good question and it's a really tough one. So for your listeners who don't know me I should just first start by saying so I have this medical podcast it's called the House of Pod and we talk about medical issues we've been doing it for about a year and a half two years and the last month or two obviously it's been all coronavirus so we've been interviewing a lot of people about COVID and trying to get up to date and trying to find the best new information the truth of it is in terms of the curve in California where you and I are it does seem to be flattening that does seem to really the measures we've taken going early into this physical distancing it really has made a difference we compare our numbers to New York for example even the few days that we decided to do the social distancing physical distancing earlier really made a difference when you're doing something that grows exponentially different so we are in what's called the flatten curve but the important point about that is it doesn't mean that people aren't going to still get sick I mean we still have to be very careful this is going to be a long tough fight what it means though is that we've done it at such a rate we've slowed down the rate of growth enough that it won't overwhelm the medical system and make the medical system collapse which is really the fear in New York the medical system is essentially collapsing and it's so bad that every other medical issue then gets put aside it's not just coronavirus not just COVID patients that get hurt from this it's everyone else who had something else going on at the same time it's people who needed a procedure that's been put off people who need treatment for cancer that's been put off people who are going to have really big downstream effects this is going to be a long tough fight but the good news is the measures that we're taking this physical distancing really does seem to be working it's really good to see it does give me a little bit of hope the next couple of weeks are really going to be telling the next couple of weeks in California at least are going to let us know whether or not we successfully stayed off of that surge but I do expect things will continue it'll probably get a little bit worse I'm hoping there isn't a big uptick after Easter and people attending church services family gatherings but I am hopeful now the bigger part of your question the really tough one is when do we reopen and that is a question I don't know I don't have a good answer to because the problem and what I'm afraid of is no matter how well we control things here if things aren't controlled in other places then we're still going to have an ongoing problem there's still going to be people from here going over there getting it coming back there's going to be people coming here from other places bringing it it's going to be tough to do you know my hope is that July, August we're getting back to some semblance of normalcy but I'll be honest with you this thing is changing so much it was on an hourly basis now like a daily weekly basis it's hard to know it's hard to know I think the next two weeks will really help us and in the meantime if we were to find a good treatment that would be huge and there's a couple of promising options out there things that are still being studied nothing that I would say is a miracle drug nothing that I would say is an absolute cure but there are some promising things and there's lots of people looking into it which is also great so I think the next couple of weeks is going to help us a lot or help us figure out what's happening that's not a really it's a super optimistic answer I know I mean it's reality so it's just how it is it's going to be a weird time it's going to be a weird year and the truth of it is I don't know if things will ever totally go back to normal there will be some things that change and I'm okay with that personally how attached am I to the handshake as a way of greeting people I'm not that attached to it I can live about it will there be maybe times in the future where there's like a cold flu and coronavirus season for example that's possible there might be you know there might be some need to do physical distancing on say a smaller level in the future too I think things might change pre-dramatically but I think we will get back to a much closer sense of normalcy it will happen and I really do want to emphasize them really impressed with our state and how people have done here how much has helped I'm really proud of being a Californian for that just for that alone so let's see I asked you about your exercise and we kind of touched on this but something I need to talk about is I don't think the line between being bored and being hungry has ever been so blurry so what do you recommend to keep us from gorging ourselves constantly on junk food that's so tough and I've asked myself that exact question because that's what I want to do when I'm bored is I just want to run from things and it just makes you feel good a little comfort but the thing I noticed when I don't think about eating as much is when I'm really consumed in doing something that I'm excited about focused on so when I work on a project I'm really into then the food is kind of like the last thing on my mind when I have much to do and I'm just kind of chilling and trying to like take up time that's when I really am like catching myself resisting constantly the urge to eat get a snack get something checking in with myself like am I hungry is it time to eat but that's something that I think is really important not just for kind of suppressing appetite but overall health is to have something even though you're stuck at home if you can't work from home do you have something that you can focus on that you're passionate about meaning on a day to day basis you're not just consuming not just food but like media entertainment escapism you're actually working on something that's whether it's you're educating yourself or you know a hobby or something like that it's true but at the same time here I'm going to take off my jacket here at the same time I almost like I've gotten more you know because we have this podcast I've gotten more emails about how to start a podcast than ever before people are really like want to do something which is great and I think they should but I don't know I mean this might also be a good time for people to take a step back to I mean one thing I would like people to do is just to start to learn the language of expressing themselves and how they feel we recently did an episode with a psychiatrist talking about how to sort of say healthy mentally healthy during these times and the first one is just sort of admitting that you have a mental health stressor and admitting that and then starting to use words and terms to describe how you're feeling other than it's okay you know I think that's like where we that's the first thing I'd like to see people do you know I do think there's a lot of I think there's a lot to be said for keeping yourself busy having routine that does seem to be pretty important I would do that and read to you from my gratitude journal please do the third thing that I wrote this morning it's funny that you say that but I wrote I am grateful of how aware I am of my own feelings and what I'm going through because that's so important to be aware of just like yeah I've always been really impressed with you about why you've been so successful at bodybuilding and all the social media stuff you've done is you have really good insight into yourself I mean you're able to sort of look at yourself and sort of look at the good and the bad and be objective about it for a moment not even to like necessarily judge what you're thinking what you're feeling but just to acknowledge it be like I'm feeling this way today and not try and fix it right away not try and not be judgmental about it either good or bad just sort of acknowledging it for what it is I think that's huge and I think you know if we find ourselves having a day where we're like I want to do nothing but just hang out I think that's okay should we take some are there any questions you think maybe people have questions or something like that let's see if anyone has questions go ahead and give them to us now let me look through this list here okay looking good I am looking good okay let's see oh you're talking about it yeah yeah you're probably talking about it yeah that makes sense happy birthday thank you happy birthday very old you're so old thank you Shaheen let's see so from one red RNCD Kavey I'm one of the few that's been on Plaquenil for 20 years so far no COVID I mean so Plaquenil is this medication so you probably heard President Trump talking about those two medications hydroxychloroquine and an antibiotic that's been used in a treatment and it came out from one study that showed it had really good benefits now it's promising that study is promising but it was a very small study it's been really criticized for how it was put together it wasn't really a well made study and I don't really blame the researchers I don't think they were trying to hide anything I think they were doing the best with what they could on a very very quick level but it's a limited study and those medications do have significant side effects particularly cardiac arrhythmias and bad things happen and have happened since people have this sort of created uptick not to mention a lot of people are trying to grab that medicine now to use it for either treatment or for prophylaxis and there's really no good evidence you have to do that and people who need it like this person may not be able to get it because other people are on it so I'm glad that you haven't gone COVID please keep it that way I don't know if the medication was the thing that did it though but we'll see I'm hoping it is when it comes to serious medications like that we do have to do the work right because it can be really dangerous otherwise it seems like you guys are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard rock like this because of the nature of the virus and exponential growth you don't have time on your side so you have to make decisions quickly and broadly but then at the same time that goes against kind of how you function normally the scientific method you have to find this balance between the two of risk and reward and that's going to be so challenging yeah it's a tough time for the world of research I mean the one positive thing is that I think international communication is pretty good right now obviously on social media so that is really good I think people are sharing information which is what needs to happen I mean you very well one argument as for why things got as bad as they did is that we weren't having we weren't getting the right information we didn't have good communication with people in China I mean that's one thing that I think anyone on the either side of the political spectrum probably agrees with they may disagree with the reasons why that is but clearly if we had better communication to begin with it would have been useful it would have been useful in sort of managing this alright let's see Susanna090900 says it is better to take more shorter breaks to exercise briefly or less frequent but longer workouts I think this is for you is it better to take more shorter breaks to exercise briefly or less frequent but longer workouts you're going to accomplish two different things based on those two variables if you're working out longer you're not going to be able to work out as intensely so that's more like endurance exercise and then if you're doing shorter breaks or shorter bouts of exercise and then small breaks between that gives you the ability to do more high intensity and for me as a bodybuilder with strength training I had the tendency to do kind of longer easy cardio maybe like 20, 30, 40 upwards a minute at a time but I noticed that my cardiovascular fitness as a result of that was kind of diminished I couldn't really do a whole lot for very long so what I've been doing lately since I've been working at home is what you mentioned is the shorter bouts of exercise more intense and more breaks more often and I think that's better for cardiovascular fitness overall yeah that sounds reasonable to me I'll defer to your knowledge on that but I think overall we I don't know if anyone's going to come out looking more yoked from this experience the only hope is to say sort of cardiovascularly fit which by the way is something if you are really worried about how you will respond if you get COVID being in a better sort of cardiovascular place having more fitness there that would only help I mentioned that to my doctor too when I was feeling sick if he recommended that that was fine as well which planet fitness would open so it's a good question when will gyms reopen in general I don't know that's a tough one I don't know if it would be considered essential but it certainly helps a lot of people with their health so there's an argument that it could be reintroduced earlier but I don't think that's happening anytime soon you want to do that next question there oh hey look at Sal so I'm a high school student and I'm spending a lot of my day studying or working how should I use those 15 to 20 minute breaks to stay healthy and more active the first thing that comes to mind is just to get up just stand up and sometimes if I'm working on a project and I'm editing for a long time videos regularly I'll just get up and I'll just walk around the house kind of let my mind just wander as it wants to I need that just to be able to let my mind kind of just do what it wants to do and not have to focus on one topic or one thing and I have my dog, I'll play with my dog you could do some quick exercise during your down time push ups squats how do you feel about that like how do you feel about just like really short little exercises like 2-3 minutes of squats or something do you feel like there's any real physical benefit to that or do you feel like that's mostly for mentally clearing your head I think mostly it would be for the mental clarity you get and getting your blood flowing waking up your body again but how do you do it in a way that's more intense and you're really pushing yourself for those 2-3 minutes I mean you can be breathless pretty quickly if you're doing a lot of breaths it won't take much for me at this point so you can get a lot I mean I've done that before where I just do little bouts and I'll be sore the next day for sure well here's what I'm going to do I'm going to start following you for these workouts I'm going to get super buffed and then I'm going to put up more pictures of me with my shirt off to compete with you on social media and I'm going to be the next you basically how do you feel about that I'm honored I'll start wearing a lab coat and a set of scope it doesn't take much that's pretty much all it is you put on a set of scope and all of a sudden I almost wore it here that's pretty much all it was well man thank you so much this is really fun chatting with you it's really good to see your face first of all it's good to see a friendly face this is the best part of social media so maybe we'll do this again but definitely when this is all said and done you're going to have to come up and hang out with us in San Francisco alright thanks everyone for watching and if you haven't already where should people find you if they aren't already following you for me it's my name Ray D'Rozzi either on Instagram which you can find here obviously or on Facebook on Twitter it's R and then D'Rozzi my last name and if you guys aren't already listening to the House of Pod you can follow us here on Instagram or on Twitter at the House of Pod find us pretty much anywhere you get your pods casted and take a listen we'll be doing a lot more coronavirus episodes coming up alright man thanks a lot alright cheers