 Okay, welcome everyone to Megalife 21 Hard-Hitting Podcast. I'm your host James P. Madonna of Progressive Discussions, and I am here with my very special guest for the first time on my show, the authentically documented man with the world's strongest neck, Jeff T. Rex Bankins from Southwestern Louisiana. Jeff, great to have you on the show. Hey James, it's great to be here and I appreciate you inviting me. I'm looking forward to the show. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Now, let's go back in time and tell the folks what inspired you to first get involved with strength training and with strongman competitions? Well, it first started when I was a very young child. That's when the Incredible Hulk TV show was showing. Oh, with Bill Bixby and Lil Furry. That's right. When I saw that, I thought, man, I would love to be strong like that. And at the time, my dad was a comic book reader. So of course, I got into comic books and superheroes. And to this day, the Incredible Hulk is still my favorite superhero of the comic book genre. But all of that's what sparked it. But I didn't actually start lifting. I'm going to say correctly until I was a grown man probably in my early 20s. That's when I really started learning how to properly work out up until that time. I used the, you know, the fans and junk that they show in all these muscle magazines that it doesn't amount to the killer beans, unless you're on steroids or something. Right. That is very correct. Well, you know, the learning process for me, it was the same way basically back in when I was, I'd say in grammar school, early grammar school, I was a kid. My stepfather used to get the old muscle magazines from way back. Different ones, one by Dan Lowry, then Joe Weeders magazine. And at that time, Bob Hoffman from the York barbell company had one out. Yeah. And I used to look through them. And, you know, I didn't know I was naive. And I believed all the advertisements in the magazine that if I just got this protein powder. Exactly. Or weight gain that this, that let's say Dave Draper or Arnold Schwarzenegger or Franco Colombo is advertising that I'm going to get big. But you know what? Of course they don't tell you they took every steroid known to man. You know, Arnold Schwarzenegger used to take a whole handful of Diana ball tablets like he used to pop them like it was candy. But of course, in the ad, he was promoting all this crap that really didn't do a damn thing for you. And they didn't tell you the truth about strength training that you have to have the correct genetic body type. Plus, you have to eat properly. And you have to train properly. I mean, they didn't mention the steroids. So yeah, that's the problem with the muscle magazine. Now what happens is all the kids that's that try to they try to do the workouts that the professional bodybuilders were doing that was in the magazine. Those workouts are for people that are on steroids that can physically do them. Exactly. It's way too much work. There's no way you could possibly do that and have a life. I mean, I mean, back then Joe Weider probably sponsored, you know, a handful of the greats and they they hung out at world's gym and gold's gym all day long, you know, and he probably supported them. And, you know, I mean, if you and I had nothing but time on our hands to just hang out at gold's gym, you know, and eat high protein foods and work out all day and everything spent hours. And hours. And then go on the beach. Hey, let's get a tan. Hey, Jeff, let's go on the beach. And, you know, I mean, of course we would we would win contest. Well, yeah, of course, but it doesn't really work that way in the real world. Yeah, you have a life. You have a family. And then I found out from the old Bob Hoffman book of barbell training, which was in circa 1940s. That the greatest strong men, whoever lived had very short, high intensity periods of physical high demand, physical stress, followed by very long rest periods of recuperation. Well, you know, when you think about it, James, that's what makes sense. It just seems too easy to be true. I mean, easy as far as it's not complicated. No, because the greatest strong men that were like back then were sailors and butchers. And the reason why he mentioned sailors and butchers. Let's take the butchers back then had a wrestle the livestock literally, you know, and and the sailors had times where, you know, you had to pull the ropes and physically demanding, followed by periods when where you had nothing to do but just lie around and recuperate. And the first strength training workouts were patterned after those occupations and lifestyles, high intensity, go to failure, push yourself possibly a little beyond the point of failure and then have a lot of rest. Yeah, right. It works. And it works to this day. I mean, you know, a lot of people, they have these gimmicks and infomercials and you just like people, the young people, they believe it, young guys believe it. And, you know, a lot of it is just junk. It's just gimmicks to make money. Exactly. It is, you know, it's a shame that people still believe that. But I mean, I guess we wouldn't know any better if we hadn't found out the truth some kind of way. But you never stop learning throughout life. Yeah. Yeah, I'm finding that out the older I get. Yeah, I'm still learning new things. You know, it's good to be a very well rounded person. I don't like, I mean, I once knew a man with a master's degree who didn't know that General Motors made Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick and Osmobile. Oh, come on. And Cadillac. No, he didn't know. He didn't know because he had tunnel vision and everything was his career, you know. Yeah. I don't like, I don't want to be that way. I always want to be well rounded. And I don't mean well rounded like my governor here, Chris Christie, but you know, well rounded. Yeah, I know it's me. Educate, educate, or Chef Paul Prudone. Right. Exactly. You know, well rounded. But anyway, what happened to look like the late Dom DeLuis, but that's another story. But anyway. Yeah, they do look like twins. They look like twin brothers. But I used to watch Justin Wilson on the old cooking shows. Oh, yeah. And my wife's grandmother said that they were keen to him. I'm not sure how close it can, but they had some kind of relationship with cousins or something. Justin Wilson. I remember it. The thing that cracked me up. I remember it stuck on my head. He says, you know, you know, people are asking me. Why I use olive oil. And I'm thinking, what the hell is he saying? Then I realized what he was saying. They tell me, Justin, why do you use olive oil all the time? Hey, I use this olive oil because I like the olive oil. He was saying olive oil. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. You talk funny. Yeah. I guarantee. Anyway, I guarantee that Jeff Bankins has the world's strongest snack because I, at the beginning of this podcast, as you saw, is a copy of his certification. So, you know, this is a very serious gentleman when it comes to strength training. And now tell me about, you also have a love for the old time strongman. I think they performed at carnivals back in the day. Yeah. They performed at carnivals. Bodville, which would be like live theater. They would do that. And like you said, many of them would be in circuses. And then some of them that were lucky enough to live somewhere like New York City could perform daily or weekly at somewhere like Coney Island. Yeah. That's right. The whole season, the whole spring and summer season, they had that opportunity. Atlantic City, New Jersey. Yeah. But that would be another good place for them to go to. Yeah. And I'm sure they had something like that in California. Yeah. I would imagine. Maybe Santa Monica Pier or something. Yeah. And Muscle Beach. I'm not sure when that became popular, but I mean, I know some of the guys would work out outdoors and attract crowds. And I would imagine they put on like hand balancing performances and things like that. Because I've seen pictures of that stuff from way back. Well, my friend was telling me that the Fisherman's Wharf area of San Francisco is probably the Mecca for street performers. So I imagine any, any place that's a Mecca for street performers, you know, would be I know Key West, Florida has a tourist area where the people watch the sun, the sunset. There's a lot. There's cruise ships that dock there. Hey, personally, I was there and the sun looks the same way there. Then it does in New Jersey. Yeah. There's just something about it. How people want to travel all the way down there to see it. Yeah. You're on vacation. Let's say you're on the island of Maui and there's coconut palms and you're like, Oh, the sunset is breathtaking. Yeah. That's because you're happy. You're on vacation. That's right. Exactly. That's why he's breathed it. But I see the same, the same bright orange ball dropping in the sky right here. That's right. You know, you said cruise ships. I know that there's at least one modern strong man that has performed on cruise ship before as part of their entertainment acts. Yeah. I have to do more. I know there's various famous strong men. Hacken Schmidt and the Zas, the Russian during World War I, but he used isometrics. That's what he said. Now, getting back to old legends, Mr. Charles Atlas, actually, they found out he was lying. He did not build his physique and strength through isometrics, which he called dynamic tension. He did it with old fashioned, resistive training with weights. Yeah. I mean, he won, he won first place in some physique contest in New York City. And I don't see how he could have done it with just his muscle tension. But I guess that's a good program for people wanting to get started at a young age. Yeah. That's about it. I mean, when I was in late 70s, when I was in high school, I bought the Bull Worker, you know, made from made in Germany, the same German man, Mr. Jerk Kabel, who made the old telepander exercise device. And I've seen one of those. I'm not even sure how that's supposed to work though. But I have a Facebook screen that still uses them. Yeah. It's a nice, it's a nice symmetric type of apparatus. And, you know, it used to be in the back of, you know, field and stream, hunting magazines, wrestling magazines in the back. Yeah. Along with the, you know, the spring device, the chest expander, roll the springs. Yeah. Oh yeah. I used to catch the hairs of my chest, used to get caught in a damn thing. Oh yeah. I could see this, you'd have to wear a shirt using one of those. I've got a modern one that uses those rubber tubing or whatever, but it's not the same as those metal springs that they used to use. I could see how that could catch your skin and pinch you. Yeah. Well, if you weren't careful. Eventually I want to get into that because I love my power bands that I got online. Uh-huh. I saved a lot of money getting these on Amazon and they are every bit as challenging as any barbell, dumbbell or machine. Yeah. And they used to have championships of that stuff. I know I've got a book that has a bunch of old-time strongmen. And one of them was, or several of them, I mean, have been champion, what did they call them back then? Yeah. Strand pullers. They called them strand pullers way back. They were strand pulling champions, which is the same as a chest expander. Yes. Exactly. Hey, resistance is resistance. Our muscles don't know the difference between a boulder, you know, of granite and an expensive designer machine. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. The muscles don't give a damn. Yeah, that's right. You know, resistance is resistance. So all-time training can involve anything. I mean, look at that. The man from the Netherlands, Mr. Hank Bakker, you know, he uses... He uses all kinds of stuff. Well, he uses... He took like gigantic links from the shipyards that they use to the chain to hold the cargo ship. Like, you know, like one link weighs a lot. And he took all these devices from the shipyard industry, and he started working out with them. And... Daddy, he's a mighty big fella. He's a big guy. And the thing is that that's proof, you know, also with guys who worked out, you know, over the centuries, you know, maybe they lifted... Maybe they lifted boulders. I mean, anything with weight can be resistance. And he actually got proficient in it. And the thing about using unconventional devices and objects is that they're not balanced. So you have to struggle to keep them balanced. Oh, yeah. And I've got a little collection of things I use from time to time to supplement my workouts. And I can tell you, that is true. It is a lot tougher. Oh, yeah. Without a depth is you have to balance it. You have to lift it and balance it. Now, what have you done as far as competitions in public? Tell the folks what you've done. Okay. I don't really do competitions. But what I do is I do a performance, just similar to a lot of the old-time strongmen we were talking about. What I do is I'll go speak at a school or a church or any type of public venue like that. And what I would do is put on a performance. I'll do various things that I can go over if you want me to. And throughout the show, I use crowd participation. I use either children or adults from the audience to come assist me. And what I do is I get everybody's attention. And once I really have their attention, before I do my finale, I'll give them a message. The message may be at a school that, you know, they can do their best in their testing so that they not only make their school proud, but they do the best they can in life and use that as a starting point to do their best in life. Right. Or if I'm in a church, I'll preach a gospel message or I'll share about what Jesus Christ has done for me. Right. Because I had a rough time in life at one time. And he's really brought me a long way physically and emotionally and pretty much any way you could think of. My life has been changed and impacted. And now I get to share that through these performances. And then there's also been a few times where I was, I have been able to perform on TV. I've made friends with some of the guys at our local TV station. And what they'll do, they'll celebrate, I don't know if you're familiar with the Seinfeld TV show. Yeah. And in that show, they had a made-up holiday called Festivus. Yeah, I'm a big Festivus fan. Okay. Well, every Festivus are thereabouts. For the last three to four years, I've been able to get on our local station and perform a feat of strength in it. You know, it always coincides with Christmas. It's real close to Christmas. So that's also a neat thing I've been able to do. Yeah. And then I'm not sure if y'all are familiar with crawfish. They look like miniature lobsters. Yeah, they're freshwater lobsters. And many a time, I used to work with Seafood for 10 years and we had live crawfish going all over the floor and running around. And yeah, I'm very familiar with them. Okay. Well, our company, the company I work for in my day job, they give the employees out of crawfish boil every year where their whole family and other, their spouses and their children can come with them. And probably for the last six or seven years, I've also been able to perform for the children at that venue. So I've had lots of neat experiences and I even get to sometimes go to like a home for troubled youths and I've been to a Ronald McDonald house before. So doing this really opens up lots of opportunities for me to be able to bless people in a special way with either the performance itself or the performance and the message that comes along with it. It's really a neat thing to be able to do. Well, especially when you're doing a fundraiser. You know, fundraisers and given a test testimony, a personal testimony about your own life, they go hand in hand. They really do. And I found a lot of the strongman, not all of them, but a lot of the ones that are active today do something similar. Yeah. Yes. True. Actually have a good friend. His name is Ken create. He's a performing artist. He does creative mind, creative dance. And he is quite unique. He combines magical props, you know, LED lights, dancing, levitating canes, and he does a routine, but he's also an evangelist. And he ministers, you know, ministry, he gives, he talks a lot about, I don't I don't want to, I don't want to get sidetracked, you know, getting away from the main theme of the show, but he talks a lot about Paul's letters and that we're in the dispensation of grace now. And he talks about Paul's letters and, and someone is, you know, we're not, we're not necessarily just under the law anymore, like the Old Testament, but anyway, he gets into a lot of that. I mean, see, he's really, he's really good. And I did many shows with him. It's on YouTube. I'll have to check that out. Yeah, can create. Just Google mega life 21 can create and it'll all come up. Everything he does. But he does a lot of fundraisers getting back to that. And what he'll do is he'll go to his favorite his favorite local dance club to practice his routines because it's not a very crowded place. He has a lot of room to do it. And he uses that as a place to work out, so to speak. And then he'll go to a really popular club and what happens is people will walk up to him and say, wow, you blew me away. What, where do you get all this of physical ability and energy? How do you make this happen? And he says it's, it's the Lord. So, you know, and then they'll still say, they'll either walk away from him or they'll go, really tell me more about this. And that sounds interesting. And that's his segue into, into talking to people. But, you know, the best is when he gets, when he goes before a very large group at a venue, if he happens to be performing at a church for a fundraising event, indoors, outdoors, whatever. He has, he has a very, what's the word, a very gentle way of getting his messages across without bopping people on the head with it. Yeah, I understand. That's cool. You know, a saw, you can't, yeah, people get pissed when you, when you force things on them. But yeah, that's what he does. But speaking of crawfish, I have an idea. You know, crawfish, when they grow, they molt just like any other crustacean. Yeah. And when they molt, they're very soft. So you watch them, they molt, you put them on ice and you eat the whole thing. You fry them up and now you can eat the whole crawfish. Soft shell crawfish, that'd be pretty interesting. Like soft shell crabs. Yeah, so, but anyway, you can do that with any crustacean, but I don't want to, I know we're digressing quite a bit, but yeah, so you do, you have your particular T-Rex performance that you do in events. And then you get a chance to speak about your own life for yourself, which is very effective. And with the schools, I think it teaches the kids how to focus and work hard at something and really focus. Well, that's what I try to tell them, James, because when you're subjected to something like a state standard, you know, not every kid tests well, but that doesn't mean all those kids that don't test well are dummies. It just means that that may not be the particular thing they're good at. So what I try to encourage them is, you know what, you can't all be performing strong, man, because that just wouldn't work. We can't all be exactly the same, but if you'll get around the right people that will encourage you and you'll work hard, you'll be able to figure out what you're good at, and if you'll pursue that with all your might, you'll be a successful person in life. And that's what I try to pretty much tell them at these schools. And then I think next year, I may have the opportunity to do some anti-bullying programs, which I have traveled with a group before and done that, but I have not had the opportunity to do that myself, so I think that's going to be able to expand what I'm able to do in my repertoire, you know? Yeah, you know, it's funny you mentioned that, because I noticed that many of your big, strong, very powerful, famous athletes that are known for their size and strength, many of them were picked on as a child, you know? Yeah, if you look at the bios of the old-time strongman, a lot of them had that same same story when they were little. Actually, I don't know if you know this, James, but for the last couple years, they've been working on a documentary or a movie about the mighty Adam, the little Jewish strongman from the East. Yeah, right. Well, let's see, last summer, I think it was last summer, 2015, I had the opportunity to be flown to Washington, D.C. and be interviewed for that documentary. Wow. And when I was there, not only did I get to have that opportunity, I got to meet some other performance strongmen, and one was the mighty Adam's last protégé, Slim the Hammerman. Oh, wow. I think back in Madison Square Garden, he said some record by Leverin, two hammers that were joined in the middle, I think they weighed a total of 56 pounds. He was able to lever them down to his shoulder or his nose and then back up. That's incredible. Oh, yeah, and he's still a very powerful, older gentleman. I think around 80 now, in his early age. Without screwing up his elbow joints, he did it. Yeah, now, he does say and did show me that he's got some little knots all over his hands. He said that's from over the years his little stress fractures that have happened from him doing his performances. Yeah. But it doesn't seem to have affected him in any type of way, but I could tell, because he's still in great shape, still got a very powerful handshake. Oh, yeah. Definitely, you know, when you're, I mean, a person's grip strength is tied into their forearm development. You know, their wrists and forearms. But, you know, you can't really, an athlete should never neglect any one part of his body. That's right. You know, I mean, but his strength is deceiving. A person could have tremendous tendon ligament, you know, tendon strength and do amazing things and, I mean, look at Babe Ruth. He had skinny, spindly chicken legs and a barrel shaped body out of the torso. He partied all the time. He had women galore sent to his hotel room. He drank like a fish and he ate constantly. Anything you threw in front of him and he was still an outstanding pitcher as well as hitter. You know, I don't recommend that people follow Babe Ruth's lifestyle. Yeah. He was beyond a party animal back in that time. But, hey, wasn't that the time of prohibition? Where the hell did he get all his booze from? Probably communion line or something like that. That's what a lot of them did. They ordered extra communion line to have a big party. A lot of people died from watered down cheap moonshine with formaldehyde in it. I can only imagine. I saw the documentary about the old speakeas. People used to kind of stretch out their cheap liquor in their room. But I still don't understand why people can't have a still backyard. You can't have chickens over here. You can't have chickens and say I want some hens. I want to raise my own eggs. The town will come down on you for it. You've got to have a permit if it is. Ordinance is an ordinance. Ordinance against something else. I don't know. But that's another political talk show. Oh, yeah, for sure. You own your home, but do you really own your home? Well, you've got to pay taxes on it every year and they'll take it away from you. Even if you've owned it for 100 years. Hey, if you want a high stockade fence, they'll come around and say hey, your fence is too high. Oh, you can't do that. Now you can't even collect rainwater. They arrest people for collecting rainwater in certain states. Yeah, the nerve. You can't be off the grid in Florida. They'll come and they'll send a SWAT team and you can't be off the grid. You have to be a slave to the Five Kats. Oh, yeah, I don't doubt it. Yeah, I mean I used to enjoy watching a show of mountain men how these people survive being off the grid. They do it. They do it. But anyway, so when people think of strongmen, they think of those that bend horseshoes and steel or whatever and breaking chains. Those are like the standby stunts. I mean the typical things that strongmen do with carnivals. But it's a lifestyle change. It's not something where you're going to devote yourself to exercise and then when you leave the gym, you light up a cigarette or drink excessively or do drugs. I believe if you're not going to do it right and live the clean straight edge lifestyle then don't even bother going to the gym. I agree because when you do stuff like I do there's kids and even adults that end up looking up to you and you've got to be a good example to them. It's a responsibility. It really is. It's a role model. Well, the late Jacqueline has said in regards to parenting he says the best way to teach is to lead by example. Instead of it's like forcing a kid to learn how to play piano or violin and you know you wrap them on a note. You better learn that. They're going to hate the piano. But if you lead by example people, especially children they pick up on it. They make you a role model and you know once you're a role model now you have a lot of responsibility. That's true and you got to take that serious because those are the people that are going to replace us when we're either old or pass on and we have a responsibility to do our best to teach them in the manner you're talking about. And that's what I try to do with these children that I talk to even when I get to talk to young adults and others I try to be a good example and you know nobody's perfect but it is a responsibility for you to do the best you can to be a role model and to be a blessing to them and if you do that I believe they will pass that on to others because they feel and younger and little kids need positive role models today because you have millennials that if you hold the door open for them they'll never say thank you they act like they're entitled Yeah It's a real shame they've been raised by TV I would think that's part of the problem Yeah parents young parents generation X or Y or whatever you want to call them younger parents that do not discipline their kids that are too lazy to do that that do not want to take the time to raise them they either let the television do it or if they're rich they might have a nanny or you know people taking care of them and they feel that by buying them expensive gifts buying them expensive things that that replaces love and all that sort of thing but anyway that's the problem we have now so you know when a positive role model like yourself comes around you're needle in a haystack Yeah it's nice it's nice and it's really a blessing because I did not always have all positive role models around me but you know like I said my testimony is I was changed by my relationship with Jesus Christ and the people that came around me when I needed them and because of that I'm the man I am today if I wouldn't have those people and I wouldn't have Jesus Christ I'd be a piece of trash and nobody would want to hear me give my testimony I probably wouldn't be doing a good job of it anyway because I'd have to lie well I didn't grow up with a father my grandfather had to do the best he could as a male role model you know and that was pretty much it in those days women that were divorced were discriminated against if they were divorced a woman with young children and a single parent household they gave her a hard time gave my mother a lot of grief and you know you do the best you can I mean some people have some people that are rich and famous today have literally slept in cars yeah oh yeah yeah they were really struggling I think Sylvester Stallone is one of them that actually had a sleep in his car many times and you know I mean it goes on and on I mean there's a lot of people who I admire people who had very little and just worked their way up yeah I mean it takes that kind of work ethic to be successful and you don't have to you know become a rich and famous person or movie star but you can be successful if you will work hard in life and do the best you can now these are I was just gonna say and try to surround yourself with people that will add to your life and not take away from them yeah not toxic negative people positive people that will add to it right yeah now getting back to the strong men you know I would think that maybe a big motivator with the strong men that were abused as a child is anger they probably have decided that I am not gonna be bullied anymore and they focus hard on their training and they just have this desire to get so big and strong that they will not be bullied again and I think yeah I would think that's a big motivating factor in some of them and another one I would think would be you know if you had a dad or didn't but you know you have that need for a good father and either if he wasn't there at all or if he wasn't you know a good role model for you you're always trying to prove to him that you can be successful even you know if he's not there to see it that's another motivating factor hey worse comes to worse maybe finding a good pastor could be a good role model for a kid a boy that doesn't have a father oh sure and that's one thing we need in this world and you know that it's more good men out of people that are male but there's not a lot of good men out there well like my grandmother says anybody could be a father that's a piece of cake I mean a father as far as biologically powering a woman and creating a child anybody could do that but to actually be in the kids life there's not a lot of positive role models that are involved in your kids life personally well we're living I mean honestly I think that having a good healthy hobby or interest like physical fitness it could be health and nutrition it could be anything positive I think it's important today because the world is in so much turmoil especially the United States and I literally think that we are living in the end times I just think it's good to have something positive to hang on to I think so and you gotta have a way to blow off steam and if you don't have something positive to do you'll end up doing things you regret yeah and I tell you physical fitness is how I blow off steam excellent way to blow off steam oh it's a great way and then you know it makes you healthier stronger and as you get older it keeps you in shape and keeps your legs going longer because you know when your legs go out you start going downhill oh yeah legs are extremely important that's your foundation of your building, your temple yeah hey what about the the motivation of seeing your progress hey look look how much I'm lifting now compared to last month that's right and if you keep a logbook that's one of the best things somebody showed me years ago was keeping track of it because you don't have to go off memory your memory is not going to be correct on this kind of stuff you can go back and look in that logbook and see how much you've actually progressed and it'll put a smile on your face oh yeah I mean if you saw the resistance you started with and how it kicked your ass and then all of a sudden where you are six months after that how did I ever do it this is incredible how did I accomplish something great you know what I mean and it makes you feel good and self confidence and then you set more goals and more goals that's right and even if you're not a performer you can be a role model to someone else by sharing physical culture with them you know which was any of the things that you would do to become physically stronger right now your your diet is is this basically healthy home cooking or do you have any preferences well on my lifting days I try to eat a couple cans of tuna ok and besides that I am not the best eater but I do try to eat healthy home cooking when I can and what I do during the day I eat things like oatmeal salad fresh fruit which would be like bananas and apples and things of that nature I try to eat healthy during the day have a good supper like I said I am not the greatest eater but just making those little changes in my diet has helped me trim down and it has helped me feel better get in shape and then what I do before I work out I may have like a banana and a cup of coffee or a glass of milk and we don't have a lot of organic food around here but I do try to buy the best milk I can um the freshest salad I can you know things like that is that make sense yeah sure I mean it's funny you mentioned peanut butter on the banana with cold milk because that was my favorite snack after a workout it's hard to beat yeah not the skippy with the sugar and the corn syrup I mean you know just 100% ground peanuts that's right and on the banana and wash it down with ice cold milk that was my favorite snack bar none I mean look I tried being more vegetarian but I'm sorry folks I'm a natural born carnivore I love animal source protein I'll eat seafood I'll eat barbecue whatever whatever I'm right with you I try to save the animal proteins for supper I think it keeps your testosterone level up that's why I feel weak if I don't eat some animal protein I feel like I've lost energy you know yeah I mean I go to a store that's supposedly competing with whole foods it's a German supermarket chain called Aldi at Illinois and they have a lot of organic foods and I was telling my sister I said you know what I buy these I buy the frozen fruit there frozen blueberries frozen mango chunks whatever so anyway I told her I said you know everybody's talking about buying fresh fruit right and fresh vegetables but you know something this frozen fruit blows away any of the fresh produce and then I realize I find out that hey this frozen fruit is all vine ripened ah same goes for the veggies ripened that does make a big difference doesn't it you let something stay on the vine let's take blueberries for instance or tomatoes you let it ripen totally on the vine then you pick it you wash it and you flash freeze it right away compared to a tomato that's picked green and God knows how long it's been on a train in storage and you know it's not ripening on the vine then it gets to the market and then you have a tomato with no flavor right you know unless you're getting it from a farmer's market on a roadside but yeah there's no comparison what I do is there's a man on YouTube he's very funny he's an older gentleman bodybuilder older guy named Scooby and he's a funny guy he's a comedian he wears a white Gilligan hat and he makes a joke about everything but he teaches at the same time you know he's not stuffy and serious but he's very entertaining but anyway of course he's getting that real thick Greek yogurt and eating that oh you know I have that in my bag too oh that's some good stuff so this is what I do talk about a refreshing healthy dessert I take the Greek some Greek yogurt I put it in a large cereal bowl and then I pour some milk in it and I stir it up then I put the frozen oh I bet that's good or blueberries and mango chunks in there and I stir it up what happens is the frozen fruit turns all the milk and yogurt into like a slurpee like a slush like a popsicle alright and that is awesome and then some of the juice oozes out of the blueberries into the yogurt or mangoes and then Jeff it's awesome it's awesome oh it sounds like it and what I was going to say earlier one of the things I started doing there's a guy from Florida that's started helping me a little bit with not the strongman stuff but my regular workouts and things related to that he advised me to start having a couple cans of tuna for extra protein what I do super big I want to kind of lean down some more I eat the two cans of tuna on my training days and I eat it before and after lunch you know like an hour or two before and after lunch and I tell you what that has made a big difference you know what I used to do it's just the straight albicortuna and water you know what I used to do with the tuna now I switched the cans salmon because the salmon is cheap at this market and salmon is like 100 grams of protein per pound wow and it's super high in omega 3 fatty acid which is very healthy so anyway I used to take the canned fish of your choice I used to put it over brown rice I used like organic brown basmati rice okay cooked of course and then I would put extra virgin olive oil on top of that mix it up and eat it that way instead of making a tuna salad on bread on sliced bread I would have it over brown rice and you know you season it however you want to do I like dry rub I like spicy dry rub that sounds pretty tasty I just put a little mustard on it and eat it as fast as possible so I can get it over with because it's not exactly baby back ribs not exactly I've been using this Himalayan pink salt it's supposed to be loaded with minerals even more than sea salt I've heard of that but I've never tried it before is it pretty good? it's mild it's very mild I made I make my pancake batter from scratch I grind the flour myself and I showed my mother's caregiver how to make homemade popcorn on a stove the old fashioned way and she was amazed and she was amazed and people don't realize how easy it is to make really I mean and it's all you do is you just take a pot with a handle and a lid you put butter whatever you want oil, butter, salt and you put the popcorn in on a low flame you cover it you walk away let's say go to the living room as soon as you hear pop pop the first pop you run into the kitchen you turn the heat on full blast high and you start shaking it back and forth you put it on the lid and the other hand on the handle and you start shaking then it starts going pop pop pop pop you know like a machine gun and it fills up and that's it and then you shut the flame off and you got a whole big pot of freshly made popcorn that sounds pretty good it's got the oil, the butter, the salt all of it is all mixed in already I don't think I've ever had that before that sounds delicious but I do a lot of things the homemade oatmeal pancakes I take the two heaping cups of rolled oats a quarter of a cup of flaxseed or chia seed a teaspoon of the sea salt a lot of cinnamon and I grind it into a flour in a blender actually then I remove the dry contents into a plastic container then you put the the liquid you can do one cup of milk and two cups of water you can put some yogurt in there you got to put oil I put a tablespoon of extra virgin coconut oil in there and let's see what else that's about it then I liquefy that and then I slowly start pouring the dry mix from the oatmeal flour little by little as you pour it in it starts to get thicker into a batter then you end up with a batter then the batter you pour it back in a plastic container and there's your pancake batter that sounds pretty good man sounds like you know how to cook I cook pretty good actually I'm going to make a couple of pancakes when I get off the show nice I got to figure out what I'm going to have to do I think I'm going to have Chinese food delivery see that's the thing about my area it's so multi ethnic you can have food from all around the world and it's not far away right the big thing here is buffets we have a lot of big buffets are you in New Jersey yes I'm in or so west of New York City oh that's right that's right you told me that I'm sorry but you're not close to Atlantic City not Atlantic City but New York I am I was wondering if that's where all the buffets were coming from was the casinos in Atlantic City no we have plenty of buffets here you kidding we have awesome buffets with sushi bar and barbecue you know how much of course for lunch it's like about 8 bucks wow for everything seafood even the ice cream I don't know they have just so many different entrees and items at these buffets and they're really it's so economical that it doesn't pay to go to a seafood restaurant or steak house it really it's actually cheaper than going to Wendy's or you know or some fast food place oh that's very nice the buffets I know people are going to say I'm digressing I know it but you know what it's a well rounded show what can I tell you that's right good conversation I agree a lot of the things we talked about are interconnected anyway right it's all about your health and fitness and growing in different ways it's a lifestyle it's not all about just working out alone you know it's a whole lifestyle you can't I mean I don't want to be I don't want to set records when I'm young and end up decrepit by time I'm 65 right I feel the same way and that's why I've even changed some of the way as I train and do things in my shows because I want my body to last yes you want your body to last I know I mentioned Jacqueline before but you don't want to be an elderly man who has one foot on a banana peel and one foot in the grave right exactly you want to be healthy and in great shape when you're in your golden years you know in the words of my uncle Phil he says the only thing golden about the golden years is the hearing that's true about wife's grandma who just passed away she was in her 90s and she said they said it was the golden years but it's the corroded years the corroded years but you know what I post remember that photo I got a lot of heat for but remember that that elderly black woman who was a bodybuilder of a woman that did not work out and there were two totally different people oh I remember that yeah people were saying that's unfair that's unfair that's cruel I says listen I am not going to walk on eggshells my whole life being politically correct worrying about offending someone I can only say that I'm going to tell you the truth if you embark on physical fitness early enough in your life it is a fountain of youth oh yeah it'll keep you going a whole lot longer than all the stuff they hand us these days drugs and you know all that kind of stuff and surgeries and all that yeah now we all know how the drug companies are because you watch television and I'm seeing more and more and more drug advertisements well they invent ailments that you need appeal for oh yeah you have symptoms oh your drug your medication is giving you all these side effects well let me give you an extra one and then it goes on and on and actually they become glorified legal drug dealers yeah that's exactly right yeah now I mean some stuff is useful for a time but a lot of it you don't need a lot of it's just what you're talking about yeah I mean there are drugs who have literally and they do save people's lives and you know if you have a serious God forbid a serious car accident you don't want a medical nutrition is putting you back together you want the surgeon the neurosurgeon or whatever you want you want qualified people so we're not we're not bashing the medical profession but there is something that we have in America now and it's called prophets before people and the planet and that's right that's sad you know that's sad that's uh you know that's right up Satan's alley it's what I gotta say well it really is because I think the root word witchcraft in the New Testament or at least in one instance is pharmacia which is also the root word for pharmacy and drugs well you're absolutely you're absolutely right doing the right thing doing the right thing is my political part telling the truth and if I'm wrong I'll apologize and I'm always willing to learn new things but just doing the right thing and being honest and truthful that's my political affiliation um I don't really believe in political parties I believe in I like the grassroots revolution I like a lot of the independence um but but sometimes you gotta break some eggs to make an omelet in life oh yeah that happens sad but true we gotta suck it up and man's gotta do what a man's gotta do and it's not always gonna be pretty and nice you know I know you guys down in Louisiana you got front row seats so all the hurricanes and that's gotta be wrong I'ma tell you I do get nervous during hurricane season and I intentionally do weather because any storm out in the Gulf they're gonna blow it out of proportion thankfully thankfully I know that so I don't watch all the time you know if it's a serious storm you know you'll be able to tell but a lot of times they blow it out of proportion so people will be paying attention to the news well you have a problem with flooding right in south Louisiana yes a lot of people have been impacted by flooding that's uh let's see I am in the southwest corner of Louisiana between Houston Texas and Baton Rouge Louisiana okay the Baton Rouge area and um that's like two two and a half hours west of I mean east of me yeah they were really impacted by flooding this year I mean they were all hit hard there's some people that you know are still rebuilding their homes still repairing their homes some people lost everything it was pretty bad thankfully they didn't hit our area but there's a lot of people that worked for the company that I worked for that were impacted and lots of people we know that it really got hurt in that situation you literally have to live in a big house boat tied down with cable yeah some people would have to I know a guy that did ride out the storm that way a few years ago uh 10 or 12 years ago yeah a float have a floatation floatation prefabricated mobile homes that are able to float with flat bottoms yeah that would help sometimes hey hey we just uh I tell you the most practical inventions are not complicated you know uh but um yeah so uh it's a shame that some politicians forget to go to disaster areas and you know we all know a certain female that did not show up after the storm yeah but we were we were also glad she didn't come even though it was a bad move on her part yeah she would uh she would have brought all those demons down there with her yeah she might have tried to get somebody some contracts that they wouldn't have done what they were supposedly like she did in Haiti yeah yeah hey you know what amazes me is the so-called liberal moon beam uh Governor Jerry of California he has restrictions on everybody for uh using water during the drought but he allowed uh Peter Braybeck of Nestle to bottle up all the California spring water so he could resell it yeah I don't doubt I'm sure he's in somebody's pockets yeah so just because somebody is a uh well the democratic party is I call it the demon crack party now I don't call it the democrat party you know it's not it's so corrupted but I know I know I'm mentioning this because this is probably the last show I'll do before election day probably uh the doomsday election is this coming Tuesday and uh heaven help us all that's all I have to say me too and that more stuff keeps coming out but hopefully people pay attention to what's coming out not just vote how they always vote oh it's so confusing and it's so confusing because the media we don't have real old-fashioned honest journalism anymore no you have to you have to pick your resources carefully for sure yeah without a doubt yeah forget about uh I used to be a fan of MSNBC I can't stand the people in MSNBC I will not watch it I there you know there are so sold out that uh CNN as Anderson Cooper Mr. Dushbag yeah I think there's only five or six companies that control all the major media in our country yeah that is true the oligarch basically does control the media and you know the only way I get my news from is the underground media online that's where I try to get some of mine too because I really just don't trust most of what comes out unless it's a story that you know you're not gonna have much substance you know who you might like uh are you familiar with Alex Jones of Info Wars yeah I want you to sometimes now we'll say he gets sensational but he does get a lot of stuff right I believe yeah he does get pretty sensational when he talks I like Jesse Ventura a new show off the grid that's on Aura TV check him out last thing I saw him in was Predator oh yeah yeah he had the mustache and the dimple in his chin yeah he was that was a long time ago and he was carrying that big ass machine gun well hey good for him he's a navy seal in Vietnam war I heard he was something like that I didn't know for sure what it was did you imagine those guys swimming at night and shark infested waters holy crap now you gotta have guts to do that I know a guy who his brother in law drove some of those crew boats or whatever you call it they would drop soldiers off near Vietnam and he said one time he dropped off a navy seal who was a normal looking fella when he came back he was a different guy he brought to a special place to be what do you call that debriefed and everything he said he must have seen some stuff because when he came back he was a totally different individual I was very disturbed so I don't know how those guys do it I don't know either my sister dated some special forces guy that was in Afghanistan and he had big time issues when he left a very nice guy before he left he calls a shame at that time he called my sister from being in some Afghanistan he was in some little cottage under fire shooting at the enemy and he calls my sister from a cell phone in the background but anyway yeah so well we also don't want to see wars for profit either because the people that get hurt are the ones that are living there innocent people and also the soldiers that are put in harm's way for no reason a lot of innocent people lose their lives for just a handful of very wealthy old geezers to make more money than they already have yeah it's a real shame and by the way I think all these oil rich countries should pick up the tab for this war on terror I'm telling you man it's ridiculous the amount of money that goes into that stuff with no results I mean Saudi Arabia receiving all that aid from the Obama administration all that tax dollars and they're meanwhile they are the worst when it comes to human rights oh yeah the worst and then what do they need what does a oil rich country need to be to get all this I call it welfare instead of welfare welfare I mean they have tons of money to fight the war on terror and they definitely don't need any US tax dollars to go on their way well no because our dollars are going there anyway to buy their oil we have plenty here but we go ahead buy theirs which doesn't make sense either and the most tragic part of it all is the US veteran that comes home and ends up being homeless and broke that is the tragedy and with nobody here with nobody to help him or her out but anyway you will be I guess on your youtube channel which is any special name that it's called Jeff T-Rex bankings and that's J-E-F-F right T-R-E-X and then my last name is bankings B-A-N-K-E-N-S okay and you will I've got videos of training videos of performances and everything like that that is fantastic and I just wanted to make sure that you plug your your home base so to speak oh James I also have a website now that my wife helps me put together to get a great job on it it's same spelling JeffT-RexBankings.com and we've got basic information on there we've got links to our you know our different social media sites like youtube and facebook and everything and get some general information on what we do and how we can you know serve you or whoever may want to partake of our service and you know something Jeff if you do any events like fundraisers where you also get up and speak if somebody videos that that'll be a great addition to upload you know yeah I'll tell you what not too long ago we joined a new church and the last church I went to it was big for them to to let me perform for our children and I ended up ended up being a big success of course I knew it would be but I had to ask for this new church since last spring I've already performed for the youth twice and I've spoken to them at the same time and they've got more plans and I think what they're going to help me do is one of my dreams that fits along with what I do is to be able to set up like in a local park during a time when children and families would be there do a performance and at the end give them a gospel message so that they have an opportunity to ask Jesus to save them but I have not been able to do that because I'm not sure what all the logistics go into that and I wouldn't want to do it without having the proper permits and everything like that so we went to a new members class at our church which we've been there over a year but we just went to the new members class I was telling the pastor about my dreams that I hope to do and he's like hey we'll help you make that happen so it's neat how when the time is right that you'll have the right people coming here to help you do the best kind of things that's pretty cool George Foreman and Mr. T are ministers now I heard George Foreman was I didn't know Mr. T was especially since he's a cancer survivor you know I guess when people hit rock bottom they tend to go that way you know what I mean so we've partnered with a good church and I'll tell you what James next August I may have the opportunity to do ten anti-bullying no six anti-bullying programs and then four night services for a local large church and that's something that I've never had the opportunity to do before on my own for strong men it's a big deal because you're talking about like ten performances in four days and on top of that getting to share the good news the gospel message and when I do that I'm going to have some professional pictures made because it'll be our biggest thing we've been able to do so far my wife's going to get somebody to photograph some of that and I'll be sure to share that with that'll be great and tell your wife that I think Instagram is a good place to load up all your photographs too oh yeah that'd be great I have an Instagram account I just haven't used it in a while because I don't like some of the stuff that comes up when I look up Instagram it's things you're not supposed to look at oh that gets shoved in front of your face huh yeah and I see that's something I've had to work really hard to overcome yeah so you know it's tough man well my there's so much stuff in your face these days it's tough tough to overcome all that well that's why over on my gmail account I have all the spam going into a spam folder automatically yeah that helps sure because I had forget it when I when I just had yahoo which I don't use anymore I had hundreds and hundreds I had to go through hundreds of unwanted email to pick out the legitimate emails yeah and I said this is enough I have to have everything going into the spam folder automatically and in the spam folder there is all kinds of adult adult oriented material yeah yeah yeah so and that's about it and sometimes you know my largest group on facebook I have 5 groups on facebook folks my largest group is holistic health talk I have over over 5,000 members so far growing and once in a while I noticed that on my high volume groups like holistic health talk I get some sleaze bag coming in posting child pornography and I have to immediately ban that person from the group I have to kick them out immediately oh yeah it's all around us and that's why you've got not only safeguard yourself but your family too make sure they don't because that stuff gets old of you it's hard to get off of it yeah the thing is that facebook because it's free because it's free all the vermin of the world can get on there that's right has access all the vermin of the world you know so anyway Jeff bankins it was my pleasure to have you for the first time on this podcast I am very sorry that we couldn't do it the way we plan with the videos but I am sure that once I get my super jacked up computer I will be able to do some testing and you know get back oh that'd be great I tell you what I really enjoyed myself and I'm not just saying that I thought it was a great a great time it is and it will be this podcast will be on the internet and youtube and google you know it just won't it just will be like your typical run-of-the-mill podcast without videos because I usually like to do it with the videos well I understand but we'll just do something again whenever you figure out how your new computer is going to work normally when I used to have guests via live stream because I have a live stream channel I had no problem doing what I was attempting to do with the beginnings I don't know what it is it might have to do with like what I told you before but anyway this probably is because my wife bought a new computer and she's already wanting to get in their form because it's similar to what you said and it's not quite doing what it needs to well the CPU is the the brain that runs everything I mean that's your backbone is your CPU your memory helps your memory helps but not like having a more powerful CPU right but anyway listen you have a great remainder of the weekend and we will talk soon thanks man I appreciate it alright bye bye bye bye