Overcoming Obesity, Childhood Trauma & Self-Love with Jeremy Behar

SPEAKER_03 0:00

The number one hack to me is if you're home and you're working like I am and I try to stay on calls all day and helping people, I just eat four ingredients. I don't ever have to choose what to eat. So it's premium organic burger meat, it's rice, it's a veggie, and maybe an apple. And that's it. There's no other foods coming into that. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, it's a couple of bites. Don't change it. If your body doesn't have to guess what's coming into it next, it also doesn't have to guess where to put it.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Welcome back to Not Alone. Today I have a dear friend who's gonna open up and share his story. As you know, with not alone, it's so somebody listening is truly gonna sit at home and not feel alone. Because each of our journeys, each of our stories are meant to be seen, to be heard. And in fact, then someone on the other feels loved when we don't feel alone. I've noticed that with my books, when people read them, they start seeing a story in their own life, and it gives provides them hope. So today, with Jeremy Bihar, am I pronouncing it correctly? Yes. Um, I'm just really honored. And of course, we have your sweet angel over here, Oxygen, his cat for people that are can't are not seeing him. But I'm just really excited to dive in into you today. Thanks. Because I think, well, just to clarify, we met actually in cons. Yes. Because you're like a a chief officer at Biohag Yourself Media. And when I was invited in cons for the premiere of Shield, um you, I remember you, you stood out right away to me. You are such a light, and I hope you know that. You come in with this energy, this big energy, this light and heart.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

Thank you, Melissa.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

You feel the gent genuine heart of yours, and I saw it right away. And I I'm very intuitive when people put up a face, and it's not true, but I could feel your heart the minute I met you, and I wanted to connect.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

So you are so sweet, Melissa. And you know, I could feel the the same thing. Um, and so we met and yeah, we met in the south of France for the launch of SHIELD. Um, you know, I will never forget seeing you, the beautiful kids, your sister, aka your mom, I'll never call her your mom, and the the beautiful family. And I have to say, you know, uh birds of a feather flock together, and I could feel the same thing. And I'm I'm really glad that you recognize that because it's interesting, you know, we're on your not alone podcast, and one of the reasons, and I've never ever publicly said this, but it was so perfect because you just teed it up. And one of the reasons that I think I wear my heart on my sleeve so much is that growing up, I was always chubby and I was always overweight, and um, I was always targeted, and so from an early age, I had to very quickly show my emotions. My emotions got shown whether I wanted them to or not. People were making fun of me. I was always the target because I was usually about 80 to 120 pounds overweight. And when you walk in a room and you're holding that much extra weight, you're always gonna be the target. And so I love that that your podcast name is not alone. And tying it back to the sweet things that you just said about uh your feelings on me and can was it took a long time, now that I'm 45 to realize what the silver lining was or is of growing up severely obese and wearing your heart on your sleeve and really having almost not transitioning into a angry person or a mean person. And I always chose to lead with helping others or protecting others so that they would never get made fun of the way I did. And so I had to become unbelievably aware. Um, I would say act with intention and um be the absolute best version of myself. All I had was what was on the inside because society told me that my outside was unacceptable. And so that was really sweet that you said that. And I I've been digging into that a lot with a lot of self-work is how did I become who I am? Is one of my best assets or traits, my ability to read people or see energy. And a lot of times I'll write people off way too fast and it's not right, but I sense that energy because growing up, I always needed to see who was a threat and who wasn't a threat. And so when I see good energy or I even feel it, or it's within 30 feet of me, I want to be next to it because it's not what I was used to growing up. I was used to growing up 80% of the room wanting to make me the center of attention, and they would be in awe, couldn't believe how heavy I was, or that I was an outcast. Um, and I would be very conscious as to whose energy is in the room. So I am most likely, I will say, I'm a reflection of you. So you brought that amazing smile to the South of France. I saw you, I saw the kids, I saw mom, and I knew that I was in, I was safe. So you were able to see my good energy, and I was able to have that come through.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Wow, I love that there's so much that came through when you're explaining that because I can so you you kind of were trained, it trained yourself. So at least you could see that your upbringing, instead of like saying, Oh, that was a hard upbringing to say, well, it got me to be so attuned to people's energy, who's gonna be safe and who won't. And I'd love to go back to that little boy that was overweight, you know. I mean, right now you could see it as a gift because it trained you to see, okay, who's gonna see me uh see my heart under that layer, right? That protective layer. That's the way I see it sometimes. We hold on to that fat as a protective layer to not feel. So I'm I'm just curious what was going on in your little, you know, home when you were little?

SPEAKER_03 6:20

So, no, it's a it's a great question. So um, two amazing parents, mom and dad, were working nonstop. They owned a business together, they were never home, raised and taken care of by an au pair who was very sweet, who was like my second mother, but it was easy for me to bribe her and say, you know, um I'll give you this VHS tape that I have if you let me go buy three candy bars and don't tell mom or dad. And I would be like, all right, I made the deal. I'd go downstairs and I'd go get the candy bars. She was happy. I figure I had something for her that she wanted, and I was upset because mom and dad were never home. And so I was like, bored. What do I do? I'm looking for a quick fix, I'm looking for something to mask my emotions. Food was the easiest thing when you're six, seven, eight years old. You don't know what else to use, you don't know how to to reach out. So I used food, and then there's that famous expression that we hear all too much. I eat because I'm unhappy, but I'm unhappy because I eat. You know, we we know what movie that's from, and it's it's funny, but it's really true. And so I found myself in this constant cycle while I was growing up alone, and you know, mom and dad were working till eight o'clock at night, and I would eat, and then I would gain weight, and then I'd be scared, and then I'd be upset because someone made fun of me, and the only thing to make me feel better is the only thing I had control over, which was food.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

So that's interesting because you know, I know so much about the nervous system. I studied myself for my own healing. Of course. And when I hear your story, and I know children, they they we they co-regulate, right, with the parents. And if the parents are there, you're lacking connection, right? You're you're lacking your nervous system, could never feel calm. So for a moment of peace, food did.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Right? So we often reach out for even that's why alcohol, you know, when your nervous system to downregulate, it'll work initially to downregulate. You know, you're like, oh, I've had a really stressful day. I'm gonna have a glass of wine and unwind. Well, same thing for a child, you know, that's not getting ever the connection to downregulate. Maybe they're feeling there's so much energy, and usually boys, right? There's lots of energy, like spend and one movement, and they crave connection. And that's what I've really learned a lot with my kids is that they they co-regulate with me and they crave connection. And when there's a lack of connection, this is when their behavior spirals. Like I do notice they want to crave more of the sugars, or they want to go eat, or they want to maybe buy something, you know, and find other habits to calm their nervous system. And so we were never given the tools as young kids how to regul have healthy habits to regulate our nervous system. And so that's kind of what I hear when I hear your story, you know, is that I was a little boy that craved connection and no, no harm to to mom and dad, you know, they were doing what they could. And I grew up a very similar, you know, single mom. My mom had to work a lot. Mom worked a lot to provide as well. So I was also very much alone, you know, the latch key kids or whatever, you know. And and you create um these different habits, and and then, you know, what I do find is that when it comes to the eating, and you found ways to just kind of feel better, but then it propelled to just feeling probably more shame, right? And guilt, and but you didn't know how to cope after that. So so you just kind of grew up, you know, more obese and picked on.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

And how was that? Did you have make friends uh along the way?

SPEAKER_03 10:12

It was hard. You you always made friends with others who have been targeted in either uh a different way, in the same way. You don't always want to associate with the other heavier kids in the class because then you're now grouped as the fat kids. And no one wants to be in the fat kid group. And if you do, you start making fun of yourself so that the attention doesn't come from someone else. It's all of these defense mechanisms. And I mean, it probably wasn't until my late 30s or mid-30s that I even could even piece this together and figure it out. But everything that I did was a defense mechanism, good or bad. So having to be the most gregarious person in the room off the bat, I had to be the loudest. I had to make sure that the attention was focused either on me, completely away from the actual pounds that I was holding, or it had to be focused on making fun of me and what I was wearing. I would wear things like Fubu and Chriss uh Crisscross and all of these different brands that were really bright loud colors or had wild prints or were completely progressive because I wanted the attention to be on, wow, I've never seen that shirt, or those are really cool sneakers, or you know, I had to have the pump in my in my in my shoe back in the in the 90s because I wanted the focus to be on that. Anything that I could do to keep the focus away from my inches, the size of my waist is what I did. Because let me tell you, the moment that I got struck and that somebody would say anything from how did you get so fat? Kids are cruel. They don't they don't know. And you as a child who's receiving it doesn't know. But you know, I get the chills thinking about it. Didn't matter if you were behind me or in front of me, if you were speaking about me and it was negative, and in relation to my weight and what I looked like, I knew about it. You could write a note and pass it to your friend, I could feel that energy behind me. And I think I developed, I know I developed a defense mechanism to protect myself because the pain was so great. I think I'd rather be tortured, you know, in so many ways by a cartel than be made fun of for being overweight or being fat. And that shaped me so tremendously, and I still call it to this day my best trait and my absolute worst trait. Because I will meet someone, and I think it's why I love our space now, is 98% of the people are actually amazing. And the two percent that I'm gonna categorize that are not, I'm gonna say are still amazing, but they haven't gotten to their destination yet. So we're never saying everyone's amazing, but uh in in our space, um, similar to biological dentistry, and I'm gonna land my plane, everybody made a conscious decision about you know your practice and what you're doing. You could make your life a lot easier. You could work in a conventional dentistry office and uh take insurance money and you know, do 10 sessions a day if you needed to, and uh, you know, make it really easy. But from you to the biological dentists to the integrative practitioners, they all made a conscious choice to not go mainstream, to not get paid on the normal ways that people get paid in order to survive. But they're good people that look for intention, that want to help others heal, originally, also known as proactively or alternatively. And so tying it back to I think my worst trait, my best trait is that being obese growing up forced me to be able to read the room and read a person within seconds. I could feel your energy, and that was really good because when someone was amazing, we instantly connected. And just like you or I, the second, the second we got on the boat together and I really got to talk to you, I was like, my God, who is this powerful force? I think one of the first times we we genuinely well, we really started to is I was I was putting the yacht together, and you were like, you texted me and you're like, I want to do this. This is once in a lifetime. I want to take my kids and my mom, and I want to come on the yacht, and we're gonna go have lunch on an island that is only accessible by boat. And I was like, who's this incredible mother?

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Like, this is not a- then I had to make sure it wasn't gonna be a crazy party. I'm bringing my kids. Anybody else bringing my kids? Like, is this gonna be police yet? I had to make sure whatever's bringing my family in. Yes, it was.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

It truly was, it truly was. And what was amazing is that, you know, I felt that I'm very intuitive as well. And then I was like, I felt like being on there and then I love votes anyways, and to treat my mom, she had never been to Europe. So in me there has my kids in that we go on and see um, and it's all dentists. It's all biological dentists. I'm a doctor, and just so many of them. I was like, again, God was putting me onto so I can meet them in person, as my big mission is, you know, taking care of dentists and speaking up for dentists as well for their mental health and mercury poisoning. So it was incredible. But just to even circle back who Jeremy is now, because after you lost the weight, because you did the sleeve, right? How old were you when you did that?

SPEAKER_03 15:42

So I did the gastric sleeve in 2012. I was um, so that was uh was just about in my very early 30s. I was just about 31 years old. I had gone up and down five times. I had been researching bariatric surgery since I was 13 when only the gastric bypass was around, and only when you had to have a 16-inch scar to get it done. And I was like, oh mom, I don't think I can do this. And I intuitively knew to wait. I didn't know anything about uh the medical world, I had no idea what was going to evolve and what was gonna come, but I knew it had to have been better than what I was about to sign up for. And so I decided to call I decided at 13 years old, I said, I'm gonna continue this battle on my own. I lost the weight five or six times and yo-yo'd up and down. And then it wasn't until I just couldn't handle it anymore at 31 years old, I said, I gotta make a change. My ankles were giving out. Um, I couldn't use the bathroom and take care of myself without a shower. I couldn't bend down to tie my shoes. I had 52, I had 52 reasons to lose weight. My waist was a 52. I could not shop unless I had gone too big and tall. I prayed that the gap and the Banana Republic would get in a 44 that was cut too big, that was really a 46, so that I could suck in from a 50 or 52 and try to buy clothes in a normal place because I didn't want to walk in to men's warehouse big and tall. A lot of overweight men's stores would stay open late or open early, and I knew when, so that other people didn't see me going in there. You have no idea what your your defense mechanisms will do to keep you safe. And I didn't want to order clothes on the land being seen all the time.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Yeah, even go out. And at this point, were you an executive at BMW?

SPEAKER_03 17:38

At that point, I was a uh I was an executive on the retail side for BMW, and it's very interesting that you say that. So I was very successful because I still had my heart on my sleeve, I still read people, I was one of the top BMW client advisors in the world, like I'd say top top 50 globally for actually selling, and I don't want to say selling, but helping people with BMWs. So when I was 25, I transitioned from Verizon Wireless to work for BMW. It was always my dream. It was my dream to work for BMW because growing up, I saw my dad absolutely in love with BMW. And now my dad would have been 98 years old if he was still around today. And the only thing I ever saw my dad really excited about was either women or BMW. So I was like, it goes hand in hand. They go hand in hand. Depends what woman.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Well, but see again, I see connection. You chose, you wanted to be so connected to your father that you even chose your career based on connecting with your dad through BMW. Yeah, you crave that. I crave that you wanted to be so successful, so be like, look at me, dad, and connect with you. And I'm curious, you know, I'm sure he was very proud of you, you know, working at BMW. Did that bring you guys closer?

SPEAKER_03 19:02

That that absolutely did. And it was interesting because dad, dad was French, and it was normal to say, Wow, you really are fat. That's a normal conversation.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Yeah, we're very straightforward.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

Yeah, yeah. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Culturally, well, French Canadian, French from France, a little bit different, but still we're very uh straight.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

It was like, wow, you could really use, you know, my sister, who who's a beautiful soul, who's so sensitive. He would say things like, Well, you put on a couple of pounds in your butt. Like you really, you know, you you probably need to take care of that. And that was normal. Like it was input.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

It's a big focus. I know. I go back home to the back city and the first thing that they comment on is weight. Sweet. Yeah, they do, they really do. And I try and tell even my mom not to speak this way in front of like my my kids, my my daughter, because yeah, it does make them like a main focus.

SPEAKER_03 19:51

So he would he would say it to me, and I would it it I would do anything to walk in the room and to guide the conversation. There's always a mama duck and a baby duck in any interaction. And when I was with my dad, and this is one of the reasons that I think I started to become successful in sales, is I knew that if I took control over any engagement, any uh interaction that I could lead the conversation, I learned how to lead the conversation so it wasn't on me. While I now help people, because I really don't like selling, selling means that I'm trying to get you to do something that isn't organic or right for you. But if I help you with something that I have in my offering, then I'm genuinely then I'm doing the right thing. And so in doing that, I started to be able to guide any conversation by forward thinking of where the result and the outcome was gonna be. Anthony Lawley will always say this too. And it's kind of funny because he's someone who is an ex more uh morbidly obese human and we think very alike and almost everything. And it's how do we be outcome-based? So whether the outcome is how do I magnify or amplify someone's brand or how do I make sure that somebody doesn't attack me, I'm gonna lead the conversation to get to the outcome that we want because not getting to the outcome is unacceptable. And from a very early age, I realized that I had to make sure I got to the outcome, which was at that point to be safe from being persecuted for being obese and being fat. And so growing up when was with my dad, he loved his cars, he loved BMW, he loved the freedom that it gave them, gave him. And so at 13 years old, he walked me into a dealership to buy a BMW, but not after he didn't take me into every other brand because he didn't want me to make he didn't want me to think it was easy to buy a BMW. So I was like, Where are we going? He's like, We're gonna go for a walk. And we walked down 11th Avenue in New York City, and we went to Honda and we went to Toyota and we went to Lexus and we went to Infinity and walked in everywhere. And he's like, Do you like these? And I was like, Yeah, they're all really cool. He was like, Who are we looking at cars for? Yeah, great. You don't have I'm 13. All we did was rent Lincoln Town cars, and we would take trips to upstate New York, go antiquing. Most of the time, we'd put a 600-pound amp amethyst in the back of the Lincoln Town car and go home. And that's all I knew that we did with cars because I was a city boy. I had no idea that he was this infatuated with BMW, but I'll never forget at 13. At the last stop, he was very calculated and he knew exactly what he was going to do. He walked into the BMW dealership on 57th Street and 11th Avenue in New York City. He was wearing shorts, slightly disheveled Lacoste Polo, his his uh penny drivers, his didn't look he didn't look like, you know, he didn't look like he was uh Jeff Bezos. He was walking in with me. I was a punk, I had my crisscross pants on, bright colors, didn't want to get made fun of, wanted to be called out that I had cool clothes on, you know, hoping that someone wouldn't realize I was I was 250 pounds at 13. And he walked in and I saw his face when he walked in the BMW showroom, and I'd never seen happiness out of him. He was an old school French guy who was never happy unless he was smoking a cigarette, eating caviar or cheese, or ultimately thinking about a woman that wasn't my mother. And that's what I grew up with, and that's what I knew. So the one thing I saw that made him happy was BMW, and it was never I was never the same after that moment. And I saw that, and then I was like, oh wow, oh he loves BMW this much. I wish he would show me that he loved me as much as he loved BMW. So that was it.

unknown 23:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:38

My mom's plans of being a lawyer, a surgeon, a hedge fund guy. No, I was going after BMW. So I graduated, I got my BMW, I had my bar mitzvah, saved the money, did everything I could, worked jobs, made sure I could do it at 18 to have my BMW. Because if I got my BMW, then I'd be in my dad's cool club.

unknown 23:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:58

And I was like, wow, okay, that happened. And then after college, my mom is like, so what are you gonna do? And I was like, I'm gonna go work for BMW. What do you mean? And she's like, Really? Is that what you want to do? And I was like, Yeah, of course that's what I want to do. She's like in her head, she's like, this mom's like, I I raised you as you know, I gave you the best education. You spent your summer programs at Cornell, you wanna be around BMW. And I was like, I'm gonna work for BMW. Well, BMW wouldn't hire me at 20 years old. They said no. They said, You're too young, kid. And it was a very coveted position back then, either on the corporate side or the retail side. I tried so hard. Well, one day I come home, I'm like 20 years old. Pretty obese. I'm at like 315 pounds. Uh, it's a few days after 9-11, and I say to my mom, I don't know what to do. I'm never gonna get a job, no one wants me. I want to be in BMW, I'm feeling rejected. Good old Jewish mom. Mom says, you know, I walked into Verizon Wireless, and there's some really cool guys in there. I think you should go and work there, and I bet you they're gonna love you the way everyone does, and BMW will hire you in a few years. And I was like, you know what? That's not a bad idea. Next day I went to Verizon Wireless. I walked in and I said, Hey, I'm here. I think this is really cool. I want a shot. He said, Come on in, let's interview. And everything happens for a reason. And the GM of the Verizon Wireless store asked me two questions. He said, What do you do for fun? And I said, I don't know, I like to eat and uh go to the movies. He said, Okay. He's like, Good, now that I know about you personally, why do you want to work here? And what do you want to do? And I said, I want to sell because I love helping people. And he goes, Did you just tell me you want to sell because you love helping people? And I was like, Yeah. I was like, if I could be on that sales floor, I am so good with technology that I will help them learn about cell phones and what they need. He goes, Son, this is gonna be the best education you've ever had. But you're going into customer service because I want people on the floor who want to sell because they want to make money. And I was like, wait, what? No, I I can sell. I can sell anything. I I can do it. I want to help people, they'll buy from me. He goes, Well, let's see how you're doing customer service and we'll see what happens. And he gave me an amazing lesson at that at that moment right there. It was okay to want to make money. It was okay to want to take care of myself as long as I was taking care of others, but I had to be a little more guarded. I couldn't wear my heart on my sleeve as much as I wanted to in normal society. I was outside of the space that you or I are in, and so it wasn't that safe. I was in the real world, and I had to show people that I could add value. I couldn't just be sweet and sensitive all the time. I had to show that I was tough, that I could do it. Well, fast forward, I ended up being in customer service, and it taught me how to further take care of people, which ultimately got me into a place where I would all I would be in a fantastic uh salesperson, but I don't like salesperson because I don't think people are designed to sell. I think they're designed to help. And so that was the best education. Fast forward four or five years, mom was right. BMW guys who became my friends came in and said, We just had a lot of people leave us. You start tomorrow. And I said, What? And that was my 20, that was the eve of my 25th birthday. And on my 25th birthday, I started a BMW and I never looked back since.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Wow, I love that story. I think that's important for people to notice that is that, you know, it said, Well, I'm not gonna give it to you right right away. That's right, right? And then see these stepping stones to build your character, to build your confidence for the job, right? And so I think that was really important. And mom was very intuitive and probably knew why you were going into BMW, right? And then, but there was a time in BMW, obviously, that you were still not feeling fully fulfilled, even though there was so much uh success, you know, in what you were doing. What made you leave, you know, and what you're doing now? Now I feel you're so much more aligned. And now you're being seen, you look fantastic, you've got into bodybuilding, you know, you're in the health industry now. So how does it feel now to be seen like this and what you've learned over the years, right? Yeah. Like that transition of okay, you left BMW because you kind of realized, well, I went into it to connect with dad, and I became really successful, but there was still an unfulfillment.

SPEAKER_03 28:35

I mean, yeah, no, it's a great, it's a great question because even today I get text messages and they're like, All right, I know you're doing this health and wellness stuff, but like you they they assume I'm still doing the BMW stuff. Um but ultimately I had about an 18-year career at BMW and I tackled and succeeded in every vertical that I had gone into in BMW, whether that was from the dealership level. I worked with uh an unbelievable family uh who owned a dealership in New Jersey for about six years. And I learned everything I needed to learn to become the best at it. And within two years, I never took a fresh customer. I was doing it all while I was 300 plus pounds. It was hard, it was painful, and everything that I did in the dealership life was to make my life easier. How do I not have to walk to get a car? How do I get really smart in schmoozing people around me to do things for me that hurt me physically because of what I was carrying? I mean, I was carrying an extra person. Like imagine just walking around deadlifting someone all day. I had to pick up a screw, or you know, oh, the best. This is the craziest. Is I spent five years having to help people, and I'd be so good at talking to people and figuring out what solution they needed to their problem for mobility that I was selling a lot of BMWs and people loved me for it because I wasn't your quintessential car salesman. I had I was at different families' Thanksgivings, I was going to temple to church, I was literally part of these people's families because I I genuinely cared about them so much. But then at 300 pounds, when you're selling these people cars and you have to put their plate frames on and your pants rip from bottom from top to bottom, and now you don't know what to do because it's 4 p.m. in the afternoon, and you're now dealing with being obese, and you just got someone their dream car, you have your 52-inch waist and your pants split, and you don't want to wear sweatpants to work. So what do you do? This is crazy. Or you can't figure out the time to go to find pants that fit you because you can't I can't order pants on Amazon. I needed a fabric roll, you know, 500 meters large for them to make me a parachute for me to wear on my bottoms because I was so big. These are the things you're thinking of. Well, ultimately I had enough, and then uh finally made the choice. At the end of my retail career, which I had accomplished the sales piece, I was super successful. I had made my dad proud. I had kind of checked every box, like I was the top of the top. I was within the East Coast, I was in the top five best salespeople. I had done it. I was like, okay, now what's next? Now I need to do something. I know I needed to lose weight and I had a massive realization. I owned the community of where I was in the tri-state area. Me and a few other people were the pinnacle people if you were gonna need a luxury a luxury mobility solution. So I had I already accomplished that. But I knew that I had hit a ceiling and that everyone around me where I worked loved me. But the outside world was never going to accept me because I was a freak. I should have been in a circus. I was I was a super fat kid, I was super chubby. You don't, that's not accepted. That's not okay. Now, my one niche was BMW, so there was nothing I didn't know about it. So people who knew me knew I was the expert and they weren't gonna go anywhere else. Well, I quickly decided after gathering an amazing client base, taking care of all the local hospitals, I started to use my super connector ability because I had all of the best clients who were oncologists and dermatologists and anesthesiologists. I basically got to a point where I was able to curate what my surgery was gonna look like on the day with all of my clients who built your team. I built my team, I literally built my team by anesthesiologist. I was like, Can you do it on this day? The head of bariatric surgery ended up being my client, so I felt really comfortable and I knew it was time. And I had a mentor in the car business, and she was amazing. And she said to me, I love you. You're the godfather of my son, you're always gonna be in my life, but no one else is really gonna love you the way you want to be loved if you don't fix that. And she was right, and that's when I assembled the team and I said, I got nothing to lose. My ankles hurt, I can't function as a human, I'm not gonna be in a relationship. And even if I am in a relationship, I'm so unhappy with myself. How could I be with someone else? And that's when it changed at 31 years old. And the second I did it, eight months later, I got promoted, I got hired, I got recruited. After I had lost the weight, BMW of North America uh hired me and said, you know what, you did so well on the retail side, we're gonna take you and you're gonna go run an entire part of California and have 12 dealerships underneath your wing and help them grow. And that's when my career took off. The second that I realized I wasn't alone, that I had a team and I put it together, that is when I got into the next iteration of my life. And I had finally graduated to leaving Suburbia, New Jersey. I said I need to get to a major city. Now I'm 31, 32 years old. I had lost a hundred pounds, didn't do all the work I needed to do yet, but I started to get there.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

To start to get there. So you started, okay, I need to love myself now, right? It's time to uh take care of myself, take those steps, which I think is so important, right? The minute that, you know, we might crave the outside world to love us, but I think we're always called back within. Yeah. And it all has to start with us, you know? It has to start all of us, the good, the bad, our whole story. And the minute we really start loving ourselves, then we start, things start just happening. I feel like good things, good connection, good career, everything kind of evolves, but it all comes with just self-love if we do feel, and taking care of ourselves. And I think that's important because look at where you're doing now, you know. I mean, you're you're traveling a lot, you're you're coming all over the place, and and you know, maybe explain Bible Hack Your Self medium and what you guys are are doing. I mean, I think you guys are creating a platform for us that are passionate about health and the truth about health, you know, and because it could get really confusing out there. And so you're creating this platform, this media, we're gonna have it could go global, especially for for you know, my love and shifting the the dental industry. We're gonna talk about purpose for you, right? Like to help people bring vitality and health.

SPEAKER_03 35:22

So right now, like what's the next you know, projects I know you've no, it's a good, you know, it's a good point, and I've never actually really spoken about this, but you know, you look at Anthony and Teresa Lawly. I love them.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Great that I met them. Yeah, yes, yeah. The kindest.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

Um, you know, uh Teresa is like a big sister to me, even though I'm the older one. And uh, you know, everyone knows, like, look, she is the superpower behind the organization. She keeps Anthony and I in line. You know, it's funny because Anthony's the CEO and he's a badass, and he's so brilliant and so smart, knows how to get things done. Um, but Teresa is running control. Like, she is like, she's the marionette that's behind, like making sure it goes off. She keeps see that. She keeps me and Anthony honest. You know, I say me and Anthony, we're in the production house, we come up with these big ideas. We go to mom, you know, I call it mom, I have to call her that, you know, obviously. And I'm like, Ann, how are we gonna get Teresa to say yes to this? And he laughs and like we find the way, we have to sell her on a little a little bit. But um, I didn't get to meet Teresa uh when I had met Anthony. I had gone to a meeting to try to sell Anthony Lawley. No one knows this, actually. This is actually pretty funny. This is the first time this is ever going to be on camera. So I got introduced to Anthony Lawley to sell him to get into a uh a very small health and wellness event to sell him on sponsoring a booth. Little did I know. You don't do that. You don't go to Anthony Lawley and say, Hey, I want you to sponsor a booth. Because Anthony is the type to always think, I'm not sponsoring a booth, I'm gonna own the room. And anyone who does business with him that's on his side, he's gonna own the room for that person. He's gonna create an atmosphere that is gonna be amazing. He doesn't jump into other people's atmospheres, he creates the atmosphere, and I can see why. Because whatever they do, they want to do it in the biggest, baddest way. Well, so I had that meeting with Anthony Lolly. I'm gonna keep my focus. And we had that meeting, and it was like he was like, This is about me, this is about my family, and I remember hearing all these beautiful things about the kids and this and that. And it was like normal convo. It wasn't anything that was like, oh my god, it was like all success, it was all beautiful, but it wasn't until I saw Fat Lolly to Six Pack Lolly, and I was like, wait, what? And I was like, okay, I knew that they owned a massive media company, I knew that they were super connected individuals, their names were pretty famous, and I knew biohack yourself because I was in the the health and wellness space, we were scaling med spots, but I didn't know much about it. He starts to tell me, he's like, Yeah, I was 315 pounds, and I got onto a bodybuilding stage, and I was like, What? I did that, and he's like, Yeah, this is my documentary, this is what started the career. We've done 18 documentaries since, and then you know, he's telling me uh that when he grew up, yeah, I was like, I was super successful in sales, I helped others, and I developed so many hundreds and thousands of people's careers. Now I I was maybe like five to twenty people, but I was proud of that. Like I had developed salespeople, and it was like he was instantly my older brother, he was instantly this person that I saw myself in. He definitely made much better financial decisions on many fronts than I did, but that's okay. We still laugh about it. But he was he he had done it. Yeah, and I was like, this is like this is crazy. Now I could see that I don't want to say trust issues, but I'm gonna call them trust issues because him and I dealt with the same thing. Now, I don't think I I think he's a very sweet and sensitive soul, but I don't think that the being made fun of affected him necessarily as hard as it affected me, but I could tell that he had the same superpower. And him and I to this day, let not fight about it, but we joke about it, but we'll both analyze people or see are we gonna make a good decision going forward with this person? And it's really only him and I that can come up and see the things that we saw from the threats and the attacks that we had dealt with earlier in life, and we have we'll go into it and I'll be like, I think this person is a risk because of this, this, and this. And I saw the way that they looked at this, and I saw how they carried themselves, and we're looking at things that were just different. Well, anyway, birds of a feather, birds of a feather flock together is something for some reason we've been talking about a lot recently, but that made it really easy to to meet Anthony, and I didn't sell him anything that day. If anything, it flipped the script and he basically sold me, and that's how I I met Anthony Lolly. Terza couldn't join that day. Um and that is that was the path forward, and that's how we that's how I ended up meeting them, and our paths reconnected about six months later when the road had ended with my previous engagement, and I called him, and the first thing he said, he said, Am I stealing you from someone? Because I don't do that. And I said, No, I'm a free agent. And he said, Good, you can come be a journalist. And I was like, Be a journalist? What does that mean? What are you talking about? I was like, I'm a I'm a proven successful executive, a journalist. He's like, Yeah, you're gonna tell your story. Yeah, and I was like, My Instagram's not public. And he's like, I want to change that. But he said something to me. A couple of people have said, Are you gonna be selfish? He's like, What are you, what are you gonna do? Just keep your story for yourself? He's like, I'm not saying you have to produce a documentary. I was like, Well, wait, what if I want to be in a documentary? And he's like, he laughed, but he's the one who who really promoted me to open my Instagram to inspire others. And he said, Look, if you're loyal and you like what we do, he's like, You can use my platform to do it. That's what I designed it for, and that's that's essentially how I got into biohack yourself media.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

And he's such a gift of people that can find safety in being seen again. Yes, right? You had to feel safe to be seen again. And he, I feel he's giving all these health experts to be seen because it's a very I can speak more for the dental realm. It is very scary for biological dentists. They feel very alone because it's like a separation.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 41:41

But the lollies have created a platform where they can feel safe to be seen, and then it's a connected global biological dentist. So I he's such a gift with his expertise and how he's been able to shift his industry now to give back and so much purpose and how he found you. It was like you guys had a mirror. You guys saw each other, right? To be seen, to be heard, and find safety and to be seen again and to use your voice and use your story, and you're right. And that's why I have not alone. That's why I've written books, and that's why I tell everybody to write a book, most of it because it's like so healing.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

And just to let it all about your story. So I feel like it's such a gift to be part of, you know, have you as a friend now, really, really honor all the connections you put, you know, about me and now that I'll be on the the you know, the bio dentistry. I can't wait. I'm commentary in a couple of weeks now. And I truly sometimes I pivot by like, oh, does my story really matter? But then yes, it does. It does. It really does. And I feel very honored to have that platform as well. And and I love what you're doing because you're allowing all these health experts to be seen. Yes. And to feel safe to be seen. And there is a big purpose now because now we're all gonna go global with all of that and we're gonna help people live with vitality.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

So many.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

But get to the root. Like even for you, getting to the root. Yes, you got, you know, fit, you're a handsome guy, you know, doing what you love, but also getting to those little wounds, right? Where it wasn't safe to be seen, it wasn't safe, um, you you lack connection, right? And I think that's why oxygen, I think, is so healing because you know what? I was so fascinated by oxygen when I first met because I wanted to pet it. And I realized because it's hairless, I was like, oh my gosh, skin-to-skin contact is so healing, right? That's why babies, when you put them on your chest right away, they soothe right away. So this cat is definitely healing and is soothing along the way. And I think ultimately that's what the base is where we can start feeling safe and being seen and connected. I think that's really important. And I think that's what you're doing right now. You're helping people feel connected in and where there's such a beautiful energy of people that you're connecting together. So I'm really honored. So if people want to follow you and you know your journey, because you're you're you're traveling all over. All over.

SPEAKER_03 44:06

But I love when people, you know, people I want people to follow. Um, I am at uh Jeremy Transforms. Um, we have lots of different arms of our social media popping up. We want to be, you know, we believe in interest media, so we're on every single platform now, but you know, there's many variations of biohack yourself media. They can follow me, they can send me a DM, they can send a DM to Anthony Lolly. We always answer.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

We always have a network coming, H and M, right? H and like we, yeah, coming. And I'm really fascinated about that.

SPEAKER_03 44:38

And I think Yeah, the the streaming platform where you cannot be shadow banned. Anything that you want to say gets out there. And um, Anthony and Teresa are doing it in such a great way that there is focus on getting into the network. There's focus on how we're gonna market the network. There's just as much focus on filling the network with amazing content as there is at being on buses in London and taxicab stands because Anthony is such a fantastic marketer that, you know, to spread the message, the message has to be everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

So he's creating where it won't be censored. Because even right now on social media, some things sometimes I post a reel and I get, oh, hey, this was not following the rules. I'm like, oh, I'm just sharing the truth. It's so true, you know, and so I love what you guys are doing. And I feel like somebody listening right now will resonate to your story of being overweight and maybe the under layers of that as to why. And I do feel the connection, lack of connection somewhere and uh a tool, it's a tool to regulate their nervous system and maybe becoming aware of that and finding healthier coping mechanisms, but also finding ways to deep down to love themselves enough to to seek some help, you know, and under the underlayers of of uh obesity.

SPEAKER_03 46:02

Absolutely, and and to understand that there are tools out there that can really help you. And you know, I had replaced um I had replaced alcohol, I had replaced food with alcohol for about 10 years. And it'd be like, okay, get home. Once four o'clock came, it was like, oh, is it gonna be White Claws or Jack Daniels tonight? Well, I don't know, do I have Diet Coke? Oh, I don't have Diet Coke. All right, it's gonna be 18 White Claws to make sure that I can go to sleep, just to make sure I don't have to feel the pain from the day and I can get into the next day. And knowing that there are tools and resources and people to talk to that can even just kick start to get you there, and then combine that with someone who can help you with mindset and understanding that it's really the mindset that's that's gonna change. And most people who aren't ready to understand mindset will be like, yeah, it's not mindset, it's diet and exercise. But if they can find the right coach, if they can find the right person who can inspire them to help their mindset and to know that that they will be there for them, the rest of it is easy.

SPEAKER_01 47:05

Yeah, I'd be curious. I know we're almost out of time, but I like your routine right now to what are your healthy coping mechanisms now? Right?

SPEAKER_03 47:13

I'm not perfect. You know, I I I run biohack yourself media and I do everything I can to make the best choices. I think some of my best choices are the choices that I choose not to engage in. So it is rare for me to have an alcoholic drink. I do my best to not have too much sugar, but if I had to say that I have three things that I try to keep as a staple, um, I get my biomarkers done as often as I can. There might be four or five. I uh definitely am a big believer in uh mild and controlled amounts of TRT. I do believe in GLP ones because I think that the negative side effects of them versus the negative side effects of being obese or drinking far outweigh.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Yeah, because it helps with the sugar cravings, right? Yeah, and I feel like calms the nervous system. And so, yeah, it less the food noise, right?

SPEAKER_03 48:06

You nailed the traveling thing. It's everyone seems to kind of know that I live on a plane, but I love helping people. But when I'm home, there are only four ingredients that I eat. So now it is no longer rare meat because of Dr. Jigar Gandhi and parasites. I don't can't have rare meat, so I have to really cook it, uh, which is fine.

SPEAKER_00 48:25

I've had the worm queen on too. So now I'm like, I can't do sushi. I can't do it. Can't do anything. Yes. I can't unsee it.

SPEAKER_03 48:33

He's like, oh, it's not even an option. He's like, nothing. Oh no, Dr.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

Jigar Gandhi showed me that parasite picture on the yacht actually and I'm like, oh no.

SPEAKER_03 48:41

When I had surgery, he was so excited to bring me my petri dish. And he's like, look at all these little guys dancing in your mouth. I was like, oh my God.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

I know. We didn't even dive into your surgery for cavitation. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 48:53

That was that was the next evolution of transformation. But yeah, it will be um, it will be understanding what's out there. I'm not advocating one single thing, whether it's hormone replacement or uh GLP ones, but the number one hack to me is is if you're home and you're working like I am, and I try to stay on calls all day and helping people, I just eat four ingredients. So I'll make the food, and that I don't ever have to choose what to eat. So it's premium organic burger meat, it's rice, it's a veggie, and maybe an apple. And that's it. There's no other foods coming into that. Coffee, I'm okay with, and it's those four foods, but there's no changing it. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, it's a couple of bites. Don't change it. If your body doesn't have to guess what's coming into it next, it also doesn't have to guess where to put it. I'm a massive believer in that, and then incorporating 30 to 45 minutes of zone two cardio and not overdoing it. You will lose more weight and stay healthier by not going into high intensity and putting your body into fight or flight. Yeah, the fight and flight.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

Yeah, and that's why I say with everything that you're doing, you've been already programmed from a young boy to like, you know, be productive, right? For accolades and for, you know, self-war. So being mindful to slow down, you know, reprogramming your body, I think is important because we need you around, you know. You need to be around. So reminding yourself that it's okay to slow down.

SPEAKER_03 50:20

It's okay to slow down, and uh it's okay to also understand that yes, people need to be nice in the world, but if you want to be accepted in this world, you can't be carrying an extra hundred pounds of weight. I would have never worked for BMW of North America and had the positions that I held in corporate um if I was obese, if I was 300 pounds, that door wouldn't have opened. It would have stayed closed, and so many people's doors need to open because they have such they have such potential to impact the world, especially the ones who have dealt with adversity and can understand adversity.

SPEAKER_01 50:59

Yeah, it could be their gift, like now it's your gift. So to be fully in their light, don't be afraid to be seen now and to be to shed those layers, right? I love that.

SPEAKER_03 51:09

The last thing is I will say that, you know, getting the courage to get into a bodybuilding competition, and this was something that that really aligned Anthony and I. He laughs at me because I say it all the time. He's like, you know, go handle this and set this up and I need this done tomorrow. And I was like, Yeah, no problem. That's fine. Okay, I can do it. Because I there's nothing I can't do. If I can get onto a bodybuilding stage, the rest is easy.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

I know, actually, to to dive into something that was so fearful, right? To be seen like that. You know, you're in like a little are you a little speedo or something?

SPEAKER_00 51:40

Oh yeah, a pink speedo. That's all right, pink pigs. The pink speedo.

SPEAKER_03 51:44

I know adding for M. Uh in December. I took off my clothes in the middle of the conference and got down to my pink speedo to uh to try on a vision body speed.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

See, so get out of your comfort zone. Yeah, I had um the author of Fearvana on, and that's it. He said, get out of your comfort zone. Get into something that scares you, you know, that like being in front. And then you can do anything. You know, then you feel so confident that you can achieve something else. And that's what I thrive with my kids as well. And and I've I've had them climb um Mount Marathon in Seward, Alaska, and that's like a very tough height when they were seven and eight. They did not like me through it, but guess what? Now, when they tell people that they've reached this peak and they can do anything. So I think it's an important message. Well, I just want to end on a note that Jeremy, this was such an honor. So I'm feeling over. Yeah, I know. I don't want it to be over. Maybe we'll do it again because we just scratched the surface as to what you're doing. I'm missing you. I would love that. I would love that. Well, anyone listening right now, if um something resonated with you, please share it, subscribe, like. This is how we're gonna get the message globally. Please follow Jeremy. Please follow BioHack Yourself Media, Anthony and Teresa. They're incredible people. I've met them, I've had the honor, I have the honor to be on their next Buy Old Dentistry documentary. So stay tuned for that. This is gonna be global reach to hopefully is the missing link. I also often say the mouth is the missing link to your health. So stay tuned for these documentaries to come on.

SPEAKER_03 53:23

Ready though? We gotta do it. So we we are with the not alone podcast with Melissa Sue Methfin. So we are gonna say, go biohack yourself with the not alone podcast with Melissa Sue Methfin. Okay. You have to nail that. Okay. Ready? One, two, three. Go biohack yourself with not alone with Melissa Sue Methfin.

SPEAKER_00 53:46

I think we nailed that.

SPEAKER_03 53:47

I think we nailed it. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 53:50

Oh, thank you, friend. Thank you, thank you.