Well hello ladies and gents. Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com
And today I've got special guest Hannah on the line.
Hannah and I have worked together in the past.
She has gone through a reverse diet with me.
She has experienced a pretty, pretty significant
transformation journey herself. She was struggling with
anorexia. She got down to 87 lbs.
So she was walking 23 miles a day from an exercise standpoint
to keep her caloric expenditure up to maintain that incredibly
low weight. So we dive into that.
We talk about the psychology of food and activity and how she
was able to overcome that. We talk about her son, whom she
shares many parallels with because he's also struggled with
obsessive tendencies and he's going through some changes at
the moment. So how she's taking an approach
towards parenting him, some lifestyle factors and what she's
found to work well for her to implement with him.
One of which being getting out in nature and simply being more
present with your surroundings, disconnecting from the
distractions and getting back to our roots.
So we talk about a lot of things in this podcast.
This is a pretty emotional podcast and it was incredibly
transparent with things. We actually talked for quite
some time after the recording stopped and she opened up even
more so. I hate that we didn't get that
on on audio, but I have no doubt that it will take something from
this. I'm incredibly proud of the
journey that she's on the gun, and I'm incredibly excited for
her son to get through these hardships and be stronger on the
other side as a result of it. So without further delay, sit
back, relax, enjoy the conversation with my good friend
Hannah and we are live. Hannah, how are you?
I'm good. I'm excited to be chatting with
you today. So we've worked together.
We've corresponded via e-mail for quite some time.
What where did we originally meet?
Was it through a conference? It was social media, Yeah.
No, no. It was about two years ago.
I had needed a health coach to help me reverse diet out of some
anorexic behaviors that I've had.
And you helped me gain the confidence and reverse dieting
and building actually muscle and reducing cardio activity to to
better my life and have a better like longevity and and and
actually be a better mom overall.
Because we know that the better I felt and the healthier I was,
the better my my mental capacity was to to take care of my family
as well. So we met when I reached up to
you to be a coach. And that was two years ago now.
About two years ago, yeah. Previously, actually.
Crystal and I were in the same Facebook group, and so I knew
Crystal before I knew you. Yeah, I feel like we
corresponded on social media for a little while before we'd ever
started working together as a coaching client relationship.
Yeah, yeah, we were. We were chit chatting a little
bit on social medias as well. And just to like I've had a few
people on the podcast that have struggled with anorexia that
have had various forms of disorder eating tendencies.
I've been open about how I've struggled with that.
Can you kind of get the listener just some back story on what
that has looked like for you so they can kind of so we can kind
of set the stage there? Yeah, so I am.
I am 39 as of a week ago, but I started my family at a very
yeah, thanks. I feel it.
They say 40s, not good and life changes at 40, but I still feel
pretty young and and adventurous.
But yeah, so I had my family at a very young age.
I met my husband in college and we had kiddos, right, right
through our junior and senior year of college life.
And so we hit the ball running pretty fast.
So my anorexic wasn't even then. It was prior to prior to that,
it was high school when you wanted to compare yourself to
other other girls and you wanted to be a showcase, you know,
stuff like that. So in high school I did a lot of
binge and purging and I wasn't, I wasn't anorexic, but I I did
that kind of modality to stay thin.
When I became a mom, I I took my pregnancy as a priority.
And I ate and I ate and I ate and and I and I nursed and I got
some of the weight off. But I was never that image that
I had as a homecoming queen back in high school.
And so I desperately wanted that.
And I knew that there was one way to do it, and that was
cardio. And so I started to do cardio to
kind of get away from being a mom at sometimes, you know, it
can be overwhelming at times since that was just my little my
peace and quiet time. And it it kind of became more of
an obsession than anything. And I think that's the slippery
slope was that five didn't become enough.
It became 10 and 10 didn't become enough, it became 20.
And I was walking literally 23 miles just at first.
It was to compensate for what I was eating, but also just to
find relief and stress as a stress reliever.
So how could you give up something that made you feel
good and you came back and could be a better mom, You know,
because you could clear your head off versus strength
training and stuff like that. So I became really a cardio
Bunny for a good five or six years, and I whittled down from
135 lbs to 87 lbs. And I stuck at 87 lbs for about
two years as well. And then my health went real,
real bad. And so that's kind of the and
the the. This kind of expanded now over
about 10 years. To be honest with where I I
struggled with gaining confidence in myself and doing
it the right way. So kind of from the top here.
When you were in like high school and you were trying to,
you know, look a certain way, did you, did you have any
negative relationship with food at that point or was that kind
of, like not really on the floor nobody?
Yeah, nobody taught me about macros in in high.
In high school it was about fat free and so as long as you ate
fat free food or you stayed away from like certain object of like
you know pizza and stuff like it, you would blot your pizza
from fat. So that was more of like the
technique I did versus understanding the principle of
how your body and the mechanisms work for hormones and for an
optimal life, you know. So it was just misinformation
back in like the early 90s, You know that that I I engraved in
my head and that narrative lasted a long time even when I
started working with you and you had me on a very high fat diet
that that was a struggle. And I could think it for a lot
of people who want to lose weight and to say that you have
to eat, you know, a higher fat diet to feel your hormones kick
back in, that's hard. And that with that rewiring for
someone who's anorexic is extremely difficult.
Yeah. And then when you were in
college and going through your pregnancy, what was what was
your weight prior to the pregnancy?
Do you recall? I was about 1:15. 115 and how
tall? Are you?
Yeah. And then and then about 55. 55
And then as you were going through your pregnancy, did you
gain like a healthy amount of weight as far as pregnancies go,
or do you feel like you were above and beyond that?
I was maybe 5 or 10 lbs over and it it was just hard to lose it
afterwards because like you had kids and people say that you'll
lose weight nursing and stuff like that.
But I lived in the UP of Michigan and it was cold and it
was hard to to raise kids and lose weight and I never strength
trained and you didn't want to go out and run and walk up like
you know in the snow. So it was that period of time
was I I held on weight for a long, too long of a time after
my pregnancy that I started losing the love for myself.
Like I just was looking back at the my old self and wishing I
was that I wish I was that I wish I was that, you know.
So I struggled with with being self confident in myself.
I've obviously never been pregnant, so I don't want to
speak out of turn here. But I've talked to him with
Crystal about this quite a bit and I can totally see how
there's so many parallels between being pregnant and going
through a a competition prep like you see or by transform
you. You learn to like how you look
and feel at a certain composition and then you do
something that is counter to that.
And it's it's just really hard bridge to cross when you don't
look the way you know you could look.
But you know that in looking the way you are currently, it's for
your betterment in some sense. And obviously, if you're
pregnant, you know, you're you want to fuel the fetus, you want
to make sure your nutrition, your micronutrients, your macro
nutrients are dialed in. You're taking in total enough
calories to begin with. So you don't want to hinder that
process by any means. But then after that pregnancy is
over, returning back to a weight that you feel good about is a
whole another psychological process.
But society doesn't really do us any favors.
And this is kind of what I've talked to Crystal about.
Like it's viewed as this badge of honor so to speak when you
you know, have have a baby give birth and you like immediately
return to your pre pregnancy weight like like society pushes
that on a lot of people. But if you actually stop and
think about what your body just accomplished and the the
internal changes in trauma to some extent that happened there,
like it doesn't really make sense to rush that process
unnecessarily. I agree 100% and I and I wish I
knew that and I was just so young.
I was a mom at 20 and people are at 20.
They're they're they're probably one of their prime, you know
stages of life. And I just had a baby and I was
overweight and I didn't think that I I deserve to look the way
I did at that age. Yeah, I could definitely see how
that would be hard as well. Like if you're having a child
that early on when all of your peers or you know fit, trim and
looking their best so to speak and then you just had a baby and
you're trying to return back to that, you have even additional
societal pressure based off of your age demographic.
So yeah, that would be. That would be tricky for sure.
That's exactly so my 20s is when I just I put my body through
hell. You know, I I I did not cope
with it well. And so I lost.
And I'll I'll, I'll probably share too much information but
I've I've lost my my my menstruation my my period and
never got it back ever since. Because I I was in exchange I
dropped the weight I got down to 87 lbs.
But I trashed my hormones so bad when I did the Dutch test.
I mean like it burned all the way up to my adrenals.
Not only did it burn out all my sex hormones, I browned out my
adrenals and my cortisol and I sat at that for two years
thinking that was my badge of honor.
Would I know why? Because I fit in a size 0.
And. But when the lower my my weight
went, my mental health dropped. Oh my gosh, I had such I had
low, low patience. I was irritable all the time.
I was. I was so focused on myself.
And then I and I and I started to like becoming obsessive about
everything. It was just, can I, can I can I
maintain this? My body was telling me to like,
really desiring to eat again. But it was like I felt it was a
badge that I could go longer. I could I It was the endurance I
could. I could be a mom and size 0 at
20, you know. Well, this is my kids are
getting older. When I was, you know, had burned
out all my hormones and adrenals at this point.
But yeah, like what you were saying, like, society paints it
as a badge of honor. And I wore that badge.
I wore that badge with like, dignity.
And and so reverse dieting out to get me to like five more
pounds, It was like you're stripping.
You're stripping me away from my honor, you know?
And so. So somebody who is anorexic,
they struggle with like the fear of of looking a certain way.
And I needed a coach, I needed somebody like you.
Who? Who?
You. You, you.
You related with me because you said trust me.
And it's like I've heard that before.
But when somebody who's gone through it themselves say, trust
me, you can put a little bit more faith into them.
Yeah, reverse dining is no, it's no easy task.
I mean, I'm reverse dining right now and I'm not coming out of
near the deficit that you were in, but it's it's it's not easy
and I definitely want to dive deep into the whole concept of
reverse dieting. So you went through your
pregnancy, you said you were 115 or so when you got pregnant.
What did you get up to? You know my when I was pregnant,
it was like 155 and then I dropped down to 135 and I hung
out at 1:35 for a long time. But 135, it looks different and
depend on your your, your composition.
You know if you're 135 and muscular versus 135 and have a
lot of like body fat percentage, you're going to look different.
And I'll tell you at 1:35 it was there was no muscle.
I never strength trained in my entire life until I met you and
and my husband is always, you know, tinkering around with,
like getting me to strength train, 'cause that's what he
does. He's like, you know, you could
be a higher weight and look better if you strength train,
but I was still stuck on the cardio narrative that that's the
way you do it. Can you define?
Well. Actually before I said when when
you went from the 1:35 to the 87, how much time elapsed
between that transition? That was probably in 18 months.
It went fast. It went fast because when you
walk in that much every day. And it wasn't just that I was
cutting calories too. So you're not only burning more
energy doing that, I was eating a lot less.
And I I wasn't. I was eating salads.
I was retracting your. Intake at all at that point or
just eating intuitively? I was eating in Tubuli, but then
my husband wanted me to start reducing my steps because I
literally did get up to like 23 miles a day, every day, and he
was trying to get one mile off one mile.
So he bought me a fitness tracker, which actually did me
someone who's anorexic. It you become so obsessive about
that that if I didn't get my number in, I would wake up in
the middle of night to do 2 more steps, you know, even even
though I know I was trying to reduce it, it felt like I needed
to finish it, you know? And so when I, when I found out
how many cows I was brewing, walking, that's when I started
tracking my food. And so I was just like, OK, I
will only eat the food that I walk, not realizing that you
have a, you know, your basal exactly, you know, you have.
There's other factors that nobody taught me that, you know,
you're just taking all these informations from, you know, you
know, the people that say, oh you know, just walk 10/10/10
thousand steps. And so I would do that.
And you're just taking pieces from, you know, everybody, but
not understanding the, the reason behind it or like how the
body works. So back to your question, is
that, like, yeah, I I was tracking myself, but then I
thought I could hack it and I was like, OK, if I, if I burn,
you know, 1700 calories, then that's all I'm going to eat for
that day. And so I didn't know that I was
actually in a deficit. And so weight, weight did drop
off really, really fast. But you know, it wasn't, it
wasn't body fat. I had really bad muscle atrophy
through the whole process too. When I was going through the
recovery stage, I didn't know how how bad it was.
When I was losing, I was, was it, was it catabolic when you
start to lose muscle? Yeah, yeah, I was.
My my muscles just went to nothing.
You saw bones. I think I was teasing you a
little bit and asking the ask me anything things.
I was just like, so when a female is like really vascular,
are they like underweight or are they just like, you know, maybe
dehydrated? You know I was just trying to
justify everything and you got on and asked me anything and you
just like tore me a new one. You didn't know it was me, but
like I you did. But you answered the question
and it kind of put me in place because I was wait, I was, I was
looking for somebody to justify that it was okay, you know and
and clearly it wasn't. Well, I mean, I look at like
the, this is a little bit of a tangent, but like vascularity, I
mean there's a lot of different factors that impact vascularity.
Some of it's genetics, some of it is definitely fluid
retention, some of it is age, like the your skin gets thinner
as you age, which showcases more vascularity.
But I definitely have significantly more vascularity
walking around when I'm sub 5% body fat and that that point is
going to be different for males and females obviously.
But there's a point. You sent me some pictures and
you had more vascularity than I do when I'm at 5% body fat and
I'm like, this is not the ideal picture of health for you.
So we got to embrace not having as much vascularity.
So yeah, what what does 23 miles a day look like in a step count?
Because you you said 23 miles a day, twice now.
I don't even think people, that's like a a freaking
marathon almost every single day.
So. Yeah.
I mean, like, I, I, I, I wake up around 3:00 in the morning every
day and I'll get food and things around for the house.
And then I'm, I'm out the door walking, you know having a cup
of coffee in me. And so I'm caffeinated and I and
I, this is, this is me. You know, two years ago I would
walk about 8 to 9 miles every morning.
First I'd come back, I'd take my kids to school.
You know, this is when they were past the baby stage and stuff
like that. And I was then I then I went
back and walked another 5 miles. Then I would come back and like
take another break and and so I would walk in like anywhere
between like 5 to you know, like pretty much five to Six Mile
segments at a time. But you don't have a life.
Your whole life is walking. And that's what it became an
obsessiveness for me. It was just like I just walked
and walked and walked and people would say, hey, you want to go
have coffee. It would only be between like I
was like I have 30 minutes before I have to walk again, you
know? Or I would set up like play
dates or like, you know, mom says OK, but let's let's bring
strollers or let's let's walk while we do it.
I was secretly adding my steps and like around my my social
activities. So you get 23 miles in when you
when you strategize it. It was I was like I said it was.
It was an an unhealthy mental state doing that.
Were you having any like physical implications like joint
pains, knee pains? Absolutely, absolutely.
Yeah. My ankles would give out a lot.
My knees would be would be chronically if I if it would get
like too hot. I live in Arizona so I would
walk on the treadmill and sometimes when you hold on to
like the bars and stuff like that it's not a natural stride.
So I would get lower back problems and I have a very high
pain tolerance and so my my dopamine would kick in.
It would be more rewarding that if I walk the steps than to feel
the pain. Like the trade off was was
greater. Like I felt more rewarded that I
walked. What?
Yeah, you're saying all these things and I can totally relate
with you, like when you become obsessive towards a thing and I
just experienced this with my prep.
But like the things you do habitually throughout the day,
nobody else would make any sense of.
Like, nobody understands that. They don't understand why your
brain thinks that way. But like, if you don't do it,
you it's totally an obsessive compulsive disorder.
And I have OCD really bad anyways.
So like, I can kind of leverage that to my advantage in a prep,
but it can also rear its ugly head in unhealthy ways if I am
not conscious of it. So you saying these things like,
I 100% understand where you're coming from, but a lot of people
probably don't like if they're not living in that way, it's
hard to imagine having these compulsions.
I would like to, I would like to touch on about that a little bit
because that did affect our marriage at one point where my
husband wanted like to go like go out to the movies and I had
to finish walking. You know, I was so obsessive
about getting the steps in that I was sacrificing relationships
over it, you know, and and same with my kids.
You know, like they they want to sit down and watch a movie and
I'm like, no, I'm going to go walk.
And they're like, I don't get it.
You're you're picking, walking or hanging out with us.
But yeah, that that's where that that was a state.
I had my family had asked and this is, this is an
uninteresting thing. They were they were desperate to
get their mom back at 80, at 80, you know, like low like upper
80s, you know, being my weight. They saw that I was I need help.
And so my husband gave a challenge.
He's like, yeah, he's like Hun if you get to 100 lbs, no,
sorry, it was 110 lbs. He's if you get to 110 lbs.
I will shave my head. My husband worked for like a big
a big company I won't say what it is but and he's on video
conferences all the time you know and so he would be seen
with a shaved head and he knows that I'm I'm a game player like
I'm very competitive and I said game on and for.
So my anorexic brain changed off and said I will gain I'll gain
110 lbs to see your head shaved. So I did it, but I did it the
wrong way. You know, I I ate and and I was
on a carnivore diet. I didn't binge eat on pizza and
things like that. But I was very, very high fat.
I gained the. I didn't gain any muscle, it was
all fat. And then as soon as he shaved
his head, I dropped it right back off because I knew how to I
I I did a lot of biohacking, you know, I did a lot of cold
plunges. I knew how to drop my calories.
I knew how to work with my ratios and stuff like that.
So yeah, so my my family, they tried for a long time to help
heal me and so that the healing didn't come about until actually
about maybe a year ago. So I've been living this kind of
cycle, this this knowing, knowing I need to be healthy,
knowing that people want me healthier.
But I didn't know how to do it. And I mean, I I had you as a
coach for a little bit of time. You gave me the pieces and the
information, but it really, when it comes to somebody, it's the
person that has to do it. I mean you you could give me all
the the perfect setup and you gave me actually a weight
training schedule and I started that too.
But you have to have the internal drive to do it.
You know, the person has to make the change.
So that's kind of where the story changes actually.
And it was my son, not my husband, that changed my whole
perspective on health. So I don't want to take over the
conversation, but yeah, So what happened was about a year, a
year ago I I was tinking around in the gym.
You know, I was learning how to strength train, but I wasn't
taking it serious. I still prioritized walking over
strength training, but my son had a an onset with last year of
of of a mental health condition and this is becoming a new thing
that is becoming a little more public.
It's not a new sorry, it's not a new thing.
It's becoming new to the public. It's pans or pandas, and
oftentimes people think that is related to having strep.
If you have get sick and you get strep, your autoimmune system
will attack the brain, you know, as an inflammation.
And so people would if you tested positive for strep, then
you had pandas. But your autoimmune system can
get triggered by myotoxins, biotoxins, you know, the world
that we're living in is so there's so much stress on the
body, so you can trigger it to to to to get inflamed.
And so that happened to him. Unfortunately, last Christmas we
came back from a Colorado trip and we started noticing changes
in him and he had his autoimmune system attacked, his attacks his
brain now, and so he's been diagnosed now with Pans.
But it was through his story and his struggles that I knew that I
need to get to be a better mom. And so, like, his story is a
whole another interesting thing. If did, if you wanted to go down
that rabbit hole, we can or if you wanted to wrap up my story.
But I got, I got healthier knowing that I needed to be a
stronger and capable mom to take care of him.
And so I started gaining weight and it wasn't fat, it was
actually muscle. I have gained from like the 8089
lbs to like currently at 109 lbs and and I would say I I put on a
lot of muscle I sent. Have I sent you the pictures yet
recently of of of my new like body composition?
I haven't seen any of the recent ones.
You'll definitely have to sit. I'll put them in the show notes.
Yeah, yeah. So people can see my before and
after pictures. And I have to say, for somebody
who who didn't believe that you could gain weight and look good,
that was my selling point when I switched to walking.
So I dropped from 23 miles. Now I still have some to drop
since I've talked to you last, but I'm down to 7 miles.
And that took me. That took me about 3 years to
drop. It was a slower process, but I
switched to like strength training and most people say
that this could be over overtraining too, but it gave me
an outlet. I was able to drop my my walking
if I could justify it with something else.
And that something else was getting out in the garage and
lifting weights and I cried. I cried every day going out
there. I was like, I wanted to
desperately walk and to say that I was done lifting weights in
like 45 minutes and saying that was enough when you're used to
walking your entire day, let me tell you, you did not want to
eat. You felt like you didn't deserve
to. Eat.
And so I had to retrain my brain saying that like, if I want to
build muscle, if I want to be healthier, if I want to change
my composition, I know I have to actually feel strong, be ready
to lift in the gym, be ready to take care of my son, you know,
being fuelled. So that was the, like I said,
that was a big transition. Is is reducing my steps and
believing that strength training will make me happier.
I have become more optimistic over the time since I've been
strength training. I'm I'm literally like, I I have
more time in my day. I picked up different
activities. I'm outside, you know, still I
don't have to give up my walking, but I'm outside just,
you know, playing around, you know, and it's it's definitely
more enjoyable life. It gives me more freedom.
I love that. I love it.
Yeah, Strength training. Plus it makes like once you
accept the fact that you know like when you're trying to cut
weight, cut body fat, just cut weight in general fit into
smaller clothes. Like the whole fixation becomes
becomes a scale like like seeing a lower number on the scale
becomes the end all be all. But when you recognize that
building muscle if you're starting from a healthy
composition or a you know if you're if you're starting in a
place that is not consisting of a ton of over body fat weight
then any increase in the scale can be viewed as a positive
because that is hopefully coming from additional lean tissue.
So it it is definitely a shift in mentality when you view the
scale going up as a positive, but once you recognize that and
can see the correlation between that and improved performance in
the gym, it makes seeing that increasing scale weights so much
more acceptable in the mind. Yeah, one of the things I had to
because I am fixated on numbers, I had to switch to a like
something that showed body fat percentage because when I saw
the weight going up I wanted to sabotage myself.
I was a quick like, I can fix this by dropping the weight.
When I was like when I broke £100 was a huge hurdle for me,
like I psychologically could not get over to 101 and I would drop
back to 97 lbs and I felt 97 was like my plateau because it was
just under 100. You know, I was almost there but
I wasn't like I didn't think I was fat, you know I wasn't 87 or
89 lbs you know, so I wasn't as skinny.
So I sat there for a long time and that would that would was
really, really hard. That 100 LB mark was it was the
hurdle to get over for me. Before you started seeing the
benefits of the weight training and you were at the lighter
weight of 87 lbs, how did you feel about the way you looked at
that weight? Like did you feel that you
looked good? Did you feel like there was a
certain look that? You hadn't seen I felt.
I felt like I looked good, but I deleted every photo on my phone
or any, and I would not let anybody take pictures of me at
that weight. But I felt like I here's the
thing, I don't think everybody could handle that weight.
So I felt like I was tough or I had a lot of like grit or I had
a lot of like, you know, I felt like a warrior.
Almost like I felt like even though I looked sick and like
gangly and gone, heck, I could do something that half the world
can't do, you know, Like I felt like it was, it was, it was a
badge. It was, it was, it was an honor
to be that, that that light. I didn't feel good doing it, but
mentally I felt like I've accomplished something.
Does that? Does that sound weird?
No, because I get the same way when I when I do a prep.
So I totally get it. How do you feel now that you
have started the weight training and you are over 100 lbs and
you're looking at pictures of you now versus then?
How do you feel like if you're trying to be objective and
unbiased and take the emotion and the feelings of grit out of
it when you're just simply looking at the pictures, how do
you feel about how the two compare?
I actually think I look younger now.
I think I think I look stronger. I think I look healthier.
My daughter like idolizes me more now.
You know she thinks it's it's it's she she she high fives me.
You know that you know when I step on a scale and I tell her a
higher number you know and it's because she knows that it's not.
She looks at me and and I mean I still have very low body fat
percentage and you still see ABS in me and stuff like that.
But like she high fives me when the number goes up because that
means more muscle. That means more like my hormones
are restoring and stuff like that because I do have a higher
a little bit higher body fat percentage.
So they're cheering me on, which so when I look at the pictures,
I see her happier. Me, not just physically, but you
see it in the smile too. That like I am more confident,
you know, and and what I am. That's awesome.
I definitely get into your son's store, but before we do, the
fact that you have kids that saw you at your lightest weight and
unhealthiest place before you made this transition, like what
were their thoughts towards it? Like, did they?
I know they would get frustrated when they, you know, you would
go for a walk instead of sitting down and watch the movie with
them. But what was that relationship
like when you were at your unhealthiest?
This is this is the hard part. This is the part that like I try
not to have a lot of remorse. You know, you make decisions in
life and you kind of learn from, you learn from your mistakes.
I think about this a lot because I was gone walking or planning
on so much cardio stuff. My two kids played with
themselves a lot, you know, like you know they became best
friends. And I I was, I was an absent
mom. I mean, yes, I was a stay at
home mom but I was on a treadmill, you know while
instead of playing a board game with them or you know you know
being at an event you know, a sporting event, I had to walk
instead. So I think they missed their
mom. I feel guilty looking back that
I I chose that over being a part of their life And now now my
daughter's graduating this year and I I mean any opportunity I
can like I I want to make up for it now but you can't you can't
reverse time. You know it it it passed.
But I can move forward and there's so much more to look
forward to. So helping my son and like like
I said that that's my inspiration now is because he's
still he's still in high school he's he's in 10th grade and he
and I still have that time with him in the home and so yeah,
that I'll leave it at that. Yeah, I mean you definitely, you
can't go back and change, change what happened.
But I feel like knowing what you know now, you'll appreciate
every moment you have with them all the more and not take it for
granted, which is powerful in and of itself.
Yeah. So talk to me about your son.
So we we've got his situation, which has empowered you to
improve your situation. And what have you found out
exactly about his situation? Like what is what is the nuts
and bolts behind this this diagnosis?
Yeah, so like I I I mentioned before I plateaued about 100 lbs
and it was still not enough to like make my hormones kick in
and things like that and and be the optimal person that I needed
to be. Realistically, I still needed to
gain some more weight. I mean, anybody would argue
anybody 55 shouldn't be 100 lbs, right?
And I got stuck. And so something that tragically
happened was was my son he, I, I, I keep beating around the
Bush because it's an emotional it's a very emotional story for
me. He was a normal kid.
I want everybody to understand like I had the perfect set up
family. Like nobody that could love me
or or as much as my family does. We travelled the world.
We you know, we we have a stable life you know and we live in
beautiful Arizona. I I mean the only problem was my
obsessiveness. Other than that, our family had
been blessed until this happened and we don't really have an
explanation how it happened. But after Christmas we just saw
a regression in my son and his, his mentality and his like.
He started withdrawal from himself, from social events and
from school and from all his activities.
And so we know, we know that, you know, through puberty, boys
and girls can act differently. So we kind of brushed it on the
table and then we started noticing OCD and anxiety kicking
in. And I noticed it because I have
it, you know, a little bit of that obsessiveness, you know,
walking and things like that. And so we kept an eye on him,
but then things just kept escalating and getting worse and
worse and worse. He, you know, he started having
food inversions, you know, and stuff like that.
I mean, like for somebody like me who's anorexic, you pick up
on those signs real fast. You know, when he's not eating
this much and he's a little guy, you know, and which caused
insomnia, you know, when he had a lot of, like, anxiety at
school, anxiety with, you know, whatever he's not, he's not
talking to us as much anymore. We were trying to figure him out
and we got misdiagnosed with his condition for 11 months.
And so his anxiety got him into an inpatient facility for 18
days and that was very traumatizing for him and me as a
mom losing my my son to he, he couldn't control his obsessive
behaviors that caused harm to himself mostly not to anybody
else. And during that time I I was at
a low, I was at a real low myself.
So my husband agreed that it would be OK if I took a quick
break to regain my my composure and and to be a better mom.
When he when he got out that I went on, I think I mentioned to
you this and in an e-mail I went on a hunting trip, a solo
hunting trip. It was I was the only female
among like 8 or 9 guys and was on the the border of Canada and
they taught us how to like you know like scope and we haunted
and we did a kill and this kill was was the turning point in my
my life and got me over my house the £100 and to pursue and to
really fight for my son. You're a hunter, right?
I mean you've told us stories in your podcast and and and how how
there's like there's that slow, there's the stalking, there's
the waiting and I'm not one to wait around.
You know and I know that in in a health and healing journey you
have to sometimes go slow to go fast.
It was is that the saying? I don't know.
But like there's the that like you have to be mindful.
You have to watch. You have to be intentional.
And everything I was going to do from then on had to have a
purpose, had to have some sort of like guidance, you know, and
and you don't always, just just because it's in line and
insight. Do you take the kill?
Maybe not. Maybe you wait for the next
opportunity. And so that whole hunting
experience opened up my eyes. But when we actually did our
first kill and we were gutting it, it felt like I was putting
to death the old me. I was ready to finally say I
need a rebirth. I need, I need the old Hannah to
go down and I need to to to accept that even though this
animal is like dead, it can nourish me and it can re
repurpose its energy through me and I can become bigger and
stronger through this. So I came back from that hunting
experience and my son came out of impatient and with the wrong
diagnosis by the way. And we were able to to get him a
little bit more help because I felt like I finally clicked in
my head that I need to be something bigger and better.
And so that hunting trip changed my life.
My son went to Michigan for the summer to to his grandma's house
to help with his OCD and anxiety and he he found nature as well
to be very healing. So the both of us we we.
We don't think that the medical facility, the the medical system
for our OCD and our anxiety is cured by drugs per SE and people
have their own own opinion on this and you might get some
e-mail and I was saying to this you before we were recording but
nature heals. It's being grounded again, it's
it's relating to where is our primal and intuition supposed to
come from. You know, you really start to
connect to yourself. I really found Hannah again when
I was back in nature. And I see that my son can come
out of some of his problem as his, like, obsessiveness and his
anxiety and his flare ups when we take him out on hikes and
when. Yeah.
And when he comes back and he's back in in in in our home and in
our world where there's a lot of video gaming and there's a lot
of pressure with school, like, you know, going to school and
and making like test scores and being this and that, it really
triggers him. And anybody who has pans knows
that like it's an autoimmune disease and it's a cause.
There's an inflammation in the basal ganglia and that's your
fight or flight stage, you know, and and you can get really
aggressive or you can run away from it and stuff like that.
But we just know that like the more that we pause, the more
that we slow down, the more that we go in nature, the more that
that is the healing part. So that hunting trip helped me
understand that That's what my son needs a little bit more too.
So we did. We tried to put him in it you
know the the medical mainstream healing for him.
But we we are now switching over to he's going to actually finish
off probably the school year up in Montana on a 500 acre ranch
where he can really regain his adolescence again And and and
heal Pans is an yeah pans is is it's an it's an evil thing.
It's a very evil thing. Anybody who has like an
autoimmune disease, whether it's Hashimoto's or Crohn's knows
that like there isn't a cure. You can only go on remission and
there's often times that you have flare ups and we know that
like he can flare up really easy but we know that we we can we
can work with him to reduce that inflammation by really slowing
down. And like I said it goes back to
that hunting thing that pausing and that like earthing again and
to re reevaluate how fast this world is moving.
But we don't have to keep up with it.
How was his OCD manifesting itself, if you don't mind me
asking? Yeah, that's changed over over
the last year. You know, it started off with,
you know, the some of the people who have OCD might be like your
like repeated like hand washing or like opening closing doors,
you know, And for somebody who was a normal kid, that was
definitely like different for him.
Then it became an OCD about video gaming.
He got really obsessive about video gaming.
And if you turn off this computer or the Internet, there
was an aggression, like a very strong Rage Against us that we
turned it off and he couldn't. He you're so obsessive about it
that like, no matter what gratification you you get, it's
never enough. And that's why it's called
obsessive. You can never reach that high.
You can never reach that that that's a felt, like, remember,
like you said that you you would pray, right?
You never felt like you could pray enough.
And so, like we realized that and he's the teenager.
He could never game enough you know to feel that that it was it
was satisfying to him. So for him we we're we're
learning that he actually probably has to go cold Turkey
and that's why we're sending them up to Montana and and
hopefully in a little bit and and where he can relearn coping
mechanisms when he feels triggered that he doesn't have
to like game or do obsessive habits to to to get back on
track. Well, it's so cool.
Both y'all like, both his and your stories kind of paralleled
by being in nature. More you with your hunting
experience, him with his time with his, you said grandmother,
aunt out in nature. But like for me, you know, when
I like, I went for a hunting trip for a week after my
competition and it took me like 3 days of being there to
actually disconnect 'cause I had all this business stuff to catch
up on and keep track of. But when you're out there and
you allow yourself to fully disconnect, which is hard.
I mean, like we're so tethered to our devices, we get constant
notifications via e-mail, social messaging, DMS.
It's like we live in this non-stop noise environment and
most people never have the opportunity to disconnect from
them. Most people aren't blessed
enough to have the land that that I'm, that I'm blessed for
or blessed with and be able to have that escape.
But if you, I mean there's so many national parks, anybody can
go out there, It's public land. But at the same time when you do
go out there, when you do truly disconnect and you remove
yourself from Wi-Fi networks and social media and pings and DMS,
like you really can grasp what is and is not important.
And from the hunting perspective for you, you have that on an
even deeper level because you can see the circle of life
through to its completion. When you take a life and when
you see that harvested animal at your feet take its last breath
of air and the the light fade from its eyes like you recognize
the finality of life on a whole nother level.
Obviously you want to be doing that in a respectful manner.
You don't want to just be killing things for the sake of
killing things. You want to use that meat, let
it nourish your body and complete that circle of life.
But when you do that, you able, you're able to embrace the the
simple fact that you are not too dissimilar from that animal.
You are on this planet for a finite period of time, You will
die. The best thing that you can do
with your time here is to add more value than you take.
Help others, and then, when your time has come, hopefully be able
to pay it forward in some form or fashion.
Just as that animal nourished your body with its meat, the
remembrance of you and what you contributed with your time here
on earth hopefully benefited others.
Like, once you recognize that full circle, your motivation and
intentionality and purpose in life totally shifts, and you're
able to see things through a much clearer lens than you would
ever be able to do if you never allowed yourself that disconnect
in the first place. I agree.
I I think you just you just nailed it.
That was perfectly and well said for sure.
I feel like I can. The The funny thing is my son
doesn't like me the most, you know, as a parent, but I am the
one that can actually relate with him the most as well with
his OCD. And it's like you're saying it's
that full circle. I went through hell in my 20s
and 30s and I'm coming out of it and I have that for that
foreseen future that he could recover even though it's an
autoimmune disease and he's going to have to learn how to to
to cope with it. But there is a future.
It's a full it's a full circle like you were saying.
Like it's not a dead animal if you can reuse and repurpose.
My story didn't end as a dead you know mom, now that I can I
can grasp the concept of what health and strength and I'm
saying strength not and physical lifting weights, mental strength
that I can pass it on and really encourage him.
And the hard thing I said earlier was that I felt like I
missed a part of my child's upbringing because I was so
focused on on walking that this decision sending him away, takes
away that time of me being a mom again.
And I had to sit with that. And I had to really, really sit
with that and say do I want to try to help him out or do I want
nature or do I want him to do it on his own?
And it goes back to the beginning of our conversation.
Nobody could have made me gain weight.
I had to hit my low. I had to make my decision saying
I need, I need to feel stronger and do better and be a better
mom. So yes, I'm gonna have to give.
And it's a short term residence. It's not like I haven't seen him
with the next two years of his life.
You know, it's gonna be like a 90 day kind of a reset program
for him to finish off school and just to like, you know,
recenter. But like, I have to give that up
so that he can get his feet back on the ground.
And so as a parent you have to make decisions that are going to
be hard that what you want, greedy decisions.
I want to be his mom now. Like I want to be his mom so
bad. He doesn't want anything to do
with me right now because he's, you know, he's a teenager.
He wants, he wants his independence, but he's not
capable with his OCD and anxiety.
And I don't trust the the the medical system right now either.
So I have to trust the people who have opened up their 500
acre ranch to to help and I think.
That ranch. He's he doesn't want to be here
anymore. I think he's at the point where
and that's what I was. You didn't let me tell you I
didn't want to get in that garage and lift.
But you know that that's the thing you have to do.
So I like, I see there's so many parallels.
I see him facing his challenges and I'm like in my head.
I'm like, I know, I I don't know.
I saw you're dealing with something different than I'm
dealing with. But like I feel like I can
relate. Hun I was like I keep trying to
tell him that, but I know he doesn't want to hear from me.
But it's no he it is it going to be easy for him?
No. But when he comes out of it is
he going to be better? God, I hope so, and I believe
so. You know, there's some really
good hunting in Montana. You ought to take him hunting.
So if you can experience that after after his stay there.
You should. I love it.
That'd be great. I would.
I enjoyed that for sure. Well, I'm excited for him.
Oh, go ahead. Does this say are you going to
take your son hunting when he gets older?
Oh, for sure, 100%, no questions asked.
I mean, my, my, so much of my life has been built on
fundamentals that have transcended and bled into every
aspect of my life. So, like, my success in business
is a direct result of the lessons I've learned from
bodybuilding. My success in just being
grounded and having a solid relationship with my wife and
son and family is a direct result of life lessons I learned
by being out in nature, growing up on a farm.
You know, having the work there and just wanting to be a good
steward of the land and its resources, like all of these
components of my life are built on, you know, what I've learned
in nature, what I've learned in the gym, And that's just bleed
into everything. So like, yeah, 100%.
I feel like I'll be able to be a much better father for my son
and impart many more life lessons onto him by being able
to afford him the opportunity to go out in nature, hunt alongside
me, get our hands dirty and just do simple things that that
everybody should do. You know, everybody should do
those things. Yeah, I know you've had a couple
guests, you know, in the past that have told their anorexic
story or reverse diet in story. But the interesting twist about
this one is is nature. It's how I felt healed and I
felt capable finally when I was able to ground back and slowing
down and understanding in and I do understand more about macros
now. Yes, I do understand about
progressive overloads now. Yeah, that's all all all two
thumbs up and stuff like that. But what gave me the confidence
to get over the 100 lbs is is the nature aspect of it.
It's realizing that I can be healed, I can be healthy, I can
be who I am and more confident if I just slow down.
Yeah. And I don't need to hear myself.
And that's how we're supposed to live.
I mean, like, I've had this, this, I've had a similar
conversation to this a lot here lately because I'm, I'm getting
into the homesteading now I'm, I'm kind of plugging into
homesteading local groups about how to raise chickens and lamb
and things like that. And one common denominator I've
seen is like these people, they want to be self-sufficient.
They want to be able to help others locally and support their
neighbor. They want to fuel themselves
with quality food that they raise, grow, procure themselves,
hunt themselves. And it's like, you know, that
that's how we lived as a species 500 years ago.
That was just the default. That's just how things work.
We would, we would work from sun up until sundown and then we
would sit around a fire. We would connect with our family
and loved ones and those close to us.
We would share great memories. We would pass those stories up
through the the lineage. We would, we would help each
other. Like these are all things, these
are all core tenets of what it is to be human.
And we've gotten so far removed from it by, you know, social
media, the Internet, technology. Not that those are bad things by
any means, but if they are brought into our life at the
expense of those core tenants, they become a bad thing.
They become a distraction. I'm not saying that you should
become a monk and and throw away your cell phone, but if you
don't make time to incorporate these things that we have been
built on as a species, then you're not likely going to
benefit from it. I think you're right about that
too, yeah. How easy it is to pick up our
phone and scroll versus walking outside and and and like taking
the time to breathe the fresh air.
It's so easy to watch another episode on TV than to like go
climb a tree, right? Or like, you know, practice your
shooting and your bow and arrow and things like that.
It's it's comfortable on the couch.
You know when it's 32° out, when you're walking, you know, no
that's not comfortable. But but let me tell you, will
you feel better doing? Which one?
Do you feel better sitting on the couch?
Do you feel better scrolling and comparing yourself to social
media? Because that's what I did.
I was looking at old photos of myself all the time and not not
feeling comfortable. But when I'm in nature, there's
not a mirror out there. What you're feeling is your
strengths, your power, what you're capable of.
Yeah. And it's so easy to incorporate
those things if you put forth a little bit of effort.
I mean, one thing that I've been doing with the family here
lately, as simple as it sounds, but it's been like incredibly
fulfilling, is I'll come home from work, we'll all have dinner
together as a family, which is a rather uncommon thing these days
anyways, which is unfortunate. I'll have the fire going in the
fireplace with some Native American flute music playing on
the speaker like we have ATV. I've never had ATVI.
Don't want ATV. Rigel will not be raised with
the TV in the house, so there's just no TV's in the house.
So we have that distraction removed, but simply eating
together as a family, sitting in front of the fire, listening to
Native American flute music like that is is as simple as it gets.
But it's been incredibly powerful for me and for the
family, and it's like it it it's not a massive time commitment.
It just simply takes effort. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I hope somebody else can hear that story too, who feels that
like when you come to a crossroad and you don't know how
to to to get over that next turtle, consider just consider
the alternative And that might be disconnecting and you might
grow, you might grow yourself a little bit more.
Yeah. Well, Hannah, I can't thank you
enough for taking the time to share the story and be as
transparent and vulnerable as you have.
I'm incredibly proud of you personally because I've seen and
worked with you as you were going through the reverse diet.
I saw you when you were at your unhealthiest.
I see you now and you just have this increased sense of zeal and
vibrancy about you, which I'm incredibly grateful for.
I'm excited for your son and what this 90 day stint in
Montana will do for him. And I've got no doubt that Y'all
will both see it through this and be stronger for it.
And while it may be very difficult to connect now because
he he is struggling for his independence and he's finding it
hard to relate with you, I guarantee that will mend because
you are coming at this with the right intentions and he'll see
that. He's got a smart head on his
shoulders, I'm sure, and yeah, will be better than ever as a
result of all this hardship you're facing now.
Thanks Robert. And you've always been a always
been a supporter for me. Anybody who's ever worked with
Robert, even if you don't work with you, you've always said if
there's anything I can do, let me know.
That's like been your tagline and you are to your word on
that. I've always been able to reach
out to you and you respond. And so thank you for being my,
my backbone and certain areas of my life when I I doubted myself
and you, you've been there, you've done that, you knew the
struggle and you pushed me through as well.
So I thank you for all your coaching that you've done in the
past for me. Well, my pleasure.
It's been an honor to work with you and to to continue that
tagline further. If there's everything I do to
help help, let me know. I happen to have a ranch in
southwest Arkansas with great hunting as well.
So if you and your son ever need a place to go to have that
outlet, you know, just just reach out.
That sounds amazing. Well done.
I will do that. All right.
Take care. Thank you and take care.
Have a good one. Yeah.
Bye. Bye.