Chronic diseases are on the rise, affecting millions globally. How can we handle and even reverse the progression of these chronic conditions?
Our guest, Oliver Eehn is the Founder of Optimum Fitness Systems and brings over 40 years of expertise in health and fitness, specializing in diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and stroke recovery. He holds several certifications, specializing in athletic/sports conditioning, injury/post-rehabilitation, bodybuilding, powerlifting, senior fitness, and other areas.
Throughout the episode, Oliver discuss the ways of managing various chronic diseases, from physical injuries to mental conditions like Parkinson’s and dementia. He also shares his plans to expand his impact on public health, reaching out to both the general public and fitness professionals. His goal is to raise awareness, educate, and empower individuals and businesses to prioritize health and wellness. Tune in to learn how small lifestyle changes can make a big difference in your health journey.
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Reversing Chronic Disease & Recovery Strategies with Oliver Eehn
Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. One of the problems that we’ve observed quite a bit today and had a really big uptick over the past, say, half a century is the prevalence of chronic diseases. This is something we haven’t talked about quite yet on this podcast but we have talked generally about health, both mental and physical health, and health can definitely get in the way of you being able to follow whatever dream, whatever passion that you’re trying to pursue. Today, my guest, Oliver Eehn, who is the founder of Optimum Fitness Systems, is going to talk a little bit about what we can do about chronic diseases, both from the recovery and prevention side.
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Oliver, welcome to the program.
Thank you, Stephen. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Well, thanks for joining and thanks for talking to us about a topic that we have yet to really talk about these chronic diseases. So, obviously, you’ve seen this, you have a passionate about it. What is making some of these chronic diseases so prevalent today?
Unfortunately, it’s just lack of activity, poor food planning, dieting, and everything that ties along with that, and it’s just, of course, not to mention just the quality of the foods that are available today, along with all the added preservatives and processing that goes into it. And so you put all that together, yes, that is definitely an equation for disaster down the road.
My quest, if you want to call it that, is to now help educate the public about this as well as to encourage them to just better lifestyle and healthy living. Share on X
Yeah, it is disturbing to see how many people are living with some kind of chronic disease. What brought you into this particular pursuit? What did you observe that made you decide that Optimum Fitness System is what you wanted to do?
It wasn’t planned that way, it’s just kind of as a lot of your other fellow business people, some of your other guests have talked about, this is kind of how life — as life just kind of flows along, we just move along and then it’s — some of it, it’s just more by default, if you will, because that was kind of your tip, growing up as an athlete myself, and endure a lot of my own injuries, football being my main sport, of course, you play football, yeah, you’re asking for injuries over the years, just become my own patient. And then just through that process, just became a weightlifting, fitness enthusiast through that process and just made sense to now, it’s obviously tried to do something business wise in that regard. And so, as I started just working with folks and just the typical like most personal trainers do early on is help people lose weight and just kind of get back in shape and that’s, ’til this day, I mean, those are still the most common reasons why people would hire us. Along the path that, as I started taking on this disease, I still remember 25 years ago, almost to this day, that I took on my first Parkinson’s disease patient, and as a young trainer myself, okay, just somebody else that I’m just going to have now kind of help them get stronger and so didn’t really understand the whole process, some of the neurological effects and just kind of how all that plays into it, and so just trained them like I essentially would, of course, modified, like I would train any other client and then he wonderfully just was able to just see improvements, improve his right and just regain a lot of his function. But I will say, Stephen, it was really over these last five, maybe less than ten years that I really been now focusing on this aspect of physical fitness part when you start talking about how exercise can not only slow down the progression of a lot of these diseases but even reverse their effects.
And so we talked a little bit about these trends about how it just seems like everywhere, a lot of these diseases, you talk about Parkinson’s, you talk about Alzheimer’s, you talk about a few others, seem to be getting more and more prevalent. Is that part of what you were seeing as these diseases became more and more prevalent, you just started to encounter it more, you just started to encounter more people that came to you with that the same way it first started five years ago?
Exactly, yes, and then through that process, just like as people now are discovering that, “Hey, here, you gotta meet Oliver who’s a personal trainer that specializes in helping people with injuries, helping people with diseases,” and so it just naturally made sense that my clientele will grow in that regard. And when I built my first health club, this was back in 2003, like any enthusiastic business person, fitness professional, that was my dream to always kind of own my own fitness facility and then, of course, we always had to incorporate the personal training side of that too. And then that’s when I started getting some stroke patients to now become part of that system and then kind of now it’s just like sort of you kind of learn on the fly. Okay, what do I do with the stroke victim? And then you kind of watch that progression as it goes and kind of learn it so you’re essentially just kind of just reading one page ahead of them as you kind of learn this process. Depending on how the severity of their stroke was, then we just kind of work with it accordingly. And there, again, some of them, we’ve seen just wonderful progress of how people are now able to just regain some of that function and strength along the way as they do that.
How does it feel for you personally when you witness one of your customers, one of these life changing experiences and end up being able to get some or all of their kind of original functioning back?
That’s why I really consider my job, my business, very rewarding. It’s just, as they say, it’s like if you just are able to find something that you love doing, you’d never have to work a day in your life.
And that is quite amazing. Now, are there aspects of your job that you don’t love? Because I think every business has like the operational, accounting, all that type of stuff, are you able to offload the stuff that you don’t enjoy doing?
Oh, yeah, there you go. Yeah. And people may use different numbers but mine is, I call it the 90-10 rule, meaning probably 90 percent of what goes on in my business could probably be done better by somebody else. I’m not an accountant so I hired an accountant to take care of that part. When it comes to marketing and advertising, I am just totally clueless about just what goes on with that and how to do that and a few times, I’ve tried that on my own, yeah, it was just kind of disappointing there, obviously, and so, therefore, yeah, so these are the folks that I would have to have on my team to now help me through the process. And in fact, I’m now writing a book specifically about now working with these diseased patients, these individuals now like to be able to help them along just through physical fitness and good nutrition and that process. Now, recently, I’ve hired myself a good writer-editor to now help me do that process. So, yeah, just a lot of parts of your business, regardless of what your business may be, it probably could be done better by somebody else so I just focus on a 10 percent that I know that only I can do.
Yeah, how to work with people who have these chronic diseases or just wanting to get in better shape, which is what you want to do. What did it take for you to get to the point where you could comfortably hire out those positions? Did you originally have to do your own marketing just to get enough revenue coming in to where you could hire that out?
Correct, yes. Well, most of that began when I, of course, began my first health club and, I mean, when you’re talking like over 20 years ago, this was before social media even existed, before even much of the internet was still kind of coming into vogue so we still did like the old-fashioned print mailing, newspaper ads, things of that nature. That’s kind of how I started in that process. And then, of course, as a lot of that evolved over these years. I’m here again, social media, that’s just something I’m just clueless about so it’s like, again, I would just have to refer to those who are experts in that field and to kind of help me along on that side. I’m still learning this.
And so throughout your journey, because running a business, regardless of how much you hire out, how much you don’t, how much you have to coordinate does take a lot of time and energy. And also keeping your fitness well takes time and energy, cooking a good meal takes more time than driving through Wendy’s, going to the gym takes time and energy to get up, go do your weightlifting, do your cardio, did your own personal fitness journey ever suffer at all from all the time and energy it took for you to get this business up and going?
Well, Stephen, let’s go back, we’re talking like 45 years now. That’s when I began my fitness journey as a high school kid wanting to play football and I got my first weight set as a 14-year-old and just kind of got involved in that process. And then it’s just the, hard to say, I never stopped. From 14 to 45 years, over 45 years of training now, it’s like I’ve always made it a point to take care of myself first. As they say, if you’re on a plane and then you have loved ones with you, you put on your mask first before you help the kids mask up and so that’s been my philosophy when it came to particularly my fitness business because it’s like if I don’t take care of myself, first of all, that’s not setting a very good example for my clients.
Exactly.
It’s like, hey, I need to live by example. When I was building my first health club, I was actually in there myself, just with the elbow grease and just kind of tearing down, building, and just kind of helping my contractor friend just kind of put that together and so just something that I’m proud of and it was only in that period that I ended up taking like two weeks off from any kind of my own physical fitness activities. But, I mean, construction work, that’s plenty physical.
Yeah.
But other than that, no. I rarely just take time off. I mean, I’ll still occasionally like maybe once a year maybe take off like one week just to kind of let the body just what we call rest. But other than that, no. I am always good about keeping it up for myself.
So anytime, if you’ve had like a really hectic week, you still kind of remind yourself, hey, wait a second, this comes first?
There you go, right. Certainly, and which, again, as I try to lead that — exemplify that just to be able to tell others, “Look, folks, I’m busy too but I make it a priority,” set aside, even if it’s only 30, 45 minutes, you could get plenty done in 30 minutes if you just really just kind of hone in and focus on what you’re doing there. In fact, a lot of my workouts that I provide are only 30-minute workouts or some even less.
And so with these like 30-minute workouts, does that help you serve your clients that may be in their own journey where they have an excessively busy lifestyle, some of the people that are really pressed for time, say, you have a job but you also have children or any of these other combination activities that in the modern world make people just really, really pressed for time?
Oh, certainly, yes. You here, again, I mean, you could certainly get a lot done in a 20-, 30-minute workout if you just really focus on that. So, yeah, I certainly am able to put together just routines like that for those busy folks, if you will,
So, when you talk about setting aside just 20 minutes a week, do you have clients ever coming to you having lived a completely sedentary lifestyle, which I find depressing to even think about the idea, but there are people out there who just haven’t been doing anything, have just been basically what they say letting themselves go, and if someone gets to that point, does that 20 minutes twice a week, a first step to help someone, say, get out of that situation?
Oh, sure, definitely. Yeah. And, unfortunately, well, Stephen, I’m sure, by now, everybody knows this, like in this technological world, and I mean, of course, this has been going on for probably over the last even like 20, 30 years now, it’s like so much of our work, our jobs have become like office-type works where we sit at desks and just sit behind a computer now and so these kinds of folks who, especially those who just really never grew up with any type of, what do you call it, competitive, athletic type of mentality, some of them just cannot grasp the concept of, okay, so why should I go into a gym or some kind of health club and just repetitiously just kind of go through the motions, like what is the point that? That’s kind of hard to convince somebody who grew up like that to now to begin this process. And then, of course, that’s where like more of the I would say some of the education would have to come first. It’s like, “Look, Mr. Jones, you gotta understand that soon after 20, 30, as we just continue to just remain sedentary, inactive, just how body will begin to deteriorate, and so now let me show you some simple steps as to just how we can combat that.”
And I’m even looking at this book that I read maybe a decade ago called Bike for Life and one of the points I remember from this book so many years later is this concept that your body’s VO2 max output, the deterioration is an order of magnitude faster for someone that’s sedentary than it is for someone that regularly challenges that, whether it be through like, say, biking up a mountain or doing some other type of activity similar.
Sure, definitely. Oh, yes.
I want to start a little bit talking about preventions, because I’m sure a lot of people listening don’t have any chronic disease yet but seeing the statistics, seeing probably someone you know, as you say, as you get from like 20 into your 30s, maybe you start to actually know someone that developed some sort of weird chronic disease and you’re like, “I don’t want that to happen myself,” what is the best way someone can go about and, let’s just say someone working an office job, as you’re mentioning, an office job requires you to be in front of a computer sedentary for roughly 40 hours a week, what’s something someone can do to start preventing, to make sure they don’t get into that place in the first place?
Well, certainly. Well, Stephen, I’m glad you brought that up. Here’s a continuation to the story that I talked about of my Parkinson’s patient 25 years ago. Of course, he was an old World War Two veteran, an all-star athlete in his younger days and then he passed away at 82 and here we are, 25 years later, I am now training his grandson who has the same name as he does. And the reason why he came to me, the grandson, that is, is he definitely wanted to slim down, lose some weight and just being a sedentary person himself as an engineer, fine engineer he is but he just realized the need to be able to now just do this for himself. But the thing that really pushed him to this was that, it was, “Hey, I know my family history,” I believe he said there were some others in his family who had MS. Yes, one of his aunts had multiple sclerosis and so just kind of knowing that he has this family history just in his blood, if you will, that now he realized that it’s like, “Okay, I should probably take some preventative care here,” and so here we are. So, yeah, I would certainly advise folks to just, one, look at their family history. A lot of times, and, in fact, in my onboarding process is I take people through the health fitness assessment and just kind of walk them through that part of it, just like you would see like when you fill out the form at your doctor’s office. Okay, what is your family history? Do you have a father or brother or somebody immediate there that has had heart disease, stuff of that nature? So when you know that, it probably would be helpful to start there and then realize that, okay, yep, I probably have this in my blood and maybe I should do some preventative care here.
And so you talk about witnessing family history and there’s probably some other motivation. And so the preventative care is that just generally working out well, eating well, is there something that so many people are doing nowadays that’s really just a terrible disservice to their overall health?
Oh, gee. Well, of course, yeah, we talked about just diet. And in this fast-paced world, I can understand why it’s just so easy to just have like pizza delivered to you, especially after the pandemic, and it’s like, well, I won’t even get started on that, I know this is not necessarily a political program but it’s like, okay, we know now that was just one big, big fiasco, we should have never locked now, not to mention just the physical damage but some of the psychological and emotional damage this did especially to our kids. And then, sadly, none of them did not break away from that. They continue to just have food order to them, like Uber and some of those DoorDash businesses, it’s thriving because now people continue to have food delivered to them that way. And, by the way, there are some healthier alternatives you can get with that purpose in mind, I’m not bad mouthing them, it’s just to say that it’s like, okay, it’s like if you could just take a few extra minutes to just put together a healthy meal, it’s like just the difference that can make.
And I’m guessing there are a lot of good healthy meals that someone can put together, even if they don’t really have a lot of time.
Sure.
Some of the really elaborate meals can take two, three hours, I think, we’re all familiar with those fancy recipes, but we’re also familiar with, say, boxed food, which is easy to prepare but tends to be only slightly less unhealthy than just ordering something from DoorDash, but I’m guessing there are some things you can do, say, you only have 20 minutes to set aside, for one reason or another, that’s just your situation.
Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah. I used to follow bodybuilding back in the old days when Lou Ferrigno, I remember you when he won the Mr. Universe there and that’s kind of how I got turned on to like a lot of the iron game, as they say. And to this day, for a lot of us bodybuilders, if you will, who kind of stick to that regimen, it’s just like some healthy fishes, like salmon, tuna, some pasta, assuming that you don’t have celiac disease or are gluten intolerant, there’s like a lot of great pasta dishes you could put together. Chicken. Brown rice is also a big staple of mine. And so these are some of the staple foods that I always include in my particular eating plan. Just prepare the brown rice, cook it, not much preparation there other than just some of the side dishes that you’re going to eat along with that so it’s really not as difficult as people might think.
And now, recently, also a big deal has been made about sugar and even when those studies came out that describe how in the 1970s and 80s, I think a lot of our dietary recommendations revolved around low fat and then it turned out that it’s actually more important to try to limit our sugar intake. Is there anything similar to that that we’re observing now? Because we’ve made a mistake and now we’re kind of correcting for it. Is there any common dieting advice that you hear that you’re like, okay, maybe this is not the best, maybe it’s going to come out later that we didn’t have this one right?
Oh, sugar. Boy. You had to take me down that road. Because sugar, you got to understand, it’s like there were some, if I recall correctly, this came from the medical field. It’s like sugar is like cocaine, quoting some of the medical professional that said this but to quote him or her, it says sugar is like cocaine, it is addictive, and your body become addicted to this substance, people kind of see me as an anomaly so it was about 19, 20, I just decided no more sodas, no more donuts or pastries and sweet desserts. And you know what, to this day, I do not crave sugar. I just have no desire for sugary foods. And so, yes, you can break away from that. And so my suggestion to maybe help that process is, all right, so what do you snack on? Because that’s usually where people — that’s where you get that, like with the desserts particularly, and snack foods, so many, including my current clients, they got to have their cookies. All right, well, fine, okay, if you want to have a few cookies, don’t do it every night, okay. But here’s some alternatives, like fruit is sweet. How about having a piece of fruit instead? And there are healthier versions of candy, if you want to call it that, like I like to snack on some of these like protein bars, nutrition bars, power bars, well, not the PowerBar, that is way too much sugar, but like various different forms of nutrition bars is certainly a much better alternative to candy.
And I love how you talk about your cravings changing because I’ve actually observed that in a lot of people too. I used to have a pretty sizable Coca-Cola addiction, which is the primary device that we came from and I would drink over 100 ounces of Coke a day back in college, scaled back quite a bit by switching mostly to green tea at this particular point in time. And now, I find myself craving that exact type of green tea, the one that my mind is associated with and I think it’s healthier, even though it’s still kind of a craving, but so you can change that. And so as you’re going through the program with your clients, you talk about having a big educational piece. Is part of the educational piece helping them overcome that hurdle? Because if you switch your dietary habits, the first thing your brain is going to do is start craving what you’re suddenly denying yourself, so you have to overcome that hurdle because once you get through, whether it’s 21 days or 66 days, whatever they talk about the habit change happening, then you’re on the other side, and like you said for yourself and for so many other people, it’s not like you wake up and you’re like, “Oh, I can really go for a doughnut right now.”
Yeah, you got it. Yeah. So but when you talk about that urge, that desire, if you will, like cocaine, it’s a form of a drug that your body just has to have it and then some people, yes, will literally have withdrawal symptoms if they get off of sugar, especially those first week, and then just what their body feels, what it goes through, and some would just describe it to the point where it almost feels torturous. It’s just like, “Come on, I just gotta, give me some sugar, something.”
It’s like, okay, well, have a piece of fruit, just something sweet. Give that a try. Just try something different. Share on X
And so what you’re talking about with the piece of fruit is something to I guess sort of satisfy that psychological or physiological need without going fully back to the unhealthy habit that put them on that downward spiral to begin with.
Right, yes. And I’m sure, again, when it comes to diet, and I don’t even like to use that word particularly, people tends to associate that with deprivation usually, just some bad experience they had with certain diet and so, therefore, I don’t even like to use that word. I call it food planning and so when it comes to like food planning, I tell folks, one, the way I food plan is I’m not about deprivation.
And then, of course, you also talk about the activity. Now, you briefly brought up the pandemic and one of the things that does alarm me is the fact that I determined in my head that someone could theoretically go an entire month without leaving their house if they really wanted to, between food delivery services, remote work, which I do support for other reasons, as well as generally having everything come to you with all this delivery stuff, you can go a month without leaving. So, what is something someone can do on that end? Because it seems like this chronic disease uptick has a lot to do with how sedentary some people really are right now.
Sure. Well, there are certain folks, and I know some of them myself, I call them like hermits, recluses, who just choose to just kind of refrain from society for various reasons and there may be some psychological aspect to that as well. And then, of course, the pandemic certainly fed that and folks like that, hey, there’s nothing different for them. Here again, there are so many healthier alternatives for that. The first one that comes to mind is Blue Apron, like when you get those boxed foods delivered to you so it’s actually like you don’t have to look up a recipe, it’s already there, it’s already put together, now all you have to do is prepare it and cook it. So, yeah, a service like that would be great. And so other delivery food services that if you want to call them like fast foods, it’s like, okay, I don’t want to bash McDonald’s or Burger Kings and pizza places but it’s just like sometimes, it’s like, again, if you want to enjoy, it’s kind of your pleasure, if that’s your guilty pleasure, just don’t do that every night.
But I would encourage people why don’t you get outside, enjoy some sunshine, especially now as the weather is warming up, get outside in the sun, get some of that vitamin D. Share on XIf you’re not doing that, then certainly take the supplements but get outside, get some sunshine, and then as well as go to the store and get your own food there.
And then you mentioned a little bit of psychological factors here. Well, what are the biggest psychological factors that people that you encounter need to overcome in order to achieve a healthier lifestyle?
You know, Stephen, when we talk about getting fit, exercising, personal training, people always think we got to work on the body there, right? But what I find is that you have to work more above the head than you do below it. With so many of the folks that I even to this day continue to work with, I got to work with them more up here than here, just to get them to the point to where they have convinced themselves, “Look, yes, I really need to do this. This will be good for me.” And frankly, Stephen, that’s why I have a business because these folks are not going to do it on their own.
Let’s just say someone’s going from that sedentary, unhealthy, probably feeling like shit, to be honest, lifestyle, to getting to somewhere healthier, is there a point on that journey where these psychological barriers really tend to show up the most?
Well, let’s understand first of all, it’s just like what exercise does for, I mean, not just our physical aspect but our mental, psychological. By now, most of us probably understand that it releases some of the endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, melatonin which stimulates those that are like, amino acids, proteins that now stimulate our brains, kind of getting back to like the subject of like, specifically when it comes to disease, we’re finding more and more and this is now coming from the medical community, not just us fitness buffs now just kind of preaching about, “Hey, come on, get pumping here or you’re just gonna waste away.” It’s like, no, this is coming from the medical community saying that, it’s like the benefits that we are able to now derive from — and let me specifically talk about resistance weight training and cardio is important, yes, that always will be, but when it comes to weight training specifically, we know now that it activates what we call the brain-derived neurotropic factor, BDNF, and it’s kind of hard to not get too technical about some of this but it’s just as we now are releasing some of this, we understand how it just benefits, I mean, not just our muscles but how some of those myokines, telomeres, which crosstalk between our muscles and our organs, including the brain, and how it stimulates that process to now be able to now improve one’s cognitive functions. So you can imagine somebody with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, like the benefit this could have.
And that’s amazing. So, we talked a bit about prevention, a big part of it, but then, of course, what you deal with a lot is what happens when someone didn’t prevent it and this chronic disease appears. First of all, as we go in from the prevention to when we have the disease, is there ever a warning sign that something might be going wrong? Is there something that happens in the human body commonly or even in the human brain commonly because a lot of these diseases you’re talking about are diseases of the mind that make someone say, “Oh, hold on a second, this thing is happening. This is my body, this is my mind telling me whatever I’m doing is not working and I might develop a chronic disease if I don’t try something different now.”
Sure, yeah, alongside with the family history of understanding what may have been there in your family, but also just some of the — I mean, whether the disease could be neurological, meaning affecting our nervous system, which then affects our movement and muscular function and stuff, as well as whether the disease can be psychiatric, like in the case of dementia, Alzheimer’s, so these are all various aspects of the diseases that we definitely need to pay attention to, like my father had a stroke just a few years before he passed away but that could have been prevented because he was feeling like some kind of like what we know now was kind of like a blockage sensation that he was feeling in his neck. And, of course, we understand like when a stroke happens, it literally kills a part of the brain. And so it’s like that was an obvious sign that he just neglected. And so with other folks like that, it’s just are you feeling some unusual sensations, tinglings, in particularly like some of the extremities, your hands, arms, feet, legs. Pay attention to that, and don’t just write it off as just, “Okay, I’m just getting old and these are some of the things that I just feel as I get older.” It’s like, no, you got to be aware of that.
And so you oftentimes get client intake from that particular process, like, a client will come in and say, “Hey, Oliver, I’m just starting to feel tingling in my right pinky finger quite a bit and this may be a sign of something and I want to get on something healthier before it turns into whatever it might turn into.”
Oh, definitely, yeah. And then, of course, yeah, as I go through that evaluation process a lot of times, it’s like, “Hey, I’m just feeling just kind of a weird sensation in my hand, my thumb there,” it’s like, okay, and then I find out a week before he smashed it with a hammer or something, okay, maybe you’re just kind of maybe feeling some after effects of that. But in my shoes, anyway, I always make it a point to regularly question, ask a lot of questions of my clients. So, how’s your back feeling? How’s your back recovering after that? If they’re like getting over an injury and such, particularly with the disease folks, okay, so are you noticing any kind of a different sensation, I mean, either positive or negative. And so I’ll be able to just continue to monitor that. So that’s something that we have to just continually stay on top of.
And also how much of it is noticing things? Because I think we talk about our hectic lifestyles and some people are constantly just going from one task to another, always context switching, and then, sadly, whenever they do have a spare minute, they’re kind of filling their mind with mindless garbage, whether it be scrolling through social media or mindless television, stuff like that. How much of it is taking the time out, even slowing down or just pausing a second to like check in and be like, “How am I feeling?” because I imagine cases where someone has been eating really crappy food and they’re feeling terrible and sluggish but they’re just kind of brushing it off as they go from task to task in their day-to-day lives?
Of course. Well, Stephen, not only would I have the individual just try to just stay aware of this, because a lot of times, we just get so busy and it’s easy to just keep it out of mind. I would go so far as now talk to the spouses as well, other family members, like, “Hey, are you noticing anything strange about dad or mom lately?” and just now be able to get some feedback from that perspective as well. Because, oftentimes, it’s really other people around them that start noticing this stuff before they even do.
And if anyone listening has someone in their lives, whether it be their spouse or even like a good friend, coworker, etc., that they’ve noticed something like that of, what do you think is the best way to approach it from, say, the spouse’s point of view and saying, “Hey, I noticed you’ve been a lot more sluggish, a lot more grumpy, not feeling so well, some kind of a change needs to be made”?
Okay, that’s always a touchy subject and this has happened a few times, husband gets his wife with personal training sessions and then they get sent to me and then now I got to deal with this. It’s obvious they don’t want to be there. Of course, I will do my best to make that lady feel comfortable and just say like, “Hey, listen, try to make the best of this.” And then, sadly, I can remember one incident where that could continue to move in a positive direction but they just dropped out. Again, being as sensitive as that is but now try to urge maybe you’ve done this with your wife or your husband and just trying to say, “Hey, you really need to get in shape,” and how does that go over?
Yeah.
Yeah, but then it’s like, the way I would suggest approaching it is like, you know what, if you’re the wife of a man who you noticed is just getting heavy and midsection is expanding and it’s complaining of back aches and they’re just not looking well, might be time to just really have that sit down talk with him and just say, “Hey, honey, I just would love for us to be able to celebrate our 50th anniversary or look forward to just momentous times to be able to share for years to come. But, frankly, the way you’re going right now is just — I’m just very concerned, just would you consider just getting some help with this?” Maybe approach it in a fashion like that.
A really good point that you make about habits change in any kind of capacity is that the person making the change has to want it. It has to be your own decision and I think it’s Alcoholics Anonymous, their first step is admit that you have a problem because if you haven’t, then there’s no point in really doing anything else.
Sure. Yeah, you got it.
And then so once someone develops a chronic disease, and you talk about a variety of chronic diseases, anything from physical, just a plain old injury to something like Parkinson’s dementia that’s kind of way more mental, what’s the path? Does it vary quite a bit based on the specific client’s history, their particular disease? Or what do you do when you kind of work with them starting from that point?
All right, so, sure, and as we just take them through that onboarding process, we obviously get their full medical history there and then, of course, like what led up to the progression of disease or just some of it is like a stroke, it’s just sudden, it just happens. I mean, well, the event happens, but, I mean, of course, there are some predetermining factors that kind of led to that, obviously, that maybe they neglected. And so we question all those aspects as well. And then, of course, every individual is treated individually, even with various stroke victims. I mean, I can’t think of all the stroke victims I’ve work with to be able to say that I’ve treated two of them exactly alike because everyone has to be individualized and so, Uncle Jack, my first stroke victim, now he came to me about 15 years after the fact. It would be ideal for folks to as soon as they come upon whatever disease that they have, that that’s when we should take it on when it’s in the early stages like that and so to be able to hopefully slow down and reverse its effects. It’s quite an extensive process that we have to take them through but yet I’m confident that we can help probably every one of them, in my opinion.
So what are your plans? So you have your fitness studio, you have your clients, are you planning on expanding this operation or expanding the impact that you’re trying to have on just people’s general health habits?
Well, definitely, not necessarily my studio space here. In fact, after I sold off my health club, I’ve gotten involved in a Fitness Together franchise personal training studio and had other trainers working under me and actually that closed because during a bad economic time, one-quarter of that franchise closed in a two-year period. But all that to say that it’s just like, as I’m now just sort of doing this now on my own individually to people, obviously, I want to expand that. So now as I’m kind of getting out there and I was also invited to be a presenter at the Fitness Business Association, that frequently hosts conferences to now be able to talk about this subject. And, so, therefore, is just as I’m trying to kind of get the word out to the masses, it’s like I’m trying to now not only educate the public but other fitness professionals, physical therapists, to just bring it to their attention that, hey, let’s raise awareness of this and then not only would this help the public but it could also, from a business standpoint, help these other business people, physical therapists, personal trainers to now be able to expand their business, to be able to now expand into this area.
Well, that’s amazing. Congratulations. Congratulations on your success and your ability to continue your impact beyond where you are, even to help others kind of go about this mission. I know I started this episode by talking a bit about some of these trends that we’re seeing, some of the alarming trends that we’re seeing in chronic diseases and just general unhealthiness, if you just look at numbers for like obesity and stuff like that. Do you see any hope in us turning it around over the next, say, five to ten years? And if so, is there anything that we could be doing to help with some of these trends that are causing so many people to suffer?
Oh, certainly, and I tend to think of myself as an optimistic person, so, therefore, as an optimist, I want to think the best and hope for the best for, I mean, not just for myself but for just our community, society in general. As we just kind of see the alarming trends of I believe 2022, our healthcare, national healthcare went up to like over $4 trillion. And this like, I mean, I’m old enough to remember when our GDP, national GDP was not much more than that and so now we’re spending that in healthcare? Do you see the problem there?
Oh, for sure.
And so, yeah, so we definitely need to just raise awareness to just, I mean, not just the public but to other medical, other fitness professionals, to say, “Folks, we can help this, it doesn’t have to be this way.”
My quest, my passion, if you want to call it that, it is to see a healthy America. That is what I’m aiming toward. Share on X
And you think any of the things like the Play 60 campaign aimed at children as helping at this current moment?
Whether it’s endorsed by the government, we used to have the physical fitness presidential test, they’re talking about bringing it back as well as just from other role models, professional athletes, particularly, entertainers, actors, musicians, whatever you want to call them, as a lot of them are now getting on this fitness bandwagon, to be able to now try to lead by example, to tell their fans to be able to say, “Hey, folks, I do this. You can too.”
it’s good to see people talking about who people are looking up to, and this can probably apply to any generation, even though it’s probably even more important for children/teenagers, but if you have good examples, if you have that person, “Oh, I wanna be more like that person,” and they’re setting these good examples, then maybe it can reach more and more people so a good part of it is reaching influential people in life.
Right, right, definitely. And it’s like, if I could jump ahead here and for like over 10 years now, I’ve been wanting to put together my own campaign, I don’t mind letting this out because, frankly, I don’t even care if I get the credit for it but I’m going to call it 200M. I want to see 200 million Americans staying active 20 minutes a day, every day, as a campaign to not only our congressional officials but also like the athletic world, to get them onboard, our entertainment world, get them onboard, our school systems, get everybody, get all these folks onboard. Hey, 200M, let’s get movement on this. And so if you yourself are a medical professional or a fitness professional, want to jump on this, hey, let’s pull together and let’s do this.
200M. And I mean, I think I kind of qualify, given what is said on this like Apple Watch that I have that just measures how many minutes I’ve been exercising every day. So it’s like 31 so far and I have some other days. Now, of course, it’s a little bit hard every single day because, occasionally, you’ll have that one day where it gets away but I can say maybe 95 percent of all days, I’m active at least 20 minutes.
Sure. Well, good for you. We just talked about just general activity. Hey, I mean, if you’re out there like this spring, summer, it’s like I’m in the yard a lot, pulling weeds, just taking care of the yard, that is active physical activity.
Well, 200M, so I hope that happens. I hope we can take these campaigns and make them bring us to a healthier tomorrow and start to turn the tides on some of these alarming trends and chronic diseases that we’ve seen. Oliver, I’d like to thank you so much for joining us today on Action’s Antidotes, for telling us your story about how you found a very satisfying profession you’re helping people overcome some barriers to achieving a healthy world, healthy life, some barriers as far as some of the chronic situations that a lot of people find themselves in and as well as how you got the business going and to the point where you’re mostly doing the things you love doing as opposed to all those other tasks that are better done by someone else.
Right. Well, thank you, Stephen, for the invite. This has been a pleasure.
And I’d also like to thank everyone out there for listening today. I know you can do whatever you want with your time so thank you for tuning in to Action’s Antidotes. Hopefully, you’re inspired. Hopefully, you’re inspired to build healthier habits in many different capacities, including ones that take care of your body because if you feel really shitty due to a chronic disease, it’s really going to be hard to do anything else around any of the dreams that you have.
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