#27 - Rick DeTata

Rick DeTata shares a story of someone who decides what they want and makes it happen. Currently living as a retired firefighter, Veteran of the Air Force and Navy as a Desert Storm Naval Aviator, one thing he has never retired is his determination to stay good looking, fit and strong. Rick bluntly states there are no secrets, if someone wants to achieve a goal they must go after it and take the necessary steps to make it happen. He shares details of how fitness is a lifestyle and being an avid sport fisherman as a hobby helps to maintain both his physical and mental wellbeing. This man is truly capable of anything and a lifetime of staying fit while cracking jokes along the way, has no doubt helped him to create the confidence, drive and success he enjoys today. Find him on TikTok @justa.guy53 where he makes comedic videos to get through todays political issues. 

During the interview we learned Rick is famously known for co-producing and co-hosting XSTV: Xtreme Sport Television (1997), a FOX series credited as the first and longest running extreme sport lifestyle program, XSTV is best described as "sports TV that's in your face! The series features a multitude of extreme sports shot around the globe, mixed with cutting edge music, fashion, celebrity interviews, extreme sport pro's, Olympic athletes, as well as small town sports amateurs. XSTV was nominated for two Emmy awards and has won over 40 industry awards for editing, videography, use of music, and Best Sports Program to name a few. 

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Transcript

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This is Angela Grayson from the Loving Life Fitness Podcast. To help others in their fitness journey. It's all possible! It’s time to wake up. Here we go. Hello, everyone. This is Angela Grayson from the Loving Life Fitness Podcast, where we talk to professional and everyday people just like you about how to live a better life through health and fitness. And today on the show, we have with us a very good friend, Rick DeTata, that I've known almost my whole life. He was best friend of my husband's way back when 1976 we met? Oh my gosh a long time ago. Hey, Rick, How ya doin? Yeah. Yeah, I'm honored that she said yes. I'll be on my show because Rick is one of the most avid people I know about staying fit and healthy throughout his entire life. I'm not scared to say I'm 63 and I have. But you guys never know that Rick was the age that he is. So, Rick, let's stow away anything about to you. Even before I met here. What kind of a kid were you and why didn't you get involved so much in helping then us? Well, actually, it was my father who pushed me into it because my father was like he was a mixture of half Tony Soprano and half Archie Bunker. So typical New Jersey Italian. He was always preaching about fitness as he smoked his camel Cigarets. But before my brother and I could go out to play in the summertime and this is in the sixties before pretty much fitness was a fad, but there was Jack LaLanne back in those days of people remember that he would make us do 100 pushups and 300 sit ups every day before we could go out and play while he'd be old breath like, you know, with a cigaret in his mouth doing, you know, one, two count. So he would do that, have to do that every day. And then he was pretty strict about that. And then so that started that. But as time went on, I sprouted up, I got taller, but I was so skinny. I was just so self-conscious about being skinny. I mean, because I loved girls and, you know, I was I used to look at bodybuilding magazines and I mean, I was when I say skinny, I mean, people used to call me older one day, want to be alone. That's how skinny I was. Generation, you know. So I was I do a lot of reading, but then did a lot of surfing and didn't do any working out really through high school. But right after high school, your husband Billy and I went in the Air Force and we happened to be stationed up in the mountains of Germany. We took a bus ride up this mountain was just going up and up and up and up, and it was a building there. I said, Was this the bus station? The driver said, No, this is your base. Get out. It was a small, tiny base and it wasn't much there, but there was a gym there. And so both he and I decided that we're going to start working out every single day. And it started there and it's continued 48 years later for myself. You know, I just I just really never stopped because I saw progress within a year I went home. I mean, I went in at £130 and I went home a year later on leave at 160, and my arms were four inches bigger, which is that's like saying the thread grew, you know, from dental floss to a piece of string. But it was still noticeable. My parents noticed this. I got off the plane. They were like, you know, and I like that feeling. You know, people are realize that working out physical fitness is a great ego motivator and ego is a great motivation because everybody wants to look good about themselves. You know, people go, Oh, why do you do that for your health? They go, Yeah, that's part of it. You know, I like to look good, you know, to be that. And people do it. And anybody in the gym who tells you that's not about ego, they're like, You know what I mean? Because it is. So I started working out back then. We got out of the Air Force, and then when I got out, I continued. I joined a gym and actually I actually became manager of that jet. So then it started from there. Then I got bigger and bigger and I think my high school reunion, my 10th year, I got voted most change because I graduated at 120 and went back A220 and I did some competitions and it was fun. But then from then on I just I just kept going on and on and on and, and, and the thing about the thing about working out is if you want to stay with it, it's got to become part of a lifestyle for you. Just like getting up and brushing your teeth or the lifestyle you know, you do it and people say, Well, I don't have time. If you have an hour to day to watch television, you have an hour a day to work out. But the thing about working out is and any exercise, anything in life, you have to want to do it. You have to want to do it. And if you don't want to do it, there's not anybody in the world to them say to make you want to do it if you don't want to. So that's how it started for me. Now, I remember when I met my husband, you guys were working out in your garage space coming back out, and you're a believer in there, the garage working out. Your little brother Steve sometimes was out there. And that's when I got to know your mom and dad, too, with great family. But how great is it to have a good friend that you could start working out with and continue? And you guys were opposites. You were a skinny kid trying to get bigger and he was the heavier kid trying to get stronger and have more body composition. And when I met you guys, you were both in great shape. You know, I was like, Wow, that these guys. Cause I fell in love, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we played off of each other. He was trying to lose weight and get bigger, and I was trying to gain weight, get bigger. So we played off of each other. And every time we went to the beach or Billy would say, Well, we can't go. We can't go to the beach. We got to do push ups in a parking lot first to pump up, but we couldn't. So to this day, every time I go to a beach, I look at the parking lot, you know, I laugh because we actually got down in the parking lot, did push the pump up, and we weren't really that big back there. You know what I mean? I think I was like £160 at that particular time. You know, we're just not big like I said, it gets in your DNA and it stays there. And and that's how it ends up until you're 66 years old, like being still doing it every single day, which I just just came back to the gym before this podcast. I mean, I was there for an hour and a half, you know, I mean, and it's what I do. But he you said that you were in competition. I didn't even know that. What part of your life was that? That must have been only kind of drifted off on separate directions for a while. Somebody Not that that was in the early eighties. I dabbled in it. I worked out at a gym called the Polo Gym in Fort Lauderdale. It was pretty much strictly a bodybuilding gym competition. Bodybuilding gym hardcore. Not like today, not like where you go to the gym today, where you got somebody following you, wiping down the machines and mopping behind you. And it's almost a sterile environment. Now, this was a hardcore bodybuilding gym chalked on the floor and and equipment and but with the guys there were hardcore dedicated guys, you know, I mean then competition was bonded. The hard part about bodybuilding competition is the dieting, because you want to try to get up on that stage about 2% body fat and it's it's really talk I mean you're sucking on ice cubes that into the fish out of the can the last three days before the competition I never made it big in that but it was fun. It was fun to compete there. It was it was interesting, you know, And you what you're in that group of people. You kind of you kind of you got to stay with those people because they're your friends and they understand the struggles of working out and competing and dieting and dieting is the worse. It's absolutely worse, if you like, to eat. I mean, like I said, tuna fish out of the can walking down with water, you know, it's and now today, dieting is a total science. I mean, it's so much different back from the early eighties, that was what I didn't stick or die. I did a little bench press contest and stuff like that. But mostly the bottom I worked out just to look good and feel good and, you know, strut on the beach and that's what we did. You know, we'd go as a group of guys in the eighties, just go to Hollywood Beach and put our blankets down and look at the girls, you know? I mean, that's what it was, you know, a little bit more about competition. And, you know, Michelle Melody's daughter, Melody, for everybody, just a quick little. So, you know, is my husband and sister and her daughter, Richelle. She tried to get into competition. One time and she was really big into working out and, oh, my gosh, like you said of the dieterbohn, if you don't have a coach, it's like so much information that you need to know. You're training for a pretty long time to go in competition and the day of the competition, what you're on that stage and your carbohydrates are down to zero, you're dehydrated, you're not very healthy when you're on that stage and you're posing and cramping up and stuff. So, I mean, it could be it could get dangerous. I had a friend of mine won a competition, and the night of the competition is Father's room. The big party there were very Italian and Italian restaurant. We had a big party with lasagna and pizza, and he was eating like crazy. But yeah, but the problem was it was also dehydrated time. The next morning, he woke up with severe edema. He gave like£40 overnight. So he had to go to the hospital and they had to give them all kind of Lasix to drain them. And his ankle swelled up, his deck swelled up. So it could be dangerous. It could be very dangerous. Yeah. Really, They're going to need more get a get a trainer who really knows what they're doing. Right. Right now at this age, the competition is just looking in the mirror every day. And it hope that I look better than I did the day before. Right now, you competing, get yourself as you get older, you start competing against yourself, especially as you get a career. You get less time. And during those days I was a bartender and a bouncer in Hollywood, in Fort Lauderdale Beach. And, you know, you had your work tonight. You had the whole day off. You had nothing to do but work out. But now you know what? You get a career and you're moving on and you're kind of drift off from that stuff. You know, just work out just to feel good and look good. Yeah. And okay, so let's talk a little bit backwards top about the insecurities of being skinny. I just did a recording with somebody else the other day who most of her life after she had her two children, she was so skinny and had no shape to her, just the way her body was. And she talked about how hard it was because not only tan people being mean to those who are overweight, but people can be mean to those who are underweight or her own family telling her you need to eat more. And she was she was eating like 4000 calories a day. But the her digestive system was like crazy and it was just going right through her. Did you ever experience anything like that? See, I was never eater. That was my problem. I just didn't like to eat. To this day, I'm not an either. I'm not a foodie. I eat to live. I don't live to eat like some people do. You don't. I mean. I mean, I'm good with a protein shake and, you know, and the chicken breast and the salad and I'm good. My treat is a pizza. Once every three weeks I have two or three slices of that. And I'm done. So I was so scared because I used to come from an Italian family, which my mother cooked all the time. My father used to get worried. He goes, Well, why don't just get one of the skinny? Yeah, she bought me protein powder back in the early seventies to gain weight, but the protein powder back then was literally you had to put it in a cement mixer and it literally, if you didn't swallow hard in your mouth and it's not like the proteins they have today, which dissolves immediately in the shaker and they taste great. They they taste like a like dirt drink. Yes. Yeah. And not, you know, and I wasn't gaining weight no matter what. But the only reason why I mean, when I went to Air Force, I only made the Air Force by £1 for my height because I have the light weight restrictions. I only made it by £1. And because the summer we went in, I was eating eaten bananas and peanut butter and anything I could get my hands on again, a little bit of weight. You become very self-conscious when you're not happy with your body. You're very self-conscious. I mean, I used to go to the beach with a shirt on. Like I said, I would look at bodybuilding magazines and especially back in the early days when Arnold Schwarzenegger came out in 1975, the movie Pumping Iron came out, which pretty much kicked off the whole bodybuilding explosion. Look at that. And you all look in the mirror. And I had long brown hair. I looked like a dirty mop, you know, I felt so I had a pirate's dream. I had a sucking chest, you know. But then what you decide or once I decided that I was no longer going to look like this anymore, that's when like I said, in Germany, when we got to there and it was very small based, it was a much ado. I basically lived in that gym. I ate well. I started reading about eating protein and everything, and my body kind of exploded that year and I haven't stopped since. Well, I've been the same weight now for years because I don't want to get any bigger or any smaller. So I just maintain my weight right now. I mean, I'm 25. I've been to five, 20 year. Yeah. So tell us about what you do eat on a daily basis. The pretty first thing I do when I get up in the morning, I drink eight ounces of water because you have to replenish your water. It's good for your organs, it's good for your skin. So I drink that and then I'm what I'll do. I'll have a bowl of oatmeal or a bowl of rice with a protein drink, which is the protein about 48 to 50 grams of protein. And then I'll go to the gym and then I'll workout, do my workout, I'll come home, and then I'll have usually three eggs like sunny side up or scrambled or even hard boiled, and then with maybe some more oatmeal or rice. The afternoons consist of like a gross of chicken breast or a piece of meat, and then mid afternoon is another protein drink and and dinner is usually on a steak. I'll get a piece of nice steak grilled back or, or fish. I don't like fish. I don't, I don't like fish. And I people say that How could you be a fish? Better not like fish. I fish with a sport, not a food. There are some fish now that I prefer, like flounder or mahi or grouper. But other than that, I'm just not a fish person. So the fish that I do eat, I fall down, you know, that's about it by that's my daily intake. You know what I mean? I'm £205, so I try to take in that many grams of protein a day, at least 205 grams of protein per day. And I do that through supplements with the protein drink because like I said, the protein drinks are good. They taste like dirt, they taste like chocolate milk. You know, you drink those down and nuts. You got 50 grams of protein with admits. That's my and then I'd love sweets so I cheat on the weekends. Well, I'm not going to be a slave to my body, you know, I mean, back in the day when you compete and you're younger and you want to look the best you possibly can, and when you're in the bodybuilding or the fitness world, you are slaves of your body. Well, you know, you're not. But you see, people walking through the gym in Tupperware is eating rice and green wine. And I mean, I look at those people today. I left. Now I said, I'm so done with that. I'm not going to be slaves. My body, I want to cheat. If I want a job at the bar, I'm going to eat it. But I also with that being said, I do a lot of cardio. I ride my bike, I have a carbon fiber fitness bike. I ride because we have a nice path by my house, which are asphalt baths. It's four miles in either direction, so I'll get on that and I'll tie myself. So I'll do anywhere from 45 to 50 miles a week on my bike. These are not just pleasure rides. These are getting my heart rate up to 160 and really moving or and I and I switch my cardio around and then the day is going to do my bike. I'll use the treadmill to jam. I'll do the treadmill for a couple of miles. I'll put it on an incline so it works on my legs. And I you know, I can't do squats anymore. Work with my knees are not what they used to be. My leg workout consists of a lot of leg presses, leg curls on machines and my bike riding. But then I'll switch it up. I'll do the Stairmaster in a gym, which is a whole different world. When you do the Stairmaster. The Stairmaster is different than any of the cardio because it's like climbing stairs that never end. You know what I mean? And your heart rate jumps really fast. So I maintain a good heart rate and that's that's what keeps my weight. Even So, if I have a pizza, especially doing a Christmas story or a lot of candies and fudge and and pastas and stuff, I'm not going to deny myself that. But the next day I get to the gym. I burn it off as much as I can. Now, you know your meal plan on the way and you have it on most days of a week probably you're basically eating five meals a day. You might not be, you know, five big meals, but you're eating five times a day. And that's keep that metabolism going, too. So the cardio top weight eat, it is really helpful. So what if you want a candy bar or ice cream or whatever go for? Right. Right. I came after the Air Force. I went to college. I got out of college in 1986. I wanted to be into naval aviation. So I joined the Navy and I got to do naval aviation. But it was just the opposite this time. When I went to the recruiter's office, I was to 40 and he says, Wow, I can't even talk to you till you drop down £35. So that's summer before I went to aircrew school or flight school. Now you talk about eating to fish out of the can. I was just I was fasting tuna fish out of the can and I did it. I dropped out, I dropped £35. But people think it's it's really hard to lose weight. It's not the best thing to do to lose weight. Don't eat so much. Stay away from sugars, sugars, sugar, poison. Sugar is probably the biggest drug in the United States right now because sugar is in everything. You look at ketchup, it's got sugaring everything that's sugar. So if you if you want to lose weight, don't eat it. I mean, not not to the point where it's unhealthy. But I believe in fasting. I believe I've done intermittent fasting where you eat from

10: 18:30

00 in the morning till maybe five at night. Not another calorie

after 5: 18:37

00

till 10: 18:38

00. The next morning you'll drop weight, you'll drop weight. The only way you lose weight is taking in less calories than you burn. And the only way you gain weight is by taking in more calories than you're burning. It's really not that that difficult. It's not a hard equation. You still where do you get your strength training when you tried to drop the weight? Yeah. Yeah, I did. I did. But at this point, I do a lot. I'm all about repetitions now. I mean, the joints are starting to hurt a little bit more as you get older from all the years of of pounding away. It's, you know, it's just but you got to remember, back in the eighties when I was with my friends, we would pick a body part, the three legs, we'd squat for 3 hours just squatting, go heavy, wrap, wrap our knees up with the table. We'd go up to £600 and come all the way back down. And our we pick a like chest. We'd be on a bench press. Just it was crazy. You know, when you're younger, you're stupid. I mean, and now for all the other things, the problem is you get the feel that, you know, the joints are starting to get a little arthritic. So my son works out. My son's six one almost to 40. He's a beast. So he's like, So what's your routine now, Dad? I'm like, I go to the gym. Whatever doesn't hurt that particular day. That's the body part of work, you know what I mean? So that's how it is now. But I'm all about repetitions now. I don't I don't do the heavy with the four reps. I'm new to the 10th, 12, 15 reps when I do my, my workouts now you know. Yeah. And it saves your joints, you know, I mean I don't push themselves to the point where I'm in a lot of pain where you can't at this age. I mean, I'm a four years from 70. Think about it. Think about your parents when they were 17. I mean, I look I look at my old aunts and uncles. Well, they were 40. They looked like they were 70, my friend. That an airplane we fly in on Wednesdays and we promised ourselves when we were on our toes that if we ever turn 40, we're going to crash the plane into the Everglades because we want to live past 40 year old. You're an old man. It's one of those secret things to work it out that people that don't. I'm not just talking about weights. I'll talk about exercise and physical fitness. It's the fountain of youth. It really slows down the aging process. You're not going to stop it. Mother Nature is going to take over at one point, but you really it really slows you down. It really does. And it's and because you're breaking down muscle, the brain says, well, he's using that. So what does he do? The brain repairs that muscle. And that's it's a cycle breaks down repair, break down repair. And people who sit on the couch all day at night and don't work out their body says, well, he doesn't need that. So there's no need to put the nutrients there or repair it. So that's called aging. That's why you see some people that are overweight and they, you know, how old are you? You're like, like I'm 42. You're like, wow, you know, Jesus. You know, genetics plays a huge part in don't get me wrong, genetics is huge. My mother had an incredible genetics one when she she passed away in her eighties and she still did every wrinkle. But genetics plays a part. Laziness is very easy to acquire if you don't do it. And at this point, the hardest part about working out, the hardest part about going to the gym is going to the gym. Yes, getting a habit going, you know, or you might be addicted to sitting on the couch. And now that habit, I'm involved every day in sitting on the couch or what's your other choice? Well, the thing about it now is the days I feel like I'm not I don't want to work out. I push myself to go. But some days, if I don't work out, I feel worse. If I didn't work out, it's almost it's almost the guilt. They it's almost an obsession. That might be an obsession or a mental problem. I don't know. But it is what it is. And. But it doesn't matter because I like it. Because it drives me. It drives me to go to the gym, you know? I mean, because if I if I don't want to go like this morning, it was 47 degrees when I woke up this morning, I was like, you know, I want to go back to bed. I mean, you know,

just 7: 22:26

00 I'm driving to the gym, going on free to do that. You know, once I got there, what you walk through the door of the gym, you might as well go at it 110% because you're paying for it. One, two, you're there. Do it. Don't waste your time. And but Arnold always said, if there are days you go to the gym and you don't feel right, you don't feel like you want to do it or something as well, walk out because those are the days you get injured. Those are the days you mess up and get injured. So I try to concentrate. I drink or pre-workout something like a monster drink. The sugar free monster drinks. I drink it. Pre-workout out. Or is one called C4 or there's another one called red light. And you know, basically people call them heart attacks in a can, but but it gets me going. I get the jab and I put my music on. It's funny because back in the old days before Earpods or anything, they actually had a radio with speakers at the gym and people used to actually talk to each other and have, you know, conversations and you worked out groups. Now everybody's walking with your pads on, look at their phone. They're everybody's on their own. Little planet was like, you know, they say there's night players. When you go to a gym, there's a thousand planets because everybody's on their own. You know, I put my your apology and I try not to talk to anybody. I just focus, get in and get out. Well, as you get older, you change a lot. Your train of thought changes all the time in our in every aspect lately. So I'm so glad you mentioned your son. I know you're so proud of Can at the end of his career and where he's dying and it's great to hear that, you know, he's working out and keeping himself help singing. Yeah. So do you guys top a lot to each other about your workouts and how you're doing the sets? That's great. That had influence with your father? Yeah, He's a little bit more crazy than I am because he. He has a scale. He weighs every meal. He count It does. It has an app on his phone. He counts the calories, is at his weight, everything. And I'm like, Just give me the sandwich. Only either for God's sake know. I mean, but he's way too. What? He put it in there. But with that being said, he's also you know, he was a combat Marine in Afghanistan, so he was a Marines for five years. He got out. He graduated Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and they thought Beach got his degree there. And now he's trying to go back in the Air Force to fly for the Air Force. So now he's trying to keep his weight maintained because there is a height weight restriction, and basically he's too big, too big to go in now. So it's a long process when they when they start losing weight, well, he'll go on a severe diet and do it. It's all discipline. That's what it is. It's everything, pretty much everything in life. But especially when it comes to working out, it's discipline is the operative word. You have to have discipline. You know, if you don't have discipline in life, then anything could happen. Then you have anarchy, all dirty, learned and how old were you when you went into the service again? The first time I went in the Air Force, six days after my 18th birthday, and then the Navy, I went in. I was 26. And your son was following in your footsteps. Not not saying the branch of service, but doing the same sort of thing. After eight years of the Navy was 20 years as a firefighter. EMT So and working with your son in the same department? Yeah, that freaked me out because I was in the hospital room when he was born and now he's working on the work will be at the fire station. That's you talk about feeling old. That's when you start feeling old. Yeah. If you look at that, when that you didn't really feel old, otherwise you wouldn't be there right now. No, no, no. I think those guys made me feel young. You know what I mean? I was one. The older guys there, you've find your room with younger people. It does make you feel younger. Race. Yeah. Especially working. You're better shape the Muslims. Yep. So true. All these guys for the police department. For the fire department. It's like you've got to go through so much training to pass their physicals. I became a personal trainer when on just before my son went into the fire department. And, you know, one of the things I wanted to do was get involved with the fire department. It's like you have to go through so much to join. Why aren't there rules about staying healthy? I you're not. You're supposed to be in a lot of lives, you know? Right. That's the main thing. You have to be in good shape to yank somebody out of the building. Or if you're a police officer, run a criminal down. As a firefighter, you know, one of your fellow firefighters goes down in a building. He's got 40,£60 a year on him. And if he's a £200 man now you're talking a lot of weight. That pretty much if he's past that, you've got to drag him out. You have to be in shape to do that. You'd better be in shape to do that stuff that happened. You're going to feel guilty for the rest of your life if you couldn't help him because you're sucking down your air tight in 10 minutes. Really unfortunate that the cities and all the other fire departments, the private ones, the volunteer ones, that they don't have any kind of tactical training to keep everybody safe, that really not every fire station has got a full gym. Every fire station, like I said, you have to want to do it. You can't no matter what you say, no matter how you preach, the person's got to want to do it. And if they don't want to do it, they won't do it. Others I've talked guys to go to the gym all day. I'll go with you. And they go for a day or two and then they don't. You don't see them anymore. Or when they're with you, they're looking at the phone, they're talking to other people. The secret to working out is really it's not a secret, but it's consistency. You have to be consistent. It's got to be part of your lifestyle. Like I said, like you brush your teeth every morning, you got to you got to do some kind of physical exercise every day. Didn't have to worry about this a thousand years ago because your physical exercise was just staying alive, surviving. Now you got the comforts of home, you got all the TVs, you turn into a marsh ball, it's up to the individual. Absolutely. You said a little bit about fishing. So the fishing, you're okay. People say, what does that have to do with health and fitness? So I look at it as happiness. Okay. It's part of health. Okay. And being happy, enjoying life and what you do. And I know how much of an avid fisherman you are, even though you don't eat fish, you from out there. But the fish that we get are usually I usually fish for big game fish like big tarpon, big sailfish marlin, big duck. And I'm happiest when I'm on the water. It's so much nicer to be underwater looking at the land than being on the land, looking at the water. That's my happy place. Everybody has to find a happy place. No, people go fishing can be so boring, you know, Some days, some days you're not catching the fish, but you're still on the water. You still out that sunshine and you still looking back at Lee and watching all the little ants running back and forth to the cars going by. And I'm you know, you're on that water, but it's a happy place and everybody's got their own different happy place. Some people out of their happy places, a library. It depends. But that happens. Do what? I like it. Since I live practically underwater, I might as well like fishing and body. Yeah, we had a boat. Almost all of our memories. Like man Billy down. I need to say a day out on the water was like a week's vacation. You just come back and your mind is just in another place. Especially back when you couldn't even have. There were no cell phones, so nobody was making phone calls. Nobody was calling you. And you weren't on your phone looking things up. You were out there in Galveston and and being out on the ocean and either with your family or friends, whoever you're with, you mention cell phones. I mean, look, we all use them. They're all part of our lives now. They're actually almost another appendage on our body because we always have it in our hand. But it actually was a cell phone. This could be poisoned. It really could, because it just removes you from everything else. And you're on social media and you don't know what's true. It's fake. I don't think it's healthy for you, for your mind. It's not. It's a great tool. I wish I had one in college. I mean, you could look up anything on Google and you'll find the answer to anything you want, but it's a tool and we've taken that tool too far. It's now it's part of our I don't know if it's the next step in evolution. I don't know. It could be, but we try to when I finish with my friends, we try to turn our cell phones off, you know, go to work all the time. But we try. You try it. Yeah. So my daughter Cindy grew up knowing you. Okay? See, her issue was that we talked a little bit more about fishing. So fishing just doesn't, you know, just don't go out on the water and you throw a line out to catch something fun. All the planning that goes into a fishing tRick, depending on what you're going fishing for that next morning. Let's talk a little bit about that, about all the the banning for fishing and getting out there and trying and do your best and then the satisfaction. Yeah, well, this is for Cindy. Listen, it's sometimes I wish I was when I was younger I didn't know much about fishing. I would just go now I think I know too much. Because you're worried about moon. The moon phases and tides and currents and winds. Back when I was younger, you just go you caught some fun and you didn't, you know. But now when you go for the bigger fish, I happen to live in a great fishing area because I live almost under in the river lagoon. And there's Hutchinson Island that separates the ocean from in Interval Lagoon, which is the entire lagoon is basically the Intercoastal Waterway, but we still have mangroves. There's not buildings everywhere here. Depends on what you want. I mean, I fish are big tarpon in the river, which we call, which is the inner. You got to know how to catch the bait. We net our bait and you got to know where the vicious swimming. And and then when you go for sailfish where I lived, it's considered selfish capital of the world. I guess Stuart Graham gave themselves that title. But I'll tell you what the catch myself or Tarpon is one of the most exciting things a fisherman could catch because they jump and they jump and they're big and strong and they're just beasts. And when you when you get a next to the boat, you take the picture and we release them. I release pretty much everything. If I catch Mahi, I won't release that long because my wife will kill me. I don't do much bottom fishing like for grouper. Ernest Kite fishing. We put a bait out with a kite. I'm Billy used to do that with kites. I believe in cheek to beat on the on the top and that stRicked to me The strike is the most It's not fighting the fish. It's the most exhilarating is when you're waiting. You're waiting. You're waiting. And that strike happens. And for one second your heart actually stops because you stop breathing, you know? And then the fight is, you know, I mean, but like you have to know tides. Tides are very important. Very important because you could if you could fish a moving tide. And and as soon as that tide stops, it goes the slack tide for about a half an hour with the tides changes every 6 hours. It's amazing. The fish just shut off like something, turn the light switch off, and then once the tide starts moving again, they'll pick up. I learned that down in Turkey, those fishing for pregnant with a friend of mine and we were catching permit big ones, you know, 30 pounders. And it just stopped. Just stopped. And I said, what happened? They leave? No, they thought the tide stopped. Look, he said, wait a half hour. So we get our lunch, half hour goes by, you see the water start moving and like clockwork bull, they hit they hit hard again. So I don't know. What do they want to know? I mean, I the only way I can show is take care of it again. Lower. Yeah. No, I wish you were with us right now because she would tell her little story about when her and her dad went fishing one day by themselves. I don't know if she ever told you this when they both they had more than one line out and they were out for sale first. They both got a sailfish at the same time. Then wouldn't you know, a storm started coming their way. Okay let's do sailfish on they're trying and get the sailfish up and you name along it can take some time to go sailfish to the boat because jumping out they're diving down you know they're all over the place and you just gotta keep on reeling it out when you get serious. And the storm was coming towards them and the ocean started getting rough. It started raining and oh my God, that girl, she was young. She thought she was going to die then. And you know, Billy, you know, we can't let these sailfish grow. And so that helped the nut, right? It finally decides to cut his off, let it grow, and try to help her get herself in a sound. And they did get it. They got it on board and thank God, home safely. I think that was in our little 70. But that ski out there like the dulcimer. Yeah, the ocean is very fickle. It can change on you, especially the summertime. You see those squalls come and told you that it can be flat as glass. Within 2 minutes the wind picks up and you're like, you're heading home because this this past summer, my friends that I have been in some serious storms like, oh, that's yeah this is not looking good when Wallsend it's it's bright and cloudy and it's Florida so the weather changes it could be raining 100 yards away from your study where you are but all of a sudden it changes. So it could get dangerous out there. But like I said, it's still my happy place. Matter what you know, it's it's especially not like Tarpon are my favorite because basically Tarpon are prehistoric fish. They're very old, but they're called a silver cane for a reason. When they hit, they hit like they're going to jail tomorrow and they and they jump. And when you see a £150 tarpon fly out of the water, jump it in front of you, it's it just it's it's almost spiritual feeling, you know what I mean? It's it's an amazing feeling. So. So, yeah. Sunny seas. I posted really on Facebook while in pictures and she's always commenting on it, you know so but Cindy you have to be there. Yeah. To know. Yeah. It just takes experience. It's hard to explain everything you learned through experience. The more you go, the more you learn and you fish with people that know stuff. You always learn from somebody. Something you did a lot as a child. So she's probably only took in. She wanted to tell you. Yeah. All right, Billy. Billy was a big fish, but Buddy always caught sailfish. Oh. Out on the boat almost every week. Yeah. Yeah, right, Right, right. But what that has to do with physical fitness, it's the mental fitness that you have to worry about when it comes to that. It's. It keeps you even keeled, keeps you keep you with a positive attitude, I believe with energies, positive and negative energies. And like when you talk about politics all the time and that that's negative energy that that crap brings you down because you know what? You could talk about it until you turn purple. Yeah, it's out of our pay grade. There's nothing we could do about it. There's nothing, you know, there's nothing we could do about you. Republican, Democrat. Those people are way above us in the pay grade. I believe this government is corrupted beyond words, and there's nothing we can do about. So I'm at the point now I'm not worried about it. If it doesn't affect my friends, my family, and the street I live on and it doesn't stop me from, Yeah, I just can't worry about it anymore, you know? Let me let's know, ever at a point in politics where you were listening to the news all the time, you know, getting upset and not letting it stress, you know. Yeah, it's obsessed with it. You know, listening to to this news station, that news station talk to my friends on Facebook about it all the time. It got to the point where, like by Dylan, the anguish in your lap, Facebook, how many times. Oh, yeah I just I got 3043 30 day suspensions off of Facebook. That's actually we figured that's 4043 months. That's a couple of years there. You know, I mean but I don't care. I mean, you know, Facebook, it's balanced the way it is. Facebook is the job. They kick you off for any reason. Now for Facebook. You know, the truth is offensive and facts are what they call bullying. You know, I call somebody a cream puff. One time they kicked me off for 30 days for that. I mean, apparently they don't like pastry, you know what I mean? I said, well, we live in a a world of illusion right now. Nothing. Nothing is real except your family. And what you hold your hand because you listen to the news. They say whatever they want you to hear. They say fake news. This is real. That's real. One guy said, oh, well, the economy is bright yellow guy saying the economy's bad. You know, Meanwhile, a box of Frosted Flakes is 849 at the grocery store, I was walking by his manager, other diagonal, 849 where Frosted Flakes are used. Three goes, yeah, yeah. For the big box I got Tony to tell you he's not that great anymore, you know. I mean, you know, you know what they say It's great. Never. 849 It's not, you know, like I said, the bottom line is you can't be fake and all these negative things. You can't let the negativity of the outside world get into your head because it kills your morale and it brings on depression and depression as. One of the biggest things that'll stop you from working out because you don't want to do anything when you're depressed, you want to stay home, you sit around and you're thinking too much, thinking Too much is not good. I mean, it's still you have to down phone, stay off the phone and stop being on social media every 5 minutes. You know what? I'm guilty of it. I'm guilty of it because I look at Instagram. Well, you know, you look at Tik Tok and some of the videos are interesting. They're farting, you know, But but Facebook, they Facebook, Facebook, to me was it was it was a poison because you're on it all the time and you're always commenting on some political. I just don't care anymore. It's the bottom line. And I'm in a better place for fully. Yeah. Need to keep you happy. So stay away from that crap. All right, Rick. So I want to ask you about goals for our listeners. I like for you to give them a goal to reach. And how would they get there? Delivered better life. Oh, okay. Don't go. Be on the spot too much. Okay, people, listen to me. You'll be fine. You know what, though? The bottom line is people get to do what they do to make themselves happy. Nobody can tell you how you're going to be happy. But if you're unhappy with the way you look, if you're unhappy with the way you feel that have to to make a decision to do something about it, your biggest competitor is staring right back at you in that mirror. That's the person you have to worry about the most. Don't worry about what people think about you. Don't worry about what people care about you because they're not paying your bills. So the hell with them. Look in the mirror. That's the person that's going to make you happy. So if you have a goal, if you say, okay, okay, New Year's is coming up, people make the you know, they make their what they call their long result or new. Right? So promise yourself to do something. If you feel like going to McDonald's and you go to McDonald's a lot, don't go to McDonald's. Just have discipline. You're a strong person if you smoke Cigarets. Now, I know nicotine is very addictive, but you got to say to yourself, I'm a strong I have a brain. That little thing, that little piece of rolled tobacco in a box is calling me and I'm not going to listen. Or that chocolate cake is calling me. I'm not going to listen because I'm going to change. And guess what? If the bottom line, if you make a goal for yourself and you don't accomplish that goal and the bottom line is you didn't try hard enough no matter what, because if you want something bad enough, you will find a way to do it. You will do it if you want it better. If you don't accomplish it, you want to better. And that's okay too. But just don't blame anybody but yourself because dieting is tough. But it's not hard. Just don't eat it. Stay away from the sugars, lower your carbohydrates up your protein, and even if you have to go outside and walk around your yard for an hour, do it. You have to keep moving. You will lose weight, you will accomplish it. And it may take a month or so. But when you see the difference that when you get cite and say, wow, it's worth it, and that's when you push yourself more and more and more and more. And that's the that's what it is and that's how you do it. That's the goal. You know, get your mind, get your mind free of any crap around you. And while you're working out, don't think of anything else but working out because it will drag you down. Look like it's hard enough. It could be an anchor, it could pull you down for that hour. You're working out in the gym. Whatever. 2 hours, walk around your yard, clear your mind and think about, I am doing this for me and I'm going to look good the next year. People won't recognize You're not just that's straight and that's it, like I said. And if you don't do it, that's okay too. But you got to want to do it and you can't do it half that. You know you can't you can't go to the gym and, you know, do a set and look, it's your fault for 20 minutes to do another SAT. No, put the phone away. Put your music on. But the music on that that satisfies you no matter what it is to get you motivated with your music on and get in the frame of mind where you're going to go. Take a minute between sets, do a set, sit down, take a minute. That minute's up, do another set. Trust me, you'll be in that gym and your body will thank you for it. Nothing feels worse than having a bad workout back was crappy. But then you will go back again. And that's what people don't. Don't understand that. I wish at this point this episode could be video because I love the determination in your face as you are saying. No, that that was great. And I also wish the listeners could see you well. Thank you. Man. Bowling, you are a helping. I saw all your but yeah, yeah. I mean, nothing is worse than getting sick. Being sick is the absolute worst that we could've been fed. A lot of sicknesses by, by keeping our our health gut health. Take probiotics. Everybody should be taking probiotics because everything starts in the gut. Take your vitamins. When Colbert came out, you notice the government. All they did was push vaccines. Nobody ever mentions about nutrition or vitamin supplements, zinc, vitamin D3, B12, or B-COMPLEX. Any imagery that do your own research. Don't trust what you hear. Do your own research on how to stay healthy. And when you have a cell phone with Google, you have the world at your fingertips. There's nothing you can't look up that you will find on Google, especially when it comes to nutrition and health. It's up to the person. Now, I know people worked a lot. Today's economy, people work a lot. They come home. They're tired. Last thing I want to do is go work out. It goes back to how bad you want it. How bad do you want it? We come home and you got an hour. Get an hour to try. Don't make, make leave. That's one more hour work that you had to do. You had to do it. If you had to do it, you would do it yourself after you do it because it makes you feel great, right? You'll feel so much better once you start in a program that you'll be addicted to or that you will want to stop. And that's the best thing for you right there, not wanting to stop. So I was going to end this, but if you had a few more minutes, I'd like to hear you say a little bit more about that helps. You said how important gut health steps, right? Well, everything starts in your gut and probiotics are the opposite of what you take for a sickness, which is antibiotics. Antibiotics are good. They kill the germs. They kill whatever with getting sick. But the problem is they kill everything. And probiotics are billions, literally billions that are a little capsule of good nutrients in your body. And they start with gut health. Everything starts in your stomach, in your gut, in your intestines. Your whole health system starts there. When you take probiotics, it keeps it strong. I take of as little soldiers when I go down there and fight it off any anything bad on my stomach because I have a very sensitive, very sensitive gut. If I eat something a little bit spicy, it bothers me. And I take my probiotics. I think each pill has like a billion active cultures in it. I mean, probiotics are found in yogurts, plain yogurt. I mean, a few eat like these some of these yogurts that claim to have it. And if they're pasteurized, they're pretty much they killed the probiotics just go to a health food store and the best probiotics are found in a refrigerator during a refrigerated section. You got to keep it refrigerated because these are large. These are live little creatures. They're live microbiota creatures. They have to be alive to work. So I take two pills a day in the back to start to keep you healthy. I mean, that's that's a routine that I always I always do. Because the gut health like I said, everything starts in the gut. All diseases, sicknesses start with nutrition. You have to eat well and you have to keep your intestines healthy. Yeah. Did you start taking probiotics when you started working out or you're skinny? No, I'm taking a probiotics just the past maybe three years, because I didn't really I didn't really know too much about it. I mean, I heard about it, but I start doing more reading about it and. Actually, my wife pushed me on that because my wife got her degree as a physician's assistant, so she would tell me about it, take probiotics, and then I started doing it. And it prevents colds and prevents stomach aches. It prevents gas, it prevents, you know, diarrhea, prevents it helps prevent all that stuff. It's not a cure all, but it's just one more thing to keep you healthy. So I put an additive in your gas tank to make your engine run better. Bottom line. Well, thanks for sharing that information against us. So is there anything in 2020 or for a dictator that it's down that it approaches health and happiness? I'm retired. Every day is a weekend for me. So, I mean, you know, I live day by day right now. You know, we play because of the tRick plan. My my wife's parents are my wife's mother lives in Finland. So we're going to go see her. Go to Finland. That's a that's a beautiful place. But so maybe some more traveling, maybe doing fishing. Yeah, Seeing a little more trout over. Not better in India. Yeah. Yeah, right. So I. Yeah, but as soon as this wind dies down, it's been very windy. So nobody, nobody is out there right now. It's been pretty rough, but only 24 hours. Who knows. You know, it's who knows the state of the country is going to be this year. Who knows? You know, I mean, everything's different than it was when we were kids. Yeah, who knows? Yeah. So when you travel, you work out? Yes. I find the joke somewhere. When I was in Desert Storm, the first Gulf War, we went to Bahrain and they told us, you're not allowed to wear tank tops because you know, it's it's a muslim. But Bahrain is pretty, pretty liberal. So I'm one of the only Muslim countries that serve alcohol. So, you know, we got to stay in the Hilton because there wasn't a base there. We were using the the National Airport as a runway. And the first day I got there, I put a tank top on it and I looked out the little, little lounge down there, and there was a Filipino band playing Pink Floyd as two guys that were from Saudi Arabia and the full headdress that was sitting next to me. And I thought I was I thought I took some kind of hallucinogenic joke. I go, Where the hell am I? So they have a lot of major hotels there. So I just went from hotel to hotel and used their gym. You can always find somewhere work out. And even if you can't find a gym, walk, run, do something. You know they do. If I swim in a pool swimming, swimming's great. You know. So like I said, I'll say it again. I said it a million times. It's just a matter of how bad you want it. You'll find something. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. It's just fun. Well, thank you for inviting me as it was. Was fun. I haven't spoken to you in a long time. I miss you. We got to get together. Absolutely. Thank you. This is Angela Grayson from the Loving Life Fitness Podcast. To help others in their fitness journey. It’s all possible! It’s time to wake up. Here we go.