Podcast Transcription: How to Become Unstoppable in 2024 Series: Intro: How Health & Fitness Saved My Life

Ted Ryce: What you just heard were actual video clips from various news outlets that covered not just my brother's disappearance and murder, but also my family's story. And I just want to acknowledge the heaviness of what I just shared with you, and I want to express gratitude to you as well for sitting through it.

And the reason that I started this episode in this way is because I've talked a lot about what got me started in health and fitness and what created the passion behind what I do now. And I wanted you to feel a little bit of it. I've shared my story many times on the show, and I've been interviewed about it many times, but I wanted to bring you there with me.

And I don't know if you can hear it in my voice, but watching, listening to those clips brings a lot back. I'll leave it at that. But again, I want to just express how grateful I am if you've been listening to this show or if you're new to this show.

And so, this is how I wanted to start off this series that I'm going to be putting out for the New year, New you. As cliché as that title and that idea is, I really do believe we have the opportunity to reinvent ourselves.

And the reason I believe that is because I've had to do it so many times.

And not only have I had to do it, but I believe that there is a process or principles that you can turn into a process that will work for anybody. And while we don't need the end of the year to start working on ourselves or reinventing ourselves, I also believe it's a powerful time where we are reflecting. I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm thinking about how I'd spend this year. Did I achieve what I wanted to do? What's in store for 2024?

And I'm in that place too. And I wanted to help you with it. And I also wanted to, I wanted you to understand that what I do now with the podcast, with coaching, with this business that I've created along with my business partner, Giselle.

This is not something that we did just to make money. Now I'm not a trust fund baby. I need to pay my bills, just like you most likely are not a trust fund baby either. So, we're interested in financial success, and I don't believe that's a bad thing. In fact, the more successful I've become over the years, the more I've been able to make a bigger impact for other people. And I also wanted to tell you, though, that this is how it started for me.

And if you don't know the story, after my brother's murder, I dropped out of college, dropped out of school. I was studying to be a neuroscientist. I thought maybe I would go to medicine, maybe get my PhD in neuroscience.

And all of my dreams fell apart. My life fell apart. The life of my family members fell apart. And I'm not going to share about their stories, but I'll share with you that after several years of struggling and figuring out what to do next, I stumbled serendipitously into the health and fitness business.

I was working in a job that I did not like, but I also met some people in a gym at the building I was living in at the time who were personal trainers. And they just had a certain energy about them.

And they were also getting paid to help other people get some of that energy. And I mean, I was in the gym trying to work through the problems of my own life. That's how I've used the gym over the years. It's not just me trying to hit PRs and do things. It's like, I need to become a stronger person in life. I need to build back my health because I think one of the things that we don't talk about with traumatic events like what my family went through, like I went through, is it drains your health.

And it was through focusing on my health that I got back my zest for life, my vitality, my new vision of what my life could be.

And how it happened was I discovered the power of health and fitness. There I was, a broken 19-year-old having gone through something that, I mean, I saw things on TV. And if you ever, like, there was a famous case in Miami of a kid who went missing, Adam Walsh.

Actually, it was in Fort Lauderdale, I believe, not Miami. And I saw it, and then I watched it, and I thought it was terrible even at a young age, but I didn't really think that was something that would ever happen to me or my family. And then it happened.

And what I noticed was I felt bad. I felt really bad. I felt bad emotionally, I felt bad physically. I felt hopeless for my future.

But when I went to the gym and exercised, what I noticed was that I started feeling better.

And as I started to build up my health, build my body, my health, I started feeling better. And the big lesson for me was, I'm not going into the gym and changing the past. It's not like the more weight I lift or the harder I train, the more tragedies get reversed. It doesn't change anything about what happened, but it changed how I felt inside at a profound level, in a profound way. And I said, you know, if this works for me, maybe it'll work for other people too.

And that's how I got into this business. And that's why I say health and fitness, it saved my life.

And I hope you're pumped up after hearing that. I hope you sense in my voice the feeling that I felt where I felt like I found a way out of the darkness.

Unfortunately, though, in my early years in the health and fitness industry, I was an extreme person. I was emotionally like all this talk about trauma and post-traumatic stress and there wasn't that talk. I saw a psychologist, and there were some other things that happened to help me with my mental health, but it was nowhere near like the conversation that's happening today.

And so, while I started to improve my health physically, I was also still, I mean, and started a business which solved the financial stress. So, I started building my physical fitness, which made me feel better. And then I had a way to make money which helped me with that stress. So, I knew I wasn't going to live on the street, become homeless, or have to move to downtown Miami, a street on downtown Miami.

But I wasn't well psychologically. And so, because of my emotional state, I tended towards extremes. And I, I don't want to get into how I grew up and the dysfunction of my family, but because we all—I don't know anybody who comes from a fully functional family—there was dysfunction in my family.

My parents are often held in high regard as heroes, and rightfully so with what they did. And they were also alcoholic, extremely emotionally dysfunctional people. They were functioning alcoholics and they did a lot of good things for us. But they were emotionally very damaged, and it didn't get better with the murder of my brother, let me tell you.

And I wasn't in a good place either. It took me many years to realize, wow, I was in a pretty tough spot psychologically. And why this is important to you is maybe you've found yourself attracted to some of the more extreme messages out there in health and fitness. And that's what happened to me. I was in a situation where I would only eat organic food and I would—I would really lecture people about food quality and the poisons in the environment, the toxins, it's everything so toxic.

Of course, I never talked about stress and how that was probably affecting me or how trauma had my nervous system on edge and how that was probably bigger than the xenoestrogens that I might be exposed to.

And why this is important to mention is because I didn't get—I got better to a certain point, but then I didn't get better. I suffered from sleep issues, I had chronic pain, all types of issues, gut health issues.

And the more extreme I went, I thought that was the way to be. I got into the low-carb/paleo world before it was even called paleo. And I still wasn't getting results, and I felt like I was broken. And this really culminated in my mid-thirties when I got fat.

And I felt like, wow, I must be so broken. I can't even lose fat even though I'm eating 50 grams of carbs or less a day. I don't even buy fruit because fruit has sugar in it.

How many—if you believe in low carb and you're hardly eating any carbs, where do you go from zero carbs? Where do you go from there? Don't eat any vegetables? That's what the carnivore diet's all about.

But the great news is I found my way out of it. Thankfully. I don't know how, but I just—I guess it's in my nature. I stubbornly refuse to believe that my life or my health was going down the drain at 35 or 36. I was like, there's got to be something going on here.

And after blaming my age, my metabolism, my hormones, getting my testosterone levels checked and all that other stuff, and not really getting any answers, I thought, you know, I must be missing something here and I wanted to share something with you.

I had a big ego, maybe I still do, I don't know, but in those days, it was—I had a big ego about what I thought I knew. And so, it was a hard moment for me to say, you know what, maybe I don't know, even though this has been my life's work, let's say my life study, and I've spent so much time and money learning from experts and attending seminars and doing courses and certifications, maybe I didn't learn what I really needed to learn.

Then finally, something shifted and I found guys who I've had on the show like Alan Aragon and Lane Norton and other people who are part of what you might call the evidence-based approach.

Now, maybe you've heard that term evidence-based, or maybe you haven't, but in case you're not familiar with it, what it really means is that there's a lot of research now, and scientists have run studies on so many things, and while there are some issues with some studies and issues with, let's say, industry bias from drug companies or even supplement companies, which isn't talked about that much. It's only the drug companies that are evil, the billion-dollar drug companies that are evil.

But, you know, the supplement companies, which aren't even regulated at all, and regularly, a lot of them regularly get in trouble, and they're also billion-dollar industries. Anyway, there's plenty of research out there. Some of it has issues, but a lot of it's really good.

And even more so back in, you know, let's say 15, 20 years ago, when you were looking at research, there wasn't as much of it out there. In fact, there used to be research showing that low-carb diets were superior for fat loss over low-fat diets.

And that was the evidence-based approach. Low-carb diets are better. I mean, I used to say that. Low-carb diets are better than low-fat diets. Now the research proves what we all know.

Except... One smart scientist, I don't know who it is, maybe it was a group, but they said, you know what? In all these low-carb versus low-fat studies, the protein's way higher in the low-carb groups. So, let's do this. Let's keep protein the same in two groups, but one group will eat low-carb and the other group will eat low-fat. And then let's see what happens. And you know what?

Didn't make a difference. When they kept the protein equal, low-fat and low-carb groups lost the same amount.

And that story right there is how I got into what I do today, what I teach you today. And what I believe is we're in this situation, this environment, we're inundated with information, but we're starved for wisdom. I mean, you've seen the videos of the guys who run up to people. It's mostly guys, I think, doing this. Running up to people in grocery stores and criticizing the foods that they're buying and looking at the ingredients and telling them how toxic it is, the anti-nutrients in vegetables, the seed oils, all the craziness.

And people are very confused about who to believe.

And my belief is that right now we're at an incredible place in terms of where science is going and with studies and more and more studies are being done in meta-analyses, which are groups of studies on studies, looking at the data, and crunching the data and being data-driven, it's going to change everything.

And it can change your health as it changed mine. And this changed my life. Now I'm 46 years old and I feel like I just recently got my head on straight with health and fitness. Took me, really, I made my major change when I hired a coach at 41 years old. That's when I made my major shift with my body and got, if you look at the thumbnail for my podcast, that is what hiring a coach did for me.

And I feel like I'm just starting my life. And I'm even more obsessed about health and fitness and more specifically longevity. And I want to share with you why.

This is a bit of vulnerability here. I'm still, you know, you know what I've been through or have an idea of what I've been through. Even if this is your first time listening to the show, that clip at the beginning gives you an idea of some of the stuff that my family went through. I've been scared to have kids. I mean, I saw my dad lose two out of three of his children.

And I'm the only one that made it. Let me tell you, it puts a little fear in you. I'm 46 and I've found it difficult to connect with, with women, you know, beyond a superficial level to the point where I feel like starting a family, but I really feel like it's for me.

And at this stage of the game, I'm going to be in what you might call an older dad.

If I, if I, there's something I think about. I'm going to be 50 years old. Let's say I have a kid, let's say I finally meet someone who I feel like is on the same page and let's say I have my first child at 50 years old. That means I'm going to be 68 when they're graduating high school. Wow. 72 when they're graduating college. How long will I live?

Well, that's exactly, and more importantly, let me say, more importantly than how long I'll live is like, I don't want to show up to that college graduation in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank and my nurse pushing me around or my caretaker or whoever. I want to be there in good health.

And I feel like I also have the deck stacked against me a bit through what I've been through, some of my bad behaviors earlier in life. And also, I have a lot of chronic injuries from too much of a good thing, too much exercise. And right now, I'm so passionate at a personal level to stay as healthy as I can for as long as I can.

And the benefit to you is that I'm going to go and try things. For example, I'm going to be getting stem cell treatment soon. Have you ever wondered if they work or not? Well, I'm going to do it and I'm going to share that with you. I'm so committed to not just having this conversation about health and fitness, but about longevity, the future of longevity, the breakthrough treatments that are going to be available.

So that, you know, regardless of whether it extends our life, at least it prevents us from being in a place where we want to die, which was the story of my dad when he died in 2020. I remember him telling me, Ted, it's not like I wake up and tell myself, wow, I'm so excited for another day to be alive. He actually told me this? Okay. He's like, I wake up and I'm like, Oh my God, I'm alive. We both laughed at the way he said it, but he was in a lot of pain. He was bound to a wheelchair.

At the end of the several months at the end of his life, he couldn't even walk on his own hardly at all. It was horrible to watch. And I don't want that for myself.

More importantly, I don't want my child or children to see that and I also don't want that for you.

Aging is part of that contract that we sign without consent really, as soon as we're born. It's like you got to be born, you got to grow up, and you will die. This will end.

And I think a lot of our craziness as we get older and the midlife crises and the sports cars and all the things that we do, it's like trying to find meaning, continued meaning as we get older, trying to stay at our best as we get older, try to live life as fullest as we can as we get older especially as your children leave. I've got so many clients that are empty nesters.

And when those children leave, it's like, well, we did our job, now what? What are we going to do? How's our health right now? Time to travel the world, but you better be in good health because let me tell you, some of those places in Europe are not easy to walk around if you're not particularly fit.

So, I want to wrap things up here, but I hope even with the start of this heavy, with the heavy start of this episode, I hope you get a better insight into why I do this and why I'm so passionate about it and why I'm so committed to helping you. And I want to be honest here. I love to help people. I love to make a difference. Part of that is selfish.

I feel better about what I do in the world when I help other people. And I continue to do it because I see the transformation that my clients go through. I also hear the transformations that listeners go through that you've shared with me.

And so I wanted to kick off this series and what we're doing, I haven't even really talked about this series, but what I wanted to tell you is we're doing a series we're going to talk about over the next few episodes, we're going to be talking about my approach to fitness right now, what I've learned from my mistakes, and more importantly, what I've learned from what I've got right.

And what you can plug in into your life and take action on so that you start to move the needle in a meaningful way. Because my belief is that we can have the best years of our life, the best decades of our life, even after we hit 40, in our 40s, 50s, 60s. Perhaps even with a bit of help from medical breakthroughs, maybe even our 70s and 80s and I want you to join me on this series. I want to invite you to come with me to listen to this entire series to get ready to challenge yourself to take your health to the next level, because I believe that all of us will come to know the truth that health is our greatest wealth.

Even you might say, well, God is first and my family is more important than my health, but I think you'll realize, like I have, that if you're a religious person, you can't worship God or be the best Christian or whatever your religion is, unless you're fit and healthy. You can't be the best parent, wife, or husband unless you're fit or healthy. It is the key to living a successful life.

And one of the reasons this is, is because your lack of health causes stress in your family. Your wife's worried about your health and your stress levels and she's starting to look at you as a liability or vice versa. And your children are wondering, oh gosh, are we going to, what's the plan? How are we going to have to visit , like I've had to visit my dad when he was sick?

The cancer diagnosis or heart attack or for a surgery, it affects your relationships. Your health has a direct effect on your relationships. So, I want you to join me because the great part about this is it doesn't take much to move the needle and there is nothing stopping you. There is no age issue. There's no magic switch that happens in your 40s or 50s impossible for you to get in great shape. Now, maybe you're not going to be an Olympic gold medalist. Okay. But we're not talking about that. You can get into the best shape of your life mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, but you need the right strategies to do it. So, in the next episode, we're going to start with mindset. So, join me then, hope you enjoyed this episode. And again, thank you for sharing in my story at the beginning.

And I really, I'm putting something together that I hope will change everything for you. And have you kicking off 2024 in a way where you feel like this is going to be your best year ever.

So that's it for today. Stay tuned for episode one.