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Ari Gronich 0:01  

Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results? We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians Paralympians a list actors in fortune 1000 companies, if I did not get results, they did not get results. I realized that while powerful people who control the system want to keep the status quo, if I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are joining me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as I chat with industry experts, elite athletes, thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree, and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. I'm Ari Gronich and this is create a new tomorrow podcast.

Welcome back to another edition of creative new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich. And I have with me, Matthew scarfo. He is an endurance athlete, corrective exercise specialist, human movement specialist. He's got 20 plus years in the fitness and health industry, and with a array of certifications and titles behind his name. And so I am really looking forward to this conversation. Because as you know, this is kind of my bailiwick. This is what I've been doing for 26 years is performance training, helping athletes go from injuries to gold medals. And so that is, you know, I'm just so excited to have this conversation today with Matt. Matt, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, and how you got into this industry and why it's so important to you.

Matthew Scarfo 1:58  

Sure, so, my name is Matthew scarfo. I'm a certified personal trainer among a number of other things I got into the fitness industry about 21 years ago, almost as a lost soul. I was a I didn't do very well in school, I dropped out of high school, the only thing I really ever always fell back on was fitness and exercise. And when I was younger, it was more about aesthetics and strength, as opposed to performance and functionality. Though, one day I was working out in my parents basement, and my mother came downstairs and said, Listen, you don't do anything you dropped out of high school. You're really not racking up any points here. So why don't you pursue a career in fitness and personal training, since this is what you love to do? And you do it anyway? Why don't you invest some time and some effort into figuring that out. So I took her advice. I became a personal trainer, shortly thereafter, got my first job as a personal trainer at a local mom and pop a big gym, but a local gym nonetheless. And I moved my career. From there 10 years later to opening up my own private personal training and performance studio in Morristown, which is now closed thanks to the protracted shutdown due to COVID. But, you know, nonetheless, it's a it was a pivot point. And I think a big positive for me. And over the course of my career, I've just pursued more information, more knowledge, more understanding, and, and it's taken me to being a performance athlete, myself and endurance athlete myself. So whether it's obstacle course races, like Spartan runs, or ultra runs, or any of the other recreational crazy things that I do, I've been known to do tire flips for a few miles or walking lunges for a few miles. All in all, for the fact of just putting myself in a physical situation and experimenting with different things that that I've come across, and that I've learned to see if there's any applicability not just to my own fitness, but to my clients as well.

Ari Gronich 4:03  

Nice miles of lunges, just imagine if you're in the audience, do 10 lunges and see how far you are. And then imagine that you've done that for one full mile. And that's, you know, to so many people that is untenable on attainable. conscionable right. And so, yeah, it's a lot of unknowns. So, where's the mental acuity that comes with pushing your body that far? You know, like, how does how does, how does that work on a brain?

Matthew Scarfo 4:53  

So, I'm a firm believer and a practitioner. of if you can run five Miles, you can run 50. If you can do 50 lunges, you can do 1000 lunges, so long as that you're not in a physically deleted risk condition where you're not, quote unquote pushing through an injury. As long as you've got healthy joints, healthy muscles, healthy bones, and your energy systems are sufficient to perpetuate that kind of activity. And after you've already run five miles, the energy systems aren't going to shift, you're already aerobic, at that point, you could got enough energy stored in your body to do that for quite a long time. So tire flips, it's very much the same lunges, it's very much the same. If you could do a handful you can do them all. And in terms of the headspace that you have to achieve, it's just a matter of boredom, I suppose would be the easiest way to boil it down because you have to so a mile is about 1009 walking lunges for me and took me it takes me a little bit over say like an hour, hour and 10 minutes or so to get them done. And it's not the the pain that I feel at lunch number 800 is no different than the pain that I feel after lunch number 400. It's finding a goal and and working towards that goal, it can't be open ended because if it's open ended, then your your decision to stop is also open ended. It's the success is no more than it lunge away. failure or you know, the end of the activity is no more than a lunge away. So giving myself a particular goal, and then working towards it, knowing that every step I take is a step closer. So in terms of the the mental acuity, I mean, there's certain tricks that that I play that other endurance athletes play on themselves to, to keep these activities going for, however long they need to go on for mine in particular is I tell myself that I've already finished the activity. I'm already at the finish line waiting for you. I'm just waiting for enough time to pass on my body can catch up to the reality that I've already created. So what I'm doing is actually fulfilling. What I'm doing is I'm fulfilling the past that is necessary. In order for me to have accomplished. What it is that I'm that I'm looking for now, I'd mentioned before we had gone on air that I had listened to a few conversations that you had, and one of which you had mentioned a book, I believe it was called the science of getting rich. Right. Right. Is that Does that ring a bell? Yeah. And that's, that's, that's an old book, too. That's written by like, oh, two, I

Ari Gronich 7:37  

think it was originally or 19. Close to like it was the early 1900s. That book was was created. And it's the basis for the movie The secret for the entire law of attraction, you know, world that has that has been proliferated in the last probably 10, 15 years. Yeah,

Matthew Scarfo 8:04  

sure. And there's so much truth to that book, I it's a short book, the audio books only about an hour, actually. And I remember listening to it on a particular run that I was on. And there's so much truth to everything that is stated in that book. And what I do is I, I pick a reality, what's the reality that I want the reality of that I want is I'll give you another example back at the end of May, I decided to run from my house in North Jersey down to Washington DC, so 411 kilometers away, and the only way that I was able to do that, and it took a lot of meditation, it took a lot of praying, I do most of the time use those two terms interchangeably with all due respect back to whoever we gain our conscience from. But I wouldn't have been able to achieve that or any other goal for that matter if I didn't already see myself having accomplished it. And then making that future a certain future by by backfilling in the events that have to occur between now and then. So if I were to quit doing anything that I had set my mind to it, I'm essentially changing a future that I've already believed in. So it's it's staying on task, it's staying on track. It's reminding ourselves why we're doing this and reminding ourselves that you know, there is no future that exists other than the future that we've created for ourselves in this future casting are in this mind experiment, you know, I'm already there. My body is already there. I'm just waiting for the time to pass it this way. My now body kind of walks through the still frame of my then body that's there waiting for me. And, and just keeping keeping my head focused, or completely unfocused is sometimes also the trick but it really doesn't take much we all do it in varying degrees every single day regardless of what the task is. I've always found it to be interesting that, you know, if we're running late for work, and we anticipate getting to work nine minutes late, we end up getting to work nine minutes late. If we anticipate achieving something in a certain amount of time. It's almost as though the future conspires to make that. So. So if we set a goal, and we give ourselves an objective that we're going to hit do or die, the universe has an interesting way of conspiring to make sure that that that's true, it's almost as though we create the future by thinking in a sense, and that's, that's part of my, one of my tricks in my bag of tricks.

Ari Gronich 10:39  

It's pretty fascinating that the, that's how organizational planners create business plans. That's how operational organizational and operational planning happens. That's reverse engineering of anything really, is, is what you're talking about. But you're taking the next step of future planning, and then backtracking it. And then you're taking that next step, which most people don't do, which is they see the future they want. They believe in the future that they want. They plan for the future that they want. And then they see that plan. And they go, Oh, my God, I don't really want that. Right. So what drew it's made the difference between making the plan and then doing the actions that are in the plan, and doing them consistently enough that you get the result that you're after.

Matthew Scarfo 11:53  

I think that it is largely a challenge for everybody. It's not the first mile, that's the hardest, it's it's getting your shoes on and getting outside. That's, that's often the hardest part, we know. And I and I've got three kids, three young kids, and when they get in one of their moods, or they get frustrated with something that they're doing, I tell them, just find yourself doing what it is that you want to be doing, turn the brain off and just find find yourself outside walking on the street, that'll turn into the run, but you can make that five minutes it takes from getting your shoes on, to walk into the end of the driveway feel like a very painful eternity, if you're dreading it. But rather than dread it, make the commitment that that's what you're going to do. And then turn your brain off, you put your shoes on, you find yourself outside. And now look at this I'm running. So it's it's not the first step. It's the hardest it's it's getting, it's walking yourself up to the staircase. That's the most difficult part because action creates action. And if you take that first step, you're going to take the second step. So when my kids get into a bad mood, one of the tactics that I've used with them, my son in particular is a little tough, sometimes he's a seven years old. I tell him, I'm like, Listen, you don't need a reason you don't need an excuse to go into the bathroom, close the door. I don't care what you're doing there. But when you come out, I want you to have shifted your entire state, I want you to change your mentality. You can walk out of that bathroom, anybody you want to be, you're walking in that bathroom as somebody, Clark Kent, for that matter, and you're walking out a Superman, you can change your state, immediately, you just have to make sure that you are doing it with great intent. And you're doing it with great deliberation. You can't just walk in and walk out nothing's changed. You need to walk in, tell yourself that you're going to walk out and be confident and be empathetic, and be happy, compassionate, smart and caring. And when you come out of that, when you open that door and you walk out, you're much closer to that goal that you set than you were to any other goal that was even available to you before you walked in you were in trouble before you walked in that door. So for us, we don't have to walk into the bathroom, we could simply close our eyes, take a few deep breaths, visualize what it is that we want to do. And it doesn't necessarily have to be at the finish line just yet. You can visually Close your eyes and visualize yourself getting your shoes on put your shoes on. Take another few seconds visualize yourself walking down the driveway, you're walking on the driveway. Now visualize yourself finishing your five K or crossing the finish line or or completing what it is that you've already done. Because what you're doing is you're laying the groundwork for it. And if if you do that mentally, that's really half of that that's half of anything. I mean, that's all great things begin with intent, we need that instantiation we need there needs to be an intent in the direction of what we're trying to achieve. And without that we end up walking in circles we end up biting our nails we end up procrastinating, we end up wondering more We are doing all of those things. So, as opposed to doing that, just find that step forward. But what is that next motion that you need to perform in order to get closer to that run, and you don't have to think about all the bits and pieces of it at first, it's just what do I have to do in order to run I got to get my shoes on. Okay, I'm gonna get my shoes on, I don't want to run. We're not talking about that right now. Just put your shoes on. Great. What do I have to do next, gotta walk to the edge of the driveway, I don't want to walk to the end of the driveway, turn that off, just find your rest at the end of the driveway. And now that you're there, it's gonna take a whole lot more effort to turn around and walk back inside than it would be to take that first next step. So it's extremely important for us to to visualize, not just the end result, but what's that next step going to be until we can get over that hump and then momentum begins to take us in the direction that we're trying to go. That's always worked for me. That's,

Ari Gronich 15:52  

I like how detailed that is. And I like how, you know the step by step by step. As you know, my background is working with Olympic athletes and and pro athletes and I normally got them post injury, and post injury. Anybody who has an injury is trepidatious to do the thing that caused the injury. One of my things was I did a double flip over a car at 45 miles an hour off my motorcycle, literally, it was a tuck Pike, gymnastics martial arts kicked in, in the middle of what happened I got hit 45 miles an hour, t boned. And I literally took pike double flip over the car landed on my feet, unfortunately, for me was wearing sandals and shorts, which I don't recommend when you're riding a motorcycle, and and have a I didn't have a broken bone in my body. I didn't have, you know, a damaged brain or anything, did have his Road Rash, massive Road Rash. Other than that, nothing. And one of the first things that I did when I could was I got on my friend's bike, and I started to write it with Olympic athletes. They are ready to get back on the horse, but they're trepidatious and their trainers, their coaches, their their people who are not skilled in multiple modalities, typically they're they're they're pretty narrow focused. And they'll tell them you know, he'll never be as good as he was. So for example, like Kobe Bryant got injured. And Gary Vee, you know, was saying he'll be about 70% we're used to that. It's okay. You know, we're used to this in the industry. And I went and I talked to Mitch Kupchak. And I was like, No, he could be about 110% of what he was, if he's trained properly. And all you need to know like, how much money is gonna cost you for him to be out and how much money is like that was the conversation I had with him well, and is is is when somebody is injured, or weak, or they feel weak in some way. And they feel like that's going to be something that is going to stop them. And you know, this goes for me too. I got in a car accident had back to neck surgery and things like that, and I become a little trepidatious when I don't have proper trainers to work with me, even though I know what to do. You always need a coach, in my opinion, somebody to see the things and you know, that you can't see. And so I become trepidatious, I don't want to work out, I don't want to do push ups. I don't want to do exercises, right? Because I'm going to hurt myself again. So if somebody is listening to this, and they're hearing you say, just walk out the door, just put on your shoes. That is a really good first step, even if you don't actually go outside. If you get the shoes on one day, and then the next day, you open the door and close the door. And then the next day you open the door and you go outside. And then the next day you go and do the walk, you know to the driveway, and then the next day you'd walk down the block. And then the next day you walk a mile, you know, like taking those baby steps is really important. Now, I learned some of this through National Academy of Sports Medicine and you've been an ASM grad progressions, equal results right? If you try to do it all at once you create more injury. So talk to talk to us a little bit about that and how do you motivate How do you get somebody to have a belief that they can do something When they're injured, and they don't feel like like they can, there's no hope left.

Matthew Scarfo 20:07  

I'm so glad that you asked me this question. So I myself, I've, I've got a history of injuries as well, nothing is dramatic, thank goodness as motorcycle or car accidents. And I'm glad that you're well. But I had a slip and fall about 15 years ago on ice that ended up giving me compression fractures in T six through 10, which turned into degenerative arthritis, which has depleted the bone mass of each of those vertebrae by 20, to 30%. So I've got stenosis, I've got arthritis, I did not opt to go for that fusion simply because that procedure, they go in from the front. And I was already a father at that point, boom, when we would cross the bridge of talking about the surgery. And I wasn't going to let them deflate my lung and move my heart out of the way to get into this thing. I said, when I'm no longer able to carry my kids, we'll talk about it. But until then I'll suffer

my lower back l four l five, the, the disk has gone, it looks black on it on the MRI, l five, this one also gone. I've got characteristic sciatica running down both my legs, it's always there. And it and I'm always managing pain as well. But one thing that I've coached my clients with, and I practice this is and I tell them this all the time, it's not a problem unless it's a problem. So if you anticipate it being a problem, I guess, to go back to what we had spoken about before your future casting that this thing is going to interrupt you in some way. But rather, when we've got an injury, and everybody's got something, whether it's a shoulder or wrist and elbow and knee or hip, whatever, what I what I advise my clients to do is you're you're moving around with compromised movement patterns simply because you're anticipating the pain, a pain that is never going to not necessarily ever going to spike or become an issue. But because when we move in a particular way, or in a particular range of motion, and we begin to feel the sensations that remind us that there's an injury there, we hit the brakes on it right away now, and I've had clients say, No, I want to stop there, I don't feel safe about it. So all right, well, let's unload the machine for a second and move you through the movement, let's find out exactly where is the red line. Because if you're operating in orange, that's a perceptual orange, that red line is reflective, that's where you don't have a choice, you're going to pull your hand away from the flame without even thinking about it. But you could bring your hand intentionally pretty close to that flame without being burned without causing a problem. And that's something that only the client, or the individual is really going to know because even as as great of a trainer as I claim to be, and I I claim to be a functional emphasis where I can feel my clients moving through their emotions, I can feel the tensions, I can feel the mobilities, I could, I could be in that movement with them. But I still can't feel what it is that their nervous system is telling them. So I tell them, move through a range of motion. And slowly, don't be afraid you're going to feel it's going to be uncomfortable, find where that red line is, because you've got from being completely motionless and at rest all the way through that yellow zone and up into that red line before it becomes a problem. So don't restrict yourself because you're afraid of being uncomfortable. You're going to be uncomfortable, if I yield it to all of my issues and all of my pains, I would never get off of the couch. So it's important to figure out where is it really a problem, instead of anticipating that it's going to be a problem. If you move any farther, do it in a safe in a controlled way unloaded or with extremely light load and move that shoulder through a range of motion. Where do you feel it Okay, hurts? Can you move it a little bit farther? Is it getting louder? Or is it staying the same because you have you'll have all of that available range of motion if you use it safely. And, and deliberately and you stay connected to the joint and the muscles and attention and you're not just throwing the weights around or or moving your body carelessly through space. So figure out where the problem actually begins. Not when it begins to warn you that it might be there or not. That's first of all. And then second of all, we whether we use that because we want to procrastinate, we want to use it as an excuse. The fact is that we have way more ability than we give ourselves credit for. Now, when we were children. And we would bank young child, I've got a three year old also and I see her do this. She'll bang her elbow on the table pretty hard, and that'll ruin her whole day. I mean, that's it that that pain is there. She cries about it. She whines about it, you know, it you can see that she plays with it, you know and it doesn't bother her but then somebody's paying attention to her more as time goes on. And she or you or I have banged our elbow X amount of times over the course of our life and over the course of our development, that same impact with the same velocity in the same place in the same tissues, hurts less than less, it doesn't actually hurt less than less, because if we were to put up to a brain scan and take a look at what's going on, your brain is having the very same reaction to it. Now hear me 41 years old as it did when I was two years old, on paper, it looks exactly the same, which changes our perception of that pain. Now, over the course of these 40, ensuing years, there may have been opportunities where I bang my elbow when I was in front of somebody I was trying to impress. So I bury it, I build a layer on top of it, I might be out in public where if I bang my elbow, and I show weakness, or I look like a sissy, that that'll be detrimental to my reputation. So I bury it again. And little by little, we create these layers on top of these, these these sensations, these injuries, where the brain still sees it the same way. It's just the person that's experiencing it is a different person now. So we, we have to get comfortable with the fact of walking it off, so long as it's not going to create greater problems. And again, it's up to the individual to really determine where is that yellow, turn into orange. And then where is it finally red. But if we build a thick enough skin on top of our injuries on top of my sciatica, meisten versus my degenerative arthritis, it's all still there. But I don't give it a voice I do when it's gotten to a particular point. And I'm, whether I'm stressed or I'm tired, and it hurts a little bit more. But the fact is that we could probably work through way more things and we give ourselves credit for, and whether we err on the side of caution, because we're overly cautious, or we err on the side of caution because we're, we're just not motivated enough to care to proceed. The fact remains that we create this bubble that we end up moving within to avoid any sensation of discomfort or pain. And inevitably, what that does is that changes are movement mechanics that changes the length tension relationships with the muscles and the joints that they govern, so on and so forth. And over time, that leads to greater problems. And we see this in the aging population, we see the rounded back, we see the internally rotated shoulders, we see the protruding neck, we see issues in the lumbar spine, because they're trying to accommodate for all of their pains and their injuries, they end up sticking themselves in a very, very small box that eventually you're not able to, you're not able to work your way out of. So take up as much space as you can move through as much space as you can use your mobility as best as you can find a resistance that you can move through space as much as you can and experience the discomfort that accompanies your injuries. But figure out where that line is, where does it actually turn into pain? When are we being overly cautious? And when are we being appropriately cautious, and we'll find that we've got a whole lot more room than we think that we do.

Ari Gronich 28:04  

That's a it's a good explanation. I know for me, I have I have all kinds of issues but that's why I got into the field to begin with. But one of them is a brain tumor. And when I was about 24 hours when they found it, so I had been treated since I was about 12 before they found it and it's a pituitary causes all kinds of hormone imbalances had to be injected into puberty, breast reduction surgery when I was 14. Wow, weight gain all those kinds of things. So I was an athlete I'm eight years gymnastics eight years. With baseball, martial artist, tennis player long distance cycler I'm an athlete who's gaining weight, gaining weight, gaining weight, gaining weight, right. And so I'm 24 years old, they finally find the tumor and they start drugging me up and when they did that the drugs made it so that it was actually difficult for me to even leave my house the mechanism of choice in there of like I couldn't even sometimes get myself out onto the balcony you know, I could always make an appointment though. I could always keep keep my obligations but as soon as I was done with that obligation back in the house and like hard for me to it was hard for me to get out. And so when I hear you say Okay, so what if I just opened the door? What do you know like so people have these anxieties these these? fears, phobias, Agra phobia I had a friend whose dad was agoraphobic For probably 1520 years, I actually spent a week at his house and I never met him that week, like ever. He was that, wow. So the question becomes the mental side, the chemical side, right? Because chemistry has a lot to do with it. So you have a nutritional background, as well as some of the other things that you have. So let's talk a little bit about how food makes motivation, either easier or less. Right? So how does how to how do we get the chemistry right? So the brain can be right? Or is it the brain before the chemistry or how do they interact with each other, so that motivation, energy, expression of that energy, etc, those kinds of things are really in alignment with the goal and purpose.

Matthew Scarfo 31:00  

So I've got a few things that I can comment on that with First, I think, in terms of chemistry, if if I could give anybody a single piece of advice that I think would change their lives, and this goes for every single person on this planet, it would be that your mouth isn't made for breathing, your nose is made for breathing, your mouth is an eating and chewing organ and not a breathing organ, and you've got specialized structures within your face. We have an external nose, we have internal sinuses, we've got twists and turns in there which add vertices to the air, our nasal passages produce nitric oxide, which allow us to really change our blood chemistry, and our brain chemistry before we even eat a single thing. So we can go without food for weeks, water for days, air for minutes. So and we and we often breathe in properly, we're made to breathe through our nose, we're made to have higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in our blood than we're taught to have. So we're taught that oxygen is you know, we breathe to get oxygen, which isn't true, we breathe to expel carbon dioxide, we don't breathe to inhale oxygen. So I've done certain tests actually bought a blood oximeter and used it when I ran and push myself to 204 210 beats a minute, which is which is very high performing for me. And sucking wind, I check my blood oxygen, it's 94%, the same as when I'm resting or when I'm sleeping. But the problem is I'm breathing heavy, because I'm trying to expel the waste products of my activity and aerobic activity, which is carbon dioxide. So I think that it starts it really starts there. If we're mouth breathing, and we're chest breathing, and we're panic breathing, then we're always in a state of anxiety. And we're always in a state of stress of fight or flight. And, and there might be the foundation, or at least the first few floors of our anxiety issues is no matter what we eat, no matter what we practice, if we're breathing improperly, we very well could always be in a stress state, which would then precipitate improper eating, proper food choices, impulsive food choices, and so on. So I think that it really all starts with, with breathing with nose breathing, at a calm and relaxed pace, getting used to that sleeping, when your mouth is sleeping with your mouth closed, exercising with your mouth closed, I'm an avid whenever I work out, I'm always a nose breather, even when I have the elevation mask on. I'm always breathing through the nose. It's taken a little bit of practice, but it takes less practice than most people think. Now in terms of diet, if we were to eliminate that from the equation and assume that we're all breathing properly and perfectly in terms of food, there are certain stress inducing foods. And I think that there's probably some that apply to all of us. And then there's some that applied to certain individuals, like we still don't know exactly how, for example, somebody with a gluten sensitivity when they consume gluten that might be buried in a food somewhere that doesn't just affect their digestive system, which is also the house of our immune system, which again, stress response and so on, but it affects it could affect their joints, it could affect their mind state, it can affect them anything. So whether you are allergic to the gluten or or lactose or, or beans or whatever the case is, I think that if it's important to explore and know what kind of sensitivities we have to foods because they manifest themselves in other ways besides just digestive issues. We're also kind of up against the the, the machine that is the food industry or the commercialized food industry. And many people don't realize it but there's a reason Why Starburst or red, yellow, orange, pink. There's a reason why these lollipops are bright and blue and red because these are the colors of fruits and, and good foods for us as they appear in the wild. So they're appealing to a subconscious need that we have and to procure these foods from, you know, 1000s and 1000s of years ago. So they tricked us into eating these foods that are that are terrible for us. The only redeeming quality they have is that they trick the brain into thinking that it's necessary. So therein lies the neurochemical responses, you know, the dopamine kind of leads us up to that event, and then you know, we eat it. And now we've got, you know, the feel good chemicals Russian, let us know that this was a very rewarding and good experience, when in fact, it didn't do anything for us at all except make us sick or or interrupt our functions as they should be. And we, as a culture, we haven't really spoken much about

additives and preservatives and artificial colors. And all of these other things we talk mostly in terms of macronutrients. And, and though that's important, a calorie isn't a calorie, your body treats fructose much much different than it treats glucose. And And therein lies the problem because this high fructose corn syrup, devoid of any kind of fiber, or anything like that increases your sugar level, it increases your heart rate, it increases your anxiety responses and increases so much. So in terms of nutrition, and diet, and the things that we could be eating should be eating, in order for us to kind of subdue the natural anxiety that we all have in this modern world. I regret to say my best guess is that it would be pretty bland, fermented foods, organ meats, bone marrow, broths, fibrous fruits and vegetables, you know, zero, absolutely zero sweetened anything. Even if it's stevia doesn't matter. It's just not supposed to be there. And, and relying on the natural sweetness of foods to recalibrate our taste buds, and not overwhelmed, and not to have them overwhelmed with these foods that are 100% sugar. So I think it's important to feed your brain first and foremost, with a balanced diet, and what's a balanced diet that really depends on who you talk to my school, told me that, you know, generally healthful diet is 60% carbs, 20 25% fats, and 15 20% proteins and we need far less protein than we're led to believe. And I think that they're, I don't know, the study is behind it. But I'm sure that that creates some sort of stress. I mean, it creates stress on our, on our kidneys in order to metabolize these things. But, you know, we need for a woman who even wants to build mass, I've always consulted it, you know, point four 2.6 grams per pound of body weight is like, just fine. You don't need to supplement a protein shake when a woman asks me, what kind of protein shake should I have? I said, Why are you drinking a protein shake the whole chances are, you're getting sufficient protein even more than enough protein than you need. Same thing with men bodybuilders, magazines will tell you two to four grams per pound, maybe a gram at most will still get you exactly what you want. But we don't live in a culture of of sufficiency. We live in a culture of excessiveness better, more than not enough. And and I think we're gonna find out eventually that what we thought was not enough before is plenty. So I think just mindful eating, being careful of the things that we're putting in our mouth, and that we're asking our bodies to digest and metabolize and excrete, because some of those things don't excrete depending on the kinds of fish that you eat, the sources that you get them from the heavy metals and so on. So just be mindful of what we're eating, trying to eliminate sugar as best as we can, from our diet, any kind of added sugar, and not being afraid of fat. I mean, fat, fat is generally a good thing as long as it's not hydrogenated fats, if it's a natural fat that occurs in a steak or fish or an avocado like these things are okay. You wouldn't supplement that but but as part of a whole, no, they were designed in a particular way, which would benefit us the most and that's why we consume them. Right. So

Ari Gronich 39:19  

so here's, here's my, my take, and mostly what you're saying I agree with the high carb thing, there is no essential carbs. There's essential fiber that right, but there's no essential carb that your body is required to have in order to function at an optimal level. Grains In fact, from bread, whatever you have it with grains absorb minerals. So when you're eating the grain if you're eating bread, or for instance, and it's like a whole grain I'm eating whole grains or even Keane wa rice, things like that wheat. They absorb minerals, so when you eat them They absorb when you eat the mineral, like you take in a mineral supplement, and then you eat the food, the mineral supplement does not go into your body, the mineral supplement goes into the food that you just ate, and it's passed right through you instead. And if you saw my body motions, I'm showing passes, right. But if, if, if you eat those kinds of high grains, you literally become mineral deficient. Not only that, but the soil itself is mineral deficient. So the mineral, the grains don't have the mineral content that they used to have anyway. But if you eat meat, you're eating everything that that meet a ate, right? That's why it's important to choose your meat well, protein is absolutely in our culture, you got to make gains, I gotta make gains, right. This is what I hear from my, my, my kid, you know, when he when he was working out and he was in high school is I gotta make gains, right, I got to build up the bulk. And, and so all everything was about was about the protein. So protein, and meats and things are not part of our normal, everyday diet. But berries, things that you hunt and gather are what are part of a natural human diet, if you hunt it, if you can gather it, that is part if you cultivate it, not part of the diet, right. So when you cultivate corn, especially in a field and only corn in that field, and hybridize it so it's got a heavy amount of sugar in it. Because we've hybridized and genetically modified it, not good for you. So I would say I get that at ASM and a lot of people have have put that carb on this pedestal the carbs on the pedestal, but my feeling is fat should be put on a pedestal, good fats should be put on the pedestal pedestal more than the proteins or the the high carbs. Proteins are good because they give you the essential amino acids they give you. And that that could be from spinach or kale or you know, it doesn't have to necessarily be from meat, or fish, or you know, that kind of thing. It could be from any of those other sources. But things like nuts, and nut fats like coconut oil, we all have been hearing about MCT. And the amazing benefits that MCT oil has. But the thing is, we want our fats to be of the high enough quality that it turns our brain on versus turning it off if you're using canola oils, and you know corn oils, and these highly processed vegetable oils and seed oils. Very, very inflammatory. They cause all kinds of inflammatory disorders, right. But if you're eating the omega threes, omega nines, even omega 17, I think is known as B 17. It was cancer one, but different Megas, the good Linoleic acids and things like that. Those are essential for your body. And I think what most people don't understand is our brain is made up of fat and cholesterol. That's what causes it to be. It's exists because of fat and cholesterol. they starve ourselves of fat, we starve ourselves of our thinking mind. And we end up getting all kinds of disorders. And in fact, in endurance athletes, I've been seeing this a lot, they're moving away from the carb loading days, or a competition or before a race or a marathon and starting to fat load. And they're finding their joints are much less, you know, inflamed at the end, they cramp less, there's all kinds of less issues because they're fat loading versus carb loading. So I may or may not be disagreeing with you. I'm just, you know, going based on on what you said, but that would be my take on on it. And just as a general thing, because we brought up gluten. Gluten is a poison. It's a protein and it's a poisonous protein that is in the plant to stop bugs from eating it. So bugs won't eat that plan. That protein is poisonous to them, it will kill them. And so when we eat it, it doesn't matter if you're highly allergic on a top of the scale allergic. Or if you're on the bottom of the scale, as far as a response goes, it's going to cause an inflammatory response no matter what.

Now, we have hybridized, and genetically modified our wheat and so forth to have extra gluten. And then we started putting it in everything. I even saw a bottle of water that said gluten free. They had to point that out. But anyway, so just let you know, let's have a little bit of back and forth, that I just said a lot. So what do I think, as an endurance athlete?

Matthew Scarfo 45:55  

So I think it's important that your audience knows that ever since the agricultural revolution is when our, our health as a society began to decline. It was only after we started growing our own foods that that we began to have problems with food. And let's keep in mind that back when the FDA came out with the recommended daily allowances, that that's not for optimal health RDS, or for disease prevention. So that's the minimum that you should eat. If you want to avoid things like berry berry or rickets, it's not a healthful amount, it is the minimum sufficient amount to keep you healthy. Secondly, back in the whenever it was the turn of the night, or the turn of the 20th century, early 1900s, when the FDA was coming out with, you know how much vitamin E is in a, you know, is in a keratin how much calcium is in spinach, these were things that were grown on, comparatively virgin soils. So to your point, these soils weren't stripped of everything that they would need in order to make a carrot from 1920. a carrot of modern day. So the fact that you know, spinach might have had a certain amount of iron way back in the day, that's not the same soil, we've we've depleted that soil so much, that we have to fertilize it. And what you're getting is a carrot, or spinach or broccoli that looks like broccoli, and tastes like broccoli. But it's not the same broccoli that we were having. So if you're relying on these food shorts for different amounts of your your vitamins and your minerals from certain foods, you you're not eating enough, and that that's probably one of the stronger cases for taking a multi whether you agree with it or not, is that we're not eating the same foods as what we were now I used to take a multi I stopped taking a multi, I kind of go on and off with it. I don't necessarily believe in supplementing individual compounds simply because they're not found that way. In nature, there's a congruence in the symbiosis with all of the vitamins and minerals that we eat. And, and buyer beware, for example, when people are purchasing a multivitamin, you need to make sure that the proportions of certain compounds in there are our proper, right. So So zinc and copper are antagonistic. And one of the things that it's it's a correlation, it's not quite a causation, or at least not yet between low zinc levels and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. And what we could do and I grew up, I was diagnosed with that it's a blanket kind of diagnosis for kids that just are hard to manage, I think in a lot of cases. But we had acidic water in our home, we had a blue ring in our tub and a blue ring in our sink. And what that is, is that's elemental copper. I mean, that's, that's the worst kind of copper you could get. That's that and, and oftentimes and cheap vitamins, that's the copper that they put in there, that's the iron that they put in there, these aren't bioavailable things, they're, they're sufficient that I could put them on a label and tell you how much they weigh and how much is in there. But in terms of how much your body can use, it's it's fractional, if any at all. And then you have to take into consideration the, the antagonistic behavior of certain things you might not be getting, you might be actually exceeding more than you're taking in from that particular multivitamin. In terms of carbohydrates, you know, I I agree with you. Now I eat carbohydrates just because I'm a I'm a slave to my own habits and my wife has celiac disease, she was diagnosed she had the biopsy, and we've pretty much taken gluten out of everything in the house just so it's easier for her. But it's what we'll have that really is just a calorie replacement for the for the meal. We have a very big stack of vegetables. We have a couple of servings of meat and then you've got the starch on the side and and you're right and you don't need to eat agricultural alized cardboard hydrates, the ones that are present in the fruits and the vegetables and the tubers naturally occurring, those are going to be in there anyway. And those are accompanied by fiber and other nutrients that make them that make them whole and make them usable. But you know, to your point before about creating an inflammatory response, even if you're not necessarily sensitive to something like gluten, the barrier between the food that's suggesting in our intestines and our bloodstream is one cell thick. It is a single cell thick, and there are certain mechanisms that allow the transportation of, of nutrients into or rather out of our intestines. But when there's an inflammatory response, what used to be neatly packaged cells that created one congruent layer were only these chemical messengers, and transporters could allow things to go back and forth, another creates gaps in between these cells, you get leaky gut syndrome, which creates a whole slew of problems. But

what seems to be a reoccurring phrase here is inflammation. And inflammation is the cause of disease. So anything that we can do to eliminate or diminish the amount of inflammation that we that we acquire in response to the things that we eat, and the things that we do and ingest, and so on, the better off that we're going to be overall. You know, what I don't, I don't want to argue with you about the about the 60 to 25 and the 20. Because, honestly, I think that you are right. And in my own practice, when I've got the choice, I do eat more fatty foods before I exercise. And before I work out, and I found I can say this with certainty, that it, it gives me greater endurance. Now, I never got into the keto diet. I know a little bit about it. But I know that the ketone body is a very powerful, it's a very powerful molecule, it's a very powerful thing. And we derive more energy from it than we do from sugar. And it's a longer lasting energy, it takes some time for our body to get accustomed to using it as a sole source of energy. But I do know that sugar is inflammatory. Even in its natural state, it's generally inflammatory. But rarely do we ever find it in its natural state. We've got away with high fructose corn syrup, and now we call it something else. But it's the same exact thing. That's all in an effort

Ari Gronich 52:20  

for it's called natural sweetener. Right? Right. So when you see no, you know, you see if you see natural sweetener on on the on the label, that's high fructose corn syrup, now they have gotten approval to put that through our FDA, our wonderful, wonderful FDA, they've gotten approval to call it a natural sweetener. So when you see something that says natural, this or natural, that doesn't necessarily mean healthy. Just Just an FYI.

Matthew Scarfo 52:55  

Right? Right. And when you when you've got the alternative to take something like aspartame, which was originally supposed to be an insecticide, but they found out that it's 800 times sweeter than sugar, and it these small doses, it doesn't kill you. And they begin to put that in GM and this and that. I mean, probably talk days about this. But you know, the occurrence of issues that we see now that I didn't see, even when I was a kid in school, the autism, the celiac disease, the peanut allergies, you know, every kid's got something, and, and it's nobody really wants to take a look at the environment, because that's really what it is. It's, it's what we're feeding our kids, it's what we're subjecting our children to, it's, it's the adaptations that we're expecting our body can already manage these these foods, these foreign substances, these foreign chemicals and compounds, when in fact, it's stressful. And the problems that we experienced from them downstream, I think are only beginning to come to light, this is going to get much, much worse than it is now I've got a number of friends in my peer group that that needed fertility treatments for in order to have kids. That's like common practice anymore. And whether it's either over prescribed, or it's just overly present. Now, there's a reason for that, and it's because of our environment. But yeah, I mean, as far as the carbohydrates go, I I think you're right, I don't think you're right. I know you're right. And I can base that really all on just one fact. And that is if you look at when we started growing our own food, that's when the problems started to happen. I'm a hunter. I and I've had this conversation with with vegetarians and vegans and you know, with all due respect to anybody's eating habits or food preferences, I prefer to eat wild game. And the reason is because these are animals that have lived a happy life. They follow up, they've ran around, they know what those feel good chemicals, feeling. Like when they enter their brain, they got to mate, they got to play. They, they didn't live in filth, where they needed antibiotics just to keep them alive like the cows do. And that's the only reason why cows get into biotics is because they would die in the conditions that we keep them in if they didn't otherwise have. So now this is we're entering deer season up here in New Jersey for for shotgun a muzzleloader. And I prefer to have that meat Well, it's cool. There's not a single animal out there, that's a prey animal that, that dies of old age, they generally die very traumatic death, whether they break a leg and they have to, you know, suffer that until it becomes infected and dire, they get eaten by a pack of coyotes. So natural meats, well harvested meats that are that have eaten a diet, that is exactly what they are supposed to eat is critically important. Corn fed beef is not a good beef. I mean, it's still beef, but it's just like we were talking about with the farming 100 years ago, compared to today, it looks like steak, but your body doesn't treat it the same way it did, you know, it would have a cow 100 years ago. So I think food choices is very important. And it's hard anymore, because the marketing is so strong, and the additives are so strong, they make it so we don't even have to chew our food anymore. It's everything so palatable and an easy to swallow McDonald's, you don't have to chew their food or cheeseburgers. There's issues that when I'd mentioned before, that it's important for us to breathe through our nose, that becomes harder and harder when you've got a palate that is shrinking, because you're not working your jaw muscles to chew the foods that we used to chew. I mean, if you wanted sugar 150 years ago, the only way you could get it was to eat this piece of bamboo, which would be sugar cane, you'd get a ridiculous amount of fiber from it and very little sugar, but your job would still work out it would keep the structures in your face and your nose and then your breathing system conditioned and fit. And we lose that now. And that creates problem more and more problems for us as more and more time goes on.

Ari Gronich 57:06  

Yeah, I'm old enough to remember when I could chew on a sugar cane like a sliver of sugarcane. And I'm also old enough to remember when you would we would walk through a berry field and the taste of a strawberry or the taste of a blueberry compared to the taste of them now so much richer and more full flavored, because the mineral content was there, because it had all of the things necessary. I think the statistic is if you were to eat, like some broccoli today versus broccoli 50 years ago, the the equivalent value is for every one that was one broccoli, you know thing. You have to eat like 1512 to 15 broccolis to equal the same amount of nutrients as 150 years ago because of the depletion of mineral and nutrient content in the soil. So just as an interesting thing, same thing with an apple, I think it's eight apples equals the equivalent nutritional value of one apple 50 years ago. However, we've hybridized the apples to have not the minerals not the nutrients but sugar. So apples today are Sweeter, sweeter, sweeter and high, high in sugar versus what they were years ago. I don't even drink you know, I don't drink apple juice, orange juice, any any of that kind of stuff anymore because of the amazing sugar content in it. And just as a as a side to that. You know, when we're thinking about the food that we eat, you were talking about the meat and hunting. So I've never been a hunter. I've never been hunting. I grew up in Los Angeles, not really a good a big hunting area. But my my roommate when I lived there. He He said that they attempted in his hometown. I think it was in like Missouri area or Minnesota. I don't remember it was one of the M's and he said that they stopped the hunting license for a couple years or something. They didn't want to have all the you know, the deer killed and hunted so they stopped it for a couple years and what what ended up happening was that the things that the population overgrowth of the animal them all created an issue not with the people or the humans, but they would get sick, they would eat too much of the of the food because there's too many of them, and then they would get sick, they would have all kinds of other issues. And then they ended up dying and disease was starting to spread because of the way in which they were dying. So they reinstated the hunting, in order to make sure that the population was down enough that they weren't having their own internal ecosystem issues. Right. So hunting isn't necessarily, to me, a cruel thing. It's not something that that I don't know if I'd be comfortable with it, just because I'm, it's not my, my nature. But or at least it's not something I've ever done. But just as a side to that, you know, it's like, we have this thing about being civilized, and being in a civilization, and how cruel it is to hunt. But it's supposedly not so cruel, at least for meat eaters, to treat our cows, the way that we've treated them to treat our chickens, the way that we've treated them to treat our livestock in general, putting them in situations where they need to be

like they're standing for their entire life in one spot eating food that's not natural to their diet, because when you see grain fed meat, cows don't eat grains, they eat grass, they walk around, they get exercise, they eat grass, that's what they do. And there's a natural cycle to it. That makes it so that they're they're very healthy. When they are in that natural cycle. As soon as you take them out of that natural cycle, you start giving them food, that they're not healthy, that's not healthy, and then you start pumping them full hormones to make them bigger to the point where they can't even hold their own weight in their legs because their muscles haven't been developed because they haven't been walking around. Okay, now, I'm talking to the audience right now, a lot, because I know that you know this. So I just want the audience to really understand what what's the cost, what is the cost of spending a little bit of money on really crappy meat that causes you to have diabetes, cancer, inflammation, heart disease, etc. Versus spending the little bit extra cost or extra money to get grass fed grass finished meat, or wild game that's been hunted, that's lived its life that's been able to roam and work the muscles so that the fat that they produce is the beautiful fat that's really healthy for you. So I'm just saying this because I want the audience to get I'm not an anti vegan anti vegetarian, I practiced veganism for a number of years vegetarian for a number of years raw food diet for a number of years. I'm not against that, and I get the the amazing empathy that they have for the animals that are being factory farmed. But factory farmed, need to go factory farms, whether it's agricultural, or meat, need to go. It's not necessary. How many millions and millions and millions of pounds of meat do we throw away every year? Because of it being diseased because of it being, you know, used in in ways that are unhealthy? You know? I mean, millions of pounds, well, how many cows Can we stop? You know, reading in this way? And how much room could we give them to move around if we stopped wasting it because we're factory farming it

Matthew Scarfo 1:04:33  

right. Now, granted, I don't think that cow hunting would be extremely exciting. They don't seem to move very fast. Right, right. You know, your cows, they don't seem to move very fast. They don't seem like they're very smart. They're not very camouflage. But, but your points well taken that you know, the reason why cows are given antibiotics is at least back in the middle of the 1900s when They wouldn't be in these factory farms. In New York City, they'd be in a warehouse that was elevated off the ground, they're put in this carousel, they're standing in their own excrement. And they're ill. And the only way that we can keep them alive is to put them on an antibiotic life support. Turns out that when they're on this antibiotic life support that they produce more meat. And now we have to give them hormones this way they produce milk, even when they're not calving. And even when they're not pregnant. That's not the same milk, chemically, and as it is, is if they were nursing a calf with it. So these animals are always under stress, they're always under stress, and they're stressed. That's a hormonal response. And that hormone is present in any of the meat that we eat. Now, not justifying or defending, hunting, but for that matter, the animals that live in the wild, live a happy life as God intended, they're out there doing what you know, with deer and squirrels and rabbits are meant to do. They're not being savagely ripped to pieces by predator animals. They're not, you know, being wounded and hopefully wounded and just left to die. I mean, as a hunter, and this isn't defensive, all hunters out there, we have a commitment. And it's a very strong commitment that it's supposed to be a swift and painless kill. And if it's not guaranteed to be a swift and painless, killed, and we'd let the animal go, and we don't take the shot. Now, there's a, you know, we know this very well, now that, you know, there's always a bad few in every big group. And I'm sure that hunting is no different. But an animal that was harvested from the wild that was eating what it would have wanted to eat that had the chance to raise calves and, and, and have relationships with other animals and experience life. It's a happier animal, it's better meat, we have chickens, actually, at our home, we've got about 30 of them. They're not meat chickens, they're egg chickens, they have an extremely large run an extremely large coop. And we do let them free range daily and the eggs that they produce, compared to the eggs that we get in the store, the shells are almost hard to crack on the animals that we have here. The skin inside of that shell is much thicker, oftentimes the yolk is a much brighter orange. And that's normal. That's not because of nutrients. That's really more from the bioflavonoids that are in the foods that they eat, you can make a chicken's yolk extremely orange if you gave it marigolds, but, but they eat hard shelled exoskeleton bugs and worms leaves and they get to pick what they eat. That's a healthier egg. That's a healthier animal. As opposed to the eggs that you get in the store, which it's about. It's about quantity, it's how many eggs can we get out, or how many things that look like an egg, can we sell as an egg and get our money for and it's it's much different if you can invest in or you've got the opportunity to invest in free reign jugs that are

that are sourced from your local community with people that have chickens, you're going to pay a little bit more for them. But you will absolutely notice a difference in taste, a difference in texture, there's a nutrient difference in them as well. It's just, it's just better as close as we can get back to how we were eating 150 years ago and longer is really how we should be eating now. And for many people, it's just a convenience. You know, they don't want to hunt but they'll they'll take a steak from a cow that had its next slit. While it was living in a cage its entire life. They'd rather pay an extra four bucks a steak to pay the middleman to handle the dirty work. But the fact is, is that that that animal was abused and mistreated, and it was it was born to die. It was important to breed it was important to do anything other than to provide for you meat. And once it was able to do that its card was pulled. So for those that are uncomfortable with hunting or eating hunted me, just just think about where you're getting your meat from, you've got better options, there are better options, plenty of mail order places that you can get them from where the animals are humanely treated. And the food is done without antibiotics or without hormones. And we're at a point now where if you look at a carton of milk, and the cow wasn't given antibiotics, there's a promote or given bovine growth hormone. There's a promotion for bovine growth hormone on that package. It says this animal was not given our b, g h. And then right underneath that there's been no significant difference between the milk procured from an animal that was given this hormone in the milk that was not, which is saying that it's okay to drink the milk that was that that's tainted with this stuff. But I don't know about that. I don't believe it. So it's just it's funny how they always get their jabs in and how, you know, the FDA is always It seems as though they have an ulterior motive and a different Yeah, they're in a different agenda, isn't it?

Ari Gronich 1:09:52  

Yeah, there's actually a lot of evidence that that, you know, you know, just the evidence of the graph like if you all you do was putting the health from 1950 in the health from 2020? Well, not 2020 it's been an odd year, you get the idea. And you just you just do the math on the graph from here. So the only disease and and issues that we had prior to the Industrial Revolution, agricultural revolution, I should say, was, we had disease of lack of nutrient. So scurvy, as you said, rickets, things like that. And then, you know, bacterial viral issues, but most of it bacterial and viral issues, did not cause any kind of chronic conditions. They were specific, they attacked people who had compromised immune systems, because the nutrition was was not, you know, readily available right there. So my question to you would be like, how can we scale a natural environment to feed the difference of population growth? Because I like solutions. And, and I like really good solutions. And instead of just talking about the problem, I want to have a solution oriented discussion about it, too. So if we were to scale, a natural world based on population growth, do you think that Well, let me let me just before I give my my possibilities, why don't you just tell yours, like, give me some solutions to this issue.

Matthew Scarfo 1:11:33  

So there's a lot of around here in New Jersey, and in the northeast is a lot of farming, I don't know how much farming goes on in LA, but there are essays, crop sharing. So crop sharing associations where you basically pay your dues, and you are entitled to a certain amount of, of organic, depending on the farm organic fruits and vegetables and tubers, and things like that. I think that the very, I think at its very core, it starts with community, and it starts with organization. So one, there needs to be a demand for it. In order for there to be a supply to fill that demand. You can't walk around looking for, you know, a solution looking for a problem, we've got the problem. And the problem is as inadequate food choices and inadequate nutrients in those food choices. So how do we fix it, I think organization is a very big thing. If you don't have a CSA in town, but you have a farm, it might be important to approach them and see if they'd be willing to do some sort of CSA. But But awareness also and taking the time to make sure that you pay attention. When you go into a store, it only takes you extra time, the first one or two times when you go in there to look at what the other options are that available to you maintaining the same habit patterns that we have. So if you always go to food, store a, take an extra 20 minutes and walk around and see what other options exist there. And if you can't buy it as it's already made, maybe perhaps you make it yourself back to the community part of it. Maybe you've got a neighbor who makes great bread and you make great casserole, we can start there. But it's once we realize that we we have way more time than we think that we do in order to make these things and create new habits in our daily life. And we also realize that our time is extremely limited and it's finite. The sooner we make the effort to make the effort, the better off that we're all going to be. So awareness is the key to it all whether it's moving better, sleeping, better breaking habits, creating new habits, we need to be aware of what the circumstances in the situation is now. So it's important to take an inventory and once we've got the inventory, I guess the low hanging fruit, any advancement would be progress. So if it's I'm going to eliminate sweetened drinks from my diet. I think that's probably one of the greatest things that you can do from a diet standpoint. just eliminate the the the added sugar that's huge. Maybe consulting with your doctor and seeing it for multivitamin might be right for you. Choosing a multivitamin doing your research and making sure that the compounds in that multivitamin are bioavailable and are taking from biological sources and not just dehydrated urine that's put into a capsule and like Here you go. So paying attention we all know that our health is important to us and if we don't know it now there's a there's a day and a time that's written in the book of life where the moment right before that you know that secondhand hits number it's supposed to your life will be extremely important to you and there are no redos. So every little effort we make now whether you're 15 2025 6080, it's going to have an exponential effect on your overall health and development as for the rest of your life, and where there's smoke, there's fire. So if you can create one small, easy habit, you can build upon that, to your point before, if you practice putting your shoes on, you do that for a day. And then the next day you put your shoes on, and you open the door, the next day, put your shoes on, you open the door, and you walk outside. As hard as it was to put your shoes on on day one. It's actually much easier on day five, and you still haven't even started running yet. It's just become part of that process. But it gives you something that you can build upon. And I think that that's really it. A lot of people look at their lifestyles and their diets and their exercise and try to figure out what's the one thing that they could do to fix the most things. And the answer to that is anything as small as it may be. It's just progress in that direction. You need to at least put your money on the table, throw a quarter into the pot and say I'm in for a quarter. I'm in for no iced tea at lunch today. I'm in for no iced tea at lunch tomorrow. And then next week, it's unsweetened iced tea and you know, something else later on in the day. But it's it's incremental, and things that seem insignificant, are not insignificant. If it plays out on a long enough timeline. Not long enough timeline is you know, from this moment until the rest until the last day of your life. Hopefully that's a very long time from now. Yeah,

Ari Gronich 1:16:28  

you know, it's interesting, my dad has had issues all his life that since I've known him, right. And his doctor told him that there's an in significant amount of gluten to make a difference in his body. And so I said to him, okay, well, let's test this out. Let's test this, this theory of the doctors out that there's an insignificant amount. So I said, What would happen, dad, if you were to cut gluten out of your diet? For a couple weeks? I said, Do you think you can handle that? Can you can you handle a couple weeks just to see what the difference in your body is? And all of a sudden the irritable bowel started to clear up. Okay, so what else did the doctor tell you was insignificant. That isn't insignificant, that you are allowed to eat just because you like it? And I know you like the flavor in that moment. But do you like the irritable bowel? Do you like I you know, it's like, it's like asking somebody? Do you like having diabetes? No, but I really like the wine and the and the alcohol and the sugar and the right. And the bread. Okay, but do you like the diabetes? Because you're gonna have to live with the diabetes long after the taste of that bread, the taste of that wine? The diabetes is going to be with you. Do you like having a memory? They're calling Alzheimer's and dementia now type three diabetes, pre diabetes, right? So do you like having a memory? Do you like the thoughts and the memories that you have of your life, because if you like them, then you'll stop doing the certain thing that you're doing that you like a little bit, but you like the memories more? which one is which one is more important? Which one is going to you know to you right now, if you're a smoker, and it's more important for you to smoke than to be able to breathe? All by all means you're making you're an adult, you're making a choice, right? But if you don't know that, that's your choice, because all you know, is the habit. Then think about it differently. Right. So I'm a hypnotherapist is one of the things that I've trained in, and we work with people who have habits. And, you know, the thing that I always started with was the question is the habit worth the consequence? Because in some cases, it is to that person. I'm gonna die anyway, some point, as you said earlier in this conversation, so why not die young and die? happy, right. Okay. But happy having the lung cancer and being in the hospital for the two years, that you're in the hospital and you like the radiation, you know, is the radiation worth it? Because that's that. So it may be living that you want to do, but are you going to kill yourself as soon as you get the cancer, you know,

Matthew Scarfo 1:19:54  

right. So I want to ask you now see your hypnotherapist. Am I right? In my understanding that in order to have somebody be in a suggestive state, that you're working really more with the theta brainwaves than you that's really the brainwave or that frequency. Forgive me if I'm not explaining it right but but you want to be in theta or you rather you want the person being hypnotized to to achieve that theta, brainwave state similar to sleep, or like creative play, like a child, that's that nebulous, kind of anything, and nothing exists all at once. And that's a malleable and moldable kind of mindset to be in.

Ari Gronich 1:20:38  

Right? You want to be in rubber brain. Yeah, I call it I call saying,

Matthew Scarfo 1:20:44  

okay. So there are because, and you've actually used it as an example, like with a smoker. I know, I know, people that one I know, people that smoked, you know, two packs of lucky strikes a day for 40 years, and, and died of, I don't know, a stroke, that nothing to do with respiratory issues, or atherosclerosis, or emphysema. lungs were crystal clear. And I know people that smoke that we're on oxygen, the doctor said, if you don't stop smoking, you're gonna die. And they didn't stop smoking. It's not that they didn't want to stop smoking, they just, they couldn't stop smoking, they couldn't find themselves in the identity of them, where reality existed where they weren't a smoker, that was they, they they attached such a strong identity to that practice, or that feeling or the sensations that despite, you know, knowing they're not going to get to see their grandchild be born, they continue to do this. And that's a guilt that, you know, I think we all probably going to end up passing but some guilt. But I think that when we get to that level, it becomes extremely difficult for people to change their experience of reality. Because they're so they're so habituated to be a different person, which is why I would call up a hypnotherapist and say, Hey, help me Stop, you know, stress eating or help me stop doing this, you would get me into rubber brain state. And then you know, from there, I can almost put the pieces, or you would help me put the pieces back where they need to go not where they kind of just fell in the first place. So there are there are, and I use this term lightly. In this case, meditation techniques and breathing techniques that help you kind of find that theta state, which, incidentally, is the same brain state where children up until the age of I think it's six or seven, reside in some children more than others. But that's that imaginative play, my three year old daughter is always in a state of play. She's always, you know, one of the Paw Patrol characters running around. And when I say always, I mean always say good morning, Amelia. She's like on baby rider, I'm not Amelia, and she's off. And but there comes a point in a child's development where it switches and they can no more, you know, they basically have to light that ship on fire and get on to a new one. Now, there are breathing techniques, and they're accessible, I'm sure you can find them if you look, and meditation techniques, same thing, I don't want to promote anybody. But there are ways that we can find that headspace and kind of reprogram it ourselves to a degree now I think that there's a certain significant advantage to having somebody walk me through that or or show me which rocks to step on in my journey and kind of reorganizing my brain. But there are some self guided ways that people can achieve that, that rubber brain state and maybe not achieve such a suggestive be so subject to suggestion without the help of somebody but but certainly, to the degree that they may be able to influence their behavior tomorrow and the next day and the next day by simply finding a clean slate and being able to observe a different consciousness if you will. So yeah, I go back to thinking about the person that that was a smoker until the day they died. And doctor said, this is it you know, you're they're gonna stop now or you're gonna die tomorrow. And, and I and I blame that person. But I also don't blame that person. And I know that we feel a lot about that with with food. There's a lot of stress eaters, there's a lot of people that are obese, and it's gotten to the point now where we've been taught to embrace unhealthy bodies, as opposed to finding a place of better health with our bodies. So you know, I think there's

Ari Gronich 1:24:36  

good so I don't want to shame somebody who's obese. I I've recently lost 100 absolutely not pounds, right. I've lost 147 pounds. The brain tumor I went on, I went on a massive like plan, not one that I recommend to anybody else, but because it included divorce and a lot of emotional release and a lot of like, hours and hours and hours and Amir crying and, and, like 40 day fast and then a 10 day water cleanse after the fast and then another fast after that. I mean it was like one after another I was like massively cleaning because the doctors have told me I'll never lose weight until the day I die. I mean, that was really the the prognosis that they gave me was you will no matter how much you exercise, no matter what you eat, you'll continually gain weight because of the hormone imbalances that are being affected. So I don't want to shame anybody. But what I want to do is educate them. It's not that it's not good for you to be fat, because you're a bad person because you're fat. It's not, right, it's not like you would shame somebody for having cancer, they have a disease. And the disease is caused by the system that we've created. Which is why my favorite saying is we made a shit up, we can make it up better. Because we made up the systems that we're living by, and the systems we're living by are causing you to be fat. And that doesn't make you an odd or evil or, you know, or or a person that lacks self control even your gut. We've we know this now we've studied this now for like five, six years, it's fairly new science about microbiome and gut and the control it has on our brain. And that's where I want to get to with that is your gut has more bacteria than cells are in your body. Have you, right, so if you have 7 trillion cells, and the gut bacteria is about 30 trillion, I don't know 150 trillion it, it's up there. They have more control over your brain than you do in some cases. And so they can smell a doughnut and start salivating. You can not even smell it, you can see a picture of a doughnut and start salivating because of the gut bacteria is going Ooh, sugar. Now, when you clean yourself out, when you detoxify yourself and clean yourself out and reproduce good microbiome or good, healthy gut bacteria. You look at a donut and it doesn't look good anymore. It didn't have anything to do with you controlling your mind, or programming your mind, it had to do with cleaning out your second mind, which is your gut. So that's where I think people don't want we don't want to shame anybody. We don't want to tell people they're bad. We don't want it's not your fault, is what I liked it. It's not your fault. This is sorry, society in the system that we've created, is designed to keep you and make you sick. And it's designed that way specifically, it has no other purpose than to keep you sick. The health care system is the exact same way. It's procedure based versus results based the incentive is to do more procedures, not to get a good result. Right. That's the that's the incentive system of the healthcare system. It's the same thing with agricultural, the incentive is to make more, make more bigger. So you can't it's no longer okay to have a small piece of corn, you got to have a big piece of corn, it's not okay to have some carrot, you got to have a huge carrot. Right? So we hybridize and we make them because the purpose that it you know, the purpose, try out new things and study stuff. But that doesn't mean that we should be eating the stuff they're trying out and studying.

Matthew Scarfo 1:29:06  

You know, so I want to I want to comment, though, if

Ari Gronich 1:29:09  

Yeah, absolutely.

Matthew Scarfo 1:29:12  

And I didn't mean to interrupt you, I apologize. And I just want to be clear, I wasn't demonizing or vilifying anybody that was overweight, nor was I shaming them. I mean, as a fitness professional in 20 years, I've helped, I've helped a lot of people achieve health in all different body sizes, relative to their, their comfort, their potential and their wishes. My point was simply that what we're doing and this is kind of to your point, too, is that we are in many ways, we're glorifying the habits that lead to illness. So there's absolutely nothing wrong with I mean even using the word overweight is is improper because over what weight over the weight that I choose for you, or over the weight that you choose for you what exactly is overweight. So But what it is, is that I think that we've gotten so comfortable with certain conditions, and we'll call them body shapes, which do predispose us to certain other morbidities. Right. So whether it's diabetes or type two diabetes, we know that that, that that's an overweight, we can cure that. Okay. And we can cure that in a very easy and simple way. Easier said than done. But but that's, that was really my point. So so by no means that I did I mean to, to install or even approach, a place where somebody would have taken offense to that, because that's certainly not the case. Not not whatsoever. Yeah, I do want to comment on the health care system. We don't we don't have a health care system in this country, we have a disease care system in this country. And because there's no money in the cure, there's only money in the treatment, that we need to keep people sick. And we need to keep people on well, because we, we can't prescribe marijuana for certain things. But I can prescribe to you a drug that Pfizer made that is identical to the compound in marijuana that's going to cure things, because I can't, I can't patent an organism, I can't patent a natural organism, which is, I'm not even bringing that up. But so they go about it their own way. And they make this artificial version of it, the synthetic version of it, that they can mark it and they can sell. So absolutely. It's not health care, it's disease care. And I think that, that doctors and physicians and thank God that they're here, thank God for the health care community. I mean, obviously, I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for medicine, and doctors practicing medicine and learning and continuing their education. But what we need to be careful of and it doctors do this in a more circumstantial way, I think, than than any of us do that we'll do it is that doctors don't necessarily only prescribe to cure, doctors also prescribe the illness. And and there's a tremendous amount of evidence that suggests that a doctor can make you sick by telling you that you're sick. And I've experienced this in my own way, we had talked about my lumbar spine earlier in our conversation. This is an old injury. I had gone to a surgeon about, I don't know, 12 years ago, had them look at the MRI, and it hurt. I couldn't get my head on top of it. It hurts so much in art and everything that I did. So he's looking at the MRI young guy, and I'm friendly with him. It's like Matt, I see your MRI, I can see where you're having pain. But I've seen MRIs that look far worse than this. And this isn't one of the worst ones that I've seen. If you're telling me that your condition is such that it causes great pain and you want to have the surgery, I see justification to have the surgery. But if you were to ask me as a doctor and a case study, and showed me the films without the person of the story and asked me if this person is a candidate for a fusion, I would tell you probably not. So it's completely up to you what we do here, I said, perfect. That's all I needed to know is it's still up to me. Fast forward to three years ago, back pain started to kind of seep its way back into my life and my daily routines. It was impacting my exercises and the things that I did, I went back to the same surgeon, obviously the condition in my spine and the discs had progressed, the first words out of his mouth were so Mr. scarfo, when are we going to schedule your fusion. And it was like, the lights went out. And somebody just cut the cut the power to the to the record, player, music stopped.

And I sat there and the moment after he said it, I felt it in a whole new way. Now maybe being a hypnotherapist this, this probably has some interesting tenants to it. I left his office, I said, You know what, let me go home and think about it. I walked out of his office walking down the stairs, and I was furious. I was pissed off. I called my wife on the phone, on the weight of the car. And I'm like that son of a. She's like what happened? I was like the first words out of his mouth. Were Matt, when are we going to schedule your surgery? My back hasn't hurt more now anymore in my life than it has right now. It hurts more now than it did when I walked into the office. She's like, so what are you going to do? I'm like, I don't know, you're gonna get the surgery. I said, I hope not. It took me months to Little by little, when I would feel it. I wouldn't let it stick. I would just kind of let it come and let it go and carry on with my life really trying to put into practice? Where is that red line of my comfort or my discomfort? When is it actually a problem? Or when am I just perceiving it as being a nuisance? And it took me about a year to peel that back and get back to where I was now. There's no question that now the condition has progressed even more just because of the wear and tear and the things that I do. There's no question that if he were to look at it, he would he would agree. But the fact that he had suggested that to me and a power of suggestion made that reality. So in my head, and I almost had to forget about the person that I was when I heard that and start over and ask myself, okay, if I didn't know anything about my history if I didn't know anything about my past, or my injury history, and I woke up right now in this body, but I think that my back needed a surgery? And the answer was no. Would I be confident that I could run two or three, four or five miles? The answer is, yeah, I think I could. So I had to forget everything that I thought I knew, and, and relearn it all from day one, as a, you know, 3738 year old guy that had this history of injury, but I had to forget that history. And I promised myself that I was going to relearn it. So it's, it's a tough spot for a doctor because doctors first do no harm. But they don't i don't think that it's it's conscious in them in their, in the forefront of their minds that the things that they say, mean something, and if it is, if it confirms right, confirmation bias, if it confirms something that I kind of thought, boom, this was this was it, this was exactly what I needed to hear. So I knew that I was right. If it doesn't confirm what, what I had thought, it forces me to question what it is, and then reevaluate what it is, and then maybe agree with the professional that that sees it knows it and has experienced with it. Now, granted, we're not talking about heart issues, and kidney disease and other things that will manifest quite quickly. But in terms of the the mechanics of things, only, I know what that feels like and where the problem lies. So it's important that we take the advice of the professionals that are around us, but we also temper that with some of our own common sense and experiment with it. So they they treat disease, they do not do health care. I think that the ground, the the health care workers that are working in the trenches, the nurses, the nurses, the radiologists, phlebotomist, everybody else, and even the doctors all have the greatest intentions to help. But I don't think that we are all sitting at the same table and having a conversation with Who is your treatment really benefiting? Who is your prognosis really benefiting? Is it benefiting me over the long term? Is it a sufficient diagnosis? Or is it a proper diagnosis? And also, is it a sufficient treatment or a proper treatment? So I think that we're up against probably the same size machine that we were up against 25 years ago, when when the tobacco industry was trying to convince us that tobacco didn't kill people, and that they had a reasonable obligation to not put any additives in their cigarettes that would cause illness or harm. And they and they promised they swore up and down to Congress that that that wasn't the case, that it's a safe product, and we knew better. Right. And I think that we know that now, it just seems that you know, for for the pharmaceutical companies seem to seem to have a monopoly right now. And we just have to wait for enough people to come disenfranchise that, you know, the right people involved start investigating it. But yeah, but I, I agree with what you said,

Ari Gronich 1:38:21  

Yeah, you know, you're here's the, we will, you know, this has been a very good conversation, and I completely appreciate you and and that I don't like to talk badly about majority of doctors, because they're just like me, only their training is different than my training. They've been trained in medicine and disease control. And I've been trained in how to create an optimal healthy body. And I did you know, and I went the route I went, because the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me for so long, that I had to, you know, go find out for myself what was wrong. But so I don't like talking about the system is, to me, it's the system, it's the money in the system. So the agricultural system is now linked to the pharmaceutical system. And pharma. Linked is Bayer and Monsanto just connected. They've become a conglomerate. So you have the largest agro business in the world that controls I think it's about 80 to 90% of the World Food Market. And you have bear who is the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. Both of them have agendas, to make their companies bigger and more have more control. And so if you have the food that makes you sick, and you have the pills, that Your sickness, you've got a perpetual money machine,

And so who is the biggest donor at any university that teaches medical school, it's the pharmaceutical companies, they're the biggest donor, they are in there by the sixth month. They are, they have already been on your kids buts about the medicine, about medical medicine about pharmaceuticals. And so, if by the sixth month in school, in medical school, you're already been indoctrinated to that way of thinking that's all you're going to be trained in. So that's where I encourage people to, to really interview their doctor versus just going to a doctor that somebody recommends, interview them find out what it is that they believe find out what it is, is that their training gives them authority over and most people don't do that. But what is it that that they have authority over? Do they have any outside training in any other specialties or any other modalities other than just the medicine, because a well rounded, you know, thinker is better than an unwell, unwell rounded thinker. And so that's just my suggestion for people. So we got to end this, unfortunately, I could, I could probably talk to you for another 10 hours. But I have another another interview coming up in a few minutes. So one of the audience three, I know you've already done it a number of times during the conversation, but three, just to sum up actionable, doable things that they can do to create a new tomorrow today for themselves.

Matthew Scarfo 1:41:58  

Sure, so three things, one, create the habit of breathing through your nose and not through your mouth, use your mouth for eating, not for breathing. For all the reasons that I mentioned earlier. Second one is move deliberately. So whatever space you're occupying, or whatever space you are moving to occupy, whether it's during exercise, or standing up from a restful situation and a couch and walking to your fridge, feel your body move through space, part of the reason why we feel like time moves so quickly anymore is because we're the things that we look forward to are happening in the future as opposed to happening right now we need to be present. So when you're exercising and you're doing a benchpress, it's important not to just bang that weight up off your chest. But as you lower it, feel the tensions as they accumulate in the different parts of your body that are responsible for governing that movement. Feel your triceps lengthen under tension, as you've lower that weight, feel them short and under tension as you press that weight up off of your chest, everything be in your body be in the moment and be present. And then the third thing you know, I'm going to go off of what your last comment was. And that would be to interview your doctor, I certainly didn't mean to. And if that was the impression that I gave lump all doctors into this big grand category, I want to expand on it just a little bit that in the sense that I'm a runner, and I'm an exerciser, I make sure that my doctor is also a runner and an exerciser and shares the most important parts of me with them, because they can sympathize, they can empathize. As a runner of my life, I have a foot injury, my doctor is going to tell me as a runner, how I should manage that, not just as a patient, and they don't know what running even feels like. They don't know what it means to me. They don't know those things. Now, that's not going to change. They're not going to change their advice, necessarily, but it'll help them. It'll help me feel like they're talking to me and not at me. So I think when picking your healthcare team, or your personal health team, it's important for you to find people that share interests with you, but just have a greater level of experience or education in their respective field, whether it's human movement science, or, or nutrition science, or doctors or so on. So breathe through your nose, be present in your body, be present in the moment, whenever you move and everything that you do. And then also make sure that your healthcare team is a team of people that you trust that you can rely on and that shared the same recreational interests as you this way, the advice that they give you is contextual, and not just general and vague.

Ari Gronich 1:44:38  

Awesome. And how can people get ahold of you if they want to work with you?

Matthew Scarfo 1:44:43  

Sure. So I just started a blog online, Mattscarfo.com. It's where I seems to be a catch all for all of the content that I produce and that I'm a part of, you can easily reach me there. LinkedIn, you can find me Matt scarfo, just about everywhere, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, ad scarfo.com. So even if you're not interested in having me help you will work with you in any way. I'm always interested in having great conversations with interesting people. And I try to learn as much as I can from everybody that I meet. So even though it might not be a monetary arbitrage, it could certainly be a, an intellectual one.

Ari Gronich 1:45:20  

Absolutely. I've enjoyed our intellectual arbitrage today. And to doing it again, and, you know, working with you maybe in the future, so creating some win wins collaborations, because I think, if we do that, we can really, you know, as we come together, we create momentum and movement, and we can move mountains when we when we work together. So, anyway, thank you so much. I am Ari Gronich, and this has been another episode of create a new tomorrow where we are helping people create their new tomorrow today. Thank you so much for being here, and I look forward to seeing you and hearing you at the next one. Remember to Like, Comment, and review. Thank you for listening to this podcast. I appreciate all you do to create a new tomorrow for yourself and those around you. If you'd like to take this information further and are interested in joining a community of like minded people who are all passionate about activating their vision for a better world. Go to the website, create a new tomorrow.com and find out how you can be part of making a bigger difference. I have a gift for you just for checking it out and look forward to seeing you take the lead and joining our private paid mastermind community. Until then, see you on the next episode.