280: Obesity, Integrity, and the Fire Service Standard

In this episode, Nole and Kevin kick things off with a recap of Kevin's family trip to see Forrest Frank in Los Angeles, navigating the strange contrast of driving past old shooting and stabbing calls while the kids listen to worship music, mixed with some unfiltered thoughts on the absolute commercialism of modern Christian concerts ($100 t-shirts, anyone?).

Then, the guys revisit a literal "hand grenade" question from a few weeks back: Can you be a good leader if you're obese? They pull no punches as they dive back into the uncomfortable truth about physical fitness, discipline, and why being afraid to hurt a brother's feelings can ultimately lead to watching them careen off a cliff. From the biblical charge to treat the body as a temple to the grit of summer "work hardening" in the heat, this conversation breaks down what we owe to our crews, our families, and ourselves. Finally, they tackle the shifting culture of the firehouse kitchen table, exploring how to guard camaraderie and tradition when everyone is on a different diet.

Big thank you to My Epic and Facedown Records for the use of their song "Hail" in our podcast!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz2RZThURTU&ab_channel=FacedownRecords

The Fire You Carry on YouTube.

Sign up for a class at The Fire Up Program!
https://www.fireupprogram.com/programs

The Fire Up Progam video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I__ErPW46Ec&t=12s&ab_channel=FireUpProgram

The Fire You Carry Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/thefireyoucarry/

Donate to The Fire Up Program.
https://www.fireupprogram.com/donate

The Fire Up Program Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/fireup_program/

Kevin's Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/kevinpwelsh/?hl=en

Transcript

Nole (00:01.132)
Because we need the music. Last week was so last minute I didn't even didn't even do that.

Kevin (00:23.128)
Welcome back to the Fire You Carry podcast. No, we just went to the Forrest Frank concert with Joss Nessa and his family. And it's a completely different experience than what we had at Sleeping Giant. Like radically different, but super rad in the same way. It was crazy powerful. There's they said the attendance was like 14, 15,000 people. And I did notice.

Nole (00:33.006)
Nole (00:37.536)
my gosh.

I can't imagine.

Yeah.

Nole (00:50.594)
And

Kevin (00:53.786)
I'm very familiar with driving around the streets of Inglewood. I've worked there quite often in that area in Crenshaw. And it was kind of interest. It's a very weird feeling when you're with your family and they are in like a completely foreign land that looks sometimes like a third world country. And I'm like, I was on a GSW on Crenshaw right there. I was on a stabbing over there. It's it's a very funny feeling. And I was mentioning like quietly to the wife while the kids were listening to Worship music. I've been in a GSW in that liquor store. And she's like, What?

Nole (00:58.444)
Yeah.

Nole (01:07.992)
Hmm.

Well, yeah, right there. Yeah.

Nole (01:21.912)
Yeah.

Kevin (01:24.578)
And then she wanted to know the story and was like, I can't really say it in front of the kids or whatever. But I there was a noticeable difference where like people were letting each other merge into the parking lot. And then I realized, this is a Forrest Frank crowd. You know what mean? Like this this is not like these are Christians, you know? but it was still like and I'm I'm gonna give you this, and I think it's maybe my hardened heart.

Nole (01:27.256)
Can't really tell you right now, yeah.

Nole (01:35.377)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

dude, that's funny.

Nole (01:48.739)
Mm.

Kevin (01:50.379)
I still it it's Friday night, and if you know anything about Los Angeles, you don't go anywhere in Los Angeles on Friday evening. The traffic is just horrific. We left the concert starts at seven. We left at like three thirty and from from Uriah and we didn't get into the area until like six thirty. It took three hours to drive to Los Angeles.

Nole (02:00.258)
Yeah, it's not a good idea. Yeah.

Nole (02:09.016)
From your house to get there. Yeah.

Nole (02:18.486)
Mm.

Kevin (02:20.46)
And then I bought like the parking pass in advance. Normally when I do these things, I go to the fire station, I park at the fire station, and the guys are really cool and we either Uber over or sometimes they'll even give us a ride on the engine. But this time I'm like, I'm not gonna do that because the Uber they have at this specific place, you have to walk like a half mile to get to the designated Uber pickup place. I'm like, I'm not gonna do that. So so I bought a hundred dollar

Nole (02:29.027)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Nole (02:44.302)
wow. That's convenient, yeah.

Kevin (02:49.73)
parking pass. And then when we get there, it says the day of that it's only 70. And then the tickets, I'm just gonna say to get there with parking is about a thousand dollars. So we saved quite a bit of money to get to this thing. And it's we've been looking forward to it for months. And it's the girls' favorite. So we did and I like saved and then that did the whole thing. But then

Nole (03:04.76)
Yeah.

Nole (03:10.518)
Yeah, that's you gotta buy tickets for that a ways out. Yeah.

Kevin (03:17.654)
What's the first thing that people want to do when you go to a concert is the merch. The shirts were a hundred dollars. A hundred dollars.

Nole (03:21.901)
Merchandise, yeah.

Nole (03:26.38)
No.

Nole (03:31.758)
Who are they like printed on like Gucci shirts or something? That's that's outrageous.

Kevin (03:31.872)
And so I just

Kevin (03:36.761)
I was I was just kind of thinking, like, I'm glad I have a personal relationship, but the I'm sure Forrest Frank does incredible things for a lot of people. I'm sure they donate quite a bit of their money. I'm assuming they were talking about some of the world vision stuff that they were doing, bringing water to Africa and like very cool stuff. But I'd also I was like, it took three hours to get here. It cost well over a thousand dollars, a hundred dollar t shirts.

you know, twelve dollar bottles of water and I'm like, yay, Jesus. I didn't I wasn't I'm the conjure was incredible. I highly recommend it if you were able to save some money and take your family to it. But at the same time the commercialism of it was absurd to me.

Nole (04:14.178)
Bet. Yeah.

Nole (04:21.784)
Dude, I hate that. I'm gonna I'm gonna be unfiltered in my response. And obviously there could be reasons for that that we don't know. But but it's not. Let's let's take a step back to the sleeping giant show that we went to, right? You're the opening band. You're amor de Dios. These guys all have day jobs. They're barely scraping by. They

They have no money. So for them, the merch sales that night are it. That's what they're gonna make on the show. They're not making any money from the ticket sales. So it's a big deal for them. And those guys are selling t-shirts. I bought one of their shirts and I think it was $25. Maybe it was thirty. Say it was thirty dollars. Those guys need that money. Forrest Frank is a very wealthy young man at this point. And God bless him. I wish him all the success in the world. I love his music. He's got great songs. I'm sure he's got a good heart. But

Kevin (05:06.434)
Right.

Kevin (05:10.851)
Very well.

Nole (05:18.306)
That's the first thing when you see a hundred dollar shirt, that's the first thing you think. Is this green commercial commercialism? Which is a dude, in my opinion, that's a bad look. And I I have a hard time with that. That's tough because even selling tickets at that price, which obviously if you're gonna sell out or maybe it's not sold out, but if you're gonna have fourteen to fifteen thousand people there, you're gonna have to charge that much because you're in a venue that costs that much to rent out.

Kevin (05:26.754)
Right.

Nole (05:47.576)
kind of good stuff. Like there's a reason for that.

Kevin (05:48.523)
Yeah, staff there's I'm s I'm sure like they probably see thirty percent of that or whatever. There's like too many entities. From ticketmaster to parking to there's hundreds if not thousands of staff there, you know.

Nole (05:55.253)
Right. The rest of it's c yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

For sure. I mean, it's an expensive thing to do. But when you look at the merch sales, dude, that's tough. And that that's a bummer because it does make you feel the way you did, where you're just you then have that kind of that in the background, just like, ugh, it's kind of gross. Man, that's tough.

Kevin (06:07.754)
It was it was wild.

Kevin (06:16.694)
Yeah, it was it's kinda interesting 'cause I read online that you know, Jelly Roll, the singer. I think he kinda jammed up Forrest Frank because he didn't go to the Grammy Awards and said, I'm not like taking the credit, I wanna give all glory to God. Well, Jelly Rolls Well he's like, Well you take all the money, you know. He's like, You're making millions of dollars, why wouldn't you you have this platform on you have this huge platform that you could you know, like it was it's kinda interesting.

Nole (06:23.17)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nole (06:32.622)
Mm.

Nole (06:36.91)
right. Yeah. I do remember hearing that. Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin (06:46.21)
So I hate to be be that guy, but sometimes I do think like the commercialism where I feel most connected sometimes is by myself listening to a worship song or sun looking at a sunset or maybe sometimes just being in the ocean by myself or in the forest. I don't need like this gigantic entity. And I thought it was very powerful because there was fourteen thousand people singing worship songs. And the entire thing was

Nole (07:01.109)
Mm-hmm.

Nole (07:11.114)
Right, they all know this they all know the words, yeah.

Kevin (07:14.218)
even they brought up other people and they're just playing random Christian worship songs, not Forrest Frank songs, which was amazing, right? And everybody in unison and to watch the there was a lot of kids there, like so many children. And it was cool. They were standing there and I was like, this is as cool as it can get as far as popular music can go for kids to be attending.

Nole (07:18.7)
Right. Right. That's so cool. Yeah.

Nole (07:27.842)
Yeah, yeah.

Nole (07:33.472)
That is super cool. Yeah. yeah. yeah. That's amazing. I mean, imagine any other currently popular music you couldn't take your kid to those concerts. You know, you're talking about the post Malones and the the William Eyelashes. I mean, you know, like you can't take your kids to those shows. That's the other popular music. That's so cool.

Kevin (07:52.761)
But as it you know, like as a blue collar single income family, that was a lot for us, right? And I'm like, I can't imagine like I couldn't do that again this year. You know what I mean? And I'm like, we probably couldn't I don't know. It's just one of those things where it's like, we could go on a vacation or we can go to one eye forest frank and try sit in three hours of traffic. Anyways.

Nole (07:57.965)
Yeah. That's a big deal. Yeah.

Nole (08:04.898)
No.

Nole (08:11.916)
Yeah, one night with Forrest Frank. Yeah. The one thing that just came to me and again, we don't know enough of the background of any of this to really to really know, but we do know how we feel about it. But the one thing that just came up to my to my mind is that that young man, and he is a young man, is still learning, growing. He's flawed and he's doing amazing stuff and God's using him.

And so even if that's like st if straight up greed and he's just making tons of money and he's after it, God's still using him in that. You know what I mean? And I I'm sure it's not a hundred percent that. There's a lot going on. But that that is something that God does use us even in our flaws and can use us powerfully, even as we're broken and and have sometimes bad motivations.

Kevin (09:03.244)
Yeah, I don't think it's that. I think the kid is pretty good. If you remember he was in Surfaces, which was like a poppy and he brought it up. He said, I I was coming up and I was I think God bless me with some talent and I wanted to make people like me, so I was playing popular music kind of a thing. And then he sat down at a piano and he said I started singing this chorus. And he started singing this kind of like this worship song. I was just me and the Lord just listening and I this chorus came to me and then he said I

Nole (09:09.119)
I do, I do remember services, yes.

Nole (09:18.508)
Hm. Yeah.

Kevin (09:31.789)
released my first Christian song and he said it immediately I knew this is what I'm supposed to be doing. This is what God and he completely switched. And now every song he has is Jesus. And it's and so I I give the kid credit, the boldness of that sometimes I am not bold enough to do that. You know what I mean? To be and I think that was powerful. And obviously God is blessing it, right? Because these you had fourteen thousand people singing every single word of this, which was amazing.

Nole (09:37.486)
Mm.

Right, that's all he does, yeah.

Nole (09:49.208)
Hm. Yeah.

Nole (09:57.357)
Yeah. That is amazing. That's good stuff. Okay, dude. A couple episodes ago you threw a question at me at the end and you asked me you you basically took a hand grenade and you pulled the pin and you lobbed it at me from your house and Marietta landed here in my shed in Altadina. And we when you asked me the question, I think you can see it in my face in the video, I was immediately

Kevin (10:09.55)
Right. And left.

Grenade!

Nole (10:25.986)
I don't know. I don't know how I felt, but I was I knew that my answer could potentially hurt friends of mine. It could hurt their feelings. Because the question was, can you be a good leader if you're obese? Right. That was the question. And we answered it, we talked about it, and we've gotten a lot of feedback on it since then. So we gotta revisit and we gotta talk more about it and kind of expand on it a little bit. because some of our some of our biggest fans have requested

This plus some other stuff that's kind of attached to it. But I did want to say at the outset that that was a moment for me where I was tempted to temper my response in order to not hurt feelings. And I think that's a big part of why that question is difficult. And it's a big part of why it's such an issue, because as men, especially in the fire service, we don't talk about it. We don't call it out.

We all know that it's a thing, we all have our feelings about it, but when it comes to a friend of yours who you work with and you can see that they're struggling with their weight or some other thing that they're doing in their lives that's negative, we don't say anything because we're afraid to hurt feelings.

Kevin (11:40.815)
And this is where I go back to what you and I believe is the truth in the Bible. And I think when we started the Fire Up program, our own Dave Tebow, Captain Dave Tebow, who's an incredible human being who is now going on to get to becoming a pastor, he's getting his he's going to Bible college. But he sent to us First Corinthians nine, verse twenty seven, and said, Memorize this. And it said, I discipline my body like an athlete.

Training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others, I myself might be disqualified. And so there's over that. Your body's a temple. It's a you know, there's all these things. So I I take that to heart saying, Yes, I I enjoy this stuff because I have an athletic background, I enjoy it. But it's also like it's it's also something that I know I have to do. And I have to have like self-respect.

Nole (12:29.484)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (12:39.458)
Discipline my body or others, I might self be disqualified, especially for my job. Like this job requires you the expectation for every single person when you walk in that door is that you're supposed to look like Josh Nessa, who is an absolute cyborg, right? And one, but guess what? That guy has disciplined his body since prior to the Marine Corps and has done it every day.

Nole (12:56.503)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin (13:04.684)
You cannot knock the consistency. You can say anything you want, but he's consistently done this for decades. And guess what? As my captain, I highly respect that guy more. I highly respect him because I know rain or shine, sun or not, sleep or no sleep, he's going to discipline his body. And I have a profound respect for that. And that's me personally.

Nole (13:15.427)
Yeah.

Nole (13:27.768)
Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. It's funny, I brought up first Corinthians six, nineteen and twenty when I was doing my two minutes of prep for this episode. And that one is you just referenced it with your body as a temple, but the text of it is, or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. And

That should be the first principle for us as as men who believe is that we do need to discipline our bodies, like you said. We do need to recognize that our body is a temple. All too often I focus on some of the other more kind of just strictly physical aspects of that, especially as a fireman, and believing that exactly like you said, we need to be fit for a lot of different reasons. But this also expands the question out and away from can you be a captain or a leader and be obese and

brings it down to really our level. Can you be a fireman and be obese? Or even can you be a man leading your family and be obese? But then even beyond that, now we have to get into the realms of can you be abusing your body in other ways? Using drugs, drinking too much alcohol, not getting enough rest. Like that starts to become something that is now a domino effect that can lead into all different areas of your life. And they all come back to the same answer.

Which is are you disciplining your body? Are you treating it as a temple? And and that takes discipline, but not just in the obesity category, are you overweight? But then in everything else. Are you are you fit? Are you healthy? Are you filling your body with poisons? Are you getting enough rest? And all that stuff. And it becomes a much broader question. So I would definitively like to say at this point in the episode

Kevin (15:05.1)
Yes.

Nole (15:17.634)
I got a question from a buddy of mine, good friend, Cliff Carey. He's a pastor. And after the episode came out, he sent me a text about it. I think I forwarded it to you. But the question at the top of his text was, What about obese pastors? And he he was not saying he he is obese, but the question was like, Okay, well, so you're saying you can't be an obese leader in the the fire service military law enforcement. What about other avenues? Which is part of why now we're talking about it again.

Kevin (15:31.182)
Hmm.

Nole (15:47.379)
And I just like you just highlighted, I just agree across the board that it's something that we need to address. And so from from my rank to my rank, so from a fireman to another fireman who might be listening to this podcast, you cannot be a good fireman if you're obese, if you're overweight. Like you can't you can't do it. And right.

Kevin (16:09.496)
That that's a fact. I don't think anyone would disagree with that.

Nole (16:14.56)
And it it's a hurtful thing to say. Like I get it. And I'm not the guy who likes to go around and call people out and hurt feelings. I don't like that. And with with the question you asked before on the episode about captains, with me stating that now, there are men in my life who I love. And I know that if they listen to this, that that could potentially hurt their feelings. And I don't like that. But like you said, about the truth, that

that can't hold me back from saying the thing that I know to be true and saying the thing that if it helps that person start to get that area of their life dialed in, it's going to be worth it. Because the alternative is we don't say anything. We see our brothers struggling with whatever it is, whether it's obesity or meth. We don't do anything about it and we watch them careen off the cliff because we didn't want to hurt their feelings. That's

Kevin (17:08.534)
And look, the you don't have to be you. You are an above average elite person. But you don't have to be you, but you have to make it sense to you. You know in your heart what you should be, right? And I'll just bring this up. So we got I got recalled, mandowed, whatever you want to call it, to an OES rig, which is a state run rig, and we got sent to a brush fire. Fifty acre brush, it was like over a hundred degrees.

Nole (17:14.178)
Thanks, buddy.

Kevin (17:36.507)
had all my gear on, we had packs and we actually worked. You know, we were pulling lines and we were doing stuff. And it was a it was a seven hour, eight hour thing that we were on. And I realized like the w after like I just didn't like the way I felt. Did I do the job? Yes. Did I do it how I've done it in the past and it felt great afterwards? No. I felt like sore and irritated and I felt fine in the heat. I was drinking plenty of water, but I didn't like physically where I was at.

Nole (17:50.499)
Mm.

Nole (18:04.61)
Mm.

Kevin (18:04.704)
And I went back and I looked at some of the stuff. What I have not been doing recently is our dear friend Chris Rurano, who works in the camps and he's one of the great guys. He programs in once a week. He just calls it work hardening, where you get on a pack and you just start doing heavy stuff in the sun or maybe cutting line or whatever it may be or just carrying burden carries, things like that. And I look back at what I've been doing.

Nole (18:12.662)
Right.

Nole (18:18.402)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kevin (18:29.75)
I've been doing some running and some bro pumping and I haven't done any work hardening. And guess what? I didn't feel that great on this far. And so that doesn't disappoint that like it just motivates me to say, All right, I gotta throw in some weight vests. I gotta throw in some hikes. I gotta throw in some stuff that I'm not in doing right now. Cause I don't like where I'm at. Because if that was an extended two, three, four day thing, I was not right. I we I sh I should have been better. And so I know for me, like that as a fireman who's

Nole (18:36.547)
Mm.

Nole (18:55.053)
Yeah.

Kevin (18:59.456)
47, I gotta work a little harder, right? And if you are going to be, and this is my opinion, if you're going to be in the military or a first responder, you are going to have to do hard things. You're going to have to work harder than Mexic because that is what is expected as a soldier. That is expected as a cop. That's what it's expected as a firefighter. And that that is our job is to actually be a little bit more above average. I don't expect that from a pastor. I don't.

Nole (19:11.181)
Mm-hmm.

Nole (19:27.672)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin (19:28.472)
But if I hear of like a pastor like Jim Stitzer, who's out there grinding and doing jujitsu and working, I have more respect for that guy. That's a guy I want to talk to. That's a guy I want to learn from. That's a guy I wanna what are you doing and how are you doing it? Because I respect him, the way he the way he operates his church, the way he is with his family. I've seen that go down the line into his children. His daughter's incredible and was like top of her class in the Navy. Like

Nole (19:31.916)
Right. Yes.

Nole (19:37.283)
Yeah.

Kevin (19:55.127)
I think that has to do with his influence and his discipline and the way he structured his life.

Nole (20:05.912)
I had a point and I didn't write it down. yeah, the work hardening thing. And back to your point about Captain Nessa, I would love it if we lived in a world where all of us as firemen were Captain Nessa. I want to be Captain Nessa. I want to be that physically fit. However, we do have to recognize that that that level isn't for everybody. I can't attain that. I'm not I'm not physically built that way.

But that doesn't mean that you can't do more to be more effective. And your point about work hardening and Chris Ruano's program and example in that is perfect. And I'm just gonna do a little bit of well, this is what I'm doing. And the reason I'm doing this is because your experience recently, I had that same experience last year. I'm in a brush battalion. I got put on a brush fire, and I realized that hiking hills in the heat with packs and

pulling line and doing all that stuff, I'm not I wasn't conditioned for it. I was able to do the work, but like you said, I didn't feel as good as I thought I should. So I started doing other things. And so right now this time of year, I work at a firehouse where we have a giant yard and my current work hardening is we have these giant piles of mulch that we're spreading all over our huge yard. And I'm choosing to do that work in the middle of the day.

At the hottest part of the day. And I'm doing it because I know that maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next month, I'm going to end up on a brush fire doing exactly what you were just doing last week. And that's really good training for that. Anybody can do that. You can be a guy who's not super into lifting weights or running, and you can do that type of stuff and then be prepared for your job. You don't have to be jacked and shredded and like it doesn't have to be that type of fitness, although that's great.

But that type of thing is very applicable and it's a hard jump to make for most people. In our culture as firemen, there's a you know, we work out in the morning and they're especially when it's hot as it is right now, most guys are in the mindset of, Hey, let's get our workout in and get our work done for the day while it's still cool. And there's reasons for that, right? 'Cause you don't want to get the brush fire hitting and you're already dehydrated because you've been working in the sun. There's pros and cons.

Nole (22:35.692)
But if every once in a while you force yourself to go, hey, it's three o'clock in the afternoon, I'm gonna go outside and do some work on the rig or whatever to get some of that heat acclimatization, it's a really good thing to do because the reality is when events like what you just went on happen, they don't happen at eight in the morning when it's cool out.

Kevin (22:53.654)
No, it happened at three in the afternoon in Santa Carita.

Nole (22:55.614)
Exactly. When it's over 100 degrees. So that's something you can do. Work hardening. I love that.

Kevin (23:00.398)
And this is my thought. I mean, we were essentially specialists for about ten years, you even more, when we were on a truck. And the truck work, I realized when I got on the truck, I was more of a cardio guy coming out of the tower and I I was a soccer guy and I was really light. Truck work was heavy. And so what didn't I knew I needed to adapt to truck work 'cause this is what I wanted to do. And so you and I started lifting heavy.

Nole (23:13.655)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (23:25.314)
We started squatting, we started doing stone lifting, we started doing deadlifting, we started doing stuff and I I gained weight and I gained tremendous amount of strength, which was super beneficial for us to throw ladders, to cut holes in the roofs, to cut cars. I felt strength mattered. Not as much on the cardio side. We did enough cardio through CrossFit that it made sense. But now if you're talking about I do like Rwano has this program called prepping to fin where it's a seasonal approach.

Nole (23:28.631)
Mm.

Nole (23:38.542)
Yeah.

Nole (23:55.019)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (23:55.715)
Where he says in the summertime he's doing less heavy weight, he's doing more body weight and more cardio kind of things and more work harding because this is what they do in the summer. And it makes sense to me. So I haven't really adapted to that. And I I was looking at why like I go from one to the other. And it usually takes a good kick in the butt or a real reality check like this last one to be like, this is what I've been avoiding. But I had some basal cell skin cancer on my ears that I had to rem remove recently.

Nole (24:22.862)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (24:24.718)
And so I realized I've been avoiding the sun. Like I've been just getting out of like, I'm not gonna take a hike in the middle of the day, or I'm not gonna go outside in the middle of the day or whatever. And that's not okay for my job. Right. And so I was so what I realized is like you could just protect yourself. I have like one of those surf sun shirts with the hood on, and I could put a hat on and I can put some sunglasses on. I can even put sunscreen on, whatever. And so I'm like realizing that was

Nole (24:28.076)
Hm. Yeah.

Nole (24:49.549)
Hm.

Kevin (24:51.872)
Okay because I was like I was I don't want to get more skin cancer, but it's not okay for what I currently do. And so what we currently do is outside in the sun, well just protect yourself and get the work in so it can be better.

Nole (25:06.488)
Yeah. Yeah, and that takes that takes discipline. That takes more work. It takes being a little bit harder than maybe you want to be. But it's doable. Anybody can do stuff like that. And maybe last point on this that I have to highlight is that we owe it to our families. And it's not every day that we run into incidents that could potentially

take our lives and mean we never go home to our families again. But those scenarios exist and you may or may not ever run into one of those in your career. But if you do

Nole (25:53.111)
And your physical fitness is part of that equation, which in our line of work it will be, and you neglected that, and now you don't come home to your family, that's on you. And nobody else can fix that but you and make that so that it's an it's a non issue. I want to go into a fire with guys who are prepared to go home at the end of that event to their families.

Across the board in every way.

But I can't force the other people around me to do that. I can only do that for myself. So just reflect on that. If there's something in your life that is that is lacking and you need some extra motivation, maybe think about that. Maybe just maybe just think about what happens if I don't come home. And are there ways that I can do my best to mitigate that? Sometimes it's out of our control. Sometimes it's just your time to go. It's your time to go. Nothing you can do. But there are a myriad of stories out there.

Kevin (26:51.107)
Yeah.

Nole (26:56.584)
Of guys getting trapped or guys getting overrun by brush fires and physical fitness becomes a very real part of their ability to survive or not. Not to mention the fact that at the end of your career, if you've lived unhealthy your entire career, you're going to die within two to three years of retirement, which is awful.

Kevin (27:17.55)
Like I I've always been a fan about surrounding yourself with success or people that you admire. And that also is true with the the fitness side of things. I think I've always tried to surround myself with people better than me. And that's one of the reasons why I trusted you with my life. I know for a fact in the the core of my soul that if I went down on a fire, that you were physically able to get me home to my family. And that's the one of the reasons I loved working with you. I have the same thing going on right now.

It's not just Nessa, it's Jason Lloyd, it's Mark Gillen, it's all the guys on my shift are savages and they're better than me. And I know so it at first it elevates me to want to get better. I don't I will never be Josh Nessa, but I can be the best version of myself. And then the s the second thing is is just that you know that that motivates me and drives me. Now, I recognize, Noel, that we are so blessed that it's not only you get to work out on duty.

Nole (27:51.982)
Mm-hmm.

Nole (27:57.859)
Mm.

Nole (28:17.378)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (28:17.696)
It's actually mandatory. It's actually mandatory. So I'm telling you like if you were a fireman out there and you're not taking advantage of that, which full disclosure, sometimes I do not, right? I do not because whatever is going on. But it's mandatory. If you are not doing that, failure, failure on me, failure on you, because you get to get paid to work out. It's as close as you can be to a professional athlete.

Nole (28:21.558)
It's in the manuals.

Nole (28:45.004)
Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous when you think about it.

Kevin (28:47.096)
So I recognize that that is a gift, but but when I did work in the corporate world, I felt like sometimes y if you're sitting in a cubicle right now or you're doing IT or you're doing something, and you're like, I have to go to work, I have to leave at six AM, I get home at five, and then it's dinner, and then it's whatever. I I recognize the challenge of that. I recognize that that could be harder for you, or how much a pastor is on his plate and thousands of congregants want

you all the time or solve their problems. I get that. But there at some point I know there are people that are doing it, like Jeremy Stallnecker, like, you know what I mean? Like they're doing it. And then it just means a little bit more discipline. I see those people waking up earlier or getting it in at their lunch break or doing it right after work. and in some ways I look back at the time when I was in the cubicle and I felt like that was the when I was the most diligent about it. Because I could count like I'm not gonna

Nole (29:42.35)
Mm.

Kevin (29:45.101)
I'm not gonna get interrupted in this workout. I could meal prep, like everything was very regimented. And so ours is not regimented, whereas sometimes I felt like that was a little easier to follow a diet and fitness plan because I knew Monday, Wednesday, Friday I could lift. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, I could run. I just knew it. Nothing. Yes. It was just up to me to prioritize it, put it on the schedule, and follow the plan.

Nole (30:00.847)
Right. Yeah. And no one was gonna call in the middle of it, yeah.

Nole (30:10.252)
Yeah. I have to say for our time together at fifteens, the glorious time, I felt exactly the same way. Any scenario we ever went into, I went into with confidence, knowing that you had my back and regardless of what was gonna happen, you were knowledgeable enough and capable enough to get me out of it if I got myself into a bad situation. And that goes for Mike Kenobi, who was an engineer at the time, and and Kevin Tobia and Hugo Valdivia, you know, the guys that we worked with there.

were exactly the same. And I do work around those some of those individuals here where I'm at now too. I will say, but to your point too, if you're the guy in the cubicle or even the fireman who's listening to this and feels like, man, I need to start taking action, just remember that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You don't have to figure this out for yourself. Look around you. Find somebody. Get on Chris Ruana's programming. Do something like that. get on Evan Holquist programming. Like there's guys out there that

are professionally doing this or just look to your left and your right and go, that guy's got a program. Well go talk to him and see what he does and then just duplicate what they do. You may end up finding that it's not the best program for you and you might have to look around a little bit, but you don't have to reinvent the wheel. There are people out there who have figured all this stuff out and everything that I know that currently works for me that I do, I learned from somebody else. I didn't make any of it up.

Kevin (31:32.111)
Totally. And you know what's wild? Like so so many people like stress out about nutrition and what to do and what's the best one and how to do it. I find like the guys like we've talked about today, I think they generally try to eat pretty good, but they're the first ones to have a slice of pizza. They're the first one to have fresh made cookies if a wife brings them in. They're the first ones to do that. Cause they can afford to do it. They've put in so much work, they're burning so many calories that it's not a big deal.

Nole (31:56.814)
Mm.

Kevin (32:01.324)
And so I feel like I everyone goes, nutrition is the key. It's 80% of this whole thing. And yes and yes, but I think like you can afford to have an occasional treat that you and I can afford to be the sugar wolf around Christmas time because you've put in eleven months of work. You know what I mean? Like and so I I feel like if you get that right first and make that a habit, you have to make that a habit. You have to make about and that's then becomes who you are.

When you think of Noel, Noel's a fitness guy. Why? Why is Noel a fitness guy? It's not because he just wants to look so bitch and shirtless or whatever. It's just that he's done this since the military, since he's seventeen years old and made it part of his life, right? And same thing for me, like I'm not known as a fitness guy and I've been dealing with massive injuries. I'm not something that's special, but I do know for me, I'm gonna try to do the best thing I can on and off duty. I'm gonna try to fit it in somewhere.

Nole (32:59.81)
Yeah, absolutely. All right, I have a question for you. Are you ready?

Kevin (33:05.175)
Holler.

Nole (33:08.29)
What do you think about Fireman taking Reta True Tide? Reta

Kevin (33:14.484)
Red Bro, I'm I I I've seen nothing I mean, this is anecdotal evidence, but I've seen some overweight guys who are sitting like not not good. They've let themselves go for whatever reason, family life, whatever, they're in their forties, and I've seen get on this stuff, whether it's black market, gray market stuff or whatever you get. And I see that it was a huge catalyst for them getting back into a there's one guy in my shift specifically who's probably lost forty or fifty pounds.

Nole (33:43.822)
Mm.

Kevin (33:44.715)
He wasn't working out and now he's working out daily. I think it is a jumpstart. I don't know anything about the long term effects, but it seems to be one of the more positive, you know, miraculous weight loss drugs possibly. And there's a lot going on there, like from insulin sensitivity to not just appetite suppression. but I'm not opposed to it at all. I'm not opposed to it at all.

Nole (33:46.636)
Right. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Nole (34:05.954)
Yeah. Right.

Kevin (34:12.712)
And I think it's fantastic. If that's gonna help you jump into habits that are healthy over long term, that are gonna make you a fit person and better off over term, do it.

Nole (34:22.2)
Hmm. It's not really a fair question to throw at you like that because it is such a huge, broad topic. And just like you highlighted some of the like there's so much to talk about in this. I'll just give my opinion on it and then we got to move on because our good friend Randy had a really good question that kind of ties into all this that we should talk about before we close. But my thoughts on Reta, I have no personal experience. I'm not a scientist. I've done a little bit of research on my own. I am with you.

on the guy that needs to lose a decent chunk of weight and using that to start out as like a kickstart, there is an aspect of losing that much weight that it does or has the potential to motivate you to then get back into the gym to start eating healthier. And it can be helpful in that. I don't know long term if there's any side effects, if they're going to discover it does other things. Who knows? I don't know. I would be concerned about where you're getting it from and all that kind of stuff. But again, I'm not in that pipeline. I have no idea how any of that works.

I do have serious reservations about guys who appear to be taking it just to get shredded. I'm not a shortcuts guy. I don't I don't think they're ever a positive thing if we're looking for a pill or a shot or something that shortcuts something. I think there's other ways to go about it that are safer and healthier. And so I I do see a lot of

guys in our line of work who are already basically fit guys using it to strictly get shredded. And I'm I'm against that. I don't think that that's a good idea. I don't think that it's necessary. I think that it's it's taking a shortcut that you don't need because if that's your goal, which honestly it shouldn't be, but that's personal. But if that's your goal, like there's other ways to achieve that. Granted they're harder. I mean it appears to be working.

It appears to do exactly that, which is why it's appealing. But I think there's not enough known about it. And if if that's all you're trying to achieve, I don't think that's a a high enough goal to then take those potential risks because we just don't know enough about it at this point. But that's coming from a guy who's not again, I'm not a scientist. I don't know. But that's how I fe that's how I feel about it. A lot of people have been asking me about that one and other

Kevin (36:33.186)
Yeah.

Kevin (36:39.547)
but I

Nole (36:47.309)
Other peptides in general. That's my opinion on Reta.

Kevin (36:50.302)
Nice. No, I mean y you're not wrong in a sense that I think do I wanna does creatine help? Yes. Does vitamin D help? Yes. Does protein help? Yes. I mean, all those things help. And so you can you can push back and say, well those those are also shortcuts, right? You just need to eat more meat. Well, meat is nineteen dollars a pound right now. You know or what or whatever it may be. Like we're Kenobi and I were joking the other day when we were on carnivore, we couldn't afford carnivore diet today because we were

Nole (37:06.721)
Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Mm. Mm. That's yeah. Yeah. That's a fair point. Yeah.

Nole (37:19.565)
No.

Kevin (37:20.598)
It was it's so expensive right now. And d I got shredded on carnivore because I was just eating meat and eggs and and part of my goal was to g actually lean out and get shredded, and so I did that. so but was that that was ten times harder than probably taking redotretide, right? But I think I think in today's world our food supply sucks, everything has sugar in it. if that helps you avoid

Nole (37:22.329)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nole (37:33.006)
Right.

Nole (37:38.777)
for sure.

Kevin (37:48.099)
This is my personal opinion, the second plate or the fifth slice of pizza and that helps you avoid that and you get better on it. And and there's even reports of people saying that it's lowered some of their addictions, like it helped them stop drinking as much. Dude, so in that sense, yes, I I would say I'm a fan, but yeah, if you're just strictly trying to look bitch and naked, then maybe it's not for you, but I don't know.

Nole (37:52.655)
Yeah.

Nole (38:00.911)
Right.

Nole (38:13.293)
Yeah, and I did state, I did say that it shouldn't be your goal to get shredded. That shouldn't be your only goal, would maybe be a better way to say it. Maybe better reflect how I actually feel about that question. That's not a that's not a negative pursuit because it's it's in a positive direction. And if that's what you're doing and that's what you want to do, you know, I'm not gonna stand here and go, that shouldn't be your motivation. That's not

That's not how I feel about it. I do think that there should be more depth below there that you want to, like you said, work hard and you want to be fit for your job. You want to have longevity so that you can be around for your kids when when you're old and retired, all that kind of good stuff. But if that's part of it, there's nothing there isn't anything wrong with pursuing that.

Kevin (38:51.512)
Yeah. And the real the real yeah. And I think it's real that we all want to feel confident about ourselves. And when I'm leaner and I feel good, like I want my wife to be proud of me, you know what I mean? I don't think that's necessarily wrong if you want that. It just can't be vain, like I'm gonna start taking endless shirtless pictures and posting them on Instagram and seeing how rad I am. No, but like but I d

Nole (38:59.161)
Yeah.

Nole (39:04.334)
Mm-hmm.

Nole (39:13.207)
Yeah Yeah, don't do that.

Kevin (39:16.524)
Do do I wanna stay fit and attractive for my wife? Yes. Do I wanna be good at my job? Yes. Do I feel better about myself, you know, when I am fit and lean? Yes. You know, so I mean that there's all there's a lot of facets to it.

Nole (39:20.143)
Mm-hmm.

Nole (39:30.381)
Yeah. So we have this little group of podcast listeners on Telegram and we we jump in there sometimes and talk about things, episode ideas. And our friend Randy, he brought us a question about I don't know, a week or so ago. And it was around firehouse culture, cooking meals, and kind of what was going on in our spheres and what we thought about it. And

I felt like your answer to his question was my favorite. Both you and Caitlin had really solid answers to that. I felt like they were more balanced than mine. But

To paraphrase the question, it was just that in in firehouse culture, we cook meals, we eat meals together, we clean those meals up together. It's a it's a thing that's done together. And that's tradition, kind of across the board wherever you work. And that is going away where Randy works, and it's going away where we work because guys are on special diets, guys are eating carnivore that are gluten free or whatever.

And they're not wanting to buy into meals and they don't want to cook. And so he felt like that's a dying thing. And he felt like it was a negative thing to lose and wanted to know our opinions on it and how we handled it. So I mean, give me a little bit of of what you said, because I felt like a lot of your answers were were very balanced and well thought out.

Kevin (40:59.64)
Look like I don't even remember what I said, but I think there's there's traditions, right? And if you think back in the day, like the East Coast firemen looks different than the West Coast firemen. Everyone always jokes about that. We we do I think care a little bit more about, you know, the way we look and though how it is. It's just a West Coast thing. But you think about like back in the day, they were making lasagnas with garlic toast and and I think

Nole (41:24.94)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Kevin (41:27.692)
the generations that are coming up are a little bit more health conscious, right? And the reality is there's a lot of us, including me, that have like GI issues. And w how much do you want you say, Hey, we're gonna sit down and break bread together? Well, there's like fifty percent of the crew that can't even have bread, you know? And it's not because they don't want to get fat, it's just as they have a gluten allergy or whatever it may be.

Nole (41:48.131)
They literally can't have bread. Right. Yeah.

Kevin (41:51.213)
And so I think it it's gonna be a challenge going forward. And so but I have just noticed a gigantic difference. I don't see that many pasta bakes that much anymore. I usually see a meat, some sort of carbohydrate, some vegetables or a salad, and that's it, you know? And you see a lot of guys to in our department they're they're bringing in La Croix or a pack of bubbly waters instead of donuts.

Nole (41:59.938)
No, no. Mm-hmm.

Nole (42:06.969)
Yeah, yeah.

Nole (42:14.443)
Instead of donuts, yeah. A hundred percent.

Kevin (42:15.798)
Right. And that's what we're having. Instead of sodas, which used to line the house fridges with sodas, you don't you don't see sodas anymore. You see LaCroix, you know? So that's a good positive trend. But there is something special. I work at a big house and you get one shift a month that you cook. I think there's special something special about putting love into a meal. And then all you guys sitting down as a family and having that meal and then you clean up together and then we play cards afterwards.

Nole (42:23.917)
Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Nole (42:34.209)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (42:44.502)
Now, when I've gone, if I have something specific that I'm trying to work on or I have a goal, and I I have to declare at lineup out loud that I am out for dinner. You know what I mean? But I will absolutely make it a point to like make my dinner and have it prepped and sit at the table with the guys so I can participate in the banter and the stories and the whole thing. And I will always I would always try to chip in and say, if dinner is 15 bucks, I'm putting 15 bucks in the pot.

Nole (43:05.505)
In the camaraderie.

Nole (43:09.742)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (43:13.746)
That means I'm paying double, but that's the cost for me. And especially if I'm going to an overtime to somebody else's house, I'm gonna for sure do that. I have not been blessed with the gift of culinary schools. Skills. People make fun of me all the time because my meals are super basic or lame or bland or whatever. There's some guys that are completely blessed with that and they put so much love and attention into that. I

Nole (43:19.939)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nole (43:27.811)
Me neither.

Nole (43:31.993)
Hm. Same.

Kevin (43:39.243)
I know that for the majority of the time, 80% of the time, especially at home, I try to eat in a certain way and that's effective for me. And so that one meal that he poured his heart and soul into, I'm going to sit down and eat it. Even though it might be spicy and that jacks up my stomach, whatever. It I might be an idiot for that, but I value that family time, I value the tradition, I value that this guy went out and shopped the day before and thought about us and made this whole thing. And so those are my things. I'm like, if you're gonna be out, be out, but don't

Nole (43:51.182)
Right.

Ha ha.

Kevin (44:09.354)
I'd say still be included, like be there, chip in, do the whole thing. I don't know if that if if that's what I said, but

Nole (44:16.803)
Yeah, no, it is. It is because it's what you believe. So you didn't have to remember. And it's what you're living, right? I I love and appreciate the camaraderie aspect of the firehouse. And it's part of the reason why I I came to this job in the first place. And the meals and the preparation and the sitting down and doing that together, playing cards afterward, all of that is a big part of it. And

Kevin (44:20.622)
Mm-hmm.

Nole (44:45.293)
We should not let that slip away as firemen. We do have to get more creative. Our buddy Kalen was talking about this and how he handles it at his or handled it at his previous department and is probably still doing right now. But if there's guys on his shift that have a special diet, like say, for example, there's a guy who's literally eating nothing but plain chicken with no nothing, no salt and a cup of rice, he will take

He will cook a chicken meal for the rest of the crew, chicken Alfredo or whatever, and he'll cook one breast of plain chicken with no salt for his guy so that he can still kind of be in. And I think right. Because he has he has a special diet, right? Which then allows him to either make an entire meal he can eat or to set aside parts of that meal for himself that fit into whatever he's doing. Rand Randy talked about doing a pasta meal.

Kevin (45:25.196)
Or he volunteers to cook. 'Cause Kaylin's on a special diet. I'll volunteer to cook, right?

Kevin (45:38.936)
Totally.

Nole (45:42.364)
And doing a separate batch of pasta for the gluten free guys that was made out of, I don't know, zucchini or whatever. So there's ways to do it. It takes more work and more effort, which is why I think there is an aspect of it where that's kind of going away in certain parts of our department. And we should guard against that. We should keep them alive. And I'm saying that as somebody who is in a station right now where we don't cook. So I'm not keeping that alive right now. The crew that I came into here.

They were already on a program of they would go out and buy their food and cook separately. We're a tiny little house of three guys and they just that's not the culture here where I'm at. There are times when it comes up, Cap in the morning will be like, Hey, you guys want to do a dinner together? And we're all on board. And just like you said, on those days, I will jump in and participate wholeheartedly because now it's a crew thing, it's a camaraderie thing. And who cares what the food is? Like I I don't have to eat

Kevin (46:34.144)
Yeah.

Nole (46:39.629)
keto carnivore that day, it'll be okay. Right. It's not that big of a deal. Because for me personally, I don't have any like like I'm not gluten intolerant. I don't have a lot you know, I don't have a reason except for that I'm just trying to eat a certain way because I feel better and perform better.

Kevin (46:43.552)
It'll be okay.

Nole (46:57.379)
So you gotta find those those lines and it's gonna mean in order to keep that alive as fireman, it's gonna mean a compromise and a little bit more work in order to make sure that it works for everybody. Part of that for me, what you just highlighted, where you have to communicate in the morning, I have not been good at that. And I will I will go sometimes work on overtime at a larger house in my battalion and they'll be talking about a meal and whatever, and I just won't, I'll just be quiet.

I won't say anything. I will pay in like you say like you, like you your overtime, you pay in for the meals. And then when it comes time for the meal, I've kind of gotten my own food. I've prepared my own stuff. I've maybe have already eaten it and I just sit down and hang out with the guys and I just don't make a big deal out of it. Cause I don't want them to try to prepare special food because I'm eating a certain way. But that actually usually works in the reverse because then the cook notices you're not eating his I don't know, whatever, enchiladas. And then you have to explain it then. It's better to just talk about it and go, Hey, this is what I'm doing.

I want to be in, I want to participate. Something you said is you offer to help. Like that's what Kalen does. He offers to cook, you offer to help. So you're trying to be a part of the team and the crew, even though you might not eat the, you know, the casserole or whatever. Which you are right, that is becoming more and more rare in our department. When I first got hired, when you first got hired, the the lasagna was like the

the go to meal for a lot of guys. And I have not seen anybody make that in probably six or seven years. So times are changing. And I think they're changing for the better because we are, we are trying to be more health conscious and getting getting healthier and and not being as overweight as we were talking about at the beginning of the episode. But I think it's worth keeping that tradition alive and not allowing the current trajectory to devolve into what happens at my station, which is everybody brings their own food, everybody does their own thing.

Kevin (48:23.266)
Yeah.

Nole (48:52.649)
last just kind of like last ditch effort, if you're gonna do that or if you're at a station where you do that, I do find value and I'm trying to do this where if my captain and my engineer are preparing food and getting ready to sit down and eat, then that's when I'm gonna do the same. And at least we sit at the table and eat together. Because that can go away too. And then the next thing you know, you're just, you know, you're just ships passing in the night. You you're all doing your own thing and that that is less good.

Kevin (49:07.446)
Yeah, you gotta go together.

Kevin (49:18.956)
I don't like it. I just say I don't like it when I go to a station and they're like, we just go to Sprouts and we have our own thing and then everyone eats on their own time. I just don't like it. I just I I've I've come to I maybe I'm institutionalized, but I I I recognize the fact how unique it is that my boss is gonna cook for me and that like, hey, we're gonna sit down and what inevitably happens with a group of nine, ten guys

Nole (49:27.821)
On their own time. Right. Right.

Nole (49:38.607)
Mm.

Kevin (49:44.003)
Is that stories come out, laughter happens, things happen. And so I I enjoy that because I think that's what we will remember in this job. It's like you've heard these retirees say, I'll miss the clowns, but not the circus. And there's nothing but clowns talking about clown stuff that always happens at dinner when we're there. And so I think that's fun. And so I make it a point, but there's the great Stan Efferdine, who I'm a big fan of.

Nole (49:45.657)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nole (49:55.161)
Hmm. Yeah.

Kevin (50:10.474)
He's he just said like one of his rules and he's in his late fifties and he's a complete monster. but he said you just cannot eat like an a hole every meal. So if you had donuts for breakfast, you cannot then have burgers for lunch with fries and pizza for dinner and ice cream afterwards. Right. And so I I know that like I can control what I eat off duty, which is

Nole (50:16.323)
Yeah.

Nole (50:32.515)
With soda at every meal.

Kevin (50:39.266)
the majority of my time. And then I can control whether I'm fasting in the morning. Nobody cares if you're eating breakfast in the morning or not. Like so I usually fast. Lunch, I usually have like a can of tuna or chicken and some rice. Nobody cares. Right. And then dinner is whatever. I've controlled n 80 to 90% of the meal. Right. And then I can have the nobody would care either if you had ice cream or not afterwards. And so for 10 days a month,

Nole (50:40.76)
Right.

Nole (50:46.945)
Right.

Nole (50:56.335)
Mm-hmm.

Nole (51:00.675)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin (51:09.078)
one t one meal out of four or five I'm gonna eat with the crew. And that's how I rationalize it. Knowing that goes back to the first part of the conversation, if I put in enough work through the week, I could I could go over calories, I can get outside of my comfort zone on one meal to be a part of the family.

Nole (51:15.076)
Yeah.

Nole (51:27.651)
Yeah. No, I think that's very good, very balanced. So if you're listening to this, go ahead. Tell me.

Kevin (51:31.81)
But you gotta watch yourself though.

Because I've noticed there was a fact right when we got on, I felt like it was normal and people totally normal. If you had McDonald's egg sandwiches or pancakes or you had a giant burrito and then you had burgers and fries with dessert afterwards, like that's normal. And I do feel like that when you came on and you started doing what was it? Keto or something. That people were like, What the hell is this? you know.

Nole (52:01.252)
I started with keto, yeah.

Nole (52:05.699)
Ha ha.

Kevin (52:06.24)
How could you just eat fat or whatever? And and now that's that's very commonplace, right? It's pretty commonplace. So anyways, I think that's in a positive direction, but I think it is up to us to kind of continue those traditions. And I should probably get better at cooking. I'm not great at it. But if you had a protein, a carbohydrate, and a and a veggie, you can't go wrong. Tri tip rice, salad, and you're good.

Nole (52:12.621)
Hm. Yeah.

Nole (52:33.773)
Yep. That works every time. Sixty percent of the time.

Kevin (52:37.325)
Mm-hmm.

Nole (52:39.599)
All right, if you're listening to this and you've got a buddy you know needs to dial in an area of his life, whether it's he's overweight, he's drinking too much, he's got some area of his life where discipline is lacking, think about it. It might be the right thing to talk to him about it and go, hey man, what do you think about this? What's going on? I see this, I feel like this is hurting you, and you know, can I help? Can I encourage you? If that's you, it's time to start getting disciplined. It's time to start taking action and taking this thing seriously.

Your body is a temple and we should be living like it, especially if you're one of most of our audience who's a first responder, who's a fireman. It's it's non negotiable.

Kevin (53:22.86)
It's a non negotiable. And I will say if you're just a an average Joe, a regular guy who has let themselves go and has no idea where to start, I would say after every meal, just start, put your put your shoes on and go for three ten minute walks after your meal. That's it. All you gotta do, put your shoes on and go for three ten minute walks after your meal. And I think that's a starting point. I also really believe

Preparation is everything. If I tell myself tomorrow I'm gonna wake up early and run, I better put out my running shoes, my socks, my shorts, my shirt. I have my headphones charged. I got it all lined up so that I feel like it makes zero excuses when I wake up and I'm prepared and I put that on immediately, then I just go I do that so much better if I am prepared. So plan your day, literally prep for your day, and then go out and get it.

Nole (54:20.479)
Amen. If I go to my cupboard in my house and there are Oreos in there, I will eat the Oreos, regardless of what other snacks are in there. I need a snack. If I go to the cupboard in my house and there are no Oreos in there, but there's like macadamia nuts and beef sticks, Duke's beets beef sticks, guess what I'm gonna eat? The macadamia nuts are the beef sticks. That's also preparation.

Kevin (54:26.838)
Mm.

Kevin (54:44.27)
Mm-hmm.

Nole (54:46.445)
So you might need to remove some things from your grasp. Because if you're anything like me, when it's snack time, I get weak. So don't allow yourself to even have that option. We've said enough.

Kevin (54:59.47)
We've said enough. This has been the Fire You Carry Podcast.

Nole (55:04.983)
I always spring that music on you without warning.

Kevin (55:07.17)
I love it.

Nole (55:16.931)
Thank you guys for listening. Thanks to Randy, Kaylin, Cliff, all the other guys who have reached out to us about that episode for driving us to do a little bit more of a deep dive. Hope you enjoyed it. We would love for you to continue reaching out to us, giving us your ideas of things we should talk about, stuff you're curious about, especially if it's something that you think might be difficult for us to answer. Those are the most fun. So reach out to us with that. We are still looking for podcast guests. We've got a couple recommendations from some of you.

That we are working on getting on the show. So we appreciate that. We absolutely love you guys. We are endlessly grateful for the fact that you're listening means everything to us and keeps us going doing this thing that we still love. we haven't asked for that in a while. Yes, leave us a review.

Kevin (55:58.498)
Leave us a review.

Kevin (56:03.928)
Go on the iTunes, go on the Spotify, go on wherever you're listening to, and leave us a review. It helps get us to other people. Thank you, guys. Till next time.

Nole (56:10.733)
Yes, yes.

Nole (56:15.735)
Where's the stop button?