Well hello ladies and gents. Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com And today I've got special guest Hannah on the line. Hannah and I have worked together in the past. She has gone through a reverse diet with me. She has experienced a pretty, pretty significant transformation journey herself. She was struggling with anorexia. She got down to 87 lbs. So she was walking 23 miles a day from an exercise standpoint to keep her caloric expenditure up to maintain that incredibly
low weight. So we dive into that. We talk about the psychology of food and activity and how she was able to overcome that. We talk about her son, whom she shares many parallels with because he's also struggled with obsessive tendencies and he's going through some changes at the moment. So how she's taking an approach towards parenting him, some lifestyle factors and what she's found to work well for her to implement with him.
One of which being getting out in nature and simply being more present with your surroundings, disconnecting from the distractions and getting back to our roots. So we talk about a lot of things in this podcast. This is a pretty emotional podcast and it was incredibly transparent with things. We actually talked for quite some time after the recording stopped and she opened up even more so. I hate that we didn't get that on on audio, but I have no doubt that it will take something from
this. I'm incredibly proud of the journey that she's on the gun, and I'm incredibly excited for her son to get through these hardships and be stronger on the other side as a result of it. So without further delay, sit back, relax, enjoy the conversation with my good friend Hannah and we are live. Hannah, how are you? I'm good. I'm excited to be chatting with you today. So we've worked together. We've corresponded via e-mail for quite some time. What where did we originally meet?
Was it through a conference? It was social media, Yeah. No, no. It was about two years ago. I had needed a health coach to help me reverse diet out of some anorexic behaviors that I've had. And you helped me gain the confidence and reverse dieting and building actually muscle and reducing cardio activity to to better my life and have a better like longevity and and and actually be a better mom overall.
Because we know that the better I felt and the healthier I was, the better my my mental capacity was to to take care of my family as well. So we met when I reached up to you to be a coach. And that was two years ago now. About two years ago, yeah. Previously, actually. Crystal and I were in the same Facebook group, and so I knew
Crystal before I knew you. Yeah, I feel like we corresponded on social media for a little while before we'd ever started working together as a coaching client relationship. Yeah, yeah, we were. We were chit chatting a little bit on social medias as well. And just to like I've had a few people on the podcast that have struggled with anorexia that have had various forms of disorder eating tendencies. I've been open about how I've struggled with that.
Can you kind of get the listener just some back story on what that has looked like for you so they can kind of so we can kind of set the stage there? Yeah, so I am. I am 39 as of a week ago, but I started my family at a very yeah, thanks. I feel it. They say 40s, not good and life changes at 40, but I still feel pretty young and and adventurous. But yeah, so I had my family at a very young age.
I met my husband in college and we had kiddos, right, right through our junior and senior year of college life. And so we hit the ball running pretty fast. So my anorexic wasn't even then. It was prior to prior to that, it was high school when you wanted to compare yourself to other other girls and you wanted to be a showcase, you know, stuff like that. So in high school I did a lot of binge and purging and I wasn't, I wasn't anorexic, but I I did that kind of modality to stay thin.
When I became a mom, I I took my pregnancy as a priority. And I ate and I ate and I ate and and I and I nursed and I got some of the weight off. But I was never that image that I had as a homecoming queen back in high school. And so I desperately wanted that. And I knew that there was one way to do it, and that was cardio. And so I started to do cardio to kind of get away from being a mom at sometimes, you know, it can be overwhelming at times since that was just my little my
peace and quiet time. And it it kind of became more of an obsession than anything. And I think that's the slippery slope was that five didn't become enough. It became 10 and 10 didn't become enough, it became 20. And I was walking literally 23 miles just at first. It was to compensate for what I was eating, but also just to find relief and stress as a stress reliever.
So how could you give up something that made you feel good and you came back and could be a better mom, You know, because you could clear your head off versus strength training and stuff like that. So I became really a cardio Bunny for a good five or six years, and I whittled down from 135 lbs to 87 lbs. And I stuck at 87 lbs for about two years as well. And then my health went real, real bad. And so that's kind of the and the the. This kind of expanded now over
about 10 years. To be honest with where I I struggled with gaining confidence in myself and doing it the right way. So kind of from the top here. When you were in like high school and you were trying to, you know, look a certain way, did you, did you have any negative relationship with food at that point or was that kind of, like not really on the floor nobody? Yeah, nobody taught me about macros in in high.
In high school it was about fat free and so as long as you ate fat free food or you stayed away from like certain object of like you know pizza and stuff like it, you would blot your pizza from fat. So that was more of like the technique I did versus understanding the principle of how your body and the mechanisms work for hormones and for an
optimal life, you know. So it was just misinformation back in like the early 90s, You know that that I I engraved in my head and that narrative lasted a long time even when I started working with you and you had me on a very high fat diet that that was a struggle. And I could think it for a lot of people who want to lose weight and to say that you have to eat, you know, a higher fat diet to feel your hormones kick
back in, that's hard. And that with that rewiring for someone who's anorexic is extremely difficult. Yeah. And then when you were in college and going through your pregnancy, what was what was your weight prior to the pregnancy? Do you recall? I was about 1:15. 115 and how tall? Are you?
Yeah. And then and then about 55. 55 And then as you were going through your pregnancy, did you gain like a healthy amount of weight as far as pregnancies go, or do you feel like you were above and beyond that? I was maybe 5 or 10 lbs over and it it was just hard to lose it afterwards because like you had kids and people say that you'll lose weight nursing and stuff like that.
But I lived in the UP of Michigan and it was cold and it was hard to to raise kids and lose weight and I never strength trained and you didn't want to go out and run and walk up like you know in the snow. So it was that period of time was I I held on weight for a long, too long of a time after my pregnancy that I started losing the love for myself. Like I just was looking back at the my old self and wishing I was that I wish I was that I wish I was that, you know.
So I struggled with with being self confident in myself. I've obviously never been pregnant, so I don't want to speak out of turn here. But I've talked to him with Crystal about this quite a bit and I can totally see how there's so many parallels between being pregnant and going through a a competition prep like you see or by transform you. You learn to like how you look and feel at a certain composition and then you do something that is counter to that.
And it's it's just really hard bridge to cross when you don't look the way you know you could look. But you know that in looking the way you are currently, it's for your betterment in some sense. And obviously, if you're pregnant, you know, you're you want to fuel the fetus, you want to make sure your nutrition, your micronutrients, your macro nutrients are dialed in. You're taking in total enough calories to begin with. So you don't want to hinder that
process by any means. But then after that pregnancy is over, returning back to a weight that you feel good about is a whole another psychological process. But society doesn't really do us any favors. And this is kind of what I've talked to Crystal about. Like it's viewed as this badge of honor so to speak when you you know, have have a baby give birth and you like immediately return to your pre pregnancy weight like like society pushes
that on a lot of people. But if you actually stop and think about what your body just accomplished and the the internal changes in trauma to some extent that happened there, like it doesn't really make sense to rush that process unnecessarily. I agree 100% and I and I wish I knew that and I was just so young. I was a mom at 20 and people are at 20. They're they're they're probably one of their prime, you know
stages of life. And I just had a baby and I was overweight and I didn't think that I I deserve to look the way I did at that age. Yeah, I could definitely see how that would be hard as well. Like if you're having a child that early on when all of your peers or you know fit, trim and looking their best so to speak and then you just had a baby and you're trying to return back to that, you have even additional societal pressure based off of your age demographic.
So yeah, that would be. That would be tricky for sure. That's exactly so my 20s is when I just I put my body through hell. You know, I I I did not cope with it well. And so I lost. And I'll I'll, I'll probably share too much information but I've I've lost my my my menstruation my my period and never got it back ever since. Because I I was in exchange I dropped the weight I got down to 87 lbs. But I trashed my hormones so bad when I did the Dutch test.
I mean like it burned all the way up to my adrenals. Not only did it burn out all my sex hormones, I browned out my adrenals and my cortisol and I sat at that for two years thinking that was my badge of honor. Would I know why? Because I fit in a size 0. And. But when the lower my my weight went, my mental health dropped. Oh my gosh, I had such I had low, low patience. I was irritable all the time. I was. I was so focused on myself.
And then I and I and I started to like becoming obsessive about everything. It was just, can I, can I can I maintain this? My body was telling me to like, really desiring to eat again. But it was like I felt it was a badge that I could go longer. I could I It was the endurance I could. I could be a mom and size 0 at 20, you know. Well, this is my kids are getting older. When I was, you know, had burned out all my hormones and adrenals at this point.
But yeah, like what you were saying, like, society paints it as a badge of honor. And I wore that badge. I wore that badge with like, dignity. And and so reverse dieting out to get me to like five more pounds, It was like you're stripping. You're stripping me away from my honor, you know? And so. So somebody who is anorexic, they struggle with like the fear of of looking a certain way. And I needed a coach, I needed somebody like you. Who? Who? You. You, you.
You related with me because you said trust me. And it's like I've heard that before. But when somebody who's gone through it themselves say, trust me, you can put a little bit more faith into them. Yeah, reverse dining is no, it's no easy task. I mean, I'm reverse dining right now and I'm not coming out of near the deficit that you were in, but it's it's it's not easy and I definitely want to dive deep into the whole concept of
reverse dieting. So you went through your pregnancy, you said you were 115 or so when you got pregnant. What did you get up to? You know my when I was pregnant, it was like 155 and then I dropped down to 135 and I hung out at 1:35 for a long time. But 135, it looks different and depend on your your, your composition. You know if you're 135 and muscular versus 135 and have a lot of like body fat percentage, you're going to look different.
And I'll tell you at 1:35 it was there was no muscle. I never strength trained in my entire life until I met you and and my husband is always, you know, tinkering around with, like getting me to strength train, 'cause that's what he does. He's like, you know, you could be a higher weight and look better if you strength train, but I was still stuck on the cardio narrative that that's the way you do it. Can you define?
Well. Actually before I said when when you went from the 1:35 to the 87, how much time elapsed between that transition? That was probably in 18 months. It went fast. It went fast because when you walk in that much every day. And it wasn't just that I was cutting calories too. So you're not only burning more energy doing that, I was eating a lot less. And I I wasn't. I was eating salads. I was retracting your. Intake at all at that point or
just eating intuitively? I was eating in Tubuli, but then my husband wanted me to start reducing my steps because I literally did get up to like 23 miles a day, every day, and he was trying to get one mile off one mile. So he bought me a fitness tracker, which actually did me
someone who's anorexic. It you become so obsessive about that that if I didn't get my number in, I would wake up in the middle of night to do 2 more steps, you know, even even though I know I was trying to reduce it, it felt like I needed to finish it, you know? And so when I, when I found out how many cows I was brewing, walking, that's when I started
tracking my food. And so I was just like, OK, I will only eat the food that I walk, not realizing that you have a, you know, your basal exactly, you know, you have. There's other factors that nobody taught me that, you know, you're just taking all these informations from, you know, you know, the people that say, oh you know, just walk 10/10/10 thousand steps. And so I would do that.
And you're just taking pieces from, you know, everybody, but not understanding the, the reason behind it or like how the body works. So back to your question, is that, like, yeah, I I was tracking myself, but then I thought I could hack it and I was like, OK, if I, if I burn, you know, 1700 calories, then that's all I'm going to eat for that day. And so I didn't know that I was actually in a deficit. And so weight, weight did drop off really, really fast. But you know, it wasn't, it
wasn't body fat. I had really bad muscle atrophy through the whole process too. When I was going through the recovery stage, I didn't know how how bad it was. When I was losing, I was, was it, was it catabolic when you start to lose muscle? Yeah, yeah, I was. My my muscles just went to nothing. You saw bones. I think I was teasing you a little bit and asking the ask me anything things.
I was just like, so when a female is like really vascular, are they like underweight or are they just like, you know, maybe dehydrated? You know I was just trying to justify everything and you got on and asked me anything and you just like tore me a new one. You didn't know it was me, but like I you did. But you answered the question and it kind of put me in place because I was wait, I was, I was looking for somebody to justify that it was okay, you know and
and clearly it wasn't. Well, I mean, I look at like the, this is a little bit of a tangent, but like vascularity, I mean there's a lot of different factors that impact vascularity. Some of it's genetics, some of it is definitely fluid retention, some of it is age, like the your skin gets thinner as you age, which showcases more vascularity.
But I definitely have significantly more vascularity walking around when I'm sub 5% body fat and that that point is going to be different for males and females obviously. But there's a point. You sent me some pictures and you had more vascularity than I do when I'm at 5% body fat and I'm like, this is not the ideal picture of health for you. So we got to embrace not having as much vascularity. So yeah, what what does 23 miles a day look like in a step count?
Because you you said 23 miles a day, twice now. I don't even think people, that's like a a freaking marathon almost every single day. So. Yeah. I mean, like, I, I, I, I wake up around 3:00 in the morning every day and I'll get food and things around for the house. And then I'm, I'm out the door walking, you know having a cup of coffee in me. And so I'm caffeinated and I and I, this is, this is me. You know, two years ago I would walk about 8 to 9 miles every morning.
First I'd come back, I'd take my kids to school. You know, this is when they were past the baby stage and stuff like that. And I was then I then I went back and walked another 5 miles. Then I would come back and like take another break and and so I would walk in like anywhere between like 5 to you know, like pretty much five to Six Mile segments at a time. But you don't have a life.
Your whole life is walking. And that's what it became an obsessiveness for me. It was just like I just walked and walked and walked and people would say, hey, you want to go have coffee. It would only be between like I was like I have 30 minutes before I have to walk again, you know? Or I would set up like play dates or like, you know, mom says OK, but let's let's bring strollers or let's let's walk while we do it. I was secretly adding my steps and like around my my social
activities. So you get 23 miles in when you when you strategize it. It was I was like I said it was. It was an an unhealthy mental state doing that. Were you having any like physical implications like joint pains, knee pains? Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. My ankles would give out a lot. My knees would be would be chronically if I if it would get
like too hot. I live in Arizona so I would walk on the treadmill and sometimes when you hold on to like the bars and stuff like that it's not a natural stride. So I would get lower back problems and I have a very high pain tolerance and so my my dopamine would kick in. It would be more rewarding that if I walk the steps than to feel the pain. Like the trade off was was greater. Like I felt more rewarded that I walked. What?
Yeah, you're saying all these things and I can totally relate with you, like when you become obsessive towards a thing and I just experienced this with my prep. But like the things you do habitually throughout the day, nobody else would make any sense of. Like, nobody understands that. They don't understand why your brain thinks that way. But like, if you don't do it, you it's totally an obsessive compulsive disorder. And I have OCD really bad anyways.
So like, I can kind of leverage that to my advantage in a prep, but it can also rear its ugly head in unhealthy ways if I am not conscious of it. So you saying these things like, I 100% understand where you're coming from, but a lot of people probably don't like if they're not living in that way, it's hard to imagine having these compulsions.
I would like to, I would like to touch on about that a little bit because that did affect our marriage at one point where my husband wanted like to go like go out to the movies and I had to finish walking. You know, I was so obsessive about getting the steps in that I was sacrificing relationships over it, you know, and and same with my kids. You know, like they they want to sit down and watch a movie and I'm like, no, I'm going to go walk. And they're like, I don't get it.
You're you're picking, walking or hanging out with us. But yeah, that that's where that that was a state. I had my family had asked and this is, this is an uninteresting thing. They were they were desperate to get their mom back at 80, at 80, you know, like low like upper 80s, you know, being my weight. They saw that I was I need help. And so my husband gave a challenge. He's like, yeah, he's like Hun if you get to 100 lbs, no, sorry, it was 110 lbs. He's if you get to 110 lbs.
I will shave my head. My husband worked for like a big a big company I won't say what it is but and he's on video conferences all the time you know and so he would be seen with a shaved head and he knows that I'm I'm a game player like I'm very competitive and I said game on and for. So my anorexic brain changed off and said I will gain I'll gain 110 lbs to see your head shaved. So I did it, but I did it the wrong way. You know, I I ate and and I was
on a carnivore diet. I didn't binge eat on pizza and things like that. But I was very, very high fat. I gained the. I didn't gain any muscle, it was all fat. And then as soon as he shaved his head, I dropped it right back off because I knew how to I I I did a lot of biohacking, you know, I did a lot of cold plunges. I knew how to drop my calories. I knew how to work with my ratios and stuff like that.
So yeah, so my my family, they tried for a long time to help heal me and so that the healing didn't come about until actually about maybe a year ago. So I've been living this kind of cycle, this this knowing, knowing I need to be healthy, knowing that people want me healthier. But I didn't know how to do it. And I mean, I I had you as a
coach for a little bit of time. You gave me the pieces and the information, but it really, when it comes to somebody, it's the person that has to do it. I mean you you could give me all the the perfect setup and you gave me actually a weight training schedule and I started that too. But you have to have the internal drive to do it. You know, the person has to make the change. So that's kind of where the story changes actually. And it was my son, not my husband, that changed my whole
perspective on health. So I don't want to take over the conversation, but yeah, So what happened was about a year, a year ago I I was tinking around in the gym. You know, I was learning how to strength train, but I wasn't taking it serious. I still prioritized walking over strength training, but my son had a an onset with last year of of of a mental health condition and this is becoming a new thing that is becoming a little more public. It's not a new sorry, it's not a new thing.
It's becoming new to the public. It's pans or pandas, and oftentimes people think that is related to having strep. If you have get sick and you get strep, your autoimmune system will attack the brain, you know, as an inflammation. And so people would if you tested positive for strep, then
you had pandas. But your autoimmune system can get triggered by myotoxins, biotoxins, you know, the world that we're living in is so there's so much stress on the body, so you can trigger it to to to to get inflamed. And so that happened to him. Unfortunately, last Christmas we came back from a Colorado trip and we started noticing changes in him and he had his autoimmune system attacked, his attacks his brain now, and so he's been diagnosed now with Pans.
But it was through his story and his struggles that I knew that I need to get to be a better mom. And so, like, his story is a whole another interesting thing. If did, if you wanted to go down that rabbit hole, we can or if you wanted to wrap up my story. But I got, I got healthier knowing that I needed to be a stronger and capable mom to take care of him. And so I started gaining weight and it wasn't fat, it was
actually muscle. I have gained from like the 8089 lbs to like currently at 109 lbs and and I would say I I put on a lot of muscle I sent. Have I sent you the pictures yet recently of of of my new like body composition? I haven't seen any of the recent ones. You'll definitely have to sit. I'll put them in the show notes. Yeah, yeah. So people can see my before and
after pictures. And I have to say, for somebody who who didn't believe that you could gain weight and look good, that was my selling point when I switched to walking. So I dropped from 23 miles. Now I still have some to drop since I've talked to you last, but I'm down to 7 miles. And that took me. That took me about 3 years to drop. It was a slower process, but I switched to like strength training and most people say that this could be over overtraining too, but it gave me
an outlet. I was able to drop my my walking if I could justify it with something else. And that something else was getting out in the garage and lifting weights and I cried. I cried every day going out there. I was like, I wanted to desperately walk and to say that I was done lifting weights in like 45 minutes and saying that was enough when you're used to walking your entire day, let me tell you, you did not want to eat. You felt like you didn't deserve to. Eat.
And so I had to retrain my brain saying that like, if I want to build muscle, if I want to be healthier, if I want to change my composition, I know I have to actually feel strong, be ready to lift in the gym, be ready to take care of my son, you know, being fuelled. So that was the, like I said, that was a big transition. Is is reducing my steps and believing that strength training will make me happier. I have become more optimistic over the time since I've been
strength training. I'm I'm literally like, I I have more time in my day. I picked up different activities. I'm outside, you know, still I don't have to give up my walking, but I'm outside just, you know, playing around, you know, and it's it's definitely more enjoyable life. It gives me more freedom. I love that. I love it.
Yeah, Strength training. Plus it makes like once you accept the fact that you know like when you're trying to cut weight, cut body fat, just cut weight in general fit into smaller clothes. Like the whole fixation becomes becomes a scale like like seeing a lower number on the scale
becomes the end all be all. But when you recognize that building muscle if you're starting from a healthy composition or a you know if you're if you're starting in a place that is not consisting of a ton of over body fat weight then any increase in the scale can be viewed as a positive because that is hopefully coming from additional lean tissue.
So it it is definitely a shift in mentality when you view the scale going up as a positive, but once you recognize that and can see the correlation between that and improved performance in the gym, it makes seeing that increasing scale weights so much more acceptable in the mind. Yeah, one of the things I had to because I am fixated on numbers, I had to switch to a like something that showed body fat percentage because when I saw the weight going up I wanted to sabotage myself.
I was a quick like, I can fix this by dropping the weight. When I was like when I broke £100 was a huge hurdle for me, like I psychologically could not get over to 101 and I would drop back to 97 lbs and I felt 97 was like my plateau because it was just under 100. You know, I was almost there but I wasn't like I didn't think I was fat, you know I wasn't 87 or 89 lbs you know, so I wasn't as skinny. So I sat there for a long time and that would that would was
really, really hard. That 100 LB mark was it was the hurdle to get over for me. Before you started seeing the benefits of the weight training and you were at the lighter weight of 87 lbs, how did you feel about the way you looked at that weight? Like did you feel that you looked good? Did you feel like there was a certain look that? You hadn't seen I felt. I felt like I looked good, but I deleted every photo on my phone or any, and I would not let anybody take pictures of me at
that weight. But I felt like I here's the thing, I don't think everybody could handle that weight. So I felt like I was tough or I had a lot of like grit or I had a lot of like, you know, I felt like a warrior. Almost like I felt like even though I looked sick and like gangly and gone, heck, I could do something that half the world can't do, you know, Like I felt like it was, it was, it was a badge. It was, it was, it was an honor
to be that, that that light. I didn't feel good doing it, but mentally I felt like I've accomplished something. Does that? Does that sound weird? No, because I get the same way when I when I do a prep. So I totally get it. How do you feel now that you have started the weight training and you are over 100 lbs and you're looking at pictures of you now versus then?
How do you feel like if you're trying to be objective and unbiased and take the emotion and the feelings of grit out of it when you're just simply looking at the pictures, how do you feel about how the two compare? I actually think I look younger now. I think I think I look stronger. I think I look healthier. My daughter like idolizes me more now. You know she thinks it's it's it's she she she high fives me.
You know that you know when I step on a scale and I tell her a higher number you know and it's because she knows that it's not. She looks at me and and I mean I still have very low body fat percentage and you still see ABS in me and stuff like that. But like she high fives me when the number goes up because that means more muscle. That means more like my hormones are restoring and stuff like that because I do have a higher a little bit higher body fat percentage.
So they're cheering me on, which so when I look at the pictures, I see her happier. Me, not just physically, but you see it in the smile too. That like I am more confident, you know, and and what I am. That's awesome. I definitely get into your son's store, but before we do, the fact that you have kids that saw you at your lightest weight and unhealthiest place before you made this transition, like what were their thoughts towards it? Like, did they?
I know they would get frustrated when they, you know, you would go for a walk instead of sitting down and watch the movie with them. But what was that relationship like when you were at your unhealthiest? This is this is the hard part. This is the part that like I try not to have a lot of remorse. You know, you make decisions in life and you kind of learn from, you learn from your mistakes. I think about this a lot because I was gone walking or planning
on so much cardio stuff. My two kids played with themselves a lot, you know, like you know they became best friends. And I I was, I was an absent mom. I mean, yes, I was a stay at home mom but I was on a treadmill, you know while instead of playing a board game with them or you know you know being at an event you know, a sporting event, I had to walk instead. So I think they missed their
mom. I feel guilty looking back that I I chose that over being a part of their life And now now my daughter's graduating this year and I I mean any opportunity I can like I I want to make up for it now but you can't you can't reverse time. You know it it it passed.
But I can move forward and there's so much more to look forward to. So helping my son and like like I said that that's my inspiration now is because he's still he's still in high school he's he's in 10th grade and he and I still have that time with him in the home and so yeah, that I'll leave it at that. Yeah, I mean you definitely, you can't go back and change, change what happened.
But I feel like knowing what you know now, you'll appreciate every moment you have with them all the more and not take it for granted, which is powerful in and of itself. Yeah. So talk to me about your son. So we we've got his situation, which has empowered you to improve your situation. And what have you found out exactly about his situation? Like what is what is the nuts and bolts behind this this diagnosis?
Yeah, so like I I I mentioned before I plateaued about 100 lbs and it was still not enough to like make my hormones kick in and things like that and and be the optimal person that I needed to be. Realistically, I still needed to gain some more weight. I mean, anybody would argue anybody 55 shouldn't be 100 lbs, right?
And I got stuck. And so something that tragically happened was was my son he, I, I, I keep beating around the Bush because it's an emotional it's a very emotional story for me. He was a normal kid. I want everybody to understand like I had the perfect set up family. Like nobody that could love me or or as much as my family does. We travelled the world. We you know, we we have a stable life you know and we live in beautiful Arizona. I I mean the only problem was my
obsessiveness. Other than that, our family had been blessed until this happened and we don't really have an explanation how it happened. But after Christmas we just saw a regression in my son and his, his mentality and his like. He started withdrawal from himself, from social events and from school and from all his activities. And so we know, we know that, you know, through puberty, boys
and girls can act differently. So we kind of brushed it on the table and then we started noticing OCD and anxiety kicking in. And I noticed it because I have it, you know, a little bit of that obsessiveness, you know, walking and things like that. And so we kept an eye on him, but then things just kept escalating and getting worse and worse and worse. He, you know, he started having food inversions, you know, and stuff like that.
I mean, like for somebody like me who's anorexic, you pick up on those signs real fast. You know, when he's not eating this much and he's a little guy, you know, and which caused insomnia, you know, when he had a lot of, like, anxiety at school, anxiety with, you know, whatever he's not, he's not talking to us as much anymore. We were trying to figure him out and we got misdiagnosed with his condition for 11 months.
And so his anxiety got him into an inpatient facility for 18 days and that was very traumatizing for him and me as a mom losing my my son to he, he couldn't control his obsessive behaviors that caused harm to himself mostly not to anybody else. And during that time I I was at a low, I was at a real low myself. So my husband agreed that it would be OK if I took a quick break to regain my my composure and and to be a better mom.
When he when he got out that I went on, I think I mentioned to you this and in an e-mail I went on a hunting trip, a solo hunting trip. It was I was the only female among like 8 or 9 guys and was on the the border of Canada and they taught us how to like you know like scope and we haunted and we did a kill and this kill was was the turning point in my my life and got me over my house the £100 and to pursue and to really fight for my son. You're a hunter, right?
I mean you've told us stories in your podcast and and and how how there's like there's that slow, there's the stalking, there's the waiting and I'm not one to wait around. You know and I know that in in a health and healing journey you have to sometimes go slow to go fast. It was is that the saying? I don't know. But like there's the that like you have to be mindful. You have to watch. You have to be intentional.
And everything I was going to do from then on had to have a purpose, had to have some sort of like guidance, you know, and and you don't always, just just because it's in line and insight. Do you take the kill? Maybe not. Maybe you wait for the next opportunity. And so that whole hunting experience opened up my eyes. But when we actually did our first kill and we were gutting it, it felt like I was putting to death the old me. I was ready to finally say I
need a rebirth. I need, I need the old Hannah to go down and I need to to to accept that even though this animal is like dead, it can nourish me and it can re repurpose its energy through me and I can become bigger and stronger through this. So I came back from that hunting experience and my son came out of impatient and with the wrong
diagnosis by the way. And we were able to to get him a little bit more help because I felt like I finally clicked in my head that I need to be something bigger and better. And so that hunting trip changed my life. My son went to Michigan for the summer to to his grandma's house to help with his OCD and anxiety and he he found nature as well to be very healing. So the both of us we we.
We don't think that the medical facility, the the medical system for our OCD and our anxiety is cured by drugs per SE and people have their own own opinion on this and you might get some e-mail and I was saying to this you before we were recording but nature heals. It's being grounded again, it's it's relating to where is our primal and intuition supposed to come from. You know, you really start to connect to yourself. I really found Hannah again when
I was back in nature. And I see that my son can come out of some of his problem as his, like, obsessiveness and his anxiety and his flare ups when we take him out on hikes and when. Yeah. And when he comes back and he's back in in in in our home and in our world where there's a lot of video gaming and there's a lot of pressure with school, like, you know, going to school and and making like test scores and being this and that, it really
triggers him. And anybody who has pans knows that like it's an autoimmune disease and it's a cause. There's an inflammation in the basal ganglia and that's your fight or flight stage, you know, and and you can get really aggressive or you can run away from it and stuff like that. But we just know that like the more that we pause, the more that we slow down, the more that we go in nature, the more that
that is the healing part. So that hunting trip helped me understand that That's what my son needs a little bit more too. So we did. We tried to put him in it you know the the medical mainstream healing for him. But we we are now switching over to he's going to actually finish off probably the school year up in Montana on a 500 acre ranch where he can really regain his adolescence again And and and heal Pans is an yeah pans is is it's an it's an evil thing.
It's a very evil thing. Anybody who has like an autoimmune disease, whether it's Hashimoto's or Crohn's knows that like there isn't a cure. You can only go on remission and there's often times that you have flare ups and we know that like he can flare up really easy but we know that we we can we can work with him to reduce that inflammation by really slowing
down. And like I said it goes back to that hunting thing that pausing and that like earthing again and to re reevaluate how fast this world is moving. But we don't have to keep up with it. How was his OCD manifesting itself, if you don't mind me asking? Yeah, that's changed over over
the last year. You know, it started off with, you know, the some of the people who have OCD might be like your like repeated like hand washing or like opening closing doors, you know, And for somebody who was a normal kid, that was definitely like different for him. Then it became an OCD about video gaming. He got really obsessive about video gaming. And if you turn off this computer or the Internet, there was an aggression, like a very strong Rage Against us that we
turned it off and he couldn't. He you're so obsessive about it that like, no matter what gratification you you get, it's never enough. And that's why it's called obsessive. You can never reach that high. You can never reach that that that's a felt, like, remember, like you said that you you would pray, right? You never felt like you could pray enough. And so, like we realized that and he's the teenager. He could never game enough you know to feel that that it was it
was satisfying to him. So for him we we're we're learning that he actually probably has to go cold Turkey and that's why we're sending them up to Montana and and hopefully in a little bit and and where he can relearn coping mechanisms when he feels triggered that he doesn't have to like game or do obsessive habits to to to get back on track. Well, it's so cool. Both y'all like, both his and your stories kind of paralleled
by being in nature. More you with your hunting experience, him with his time with his, you said grandmother, aunt out in nature. But like for me, you know, when I like, I went for a hunting trip for a week after my competition and it took me like 3 days of being there to actually disconnect 'cause I had all this business stuff to catch up on and keep track of. But when you're out there and you allow yourself to fully disconnect, which is hard.
I mean, like we're so tethered to our devices, we get constant notifications via e-mail, social messaging, DMS. It's like we live in this non-stop noise environment and most people never have the opportunity to disconnect from them. Most people aren't blessed enough to have the land that that I'm, that I'm blessed for or blessed with and be able to have that escape. But if you, I mean there's so many national parks, anybody can
go out there, It's public land. But at the same time when you do go out there, when you do truly disconnect and you remove yourself from Wi-Fi networks and social media and pings and DMS, like you really can grasp what is and is not important. And from the hunting perspective for you, you have that on an even deeper level because you can see the circle of life
through to its completion. When you take a life and when you see that harvested animal at your feet take its last breath of air and the the light fade from its eyes like you recognize the finality of life on a whole nother level. Obviously you want to be doing that in a respectful manner. You don't want to just be killing things for the sake of killing things. You want to use that meat, let it nourish your body and complete that circle of life.
But when you do that, you able, you're able to embrace the the simple fact that you are not too dissimilar from that animal. You are on this planet for a finite period of time, You will die. The best thing that you can do with your time here is to add more value than you take. Help others, and then, when your time has come, hopefully be able to pay it forward in some form or fashion.
Just as that animal nourished your body with its meat, the remembrance of you and what you contributed with your time here on earth hopefully benefited others. Like, once you recognize that full circle, your motivation and intentionality and purpose in life totally shifts, and you're able to see things through a much clearer lens than you would ever be able to do if you never allowed yourself that disconnect in the first place. I agree. I I think you just you just nailed it.
That was perfectly and well said for sure. I feel like I can. The The funny thing is my son doesn't like me the most, you know, as a parent, but I am the one that can actually relate with him the most as well with his OCD. And it's like you're saying it's
that full circle. I went through hell in my 20s and 30s and I'm coming out of it and I have that for that foreseen future that he could recover even though it's an autoimmune disease and he's going to have to learn how to to to cope with it. But there is a future. It's a full it's a full circle like you were saying. Like it's not a dead animal if you can reuse and repurpose.
My story didn't end as a dead you know mom, now that I can I can grasp the concept of what health and strength and I'm saying strength not and physical lifting weights, mental strength that I can pass it on and really encourage him. And the hard thing I said earlier was that I felt like I missed a part of my child's upbringing because I was so focused on on walking that this decision sending him away, takes away that time of me being a mom again.
And I had to sit with that. And I had to really, really sit with that and say do I want to try to help him out or do I want nature or do I want him to do it on his own? And it goes back to the beginning of our conversation. Nobody could have made me gain weight. I had to hit my low. I had to make my decision saying I need, I need to feel stronger and do better and be a better mom. So yes, I'm gonna have to give.
And it's a short term residence. It's not like I haven't seen him with the next two years of his life. You know, it's gonna be like a 90 day kind of a reset program for him to finish off school and just to like, you know, recenter. But like, I have to give that up so that he can get his feet back on the ground. And so as a parent you have to make decisions that are going to be hard that what you want, greedy decisions. I want to be his mom now. Like I want to be his mom so
bad. He doesn't want anything to do with me right now because he's, you know, he's a teenager. He wants, he wants his independence, but he's not capable with his OCD and anxiety. And I don't trust the the the medical system right now either. So I have to trust the people who have opened up their 500 acre ranch to to help and I think. That ranch. He's he doesn't want to be here anymore. I think he's at the point where
and that's what I was. You didn't let me tell you I didn't want to get in that garage and lift. But you know that that's the thing you have to do. So I like, I see there's so many parallels. I see him facing his challenges and I'm like in my head. I'm like, I know, I I don't know. I saw you're dealing with something different than I'm dealing with. But like I feel like I can relate. Hun I was like I keep trying to tell him that, but I know he doesn't want to hear from me.
But it's no he it is it going to be easy for him? No. But when he comes out of it is he going to be better? God, I hope so, and I believe so. You know, there's some really good hunting in Montana. You ought to take him hunting. So if you can experience that after after his stay there. You should. I love it. That'd be great. I would. I enjoyed that for sure. Well, I'm excited for him. Oh, go ahead. Does this say are you going to take your son hunting when he gets older?
Oh, for sure, 100%, no questions asked. I mean, my, my, so much of my life has been built on fundamentals that have transcended and bled into every aspect of my life. So, like, my success in business is a direct result of the lessons I've learned from bodybuilding. My success in just being grounded and having a solid relationship with my wife and son and family is a direct result of life lessons I learned by being out in nature, growing up on a farm.
You know, having the work there and just wanting to be a good steward of the land and its resources, like all of these components of my life are built on, you know, what I've learned in nature, what I've learned in the gym, And that's just bleed into everything. So like, yeah, 100%.
I feel like I'll be able to be a much better father for my son and impart many more life lessons onto him by being able to afford him the opportunity to go out in nature, hunt alongside me, get our hands dirty and just do simple things that that everybody should do. You know, everybody should do those things. Yeah, I know you've had a couple guests, you know, in the past that have told their anorexic story or reverse diet in story. But the interesting twist about
this one is is nature. It's how I felt healed and I felt capable finally when I was able to ground back and slowing down and understanding in and I do understand more about macros now. Yes, I do understand about progressive overloads now. Yeah, that's all all all two thumbs up and stuff like that. But what gave me the confidence to get over the 100 lbs is is the nature aspect of it.
It's realizing that I can be healed, I can be healthy, I can be who I am and more confident if I just slow down. Yeah. And I don't need to hear myself. And that's how we're supposed to live. I mean, like, I've had this, this, I've had a similar conversation to this a lot here lately because I'm, I'm getting into the homesteading now I'm, I'm kind of plugging into homesteading local groups about how to raise chickens and lamb
and things like that. And one common denominator I've seen is like these people, they want to be self-sufficient. They want to be able to help others locally and support their neighbor. They want to fuel themselves with quality food that they raise, grow, procure themselves, hunt themselves. And it's like, you know, that that's how we lived as a species 500 years ago. That was just the default. That's just how things work. We would, we would work from sun up until sundown and then we
would sit around a fire. We would connect with our family and loved ones and those close to us. We would share great memories. We would pass those stories up through the the lineage. We would, we would help each other. Like these are all things, these are all core tenets of what it is to be human. And we've gotten so far removed from it by, you know, social
media, the Internet, technology. Not that those are bad things by any means, but if they are brought into our life at the expense of those core tenants, they become a bad thing. They become a distraction. I'm not saying that you should become a monk and and throw away your cell phone, but if you don't make time to incorporate these things that we have been built on as a species, then you're not likely going to benefit from it. I think you're right about that
too, yeah. How easy it is to pick up our phone and scroll versus walking outside and and and like taking the time to breathe the fresh air. It's so easy to watch another episode on TV than to like go climb a tree, right? Or like, you know, practice your shooting and your bow and arrow and things like that. It's it's comfortable on the couch. You know when it's 32° out, when you're walking, you know, no that's not comfortable. But but let me tell you, will
you feel better doing? Which one? Do you feel better sitting on the couch? Do you feel better scrolling and comparing yourself to social media? Because that's what I did. I was looking at old photos of myself all the time and not not feeling comfortable. But when I'm in nature, there's not a mirror out there. What you're feeling is your strengths, your power, what you're capable of. Yeah. And it's so easy to incorporate those things if you put forth a little bit of effort.
I mean, one thing that I've been doing with the family here lately, as simple as it sounds, but it's been like incredibly fulfilling, is I'll come home from work, we'll all have dinner together as a family, which is a rather uncommon thing these days anyways, which is unfortunate. I'll have the fire going in the fireplace with some Native American flute music playing on the speaker like we have ATV. I've never had ATVI.
Don't want ATV. Rigel will not be raised with the TV in the house, so there's just no TV's in the house. So we have that distraction removed, but simply eating together as a family, sitting in front of the fire, listening to Native American flute music like that is is as simple as it gets. But it's been incredibly powerful for me and for the family, and it's like it it it's not a massive time commitment. It just simply takes effort. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I hope somebody else can hear that story too, who feels that like when you come to a crossroad and you don't know how to to to get over that next turtle, consider just consider the alternative And that might be disconnecting and you might grow, you might grow yourself a little bit more. Yeah. Well, Hannah, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to share the story and be as transparent and vulnerable as you have.
I'm incredibly proud of you personally because I've seen and worked with you as you were going through the reverse diet. I saw you when you were at your unhealthiest. I see you now and you just have this increased sense of zeal and vibrancy about you, which I'm incredibly grateful for. I'm excited for your son and what this 90 day stint in Montana will do for him. And I've got no doubt that Y'all will both see it through this and be stronger for it.
And while it may be very difficult to connect now because he he is struggling for his independence and he's finding it hard to relate with you, I guarantee that will mend because you are coming at this with the right intentions and he'll see that. He's got a smart head on his shoulders, I'm sure, and yeah, will be better than ever as a result of all this hardship you're facing now.
Thanks Robert. And you've always been a always been a supporter for me. Anybody who's ever worked with Robert, even if you don't work with you, you've always said if there's anything I can do, let me know. That's like been your tagline and you are to your word on that. I've always been able to reach
out to you and you respond. And so thank you for being my, my backbone and certain areas of my life when I I doubted myself and you, you've been there, you've done that, you knew the struggle and you pushed me through as well. So I thank you for all your coaching that you've done in the past for me. Well, my pleasure. It's been an honor to work with you and to to continue that tagline further. If there's everything I do to
help help, let me know. I happen to have a ranch in southwest Arkansas with great hunting as well. So if you and your son ever need a place to go to have that outlet, you know, just just reach out. That sounds amazing. Well done. I will do that. All right. Take care. Thank you and take care. Have a good one. Yeah. Bye. Bye.