1108. #TFCP - Fitness & Freight!

Like, we got to kind of tackle this stuff head on. And this guy, you know, he's been on the show in the past, but he's continued to embody this lifestyle, and he has really taken this on. And him and I are similar in the sense of, like, we are both former large gentlemen who have since kind of taken control of our health and really saw the benefits of that. So I got my good friend Mike Lombard Trucking back on the show today. He's got the flex. He is ready to rock. You're still muted there, sir.

And, you know, so it's like seeing you out there and then continuing and being committed to that and then now driving more and more awareness to the driver community and everything else with a lot of your efforts, man, I, I, I commend you. It's not easy to do what you're doing out there.

And I was talking about kind of the things that I wanted to do to try to, you know, raise awareness of this driver health epidemic. And so things started to really take form. And so by the time 75 Hard was over, I had my calendar full. So I had another, I had a, I finished 75 hard right towards the end. I did my first Olympic distance triathlon. And then I was already signed up for one in August, like an intermediate distance. And I was. And then I was signed up for the 70.3 half Ironman and Waco. And so I had these things in my calendar that I was looking to perform at and that I was now working and getting.

I had gotten my first, you know, paid content sponsorship through Super Coffee, which is a better for you know, coffee beverage out there that competes with Starbucks. They, they jumped on this and I got that connection because of this mission about driver health. And so they came on the scene and so all these things started to, the mission really started to form during it. So it's like I, I couldn't go backwards because going backwards means I wasn't just letting myself down at the end of the day. It meant I was going to let down these people who found belief in me. And so I kept stacking the calendar and that, you know, the calendar got so stacked that another, you know, somebody else believed in me so much to pay for my race fees to go to Ironman Florida in November.

So it's like, it's just been this, like, once the mission took flight. And that's the thing. When there's mission, when there's purpose behind what you're doing, when it goes beyond just yourself, when the issue's bigger than you, I think it's a. It's a really. It's a driving force that can. That. That can keep you going. Not saying that if you don't have a specific goal and it's just, you know, being the best version of yourself for. I mean, being the best version of yourself to present to the world is probably the most important goal you need. But when there is something, an overlying thing you're chasing that you're trying to solve, and when it has to do with helping people, it kind of takes a whole new form.

I'd actually be losing a bunch of money and how much, you know, takeout and how much bad food I'd be eating, I'd actually be losing money. How.

And so, but I knew that I again the, this whole mission, the reason why I want to go to Iron man and do these events is bigger than me. It has to do with highlighting the driver health epidemic. And recently there's a new non profit that had formed by my good friend Jeremy Ramer, Project 61, which is, which is out here, its sole existence is to highlight this issue and get education and resources to drivers, motor carriers and beyond. And so I, so that had just been starting so it was kind of too late to raise money for Iron Man Florida because it was so short.

But with Iron Man Texas coming in April, I was able to kind of, Jeremy and I were able to form this partnership and so through Iron Man Nation they want athletes, you know this, through this, my journey, you know, my journey, my cause they want athletes to raise money for these events. So I made contact with people at Iron man to you know, figure out how to get this rolling. I submitted the information because they need like all the nonprofits info and everything. And so I have a live link set up. So I start a 12 week Ironman prep going into starting February 1st, because I've already done it. So it's like if you want to do something like an iron man, it could take you a year or longer to really wrap up that baseline fitness.

But I have a 12 week prep I'll start and I'm looking to generate and pump a bunch of content surrounding the training to raise money for Project 61. It's brand new. I mean, so I mean donations haven't been like pouring in, but we've got over $600 raised so far. You know, I've got a goal of 10,000. And the idea is to, is to really highlight this issue because if Project 61 is able to really grow and we're able to get this organization off the ground and funded, we're talking about the opportunity to save lives.

But I think if you're going to go out there and film some content, I think that'd be pretty sick to do something that, what you would do if you were still driving to try and draw those parallels.

But one thing that I think about what I would do, because I'm not gonna lie, the past couple months, especially going towards the end of last year, I've really been kind of yearning get it getting back over the road. And, and I've said it before, I've said it on my show. I don't know if my days of driving are like fully behind me because I. You never know where life might take you and where opportunities could take me. So it's like I'm not completely shut off from that idea of being able to do it, but I would think so I'm trying to piece together how I would train for Iron man over if I was still an over the road driver, which I believe is still doable. And where I'm fortunate is I don't really need to worry about swimming.

I grew up a swimmer, so it's like if I only saw the pool once a month and I did that for when I was on home time, that could probably be suitable. But there is so many things you could do as a driver where if you really wanted to start cycling, you could fit a bike in your truck and you can get one of those trainers that the back tire sits on and you could really depending on your sleeper cab, how you could set it up. You could set up that trainer, you could set up a. But especially because if you're in the Midwest and it's cold or wherever, you could set up that bike inside your sleeper, put a laptop on your dashboard and you could log into Zwift and you could do training rides like on for cycling.

Like you can get a bunch of training rides and that's like. Or if your trailer's empty, you could do it as well. And that would be kind of the level of craziness I would do if I was actually training for an hour because I would figure it out. I would make it happen eventually on A long enough timeline, I would have made it happen because as a driver, I made it happen for marathon. You know, there's. There's five marathons I completed as a trucker. And so I. I figured out that training and it would only have been a matter of just of process of elimination to figure out how I would actually complete a triathlon as still a driver. And there's part of me that actually just wants to do that. Yeah, I think that's good content, dude.

Right? Because, I mean, you have, you know, you have this frontline experience there. Could you put an air fryer or a rice cooker in. In the sleeper cab of the truck?

And I, on my truck had an air fryer, microwave, and a fridge. Some people I know have a cooler, you know, can keep it Cooler with stuff but in there. And I was able to grocery shop once a week out on the road sometimes a little bit more because you can pull a truck and trailer into any Walmart, you might not be able to park there. Obviously we know that parking is a big issue. I work for a company now that helps, that aims to help you know, drivers with their parking dilemmas. You can't park in every Walmart but you can pull in there and grocery shop. And so whether it's 34 hour reset, even a 30 minute break or sometimes you are able to sleep at Walmart, I grocery shop there and there are.

And that's where you can get lean meats, that's where you can get vegetables to air fry. That's where you get fruit protein bars. That's where you can get the better for you options out there in quantity. So that way, because the point is to always also have this stuff with you because it's not just about eating better food and like watching what you eat, but it's also about saving a little bit of money. We have to realize that at these truck stops and travel centers they're charging airport prices for you know, for their goods and services that they sell in these locations. And it's not even all really that healthy.

So say you are a soda drinker and I tell this to anybody who is, you can go to Walmart and you can get a 24 pack of diet Coke and then so that way you're not even buying your drinks, your beverages from these travel centers. You can get them at the, for the bottom dollar if you just grocery shop at Walmart's and that's what, and it was routine. And I could tell you from building that discipline over the road when I was transitioning off the road, when I had sold my truck, I was more fearful to come off the road because now all the temptations of the civilian world we're going to re enter with the quote unquote, fear, freedom, getting back of not being in the truck. I built such a strong armor of foundation of what my habits were over the road.

I was afraid to go because of how routine it was. It was I was going to grocery shop. I was at the point to where I was air frying chicken breast, waiting in line at the fuel island because sometimes there's, if there's two trucks in front of you, I mean that's 20 minutes almost like sitting and waiting. I mean I would just point the yellow tab break like In a matter of three minutes, scale out 10 ounces of chicken breast, throw it in the air fryer, and then while I'm waiting for the fuel island. While I'm waiting the fuel island, lunch is cooking.

So sometimes it could, you could lose track of what you're doing. So having a plan of what you're going to eat throughout the week is, I mean, it's, it just removes so much stress because if you don't even know what you're going to eat or what you want to eat, then you're going to go throughout your week and you're just going to get it for the fastest and cheapest option. So if you don't even have a plan, that's why the grocery shopping once a week set it up for success. Okay, what does lunch and dinner look like for the next five days? So having that plan, whether it's meal prepping before you go out on the road, or whether it's just buying the food that you know you're going to either cook or have or microwave.

And just having that for at least the next five to seven days is going to set you up for that. Success is just, it's just knowing. Because if you don't know, if you're just going into your week without a plan of knowing what you're going to have for, you know, you don't need to know. It could change. Maybe you have for dinner what you had for lunch, it doesn't really matter. But as long as you have blocked out what you're going to eat for three meals and one to two snacks throughout the day, if you have that already in your mind, the mental. Because when it comes time to eat, you're going to get stressed because you're like, I'm starving. So you go for, you know, the quickest.

You're going to go for the quickest and cheapest option and it's for the most point, not healthy. So having that plan first and foremost and then if you are over the road when it comes to setting yourself up for success, it's knowing what you, you know, the lifestyle, you know, the trucker lifestyle, you know, when it came to health and fitness for me, you know, I was never. You can't really be a morning workout person if you're a truck driver because a lot of days start between 3 and 5am like depending on where you are, how far you are from your load, how far you are from pickup, drop off, whichever.

So the day is going to start at least this is how I like my day starting between 3 and 5am to where I'm starting driving between, you know, essentially 3:30 and 5 in the morning, depending on where I needed to be and when. So I know for a fact I'm not going to. And for the most part you wake up and you're going to pre trip and you're going to start driving. That I'd say is probably the standard for most drivers. So having a food and beverage option. Oh.

I, I really wanted to bring him on today and he, you know, we're obviously in the middle of talking about a lot of this stuff that, you know, it, it's always about finding what is going to work for you out there in your job and your profession. You know, whether you are out on the road or whether you are, you know, a broker or a shipper, you're working at a desk or whatever that looks like. So it's about finding those things. And as I've talked about on the past, is, you know, it's a lot more beneficial, at least from my experience, to start with one thing, and it is finding food that you like to eat. I'm of the, like, I literally just eat the same stuff every single day. I have no problem in doing that.

But I found a way to prepare it that the food tastes really good and I didn't go 0 to 100 with it. Right. And I know that, you know, because tomorrow's National Quit Day, I believe for everybody who started their New Year's resolutions or whatever that looks like. And you know, for me it's like that ease in approach is very beneficial and then finding foods that you enjoy eating every single day and then finding some alternatives with that to kind of change it up. I know some people like variety. I don't need variety. I eat the same stuff like I had been mentioning. But I have found some really good alternatives to cut out a lot of the bad foods and the empty calories that I was consuming, you know, in the form of like sugars and stuff like that.

Like, it's, there's a lot of really good sugar free alternatives that are out there for people to utilize as well. But you know, I think that for the most part, and it looks like Mike is back here. There he is. What's going on man?

It's lightly breaded chicken. And you know, you can get really good protein macros out of that as well. So it's, it is, it's kind of about finding that, but it's about finding that system that works and one that you can replicate inside of your day that where it doesn't seem like it's a chore to do it right. Like, I don't want to get up early every single day. All right? I do it because I like getting hard shit done early and I also like getting it out of the way right away. But also I also have a job that allows me to get my workouts in before work. But again, it's finding that. But a lot of it for me is building a system and then it's finding a system that works for you.

Because our brains naturally do that. Humans for since our entire existence have been trying to find comfort and we've now put, you know, we live in the most comfortable times in history. We don't need to hunt for food, we don't need to, we don't have to for the most part. We have shelter that is temperature controlled. And so when it comes to making these, you know, slight uncomfortable changes Our brain is going to have these defense mechanisms say, well, it's going to require your entire life to change and not really like it. Like, I don't, it doesn't have to change at all. It's about simply the only change you have to make is just not making, you're not completely altering your life. You're not making, you know, different decisions. You're just making better ones. So you like eating.

So again, so you, everybody for the most part when it comes to diet, food wise, like people like chicken, people like ground beef, people like turkey, people like fish or eggs, like people like those things, those basic, you know, foundational whole foods, it's about how you're preparing them and how you're cooking them and then the quantity of which you're eating. So it's that you're not making different decisions. And again, if you're a truck driver, so your lifestyle is probably going to call. It's unconventional. And this is why I always recommend, you know, Goggins first book, Can't Hurt Me because it talks about this, like this whether you are a truck driver or.

He doesn't really mention drivers, but he talks about very busy working professionals like lawyers who work very crazy hours and other people who might live in Manhattan, who works rigorous jobs and about how you transform your community. I've, I'm, I read a great triathlon book by Dan Golding and he talks, he's like, if you want to do Iron man, it's a very hard thing to do. And so that means, guess what? You might be riding your bike to work, your bike might be in the living room. So it's like, you don't need to give up watching tv. You just might need to put that trainer or your peloton in the living room. And while you're doing that workout, you're watching tv.

It seems weird if you're the guy in the airport who's stretching, doing mobility or doing some push ups, it's going to look weird to people. But you're not doing anything differently. You're just doing things a little bit better. So you have to realize that everybody's lifestyle is different just because, you know, like it's not because we know that pro athletes, it's their job, they can do it. But other people who aren't pro athletes are doing it too. And I, I met so many people at Ironman and I've met so many people at these marathons who have all these different crazy jobs. You know, many of Them are moms with three kids. Many of them are, you know, they work seven to five. They have, they have tougher jobs, but they're able. You have to piece it up to make it fit your lifestyle.

And it's not going to seem normal. Like it's going to seem weird. Like, oh, I'm doing this peloton while I'm watching tv. Or I'm, you know, you're during lunch, I'm going for a walk. Whatever it might be, it seems weird. It's only weird because nobody else is doing it. But then you realize that nobody else is doing it. But everybody else is also complaining about the same thing that you're complaining about. They're complaining that they're, they don't feel the way they want to feel. They wish they could go back to their college weight. It's because they're not doing these little things for your lifestyle that matter. It has to match the lifestyle. So with trucking, the workout would have to happen in the afternoon when you look at it in time.

And this is compartmentalization, you know, you don't always have to start driving again after 10 hours depending on your delivery. But you know, if you at least have a 10 hour break, that as soon as you pull that yellow tab, there's about two hours of playtime you got right there. You got to it. And that could be. And you could put 30 to 60 minutes of activity, 30 minutes for dinner, 30 minutes to shower, clean up. And you've got eight hours of sleep. Like it's, you can do that, but it just takes going right into those routines and building it.

So if you want to read the post on there, you'll see the progression. But like the hardest conversation I ever had was the one with myself in the mirror when I said, you're the reason why your life's in shambles, and if you want to fix it's on you. And it, you know, and again, it's like I. I gave myself a little bit of grace, and I was like, hey, listen, this is a lifetime of bad habits. You need to unwind. Stop saying you're going to do it in a month or two months. Like, for me, it was that slow commitment. And that's why I'm like, I would rather take slow and steady progress over an extended period of time than rushing into it to try and fix everything. Because I know myself. I know myself better than anybody will ever know me.

And I know that I will always look for the easy route. And at this first sign of adversity, I'll stop. As opposed to getting that momentum, making those small incremental changes. And then now here I am starting out 20, 25 at 183 pounds, in the best shape of my life, and I'm 39. You're going to be 39 here soon, right? Like, this was a progression. It was small incremental changes over time.

One time I went down the rabbit hole. I didn't eat meat for two months. I lost 12 pounds. I felt like crap for 12 months. Like, I just didn't. I just. I was tired. I wasn't even exercising, but I lost weight, and I was like, this is just. This just hurts too much. So I tried those things in 2016, 2017, and it didn't work. And it wasn't until in 2018, I just started. I started with one thing. I just got back to the gym from there. The coach I met, he started giving me, hey, this is how you should be eating. Like, he just started putting. He just started planting seeds in my head, like, hey, this is what you can get.

So after a couple months of movement, I changed the food, and it became this progressive overload of building that has turned into. And you look at what the. Like, so where people think linear progression is the straight line that goes up. It's more of a zigzag that zigzags its way up. So it's up and down. But now I'm at the point to where it's. You know, I'm off the screen now because it's. Because it's became such a progressive overload where instead of just going from 0 to 100, I just slowly started zigzagging my way up. And now we're off the screen because the progression became so big that I just kept wanting to raise the bar, raise the bar. And the bar has been gotten raised to the point where I'm like, I'm going to run marathons as truck drivers.

Now it's going to be, now I'm going to go to Iron Man. Now it's going to be, now I'm going to pr. It's. It's just continued to build its way up because. But when you try to go from 0 to. To 100 and you just try to cross the screen, I'm using the screen as the. As my. As my proverbial graph. When you just try to go off the screen, eventually it. It become. It's. It's too hard to sustain because you haven't built a solid enough foundation of habit to really like, to really keep rolling. For some people, it works. Again, I'm. I'm not doubting that. Yeah, I get it. I. I get it. But I'd say, oh, the overall majority, I mean, between my store, my testimony, and yours, and so many Other, countless other Iron Man I've talked to like so many.

There's Iron Man's loaded with a lot of sober people, which is really funny. Yeah. To think about. But it's like that's how they started writing their comeback is they were completely downtrodden, addicted to whether it's drugs or alcohol. And then they leaned into fitness. And then after shit, so many years of just like replacing their drug and alcohol addiction with, you know, their. The mission of becoming better versions of self, it just slowly brought them to Iron Man. And these are just normal people who have like regular jobs. They're not pros, they're not pro athletes. It's because of that progressive overload.

If you know, helping out in any way, if you are tapped in, if you are connected to a better for you health brand and option out there that wants to get themselves, get their eyes in front of more truck drivers. That's what it's all about. You know, my mission is changing the culture of health and fitness overall within the industry. And it's a change that's going to have to start from the top. Down for everybody. It's going to take all of us. But dude, I really appreciate having me on. I'm a big fan of what you're doing over here. Love, love the brand, love the Freight Coach brand and your guys mission and how you're helping people, everything. So it's an honor to join you again.