How I Survived A Near Death Experience And Thrived

0:00  
So I'm your host The Gentle Yoga Warrior. And please welcome today near death crash survivor, an ultra modern world athlete Scott McDermott. Scott has been a personal trainer for over 24 years. He is an ultra endurance athlete and speaker who loves to inspire and coach people to reach their full potential. His journey has had many twists and turns and his life has become so interesting that there's also a documentary called Living the warrior code, starring Scott, a busy and devoted family man, Scott shows how to live a life of meaning and purpose. such an inspiration and great stuff Scott on the shore today joining us from Alberto Canada. Hello Scott, welcome to the show.

0:52  
Hello, Jane. Thanks for having me. It's awesome to be here.

0:56  
Thank you very much for taking your time out of your busy schedule. So today we're going to talk about near death experiences and how to turn one's life around after such an event. Like I appreciate that most listeners may not have had such an experience. However, we've all had difficult times experiences that have knocked our world what one does after such an experience can have lasting effects. So I'm grateful to have Scott on the show and also to hear more on the subject. In the words of Marci shimoff. I believe love is why we're here on the planet. And that ultimately it's our purpose for life. They say people who have had near death experiences often report back at the end of their lives. We've had a life review and we've asked one question and that question is, how much did you love? On that note, I thought who better to speak to us today on all things motivating and transformative than you Scott McDermott. So Scott, can you please share with our listeners? What was your near death experience? And how did you turn your life around after it?

2:05  
Cool. That's a big question. I've already thought of a million different things just with your introduction. So thank you. And yeah, so I got into Ironman Triathlon, which I quite fell in love with that's a 3.8 kilometre or 2.4 mile swim and 180 kilometre bike or 112 miles and a full marathon which is in his 42 kilometres I'm in Canada so anybody's kilometre but it's also 26 miles and then I did that for quite a while and as I was training for I think was my seventh or eighth Iron Man, I met a fella from Australia actually name is Nick mallet, and he started talking to me about Ultraman which is two and a half times longer. And I just told him to shut up. I was like, You're nuts. That's That's ridiculous. Those people are crazy. And then he just started to talk to me about it. And he says, Well, you know, if you think about it, you know he did Australia? Well, I think about it. I you know, you can swim for quite a while. I won't wreck his accent anymore. But he's Australian. But he said, right, it's a 10k swim six miles. He says once you get swimming, you could just carry on swimming for quite a while if somebody fed you electrolytes and a little bit of fuel here and there. You could swim for quite a while if you had a kayak assist to you. I said sure. And he's like you're a really strong cyclist. So no problem with a day 145k bike and then day two is a 276k bike and I've cycled 401 day, so Okay, that's within. And as like, yeah, buddy. But day three is an 84 and a half k double marathon. Like there's just no way I can't even imagine that. And he says, Yeah, but think about it. You run the first marathon, you run it easy, like you can run a 320 marathon. So run a four hour marathon, take your time, and then take a little break. And then you can walk another marathon still be done under 12 hours, you make the cut off, and I was like, Oh my gosh, you're right. I signed up the next week. And I trained like crazy for Ultraman Canada training was up to 25 hours a week kind of stuff. You know, just lots and lots of training. And I'm lucky I have a super amazing supportive wife. This is before we had child. And I did Ultraman Canada and I was sixth overall. And this is awesome. So I signed up for the World Championships, because I qualified for a spot and we took a year off because my wife did get pregnant and have we had our son. And after a while she's like yeah, he's good. I think we're cool. Let's go to let's go to Hawaii and you can do your race and I was like, over the moon and so I raced in 2013 and it was excellent. I was 21st in the world and I just I just loved it. I thought this is really cool. I kind of found my new passion and I set my sights on two years later 2015 on going back again. And in 2013 at the World Championships, I felt like a little kindergarten kid in high school. I was like looking around at all these actual athletes going oh my god, I might even here you guys are amazing. And and then realise, wait a second I can, I can hang around with these people like I'm not completely out of the realm here. And I thought I want to go back to 2015. And I want to race, I don't want to just see if I can finish amongst all these, you know, gods in my opinion. I want to see if I can race. And so in 2015 I went back to the World Championships, and I had a strong swim. I had a strong bike, I came out of day one in 14th overall. And on day two, I was hunting, I was hammering the bike and I was going just under 70k an hour, down a bit of a hill in a light rain. And I was in 10th overall, and I was hunting number nine, I could see his crew van and I knew we were getting closer. And then I woke up three and a half days later, three days later in the brain trauma unit in a wahoo. And I didn't know how I got there. And so that was really strange. I mean, I knew obviously that I trashed on my bike, but I didn't remember anything. And it was only through talking with the people who had been on the scene later. Adam Fox and Peter Hudson, a couple of guys actually from Australia that saved my life and got me breathing again and stayed with me for 42 minutes until the ambulance got there. During their world championships they never left. And you know, in the beginning you talked about there's a documentary and it started me and I think no it's not starring me it's starring Peter and Adam and drew and Darren and Lyle and Doug it like it's starting all the it's a whole bunch of people. And me. So yeah, it's a that's a movie about family and in Hawaii. Hawaiian language ohana his family and it's that's a movie about our family. But yeah, I woke up in the in the hospital in a wahoo and I had sprained some fingers sprained my wrist, broke my arm and half shattered my shoulder. In four pieces.

6:56  
I broke five ribs. I busted up my knee and I broke my skull open. And I had one of the worst brain injuries you can get. And I was a mess. I had Road Rash all over my body. I had a big split over my eye. It was a thing. Yeah, I was touching gold. So

7:14  
Wow. Wow, that sounds terrifying. But also, I don't get thank god goodness. You had friends there to help you. That's Yeah, wow. I'm speechless.

7:28  
Shy it was, it was quite an experience. I mean, it's really don't recommend it. It's good to be through the other side of it. And it's just been quite an amazing journey. Since then, for just it's so many different ways. It's been amazing.

7:45  
Did you change your did your attitude on things? I guess I'm a bit of a silly question, but I guess after having such an experience it can make you see the world with fresh eyes. Did you feel like anything drastically changed? Or did you notice any changes in yourself?

8:02  
Yeah, 100% it was challenging at first because I was so broken and in the hospital in the wahoo they were so worried about the brain injury and the broken skull they didn't really worry about my knee and my arm on my shoulder and say they just sent me home and they didn't X ray far enough up my arm. They didn't realise my arm was broken in half my radial bone was broken in half was in three pieces. And so they just told me I'd sprained my wrist but it hurt more than that but um and they said well you're broken your clavicle, your shoulder bone but it'll it'll it'll heal but you should go get it looked at in Canada and I was like okay, so I got back to Canada and 13 days later I was in the hospital to get x rays follow up x rays and they're like you're going straight to surgery and you know it took it took a day for them to scrap the schedule and rearrange or whatever but yeah, they had to get me in surgery immediately because the bones were already starting to knit broken and the doctor had to nip the ends off the bones and put metal plates in my arm and a metal plate in my shoulder and rebuild my shoulder and and the I spent I got CAT scans and MRIs because they were really worried about my brain injury. I had one of the worst brain injuries you can get I had so a haemorrhage, so bleeding to the frontal lobes and then I had something called diffuse axonal scarring which is when you hit your head so hard, the white matter and the grey matter shear apart and all of the medical textbooks stay that in that injury the person is in a vegetative state and no longer aware of their surroundings. So I was beyond lucky. But if you picture being in a car at 70 kilometres an hour, like 50 miles an hour and then just get out it's not good. No, no. Yeah, it was it was really hard. Coming back and then I ended up back it was in the hospital and see the surgery and is in the hospital for a week. And then I got back to to our home and we actually saw hold our home and bought a rental or rented a place because we're buying we're building a dream home we bought a piece of property and we were building our dream home our forever home. So we were living in this crappy little duplex. And I've got a you know, a three and a half year old little boy and my wife and I run a 15,000 square foot gym business with 27 staff and I couldn't remember things I was slurring my words, I couldn't stay awake for more than an hour and a half I couldn't I would trip when I walked I couldn't I'm left handed and my left hand was that my left side was the one that was all shattered so it was really tough for a while. Yeah, it was really tough.

10:40  
Yeah, wow. I can imagine it must have been very tough than them as a lot of pressure, isn't it building a house no matter when you're not feeling up to your your prime fitness, but you weren't always fit where you Scott, you really said that you were there was a time in your life where you weren't fit. And what made you change to train in this way?

11:02  
Well, when I was in high school, my guidance counsellor and a couple of teachers basically just said, Gosh, you're really good at trigonometry. And you're really good at drafting, you know, you should look at a career in architecture and I didn't really know what to do and I thought okay, that sounds great. So I went to architecture college and I went and worked as an architectural technologist for about 13 years and I was 29 years old and I was extremely overweight, well not extremely, I was about 230 pounds. And I'm 511 so that's that's like 40 pounds too much by if not 50 right. So it wasn't good and I was really in bad shape I had all kinds of medical issues that couldn't be explained that I would go to specialist after specialist after specialist and they would try eyes and ears and nose and throat and they would try lungs and they would try blood tests and they would try you know thyroid tests so they would do all and they could never figure out what was wrong with me and I was tired all the time I would have total dizzy spells where I would be sitting at my desk and all of a sudden it was like the world went spinning and I would fall out of my chair and no idea why and I had tinnitus I had ringing in my ears at night so that was the ringing in my ears at night was so loud that I had to tell my wife not to talk to me in bed at night because it was the ringing was too loud I couldn't even hear words which is kind of a problem Yeah. So all of these different problems and I was taking caffeine pills to keep my energy up because I was tired all the time. This is before energy drinks and stuff which I'm not a fan of any of that but that's where I was out I was trying to make junior partner in the firm and I was trying to get my deadlines done and my I was running a team of people and I just I needed to have energy and I didn't have any so I would just just pop a caffeine tablet and carry on and you know that kind of garbage and had allergies and all sorts of stuff and I finally had to play with my doctor and I just said look this is ridiculous. I don't know understand. I can't I'm 29 this is just this doesn't work for me what's going on and we can't and the doctor finally did a long slow physical he like he asked a bunch of questions and he checked a bunch of things and he you know, he took some time because doctors are busy. And and he came to the conclusion he like after talking to me he started asking real questions like well do you work out? Like I don't have time to work out? I'm working like 100 hours a week. I'm trying to make junior partner. Well, okay, well tell me about what you eat in a day. Garbage breakfast cereal, and then sugary junk and then deep fried, disgusting fast food Lodge and then another sugary snack and then maybe a semi healthy supper with a sugary dessert like ice cream before bed. Like I was just an idiot. I didn't know how to feed myself. I didn't know what I was doing. And and then he's like, are you under any kind of stress? I'm like, Well yeah, I'm in charge of many multimillion dollar projects at any given time. And there's always harsh deadlines and we're trying to get everything done all the time. And I'm worth long into the night he says like kid you need to exercise eat right and get some get rid of some stress. So you're not gonna lift the 30 you're gonna have a heart attack. So I was like, okay, and I went and joined a gym. And I met some great people and I started I had a friend who was a trainer and I started pegging him with a whole bunch of questions and learning about nutrition and I just, I just, I just fell in love with it. And I went from to 37 I think I was down to 185 pounds, and I had a six pack and I just was in the best shape of my life. In fact, it was unreal. Like everything changed my outlook on life changed my attitude, my my energy, everything changed how I can sleep, how I could function on the day I became so strong and so healthy and so fit and so happy with everything. And I was two weeks from being an associate partner in the firm and I quit.

14:58  
Wow pal. All Powerful.

15:02  
As I knew, like I say, I've always been quoted to say, I was at the top of the ladder on the wrong building. So I got off, and I went to work in a gym part time. And I still did architecture on contract to pay the bills. And it took about two years. And then I built my own gym, from scratch. And it was awesome. And so I ran my own gym for a good long time. And that was one of the interesting things like you asked in the beginning, you know, what were the profound changes after having a near death crash. And one of them was my tolerance for things that weren't making my life great. shifted. And I like I loved a lot about running the gym for a long time. But after a while, it was just really hard all the time. It was just really hard. And it was a lot of hours and I hardly paid myself there was a couple of years I didn't pay myself at all. Because we couldn't afford to. So the staff got paid, but I didn't kind of thing and after a while you're just like, Okay, what are you doing? And after the crash that that was I was asking that question, well, what are you doing and maybe this isn't the right thing and and then I came to I was like, Okay, if you're gonna do this, then do it well, or don't do it at all. So I poured everything into making the gym successful. Once I got my brain injury, recovered, I use hyperbaric oxygen therapy to to help recover from the brain injury and ate brilliant food and that kind of stuff. And yeah, and then in March of 2020, COVID, hit full steam, and all gyms in our province got shut down. And for, you know, 14 days to flatten the curve, right. And you know, what I looked at that at the time. And I had already been studying COVID and I'd already been reading research and data and I watched the I looked at all the data from the princess cruise with that, you know, medical crucible of 3500 people that went out to sea and they were like a medical miracle to experiment, it was sad, you would never ethically do that. But it was interesting to as a data point. And I thought to myself, this isn't 14 days, this is years, we've opened a can on something, this is a long term problem. And I did the math and I was like I'm shutting my gym down right now for my own health for my own sanity, this is never gonna be like it was and so I shut my gym down immediately. We were told to close March 17 and on March 19, March 20, I announced to the world that we're closing forever and we sold off all our equipment paid off all our debts paid off all our members paid off all the staff made sure everybody was okay. We lost a bunch but we came out not in the hole and and I walked away from it. And I really know that that's because of the crash three years earlier it's because or I guess be five years earlier but there's just no room in life to tolerate something that isn't gonna work

18:10  
it seems that you've you've kind of tapped into the side of your yourself like you said, You're not going to tolerate anything that doesn't work and a real sense of trust in yourself and, and Bill sharp courage, but also, through feeling really balanced. I think when you have a healthy diet, and you have a healthy lifestyle, it does, it does kind of open all these other doors up for oneself, but I feel from listening to you, and the fact that you closed your gym, you know, like, and you just knew the proof is that you did the right thing because if I don't know what it's like in Canada, in the UK, and they have open but it's still it's still it's still a bit strict, but they have about at least opened here. But from my point of view, I feel that people's well being and fitness is absolute essential and and seeing people who have become depressed or kind of lost slayers kind of ability to believe in anything could be so easily resolved by exercise, be it whatever we do the gym or yoga or whatever it is. And so listeners, this is real proof that is worth a little bit of effort for long term benefits and you can change your life around like like Scott has and continues to do through showing inspiration. So in spite of all the odds stacked against you, Scott, you closed your gym. You've had this near death experience in the past. What did you do next?

19:53  
That's a great question. And one of the biggest things people asked me when I was shutting down the gym and I was there selling all the equipment off. They're like, well, what are you going to do now? And I just looked at him square and said, I have no idea. But I know I need to be done with this. And I'll find something like, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'll figure something out. And to be honest, Jane, it has been the most glorious, brilliant, wonderful gift. It's unbelievable. It's amazing. I can't believe how great my life is I guy I've dreamt about this life. But here it is. And it took a while I took about three or four months just off, I just kind of hung out with my son. And we had a great summer vacation because he was off school for summer. And we just we've played a tonne and we worked around the house. And we did all kinds of crazy goofy things. I built a video game or an arcade cabinet like a 1980s retro video game and I got a Raspberry Pi computer. And my friend is a computer geek taught me how to do it. It's got 500 games on it, like Pac Man and Donkey Kong. So my son and I did all kinds of cool things together. And it was it was a hoot in a lot of senses. And then I kind of got through Christmas of 2020. And in January of 2021 I'd gotten a little chubby again, like not crazy, but a little bit like, oh, what are you doing? Because, you know, I relaxed, I wasn't at the gym every day. And I built this little bit of a gym in my garage. But it wasn't, there was just nobody there, like human connection is huge. It's huge. And I wildly missed that human connection, I still do to a lot of senses. But in January of 2021, I was like, man, buddy, you got to get back on track. So I pulled out one of my nutrition manuals that I had put together for my clients at the gym that we were running as a 21 day nutrition programme. And I just I thought I'm just gonna do what I know. And I started following it. And of course, I started feeling amazing immediately within a week. And I was like, well, don't be so selfish, you need to see you need to help people. You can't just sit and do like so. And I had done done some coaching. I'd coached hockey players and a couple people here and there. But I put it out to the world, I built a little rough website and I put out a 21 day nutrition reset. And you know, if you want to get back on target and detox your body from all the junk you've been eating and stuff like that, and boom, all of a sudden, I had 27 people on my little programme in January, I was like, well, this is fun. And I had built this room, this sound room the sound booth so that I could record these videos and stuff like that. And because I knew this was kind of the direction I was going to go I had been toying with it. And it was something I'd always wanted. And I actually the reason for this room is I got a job on an internet radio station to be a DJ. And I you know, I did that for a month. And it but I was also doing the nutrition thing again, and I thought you know the radio things fun, but that's not what I'm up to. So I let that go. And I just pursued doing the nutrition thing. So every day people get a daily mindset video from me. So I talk about nutrition, fitness, but mostly I talk about psychology and the lifestyle of being healthy and fit and how to guide how to get rid of your old habits and, and move forward. And so I've been running one of those every month, all year this year, and it's just a blast. I've coached now hundreds of people and I've got people that have dropped like people that have stuck with me for two or three months, I've got one guy that's dropped 72 pounds, and others drop 45 like, it's really, really rewarding. It's really fun. I get to do the whole thing from this room. So I'm available to my son home all the time, I can hang out with my dog and I it's just this little gift of a life that I get to do what I love, but only what I love. I think

23:55  
thinks it Yeah, and I think because you're so sincere and you walk the walk and you're kind of you gently just seem to have a genuine wish to help people and and that's why it in my opinion, it flows for you because you're actually in your path for whatever people want to call it that you're meant to be in. I just like to add for the sake of our listeners. Obviously you can't see because you're listening to a podcast. But Scott's got this amazing room. It kind of almost reminds me of that. of like 80s video game away. The padding and that is fantastic. Fantastic. So talking about diets, there's a lot of people quite interested in that and there's all these kinds of things should be keto, vegetarian. This that never What is your tips to our listeners on and on such a date? Because the reason I'm asking this question is I know that diet can change someone's life and since we are talking about turning people's life surrounding this podcast, Hence the reason behind this question. Hmm, yeah, it's

25:03  
a really great question. People ask me they're like, well, what's the best diet? Is intermittent fasting? Is it vegan? is a vegetarian? Is it over lacto? vegetarian is a keto? Is it Atkins? What's the best diet? And my answer is yes. Because all of them offer something. And everybody's different. You have a different heritage, you have different digestion, you've got different waking and sleeping cycles, like there's no such thing as the best diet. That's, I'm sorry, I believe in all of the things. One of the things I don't like and I call them pendulum diets. So a pendulum diet is keto. It's no starchy carbohydrates, very little bit of vegetables 75% fat and 20% protein the pendulums way over on one side it's over on the fat side and I get it I understand bio mechanically and chemically and digest and I understand how keto works it enacts a survival mechanism where your body releases the hormone ketones and and it allows you to burn fat as a fuel source is your dominant source of energy and it's a survival mechanism we were designed that way because if we were starving to death then we could just live on fat like I get it it works but it's not a lifestyle I want and the pendulums way over on one side I keep doing things with my hands I really yeah. But the pendulums way over on one side, and then you go Okay, well let's look at vegan Well again, to me the pendulum is way over on the other side now it's tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of fruits and vegetables and grains and starches, but there's not a lot of protein and some of the fats are polyunsaturated fatty acids, which in excess are bad for you. So the pendulums over the other side. And what about carnivora? Well, now the pendulums over on a different side it's way but to all meet and you know what about what like, I'm not a pendulum diet guy. I'm a pendulum in the middle guy. I like the things right? I eat some meat, I eat tonnes of vegetables, I eat some starches, but I'm selective in them in a sense, because I know that some starch is a little bit more inflammatory. And you know, and I'm mindful of my sugar, but I'm not without sugar. I'll tell you it was Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada last weekend and I am definitely not without sugar. I don't know if this is a thing for you in the UK. But I think right now if you if you did a blood analysis, my my blood eggnog count would be really over the top. So

27:42  
yeah, like we have that at Christmas here. Yeah,

27:45  
we get it twice a year, they bring it out for Thanksgiving, and then they bring it out of Christmas. It's terrible stuff. But it's delicious. I mean, it's a half a cup is 22 grammes of sugar. That's double A bowl of Froot Loops. Wow, drink. Oh, it's a lot of sugar. So I'm a big fan of all the things and, you know, is there some science behind all of the different ones like yeah, like intermittent fasting, there's definitely some good science to it. And you know, but even if you take intermittent fasting, and you pull it down to eat all of the things, and then from, you know, like seven or eight o'clock at night until seven in the morning, you don't eat that's a 12 hour kind of fasting window, that's great, that's you're giving your digestive system a bit of a break, you're letting your body processing things, it lets your body remember how to burn fat as a fuel source for that period of time. But then you get to feed it again. So there's some wisdom to that, but I also know guys that like fast for five days and eat for two and they like take certain while if you take this conjugated linoleic acid at this timeframe, you can preserve the fast longer and trick your body into thinking and you can fool it to allow it. Really that's what we're doing that seems a little extreme. Like I I want to just live my life and be happy and I want to I want to eat really well like I I start the day with a super great green smoothie, which is super good for the body, it's cleansing and then I have a nice breakfast that I like I eat super healthy things and then once in a while I eat like a moron. I go with my friends and whatever you know,

29:27  
yeah, so especially having joy in your life isn't it It sounds like it's having joy looking after yourself eating well but having joy as well because as I said before, where people have kind of been on very very strict diets and they've managed to stick to it. And then the second the deadline if the diet is over then they're just kind of eating tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of junk food and then it's not so good for the body to do yo yo like that. I call it yo yoing between

29:56  
honour percent absolutely Jane and it's diets like that they're they're putting you at war with food and that war with your impulses that's just them not in alignment with that I want people to be relaxed and healthy and happy and enjoy life. Yeah you need to be aware you need to have caloric and ingredient responsibility like you need to understand that you know listen, eating well is a good thing. But eating socially is fun too. I mean, one of the things I try to teach people is your body loves you your body loves you like I hate my stupid knees and my stupid back and well I like my bowels of oh my god I hate my body will stop feeding a garbage and

30:50  
yeah

30:52  
idea like when you go out for that fast food junk fast and you give your body all of that horrible stuff to digest. Your body's freaking out it's like oh my god, you won't believe what she just ate okay? Okay liver I need you to process the toxins and pancreas I don't even know what to tell you I need okay I need insulin and then but I the cortisol levels through Okay, we got the we got the we got all this bad fat we got to kill that off. And we got to process that there's chemicals everywhere. So look, you know what we're Let's steal some zinc from here and some copper from there. I'm going to need some, oh my god, what else I need some Bluetooth it everybody needs to pull together, we've got to steal from everywhere. The make enough so that we're still alive for another 12 hours using this garbage. Because this is what we have. Your body's doing that on a daily basis. And then after 10 or 20 years, your body's like, you know what? I'm out. I got nothing left. And now you're sick.

31:47  
Yeah. And there's so much sickness caused by unhealthy lifestyle, and diet. I remember a few years back Actually, I was starting to feel really tired myself. And I wasn't sure why. And then you wait. Long story short, I had some food tests done and I have an intolerance to gluten. And then when I first cut the gluten up my day, I felt so ill for about four weeks. And then I felt absolutely fantastic. Like I'm not telling our listeners to cut out gluten, that's just me individually. But it made such a difference to my well being. And when I do sneak any back in I do kind of notice it. So I'm not saying I'm perfect occasionally. If I'm in an Italian restaurant, and it's a nice pizza, I might have a few slices but 99% of the time I try to avoid gluten that's made such a difference in my life. So the reason I shared that was to let our listeners know that it does make a profound effect on what we eat and how we treat ourselves. And we are going to we are going to move on to talking about your book and your cause. I do have one more question though, because I'm really intrigued to hear the answer to this. Why does so many people fail to get into shape? Why do so many people, they start things and they and they don't stick to it. They might want to go running and then it's a cold day and they end up staying in bed or they end up picking up that sugar bar of like sugary drinks and stuff. Why do you think that is Scott's?

33:16  
Well, let me do two things here. I that's a great question. I definitely want to ask that. But I also want to dovetail back on what you just said about gluten. And one of the things about nutrition is there's layer after layer after layer after layer. So a lot of the things one of the reasons gluten has become a problem is because of the glyphosate in Roundup, which is what farmers use to desiccate their fields before they harvest. And that their new formulation while it's it's years old now, but it gets through into our system. And so it's it there's theory that it's the glyphosate in the gluten that you're allergic to. And so it makes sense when you take that chemical out, you feel better. Now there's another even deeper layer, which is that there's an estimate that 90 to 95% of people have something called epstein barr virus. It's a very subtle virus, and it feeds on gluten. And when it gets lots of gluten, epstein barr virus will reduce your it will make you Low, low energy, it can attack your thyroid, it can attack your joints, it can cause digestive issues. So there's a causal relationship there too. And we're still learning about epstein barr virus. So again, while my 21 day programme, we remove gluten like we remove grains, sugar and dairy for three weeks and people's health goes through the roof Now, I'm not saying keep them out forever, but if you keep them out for three weeks and you reset your nutrition, people feel amazing. And then you slowly add those things back in and if you have a reaction then you know Okay, that's not for me like you did with gluten and that's fantastic. That's listening to your body and learning. Yes, I didn't want to miss the chance to share that.

34:52  
Oh, I know I found that really interesting and, and also it adds another layer to it's not just like a swimsuit or it's a fad. That people can't eat gluten, but there's actually a reason why. And then I believe I've got this right, the started messing with the wheat and about the 50s or 60s and that Yeah. And before then, it was a completely different beast, as I like to call it. Until, yeah,

35:15  
yeah, we have changed our food supply. And the human body doesn't adapt that quickly. It doesn't like, you know, one of the things I talked about, and we'll get back to their questions, I love that one too. But if you imagine 100 years ago, 1920. There's no fast food restaurants. We make all of our own food, we grow our own food, we shop at the farmers market, not the supermarket, you don't have a refrigerator, you don't have a car. There's no airline travel. The world was so different 100 years ago, but the human body hasn't changed. Like in the 20s, sugar was treated as a commodity. It was expensive, and only rich people had sugar. You know, why do we have such a huge attachment to eating all this sugary candy on Christmas and Easter and Valentine's Day in your birthday? Because in the 20s, you could afford sugar once a year, maybe twice. So sugar held this esteem of the special this amazing this hallowed Hall sugar. And our parents taught that to us. But nowadays, you can have sugar with your sugar every single day of every hour of every minute, like sugar is the single cheapest ingredient there is. So socially we still value sugar is this reverent, amazing thing. But in reality, it's no longer that case, it's so in our house, we only have sugar on Saturdays or special days. And we've tried to give some invitations to that. So I can go on and on about all that great stuff, because I love it. And but you asked about people start there, they have a great intention. Gosh, I've I've had enough I need to get fit, I need to get healthy, I need to make a difference, I need to change, I need to start running, I need to do something, and then they don't or they do it for a little bit. And then they stop. Well, the reason is, it's hard. It sucks. It is. I'm an endurance athlete. And I get to tell you the number of times I have felt like getting up at five o'clock in the morning, getting on my frozen truck in January, driving to the pool Crawley into the lane and swimming for three hours. The number of times I have felt like doing that is zero. I have never been in the mood to go to the pool at nothing o'clock in the morning in the dark in Canada, in the snow and swim for three hours. Never. But I have a goal. The goal is the Ultraman World Championships. And in the ultra mountain World Championships in November of every year, I have to swim 10 kilometres six miles in the open ocean. There's current, there's waves, there's wind, there's saltwater, there's jellyfish. And if you're not ready, it will eat you up and spit you out. So in January, I swim for three hours, because I know in November, it will benefit me, I have a Yeah, I have a goal that's bigger than my mood right now. And that's what we need. Because there's two parts of your brain. And I don't know, if I told you this, I wrote a book called if your body were a car, you wouldn't treat it this way. And I wrote that book full back in 2005, or six or seven or something. But in there, I talked about the different parts of your brain. There's your primitive part of your brain, which is in charge of right now and your mood and how you feel right now and getting away of danger and stuff like that. And that's evolutionarily speaking, that's the primitive part of your brain. It's the dominant, bigger, physically more powerful part of your brain. And then there's a smaller part of your brain, which is only developed recently, evolutionarily speaking, you're talking you know, 5000 years kind of thing. And that's your part of your brain that's in charge of reasoning and long term planning. And Gosh, I should drop 20 pounds by June and I'll feel better. That part Oh, I should make put some money in a savings plan for when I retire. There's that that's that little part of your brain. Right? That's your intelligence. That's your intelligence based guidance system. Dr. Gary Levinson has a book on that, oh, what's the name of that book, it'll come to me in a second.

39:38  
And then the bigger part of your brain is your primitive guidance system. So I call them Max and many. So Max is the big temper tantrum toddler, and many is the little intelligent Einstein part but, but he's not very powerful. And when you're laying in bed, and it's warm, and it's comfortable, and you're a little tired, and it's mobility Outside the weather, it's crap. But you don't want to go outside for a run, well, your primitive brain is in charge. And your little mini, the little smart party brain goes, Well, we should go for a run, because it'll be good for us, it'll be healthier and fit and it does all these good things and match those, I've got the mood warm in here, I didn't want to go anywhere, I want to go see to have a nice warm coffee. And then you're like, Okay, I guess I'll do that. And then you just have this argument all the time. So you have to engage both parts of your brain. And how you do that is you have a goal that is so powerful, you can't get to it because it will overcome your mood. So that might look like a lot of different things. For me, it's the World Championships. So all I have to do is I'm laying in bed, it's warm, it's comfortable, I snuggle up to my wife and, and my big part of my brain maxvill is Oh, this is great. I just gonna stay here. And then he goes, but we have to get up and train. And Max's. I don't feel like it, it's comfortable, I'm not going anywhere. And then he goes, Well, if you don't get out of bed, right now, you're going to be at the World Championships, and you're going to make a fool of yourself, and you're going to fail, and you're going to suffer and you're going to get a DNF that did not finish. And the big part of being goes, that would suck. Okay, let's go. and off you go. Right. And so how does a regular person do that that's not training for the World Championships. Okay, so there's lots of different ways one, you can write a check to the political party you hate, for $1,000 and 1000 pounds, and don't put the date on it and sign it. And then you make a commitment with your friends, or somebody that you have to report in to your friend, every single day or every other day, or three days a week, or whatever you decide, I will do this workout or this much strength training or this much cardio training this many times a week. And if I fail, that check gets cashed. If you give the check to your friend and say if I fail, you mail that check to the rotten, awful nasty party of everybody hates you. Right. So now you're sitting there going, Well, I don't feel like training and your many your little party brain has to go. If you don't get your butt out of bed right now it's going to cost you $1,000 to the Nazi party or whatever, right? Well, we'll work that out. But I can't afford that and you jump out of bed and go to your training. Another thing is meeting a friend, Jane, I'm going to meet you at the park at seven tomorrow morning. And we're going to go for a 30 minute jog. Just that knowing that I have engaged you. And I've said I'm going to meet you there. My integrity will not let me be late. I will not let you down. I'll let me down all the time. Nobody cares, let me down, whatever, but I won't let you down. So those are two ways you can engage that part of your brain to get you out of your own way. Because it is hard. It does suck junk food tastes better than healthy food. I'm sorry, it does. I love that. I do. I love healthy food. I love good food. I love fruits and vegetables and everything. But I also really love Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

43:00  
You're human, you know, it's just you just be honest about but what you like and I have I have the same problem because I have I get to get up at five o'clock or between five and 530 to do my meditation and yoga. And sometimes I sit on this mat and I'm thinking, why am I doing this? meditation is not working or I don't want to do this. But I'm, I do it every day. And then something just moves. And then after that, oh yes, this is why I do it. And this is why why I got a phone call on to the matchwinner. Again, that was the type of part of my brain is saying no, no, it's called you just want to stay in bed a bit longer. Who needs to meditate anyway, that kind of thing.

43:45  
You have to remember that it's the keys to the kingdom, like meditation is the biggest gift you have to realise that. One of the things I coach people through is doing a vision board. So you you flip through magazines or the internet or whatever and you find images and words and key phrases and things that really inspire you. You know, for me my old vision boards, because my wife and I it took us 15 years to have to get to get pregnant have a baby it was told we were told it was impossible. 10 different ways to Sunday and we she went on we went on fertility retreats and she drank a tea for a year and a half that tasted like somebody kicked over a dead camel and put it in a glass like it was awful traditional Chinese herbal tea, it was horrible stuff. And she drank it every year to fluffer ci or something, which didn't work. But anyway, we tried everything. And we finally had a baby through a list of miracles. But anyway, prior to having a baby I had a vision board and even though we had been told over and over and over again, you'll never have children. I had a picture of a pregnant lady. And and words that surprise, fully capable and I had a picture of a baby and I had a picture of a beautiful dream house with a lovely kitchen and a couple of different vacation things and I had pictures of fit Healthy People hiking and I had all the pictures of all these things that I wanted and I made this vision board and then I we got busy we moved and I put it away and I forgot about it and about three or four years later I found it again and I was like holy crap every single one of these things came true

45:27  
oh that's beautiful, beautiful story that's that

45:31  
meditation piece because Wow, you access the subconscious part of your brain right and you you reprogram the subconscious part with what you want and then it just goes busily in the background just making that happen and meditations that way you kind of shut the noise off hmm because if you're just because there's a lot of noise right now

45:54  
yeah

45:57  
Twitter and Instagram are just toxic you gotta shut off the noise

46:03  
there's so much noise and so many ways you can be distracted so and so very easily if we allow it and but that's that that's not helping us stay in the present and not helping us stand here and now which is what is what is real and I'm sure our listeners be fascinated on how to do one of your 28 day programmes How can they reach out also about your book if your body were a car you wouldn't treat it that way. How can they reach out to you Scott in what what's the best way?

46:34  
Yeah, for sure. I appreciate you asking that. Um, so my website is triple w IVC. Scottie fit comm so SEO TTY fit calm so Scottie fit calm and there's a link there to the 21 day programme. I also have a six week programme and there's a link there you can buy the PDF download of my book is only five bucks but I do have actual printed copies they're quite lovely. So yeah, that's the best way to get ahold of me study fit comm you can find me at Instagram I think it's Scottie fit Sylvan. And my Facebook handle is I am Scottie fit so like I let her I let her M was Iron Man, Iron Man Scottie fit so yeah, that's fairly easy to find as far as that goes but Scottie fit comm will get you there.

47:19  
Perfect that that's that that'd be great. I'm sure a lot of our listeners will be inspired to do that. And I would just like to add your book you really say that well no I like the way that you said if your body were a car because I've always said that like if you don't service your body like a car it's going to kind of fall apart and I like the way in your book that you've really explained easily about like all the different muscles how protein works and you've made it you've put across in a way is that everyone's gonna be able to understand but made it fun and interesting which is I think sometimes a missing element sometimes in these things that can be too dry there's no there's no risk of that show the humour that you have naturally comes across in your work writing as well but it's very informative at the same time so that's that's a really great balance to have struck so well done well done on that front when's your next 21 day programme start is is this a set times that it starts

48:13  
I try to start one at the beginning of each month sort of thing. Now a Canada here it was Thanksgiving on the 11th of October so starting a 21 day healthy eating plan right before Thanksgiving makes no sense that's just making people grumpy so we've waited till after that so the next programme starts on the 18th of October and then I'll be running another one in November to try and get everybody kind of wrapped up and ready before christmas hits.

48:38  
Any closing remarks you'd like to leave our listeners with today Scott appreciate the time that would be on this call quite long but I've just been enjoying the conversation so much you've been very interesting and fun

48:52  
yeah no it happens easily when you're speaking with somebody like yourself it's it's great to chat with you and you know final thoughts I just I think the biggest thing is to remember that your body loves you just take care of it like you're in a relationship. You will never be in a relationship as long as you are with anyone but yourself you're your longest friend so be be a friend yourself. Don't be it's not a war though. I know some people are so hard on selves and they treat food like a punishment and exercise like a beating god that's not I want you to exercise is a celebration of being able to no matter what you can do. You know it doesn't matter if all you can do is go for a five minute walk great, celebrate that five minute walk and then tomorrow at seven and then maybe it's 10 and then pretty soon you're running a marathon you never know like, just take care of yourself because it's worthy. You are amazing and we need you.

49:48  
Oh no we do we do we do and we need more people like you as well in the world Scotland. It's fascinating to to speak to you today to hear all your knowledge and wisdom and listeners. Please Do check out Scott's 21 day programme and his book, I'll put links in the narrative to all his places that you can get him. And yeah, so I'd like to say thank you very much Scott and do it. Stay tuned listeners, we'll be doing a meditation as always inspired by today's show. But once again, Scott McDermott, thank you very much. You're very welcome. So that was the wonderful Scott victim all the way from Canada. And I was contemplating which meditation I felt would help you, dear listener, the Maldives. And I thought, let's do a motivating meditation. So this kind of meditation does require a piece of paper and a pen or a pencil. And if you're driving, as always, you can just pause the podcast and just reconvene from home. Try not to skip it. And sometimes you just think, ah, I haven't got time to do this. But what's a few minutes of your life if it's going to help you long term that is the question, what is more valuable, a few minutes more of TV or few minutes more of a life changing exercise. So just pause and grab a piece of paper. And then we can just all meet sitting up nice and tall. So we are going to be doing a bit of writing so unless you can write cross luggage, so let's see can write cross legged that starts sending up nice and tall at the desk and have a piece of paper and pen. But first of all, you're going to close the eyes. And remember, the breath is the tool that brings the lifeforce prana, as we call it, in yogic terms, ci is a word that it's known as into the body. So we're going to inhale through for a count of five. So inhale for 12345 pause, exhale for 12345 and pause, and then inhale for 12345. Pause, exhale for 12345 and then you can just continue in the same way, inhaling for five paws and exhale. We're just going to do it for a little bit longer. And just relish the silence. Just one last tip before I am quiet for a few minutes, is if the mind wanders or stops taking you somewhere because that's what it loves to do. Just completely be engaged with the breath.

53:32  
from that place of calm, place your left hand on to your heart sensors such as the centre of your chest, and your right hand onto your navel, which in yogic terms is known as the manipura Chakra. And the heart chakra is called Anahata chakra. And you just gonna imagine as you breathe into your hands, this creative lifeforce, coming from the navel, open to the heart, and as you exhale, you continue that circle. So it's like a loop of inhaling and exhaling. Just do that one more time, inhale. And exhale. And as you exhale, think to yourself. What one thing could I do today to help motivate a positive change in my life? What one thing could I do today to help motivate myself to make a positive change into my life? Then pick up your pen and just write it down? There is no wrong or right answer. Just get it down on a piece of paper. That one thing that you feel

54:58  
it can be anything it feels Got from committing to do daily walking to studying something that's going to be positive and life changing. Now you've got that down on a piece of paper, do you then go on to, again, if you need more time, just pause the podcast. The next question you're going to ask is,

55:32  
how am I going to help myself to stick to this? How am I going to help myself to stick to this, and then write it down? Again, there's no right or wrong answers. If you get stuck an idea could be, as Scott suggested, is you have a body that helps you on that. So if you're doing a fitness programme, you have a body so that you can both help each other. So even still doing or anything else, something like a body can really help. Or it could be something else, like I'm going to clear a space in my house so that I can dedicate my mental time to this one spot in the house so that I can motivate myself and achieve this goal. So like, just say you want to study or something like that. One thing that you can do towards that. And then the next thing you're going to put down on a piece of paper is, I want you to write a paragraph of how you envision your life to be in the future, having taken up this, this thing, whatever it may be exercise study or anything else that how will your life be, but you want to write that paragraph as if it's already happened. So for example, if my motivation was that I wanted to be a painter, I could then envision myself in a gallery, people buying my paintings and feeling it as if it's already happened.

57:24  
And I would say just let it write, kind of don't get hung up too much on that thing, just write and write, and important things to try and use all the senses. So how will that that feature smell? How will that future taste? How will that future touch? How will that future sound? How will you How will you How will that feature see so kind of like using so senses smell can really walk a lot of positive emotion. So like maybe it can maybe if you're working in a cafe, you can smell the scent of coffee, kind of put these little finer details into this meditation and this will kind of really help you with the process. And again, dear listener, if you need more time, just press pause on the podcast. Okay, but just kind of let it flow flow flow. And then the final takeaway for this meditation for today, because remember, this is just a little baby step is you're going to write yourself a tagline. So a tagline is, you know, when they use them in movies and books, it's just a line that summarises as if you you your future self. By doing this motivated action is now starring in a movie or in a novel and it could be something like an example small town girl becomes great artists artistic director at top art gallery or anything that feels good or couch potato. Mom becomes fitness guru through a bit of daily dedication. So just something like that you can, you can go more fancy go more simple. It's your tagline, so you kind of work on it. Sometimes taglines can take a little bit longer, some might come straightaway in my knees a little bit of time. So if it doesn't come straight away your tagline maybe you can do a little bit longer, but again, don't get too hung up on it. And with this piece of paper with all the details on now you can put that up somewhere you can see every day and then you can just build on that so and so for an example if you want to be an artist you can build on what you need to do do that if you want to get fitter you can build on what you need to do with that. There's all these kind of different ways that you can go with this. But I find, doing something like this can really help build a sense of clarity. So, hold the piece of paper close to your heart, take a deep inhalation, exhalation and just say I bless this paper with the intention to change for the highest good of myself and for the highest good of all, at the same time, fully loving and accepting myself completely. Just allow that moment of silence, that moment to be as you inhale as you exhale. And then cherish that piece of paper, like I said, put up somewhere, go about your day. And thank you dear listeners. I really appreciate listen to this podcast. I try to interview a broad selection of guests who have unique and also interconnected wisdom and so many ways

Transcribed by https://otter.ai