#96: Secrets to Thriving In Health And Business; Yuri Elkaim former Pro Soccer Player to Health Guru

You said your hair fell out a second time because of a tetanus booster. What are your thoughts on vaccines? Well, if you want to go down that rabbit hole.
What would you say the number one thing that people are struggling with and how do you help them? Without a shadow of a doubt, it's mindset. We're a very particular breed of people who, for the most part, do what a lot of people are not willing to do.
It's like, enjoy the walk, not the destination, because you'll walk further if you enjoy the process. Not everyone gets that.
They just want the outcome. And I think especially in business too, or in exercise, like if people only exercise because they want an outcome, like when the outcome doesn't happen immediately, they're done stop, right? They're done because they haven't found a way to find joy in the process of lifting and moving of whatever it is.
What's up founder nation. Super excited to bring to you, Mr.
Uri Elkheim. Uri is a health

professional. He runs healthpreneur online with Instagram.
He influences many professionals

in the health space. He is a New York times bestseller, a former professional athlete.

The guy has so much knowledge when it comes to taking care of your health. This is something

Thank you. He is a New York Times bestseller, a former professional athlete.
The guy has so much knowledge when it comes to taking care of your health. This is something like I'm so passionate about.
I believe that if we can take care of our health, it naturally goes and impacts all the other areas, the economic, the associations, and our spirituality. So you will not want to miss this episode.
There's going to be so many nuggets. Let's dive in.
Yo, yo, yo. Welcome to another episode of the Founder Podcast.
Today, I am joined by Mr. Yuri Elkame.
Yuri was a former professional soccer player. He's owned a business in the health space for the last 20 years.
He has been featured New York Times best seller. This guy is a content producing machine.
If you're not following him on all the social medias, you need to be there, but excited to have you on the show. Welcome to the show, Mr.
Uri. Awesome.
Thanks so much, Chris. Pleasure to be here and happy to dive in.
Awesome, man. So first and foremost, I just want to say like health right now is very on the forefront of many people's minds, right? And it's an interesting dichotomy that we have in 2024, right? For the last 10 years, there's been the online influencer that's been pushing like hustle, hustle, hustle, right? You got the Gary V's of the world and everybody else is like, work your brains out.
Don't care about anything else. I'd love to hear like your take on that.
Like, I mean, do you have to sacrifice the hustle to get your health intact? Are you, uh, are you big, like focus on health? Like give me a little more light there. It's a great question.
I mean, my whole premise is working smarter, not harder. But the reality is like there's a season to work hard.
The difference that I've noticed is really in the perception or the meaning we give the work. So when I was a burnt out personal trainer, working 12 to 14 hours a day, way back in my early 20s, I felt out.
Now I work more than I did back then. And I don't feel burnt out.
And so the way I think of this is like, it's a grind if you feel ground. And now when, for me, at least I feel very on purpose and I've, I've felt this way for, for many years now.
I love the work that I do. I mean, even when I'm taking a trip, I still work while I'm on quote unquote vacation.
And that's just because it's, it's when you find your life's purpose, it doesn't feel like work. So I think that's an important starting point, but there are unfortunately probably many more people percentage wise that are doing work that they don't feel inspired by.
They know it's not their life mission and they're just looking at their watch, counting the minutes on daily basis. I think that's a different story.
But if you're starting something or you're in the pursuit of your bigger, your bigger mission, understand that there's a time and place to put in the work. Like if you're starting a business, you're probably putting a bit more work than if you're 10, 15, 20 years down the path.
At the same time, though, unfortunately, I've met a lot of entrepreneurs in my life who have made the trade of pursuit of success for their health. And then they make all this money and they try to buy their health back 20 years down the road.
So for me, first and foremost, my most important priority is my health, like even beyond my family. Cause I'm like, if I don't take care of myself, I can't even be there for them.
So I prioritize health. And when I say that, I don't, I don't talk about like a three hour morning routine.
I'm talking about every day I'm doing something to get stronger, fitter, more flexible, nourishing my body from the inside out. And that's important because if I want to be a productive entrepreneur and a better contributor to my family and society, I mean, I got to be in good shape.
I got to be energetic. I got to be focused.
So for me, it's really important to maintain that level of health because what's the point of having all the quote unquote success if you're like tired and overweight and lethargic all the time. And ironically, you know, we obviously help a lot of health practitioners and a lot of them, although they espouse, you know, balance and, you know, all that stuff for their patients and clients, a lot of them are completely burnt out because they're working one-on-one every minute of the day, burning the midnight oil, doing admin.
And it's an interesting dichotomy to see that. So yeah, I hope that answers your question.
The old plumber has a leaky toilet, right? Like they don't have enough time to address the things that they, yeah, like you said, espouse to be important. You know, it's interesting.
I agree 100% with you from a physical standpoint, like taking care of yourself. So I built a business with over 1000 employees.
And one of the things that I love to do is go and give a three to four hour training whenever we had a new group of salespeople come in. And one of the things that we talk about is like, you know, the goal here is not just to make a bunch of money, right? Is that we want you to be better physically, economically with your associations and your spiritual, right? Like really focus on the whole human.
And one of the things I would always ask people is like, all right, out of those four, what would you say is the most important? And people would be like, oh, spiritual for this reason or economics or my relationships, you know, and everybody would have a different thing. And, and to your point, like, uh, one of the things I would always wrap back is like the, the fitness aspect, right? Like taking care, like, this is how we experience everything else, right? It's how we experience mindfulness and spirituality and our economics and our relationships.
Like it's, uh, and one of the examples I always give is like, and it's really hard for me to go out and play catch with my boy. If I weigh 400 pounds, right? Like it just is a difficulty.
And, and so I, I really appreciate just your focus on that because I, I agree with you a hundred percent that like that has to be the focus. Like has, has that, has that always been something that's been very apparent to you or was there a shift along, uh, along your career, your life in which you're like, uh, I need to make sure this is always a priority.
so I lost my hair to an autoimmune condition just before my 17th birthday. And that was really the inflection point that moved me in this direction.
Because I was growing up, I had the goal of playing pro soccer, like from the age of 10. I'm like, that's all I'm going to do.
That was that was that's the only thing I could envision my life being. So I was very fit, but I didn't realize that I wasn't healthy.
I didn't understand there was a difference. I thought, oh, I could eat McDonald's and then go play soccer.
No big deal. And it took me many, many years to figure out why that was happening.
So that really moved me in the direction of studying health sciences and the human body and nutrition and all that stuff. And I was able to regrow my hair in the space of about two to three months after eight years of kind of like finding my path there.
And basically for me, it was just understanding like my body was polluted from just eating garbage and being exposed to a lot of stuff when I was young, clean everything up, regrow my hair. But most importantly, I had way more energy than I ever had in my life because for half my life, I was exhausted all the time.
I'm like, oh, I'm just active. I'm a young kid.
I'm like, I'm tired. No, no, no.
For me, I went from sleeping 12 hours a day to six hours and I was jumping out of bed and I was like, Holy cow, I'm 25 years old and I'm just realizing this now. And that was a huge shift for me.
I was like, man, like you don't understand how good you can feel until you feel how good you can feel. Right.
So that really became a major, major motivator for me to share what I was learning and obviously eventually practicing with clients. And that led me to writing my first book, which became a New York Times bestseller, The All-Day Energy Diet.
And it was obviously I don't have any hair now because about 10 years later, I ended up getting a tetanus booster and my hair fell out again, whatever. But what's interesting is in that process, obviously I was very health conscious, but initially in my journey, I was very, very OCD.
And this is one of the things that I find really challenging about pursuing good health is you can go down the rabbit hole of being so granular and obsessive about, oh my God,

is this salad really organic? And it gets to a point, at least for me, where I became so obsessed with all the nuances, the tiny little things that in the grand scheme, I was stressing my body out just by stressing about that stuff. So I went from this place early on in my journey from being hypervigilance with my nutrition to becoming a lot more chill.
There's a better word. I think chill is probably a good word where I'm not obsessed whether or not something is organic or grass fed or locally raised.
I just enjoy it without guilt, without shame, because energetically that makes a huge difference in how our body absorbs it. So that's just kind of been my journey over time.
But back to your question, I think that really, the big, aside from that journey, the big reminder for me was during COVID. I had two friends who passed away during that time.
early 40s, super successful businesses, but they were not healthy. And it was really sad.
Like it was really upsetting because I was like, man, like what's the point of doing any of this stuff, you know? So that was a really big reminder for me to come back to making sure I prioritized my health and fitness first and foremost, because it's like, like they left behind their kids. They left behind eight and nine favorite businesses.
And I'm like, Ooh, like you're 40, you know, like this is crazy. So I think that was a really big catalyst more recently, but that's kind of been my journey through, uh, through health so far.
So you said a few things there, not to get too controversial, but maybe a little bit here. You said your hair fell out the second time because of a tetanus booster.
I'd love to. What are your thoughts on vaccines? Well, if you want to go down that rabbit hole.
Like I said, I'm happy to be a little controversial if you want to be. But yeah.
I'm happy to share my points of view. That's what I do on a daily basis.
So part of why I lost my hair in the first place was because I was exposed to 40 plus vaccines as a kid. And my immune system was probably a little more fragile to begin with.
So you combine that with antibiotics, plus a standard American diet, plus stress, plus everything else. It was just a concoction for a disaster.
So with that, and unfortunately, I went through an eight-year journey where the medical community had no answers. Their answer was, let's inject Chorazone into your head.
I was like, that's never going to happen. So that's what led me into, once I graduated from kinesiology from the University of Toronto to go back to school to study holistic nutrition, which was more of a, you know, not an allopathic way of looking at nutrition.
It was more holistic. And I was really interested in that because I wasn't getting the answers from the traditional community.
And then, you know, obviously experiencing some stuff down the road.

And like during COVID, I mean, I didn't get vaccinated.

My kids didn't. None of our kids have been vaccinated.
They've been healthy as can be. um what's two things i've noticed since covid is one especially this year i have not in my life

seen this many people frequently sick as I've seen this year. It's almost like every week someone's been getting sick.
And I think part of that, I mean, and this is not my opinion. This is just like what happens is when we over medicate vaccine, a population, bugs, viruses, bacteria, or viruses specifically in this case, mutate to survive.
And I think what we're seeing now is an overly mutated super bug or super virus that our bodies have not adapted to yet. And I think a lot of that is just mass vaccination that's happened.
The second thing that I've noticed, and this is for me the most alarming, is I played soccer my whole, I shouldn't say my whole life, but I played soccer up until i was 25 at a very high level and i've followed it religiously since then i love it i have never so before all this maybe i can think of two players who dropped collapsed on the fields due to heart conditions um now i mean it just happened last week in roma like roma was Udinese, they canceled the game because one of their players dropped. It's almost happening on a monthly basis.
And I'm telling you, I've never seen that in my life, playing sports and seeing sports at that high level. And again, like we're not going to hear this from the medical community, like they're just going to say it's the virus, whatever it is.
They don't consider that it could be the vaccine. My mom had a stroke and even that my mom had a stroke that was thankfully not that severe, but even her doctor, her cardiologist said, your blood just looks thicker coming through your veins and arteries.
I'm like, you know, it's crazy. I mean, there's so much information out there about this stuff.
And there's, again, unfortunately there's gonna be a lot of people that agree with this, don't agree with it. And that's fine.
It's just, it's facts. And, and frankly, it's hard not to be a conspiracy theorist when, when the facts are just lining up and, you know, when, when COVID hit, man, I was a, a vocalist of like anti-vax and, you know, all this stuff.
So I, I think I line with you there, but man, it, it is, it is crazy to see the, this, the different health issues that have stemmed from it. You know, like I had a neighbor, I have a lake house up in Northern Idaho and my, my neighbor's from California and she's like, yeah, I got vaxxed, you know, uh, sure.
Glad I did it. I couldn't use my arm for four months.
And like wait what you couldn't you couldn't use an extreme like uh and you know it it to for me it was just so difficult to have something that was being shoved down our throats so hard and as a capitalist to see the way that people were to, these health companies were able to capitalize just made it much more difficult for me to like accept the narrative that was being pushed. And so, you know, big pharma is pretty crazy.
And to that point too, Chris, like the biggest problem for me was the mass censorship of information that happens. Now people could not make an informed decision because they were only seeing one side.
And if anyone was saying anything contrary to that, you're a conspiracy theorist and you're a danger to society. Right.
And I think that is the scariest part of what happened. I agree.
You know, because it's, it's very hard to make an informed decision if you only see one side of it. Right.
And I think that was a problem. And yeah, it is, it is a scary world to live in when, when, uh, yeah, non-censorship is you're a conspiracy theorist and a, in a crazy white right winger, right.
Like just to, to be able to have freedom of, of speech and you're, and the crazy thing is the censorship that existed on the other side, one side, now it's existing on the complete other side of like the facts and the real information that is being censored to keep us thinking that like everything was okay. That happened the last three or four years, it's just flip-flopping the censorship.
And

yeah, it's wild. But man, so shifting back, so you've gotten to this point where you're not as crazy as far as like things being organic or whatnot.
One of the things that you brought up was like having a certain energy while consuming, like being, uh, you know,

can it walk, talk us a little bit more about that? Like, what do you mean as far as like having a good positive energy towards your food? Yeah. So again, for people that are very quantitative and allopathic, they're going to say, this is.
That's fine. I'm just going to share my perspective on this from the way I understand and have experienced this.
The thing that I've realized in my journey of health and obviously spending so much time in that world in my first business was what we don't see is infinitely more powerful than what we do. And when you have a burger, for instance, and you're looking at this burger and eating it, and in your mind, you're like, this isn't good for me.
This isn't good for me. This isn't good for me.
Your body fundamentally changes at a molecular level in terms of how it responds to that. There's a really good book by, and I can't remember his name.
He was a Japanese scientist around the hidden messages in water.

And he showed images in the book of when you drink a glass of water and just by putting the word love on the bottom of the glass, how the molecular structure of the water molecules changed. And when it was exposed to like heavy metal music or hate, the molecular structure of the water changed.
And it's just fascinating that for, again,

I'm very pragmatic and I'm very logical, but I'm also very aware of the only difference

between magic and science is that we haven't been able

to prove what is magical yet.

So 100 years down the road,

we're going to look back on this stuff and be like,

oh my God, like, how do they not believe that stuff?

Like in the early 1900s, there was this, I remember learning this in university, uh, this theory called the vitalist theory. So the medical doctors, medical doctors recommended women not to leave the house because their uterus could fall out of their body.
It was called uterine displacement. And they scared the population of women with that indoctrination because they believe that they could only use their vital energy in the house for child rearing, for, you know, for kind of cleaning up and tending to the home.
And it was all a control play. Right.
And now we look at that, that's crazy. Or how about in the 1970s when medical doctors were smoking in operation rooms? and now we're like what and so we look at that it's like that's crazy or how about in the 1970s when medical doctors are smoking in operation rooms right and now we're like what and so we look at stuff that's happening now and it's like well in 20 30 years we're gonna look back on this stuff and be like how did you not know that or how this is so common sense so although I'm very like show me the proof at the same time I'm also like well there's stuff that we don't know yet that makes sense.
Right. And I think, unfortunately, there's a lot of like, I was just telling my wife, like my mom has a really negative narrative around food.
Like every time she comes over, she's like, well, I had to bring these chips over or these crackers. They're almond flour based.
They're really good, but I got to get them out of my house. Cause I'm going to eat them all.
And she kept saying that to every single one of my kids. I'm like, mom, like just enjoy the crackers, right? Like don't obsess about it.
And so that's for me what, uh, I guess what I mean by kind of the energetic side of food is just whatever you're eating, bless it, enjoy it, love it, show gratitude for it. If this were a thousand, 2000 years ago, we wouldn't be like, well, is that organic? I can't eat that because I'm gluten free.
We'd be just eating it because we have to survive. And now we have the luxury of being so picky, which is fine because I think there's some merits to obviously improving the quality of our food.
But to the point of being obsessive, I think it starts to really erode the quality of the food in terms of how it interacts with our body and how our cells respond to those specific nutrients. Yeah.
Energy is so interesting, right? Because I mean, we are forms of energy, right? Just the, our molecular structure, you know, protons and neutrons and everything else. And like everything carries its own form of energy.
And the fact that we can, yeah, impact it with thoughts and words and actions, it's pretty crazy. You know, you bring up that, uh, the experiment around water.
My, my parents actually did a similar type, uh, thing in their home where they had a, uh, cooked, uh, rice in, in one jar, uh, and, and they labeled one like, uh, you know, uh, good and bad. I can't remember how they labeled it, but they would talk positive words to one and negative words to the other.
And they did this experiment over about 30 to 60 days. And then they kept it around for a long time.
Like the one that was negative turned black. Like it's the craziest thing.
And the one that was good and clean stayed pure and white. Like how that's even like scientifically proven, I don't know, but there's definitely power in our thoughts and our words and our, and our actions and the energy that we bring.
And so I really, that's so cool. Yeah.
I appreciate you. You bringing that back to my mind.

And it makes sense to like, if you think like, if you spoke negatively to a human, you would see them crumble, right? Like you would just see them deflate their self-belief and confidence to be gone versus if you speak to someone and you infuse confidence and hope in them, they're a completely different person. Right.
Right. So like, what's the difference if it's a tree, a piece of rice, water, we're all energy.
Yeah, no, it's, it, it is, uh, it is pretty, pretty amazing. So, you know, you've, you've built and, and, and sold businesses.
How, like, tell me what, what does your routine look like from a, from a health standpoint? And how do you continue to be able to focus? Because obviously, you have a family, right? You have four boys, and you're living a pretty balanced life. How do you balance in health in all these areas besides just talking positively to your fit? Yeah.
So I get up typically 4.30, 5 o'clock every morning. And I have a standing desk or adjustable and I have a walking treadmill underneath it.
So the first thing I do in the morning is I walk. I move my body.
So what time do you go to bed? Because getting up at 4.30 starts the night before. What time do you get in bed? I go to bed before my kids half the time.
I love going to bed around nine o'clock. So like eight 30, I'm in bed, I'm reading nine, nine 30, I'm done.
And then I'm up the next morning, four 35 ish. How's your wife? She doesn't care.
She just sleeps. I'm like, I keep telling him like, listen, like my life changed when I started getting up early in the morning.
Like, especially when you've got kids and it's like chaos sometimes in the morning, if you have an hour to two for yourself, first thing, like, it's one of the things that we, we recommend to our clients. Cause I'm like, if you add just one hour a day, like, let's just say first thing in the morning or last, you know, last night, whatever you want over the course of one year, that's nine full-time working weeks.
And if you use that hour to focus on deep work, that's a game changer. So that's been my approach for the past close to 10 years before that I was not a morning person in the slightest.
And I went through a long time of getting up early, not getting up early, sleeping in all that nonsense. But now, if I've been laying in bed, the first thing I like, I know I operate and I feel best when I move my body first thing.
So I live just outside Toronto. Unfortunately, in the winter, it's pretty shitty outside.
So I decided to get a walking or a treadmill for my desk. So first thing now, no matter what the temperature or climate is, I'm walking minimum one hour first thing every morning.
So I'm at my desk, I'm focused on deep work and I'm walking. Then, well, before that, a liter of water for sure with some salt and lemon.
So I go for that walk about 90 minutes after I wake up, I'll have my first coffee. I like having coffee, so I'll have about two a day.
And then I'm not typically a workout in the morning kind of guy. For me, it fluctuates.
Like this afternoon, I have a workout with my trainer. Yesterday morning, I worked out in the morning.
So I'm not as rigid with my workouts. It's more of like, how's my body feeling today? Which sometimes may not be the best, but for me, it's worked.
So no matter what I'm walking minimum, I'd say five plus miles a day, whether that's on my walking treadmill indoors and or outside. And when, whether it gets nicer, I'm outside pretty much all the time.
You know, I'm outside in the morning, like this morning, I was just sitting in a deep squat, drinking my water, like literally in my backyard for 15 minutes. Then I was just doing some basic yoga, some dynamic stretching for 10.
And that's just a nice way to limber up my body. And then that's after my walking.
So I'm walking, moving all the time. And then I'm lifting heavy three, four times a week.
And so I'm not a big fan of lifting lightweights. I don't think there's any value there.
So I'm talking about lifting heavy. I want to be strong.
I'm 44 now. I want to get stronger as I age, muscle mass declines as we age.
So I want to be stronger when I'm 70 than I am now. And that's a big focus a big focus of mine.
So I'm lifting three, four times a week, pretty heavy, big movements, uh, deadlifts, bench squats, pull ups, you know, all the big guys and how much do you bench and squat? You said lifting heavy. Yeah, so right now, bench is 205.

Okay. heavy yeah so right now bench is uh two 205 okay and squat is you know what squat i'm not even sure i think squat's got to be around 235 it's not too not too big at the moment so that's what you're repping yeah nice yeah cool for about you, four to six reps.
Yeah. Great.
But I also like to, I'm a very creative workout person. So I like to try new things.
I'm a big, big believer in full range of motion. So instead of going heavy squats, I'll do a lot of deep knees over toes type of stuff.
There's a lot of cool research around that type of movement, those type of movement patterns. So I'm always in like, I'm always exploring and trying new things.
I like lifting heavy with deadlifts. That's not something I've done a lot in my life up until about a year and a half ago, but I really feel strong after doing those.
So there's certain lifts that I like going heavy other stuff. I like just really exploring and looking at full ranges of motion.
But I just like feeling strong. I really like that testosterone kind of coursing through your veins and the strength in your legs.
I like that feeling. And so that's something to do three, four times a week.
So that's kind of what my quote unquote fitness is like. I love playing tennis.
I don't play as much as I'd like because it's not an accessible sport, especially when you can't get into a club and there's a waiting list for five years. So I end up playing with my kids at the local tennis courts.
And I mean, just being outdoors, you know, like, you know, walking in nature, spending time outside. Like I love doing that stuff.
So that's for me what it typically looks like. What would you say like the most overrated and underrated workouts are?

And then at the same time, most overrated, underrated, like nutritional practices are? Sure. I think underrated is going to be the, it's going to sound like a weird answer, but I think the underrated for both is the one that you enjoy doing most.
So I have certain opinions around Zumba and lifting lightweights and the Sydney Crawford workouts. And at the same time, it's like, well, if you love doing that and that's what keeps you active, great, awesome.
Just understand that you could probably benefit by lifting some heavy to you. So I think from an underrated perspective, it's trying to fit yourself into this like box of like, this is how I have to train as opposed to just really being movement oriented.
I think the big thing is focus on moving more as opposed to like working out all the time. Cause if you just, like, if you think about working out even 30 minutes a day, that is not going to, that's not going to like supersede the importance of being active.
Like if you sat in a chair for eight hours a day and you think a 30 minute workout is going to just counteract that, it's not really like it's, it's better than nothing. But if you're in a chair for eight hours a day, the best thing you can do is get up every 30 minutes, move around, stand up, go for a walk, add on top of that something you love doing.
Great. Overrated.
I would say again, like I'd say maybe CrossFit to some degree. And the only reason I say that I think CrossFit is awesome if you're technically sound with your movements.

But when you have average people who don't have a lot of experience doing complex lifts and now they're doing snatches overhead to fatigue, I think that becomes a problem.

So I think CrossFit for relatively inexperienced working outers can, can be to some degree, a bit of a recipe for disaster for people that are more experienced and love the community and the challenge. I think it's cool.
What about just forms of cardio? I know there, there's like this big, like, uh, argument, like sprints are better than like long-term cardio or, or whatnot. Like where, where do you find yourself there? Obviously you do a lot, a lot of walking, but, uh, you know, when it comes like, I think there's, there's benefits of both for sure.
And I think there's bang for buck, short, high intensity interval training is significantly superior for all levels of health. Like when you look at blood sugar markers, um, like everything, like there's just so much research behind that.
And also unless you have, if you're, if you're someone who's relatively busy, which pretty much everyone is like, you can get in a 12 minute interval session and just be pumping and just dripping. And that will have tremendous benefits, even if it's done two, three times a week at the most.
So I think the danger of that is the impact on the adrenals. Like it can be very taxing to do that type of activity all the time.
So again, like listening to your own body, is there a time for lower, longer duration stuff? Sure, for sure. But you just got to, I think that's why like for us, for humans, like if we can just really figure out what's going to work best for us and understand that if all we did was go for an hour walk a day, like there's a lot of other stuff that we're missing out on.
It's like, as long as we're aware of that, cool. But if we by that going for a walk for an hour every day is going to be the panacea to losing weight and building a strong body, it's not going to happen.
Right. Right.
It's kind of like the baseline. It's just, it's just like breathing oxygen is, is a baseline.
Yeah. So I'm a big fan of short, intense interval training a couple of times a week at the most.
Um, for me, it's one of the most powerful ways to quiet my mind. I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, we're very in our head, very creative.
It's nonstop. And it's like the only thing that just shuts my mind down.
And I really enjoy that. Like I'll go 10 to 15 minutes and I'm good.
I'm done. And then it's just like, I have that moment of Zen, right.
I can just like actually be in my body for a moment. So I find for myself that to be very, very powerful.
And I know we talked nutrition, but I, but I do want to pinpoint here. What, what's your thought on like breath work meditation? Is that something you practice? What are your, what are your, what are your thoughts there? I don't, I don't do enough of, to be honest.
I think there's a tremendous amount of benefit in breath work that I've personally experienced, but I'm nowhere near as consistent as other people might be with that stuff. I think meditation is awesome as well.
Same. For me, I have a very hard time sitting and closing my eyes for an hour or 20 minutes or 30 minutes.
So for me, I've, I've come to terms with like, what is meditation? I mean, for me, it's just connecting to myself and trying to be present. And so the best form for me to do that is actually just going for a walk in nature.
I feel so connected to everything in myself when I'm by water or I'm in the forest. And I would argue that is, that is a form of meditation, right? Like going exactly.
Yeah. Right.
So that's, that's the thing that I struggled with for a while. Like, Oh, I got to be sitting down, eyes closed, you know, Kumbaya.
I'm like, no, no, like for me, meditation is going for a walk by the water or being in the forest for an hour and just being disconnected from anything like no audio, nothing. That for me is my meditation.
Um, and then breath work, I think, you know, whether it's Wim Hof or other stuff, I think it's tremendous. I just, I don't do it ever.
So, yeah, for sure. And so as, as far as nutrition, like, you know, there's, there's always a fad diet or something else, right.
A high protein diet that is described as, you know, whether it's the Atkins diet or the carnivore diet or whatever else. Like what would you say like overrated, underrated? And what's your take on like even protein needing to be from an animal source? I'd love to like understand your thoughts on those, those type of things.
Yeah. I mean, the human body is so complex and it's also almost the same.
So like, as we have this weird dichotomy where like you and I might have broccoli and respond completely differently to an objectively good food. That's the challenge of nutrition is that we all have these genetic blueprints that are a little bit different.
And therefore even quote unquote good foods are assimilated very differently inside the body. So I think the most important thing is understanding, like just kind of discover your own path, like figure, like try stuff, like figure out what makes you feel good, what makes you feel not so good and use that as the barometer to make whatever nutrition decisions are going to best suit you.
With that said, I think there's some baseline stuff. I don't think you can argue the fact that having protein is a good thing.
Like starting your day with protein is a much better, no matter who you are, is a much better start to the day than if you started with a bagel or a muffin or a donut. Like having carbs early in the day, if you want to go right back to bed, do that.
But if you actually want to be productive and maintain muscle mass and grow muscle mass, like having protein first thing in the morning is one of the most important things. So what would you say to like Jesse Itzler, who is like fruit before noon, right? Like it's all carbs.
Now it's, it's a different kind of carb than like a bagel or a whatever, but I mean, he's pushing pure, pure carbohydrates. What would you say to that? I mean, if it works for Jesse, that's great.
Right. Um, I was raw vegan for half a half a year, six months when I first kind of got into nutrition way back in the day yeah so that that's pretty much that was what i was living on right now if i have a fruit smoothie like with no protein no peanut butter nothing in it i am a i'm in a coma for the next couple hours in the morning right so again it's like for me i feel best if'm having nothing.
So I'll fast or just have a black coffee, obviously after some water. And I typically don't eat anything throughout the day.
Like today, I haven't had anything other than coffee. Um, I'm actually going to be working out in about an hour and a half.
I feel fine. And then tonight I'll have a much bigger meal.
Some people do better with more frequent meals and there's studies to show the benefits of both. Right.
So it's really just kind of, again, figuring out for you and also where you are in your journey. Like what worked for me when I was 20 is not necessarily the same as it is when I'm 44.
Yeah. And it might change, you know, as I'm older.
But generally, definitely lowering sugar intake, especially from refined sources, whether it's pastries, etc. If you had to choose between fruit and refined carbs, yeah, fruit for sure.
But on the fruit side, if you are going to have fruit, my recommendation in the morning, it would be berries because berries have a lower glycemic index. There's tremendous benefits to them.
But I wouldn't be crushing a lot of the tropical fruit, like the bananas, the watermelons, the pineapples, the mangoes early in the day, unless you're going to be super active right afterwards or before, probably not the best option, at least for me. Got it.
So, I mean, it sounds like you're a big proponent of intermittent fasting or fasting of of some sort um recently there was a study that came out that said intermittent fasting is bad for you right like that it's actually causing heart issues and and i saw i i read this study this this last week and and for me like my personal experiences has always been the intermittent fasting works and it's fantastic.

So I guess my question is, is this study just big pharma trying to push their own agenda or what, what are your, what are your thoughts to, you know, is, could it potentially be bad for you? Yeah. I mean, I haven't seen this study, so I don't know, but I think, you know, the one, in my experience, the one contraindication in certain situations has been sometimes for women.
Now, again, like I haven't really been deep in the nutrition trenches for the past couple of years. So there might be some new stuff that I'm unaware of.
But when I was a lot more active in this, the one contraindication that I saw was, you know, sometimes with women, thyroid, adrenal potential issues, because it is a form of stress on the body, right? Just like cold plunging is, just like exercise is. And so you just have to look at how that makes you feel, how the body responds.
But on the flip side, I mean, when you look at the one thing that has been shown to extend lifespan, at least amongst animals, it's frugal eating. It's eating 30% fewer calories.
And they've shown that to actually be one of the most important things to extend lifespan. And it makes a lot of sense as I started learning about this.
because when I was talking earlier about how I was exhausted all the time, and that for me was a warning sign that something more dangerous was happening inside my body. The thing as I started to piece this together, what I realized is that if your body is always fighting stuff, viruses, bacteria, infections, or always digesting and assimilating food, it uses a lot of energy.
When you don't eat, you will often find yourself to be more energetic if you have relatively stable blood sugar. Now, if you're someone who's got diabetes, you know, maybe not, right? But when we don't eat, at least for a certain amount of time, our body has free energy to repair, to get rid of nonsense that it doesn't need, to use other resources in the body in other directions, whether it's movement, be more productive, more focused.
I've noticed a huge benefits intermittent fasting. Like I just, I don't even, the other thing too, is like, I don't even want to think about what to have for breakfast.
Right. So like not even thinking about like, what am I going to have for breakfast? What am I going to have for lunch? It just frees up a lot of mental space.
Right. And then you just find your rhythm.
Like for me, I have maybe, maybe two meals a day. And that works great for me.
Other people are like, oh, I got to eat five or six times a day. I'm like, do you? Or is it just you believe you do? Right.
Some people do, some people don't. So I think, again, it's just like try it out, figure out how it makes you feel.
And also understand the first time you fast, whether it's 12 hours, 16, eight, a full 24 hours, whatever it is, you're going to feel like crap. Like you're, and understand the difference of, am I really like in a health crisis right now? Which you're not.
Or does this, what, is this what hunger feels like? Because it's okay to feel hungry. The problem is that we don't even know what that feels like anymore because we have a fridge, we have a Starbucks in every corner.
We're constantly stuffing our faces with food sometimes as an escape mechanism. And it's okay to reconnect to how we're supposed to feel when we are hungry.
Because that's part of the process of like learning about how your body operates. So I think it's a great process to go through at least once.
When I say once, I mean like, just try 24 hours without food. You'll be okay and see how it goes.
You know, it's interesting. There's always so many fads in the health space, right? Because everybody wants to feel good.
They want to look good. They want to, I, one of the, one of the big fads right now is Ozempic and some of these other peptides and whatnot.
I'd love to hear your thoughts. Like, I mean, is this a fad? Is it potentially a long-term thing that we should all be adopting or is it something that's going to end up with a bunch of, a bunch of issues down the road? I'd love to kind of hear your thoughts on that.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know enough about it, to be honest. I'm sure there's some stuff that shows positive attributes and probably some negative stuff too.
So my dad's wife, my parents divorced when they're young. So his current wife has now been on a Zampik for about a year.
And she's lost a significant amount of weight. And it's great for her.
She feels better. She's more active now because her body is 40 to 50 pounds later.
She feels better about herself. And I think there's something interesting to say for that because I'm a bit of a purist.
I'm like, well, it's not changing how you eat because basically you're not eating. It's just suppressing hunger to some degree.
You're not changing your habits necessarily. So if you were to go off of it, you don't actually, you haven't become a different person potentially.
So from that perspective, I think it's interesting to look at, is it, is it for some people, like my mom was talking about, uh, about the same idea with me last week. She's like, I, I, if, if all it did was help me feel better about myself to kickstart me in the direction that I want to go, isn't that okay? And I said, that's actually an interesting way of looking at it.
The only thing I don't know is like, what are the, what are the consequences? Like, what are the side effects of, of this? Like, I'm not a huge pharma guy in general. Yeah.
And like, I would rather in like, again, in my utopian mind is like, I would rather everyone improves their dietary and physical activity habits. But the reality is humans are not going to do that.
There will be a percentage that do, and there will be a bigger percentage that don't. Because as much as we say we want change, change is hard.
It's easier to sit on the couch than move. We'd love a good hack.
Yeah. Right.
So it's like, I mean, from the pharma side, it's like it's the most brilliant thing of all time. Right.
Right. Because it gives people exactly what they want with little to no effort.
So from a compelling offer perspective in terms of results and results for nothing, cool, sign me up. So for me, I wouldn't really explore that.
Not that I need to, but I would rather become the type of person who is able to achieve the results. Yeah.
It's, it's interesting. I think a lot of people fantasize that results is what brings satisfaction when the exact opposite is true.
It's, it's actually the discipline and the process of going and getting results that, that brings satisfaction. Cause I mean, and this happens all the time.
I've interviewed hundreds of entrepreneurs, right. And somebody goes and like sells their business thinking that like the amount

of cash, like I went through this, right. Like the amount of cash, the result was going to somehow

change my life, but it removed the process of building the business and, and the things that

were actually bringing me the most joy and the happiness. And, and so like going back and have,

and figuring out a way to find that. And I, I think to your point, right, like whatever result that we're chasing, realize that if you cheat the, the process, you're not going to find that level of fulfillment.
Yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, it's your point, Chris Chris, like, I don't, as much as I have a hopeful desire for everyone, I don't think everyone's built this way, right?

I mean, unfortunately, like, I think we know that.

And that's why I love entrepreneurs and this whole dialogue around just entrepreneurship in general, because we're a very particular breed of people who, for the most part, do what a lot of people are not willing to do. Right.
Right. And like, if everyone is an entrepreneur, I don't think the world would work because there needs to be people that work within companies.
But to enjoy the process as opposed to the outcome, I think is a really amazing thing to come to terms with. We'll go for a walk with our kids.
And they're like, where are we going? I'm like, we're going for a walk. They're like, oh, but I need to know where we're going.
I'm like, why? Do you have a train to catch or something? It's like, enjoy the walk, not the destination, because you'll walk further if you enjoy the process. And not everyone gets that.
They just want the outcome. And I think especially in business too, or in exercise, like if people only exercise because they want an outcome, well, that's like when the outcome doesn't happen immediately, they're done.
They're done. Right.
They're done because they haven't found a way to find joy in the process of lifting, of moving, of whatever it is. And I think that's, that's unfortunate, but you know, that's, that's the human condition to some degree.
Yeah. So, I mean, you work with a ton of different entrepreneurs in the medical space and all the different things.
Like what, what would you say the number one thing that people are struggling with and how do you help them? without a shadow of a doubt, it's mindset. You know, it's funny because we don't talk about mindset in our marketing, uh, in terms of like our advertising, we don't sell that, you know, it's like, you want clients, you want more revenue, you want more time and location freedom.
We got systems to help you do that. But on the inside, it's all this like, yeah, like obviously we give them the mechanical stuff to do, but it's incredible how the mind completely derails people.
Or like our mind is an amazing servant and a terrible master. And a big piece of what I've really focused on, I mean, for the last 20 years is like, what, like, I've always been fascinated by like, okay, so we're talking about someone who wants to improve their physical health.
Okay. And then I'm talking to people who want to improve their business.
And I see the same stuff holding them back, right? It's the fear. It's the, what if this doesn't work? It's the imposter syndrome.
It's all of this stuff, right? The, what if it's all fear, whether it's physical change or business change. And it's, it's understanding that you're supposed to suck when you're starting something new, right? I think a lot of, a lot of entrepreneurs metaphorically, they're trying to learn how to ride a bike and they get upset when they can't ride the bike the first time they do it.
Right. I'm like, dude, how many of you knew how to walk when you first came out of the womb? Like no one.
How did you know? Like how many of you knew how to speak? And I think the dialogue that we try to really instill in our clients is everything is learnable. Every single thing you're learning to do here is a skill you can acquire, right? Like our clients have spent six, eight, 10, 14, in some cases, 20 years in school, hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a piece of paper and technical skills, which is great.
And then they're expecting to have this amazing business in a couple of months or doing it for free. Mike, how many of you guys became a medical doctor while watching YouTube videos? Right.
So it's this whole mindset of, there's so many aspects of the mindset, whether it's investing in themselves, investing in skills, not more certifications, but skills that will actually get the more visible in the marketplace so they can actually help more people. Again, like there's a lot of rabbit holes here, but I think the most, like the big thing is just like the mindset that just has to be tightened, directed a little more specifically for building a successful business for sure.
I love it. That is a great advice.
And I couldn't agree with you more that like that is the largest weakness and the easiest way to make any type of improvement is really attacking that mindset. So Yuri, I appreciate your time today, everything that you've shared with us.
Where is the best place for listeners and people that are watching this to come and find you? Social media or what's your best platform? Yeah, thanks again for having me, Chris. It's been a great conversation.
I'd say the two best places, I've got nothing to sell. So I mean, it's just trying to spread the message.
If you wanna just say what's up, hit me up on Instagram. I'm at healthpreneur.
Just say you saw me on or heard of me on this show and we'll hook you up with some cool stuff. We've got lots of resources that can help you grow your business.
Second, I've got hundreds of videos on YouTube. I give everything away for free.
So if you want some very tactical stuff around marketing, sales, mindset, whether you're a health professional or not, the fundamentals are the fundamentals. I think you get a lot of value there.
So our channel on YouTube is at Healthpreneur and those are probably the two best places to connect. Very good.
Thank you so much, Yuri, for your time.

It was absolutely incredible.

Until next time!