27. Rebuilding Strength and Stamina: The Role of Breathing and Exercise in Stroke Recovery

Water put up put up another week, another Episode Episode 27 of the podcast this week. big topic, lots of thoughts. I'm sure lots of people have lots of opinions I know they do in my life, so they probably do in your life as well. But this week, it's all about exercise. I, you know, have had an interesting journey. I, as always tried to share my tips and tricks. A big one really, for me, is nasal breathing. I didn't mention it in the actual episode, but a couple of books, Patrick McGowan has written a couple books. He's from Ireland, he has a lot of training materials. Really good, really big on breathing and particular nasal breathing. You know, there's other schools of thought there's Wim Hof, you can listen to you Hebrew in episodes. I promise you, it sounds like BS. But for me, as a former smoker, former drinker, former alcoholic, you know, I really needed to work on my breathing. I, you know, got diagnosed after my stroke was sleep apnea. I really never learned to breathe properly. I was kind of a habitual mouth breather my entire life. I still struggle with it sometimes. But I really put effort into nasal breathing. Because it's really, honestly, this sounds insane. But it changed my life. When I tripped upon it last year. Finally, I got a hold of it. I started trying it. Practice it, it worked. So that in conjunction with things that I've done over the years, and I enjoy exercise, some days more than others. Listen, it's not for everybody. But if you're considering exercise, you should because it's good for you. Also, really Nasal Breathing is a big, big, big, big. If you get your breathing, right. You'd be surprised how much you don't hate exercise anymore. Now, is it going to work for everybody? No. It is not. But anyways, that's the biggest takeaway of this episode. Nasal Breathing for sure. Another good book is Brenda breathe by James Nesta. I did a couple episodes earlier this year. With other recommendations. I have tons of them. You know if you have questions, comments, concerns, always you can email me podcasts at Lobo thriver.com working on some new things anyways. That's the best tip I can give you. I know everybody's got their own thoughts on exercise whatever works best for you. Whatever you're comfortable with. That's really what I recommend. Anyways, hope you enjoy this episode. This week on episode 27 of the walls for our podcast. And I will see you next week. Enjoy this week's episode ready. My name is Schmierer Welcome back to another episode of our podcast this week in Episode 27 of the podcast we're gonna be talking about everybody's absolutely be favorite topic. I am not being facetious at all, or am I it is stroke recovery and exercise. Rebuilding consistency and making it part of your life after stroke. We're gonna hop in to a variety of topics will probably be all over the map as we are with every single episode. Because let's be honest, exercise is a big topic. People have lots of opinions, people are at different stages of their stroke recovery journey. You know, and I think it's important we talk about things in the beginning things in the middle and then you know, later on as we're getting a little bit better. And honestly, you know, again, it's such a wide ranging topic and it's very individualized. People have lots of opinions. You were doctors, your nurses, your therapists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, everybody's gonna have an opinion, including family and friends. And I just want to talk to you honestly, you know, like I do every week. I know it's not easy. I know. It's kind of cloudy, it's difficult. The beginning is particularly difficult. And I'm just going to talk about exercise, you know, again, like every week from my point of view, how I got back back into things how I have slowly over time build consistency at the gym consistency with now running. And before you hop off, and you're like exercises for me, I hear you, I've been there. And I promise you, I have some really good tips this episode. My only, you know, the best way I could tell you is that when I had my stroke in December of 2018, I was damn near 500 pounds, like, apparently just shy of 500 pounds, what I went into the hospital with beads, I was probably it for being honest, I was probably at some point, over 500 pounds. And so I do know what it takes because now I'm down to just under 300, I still say 325 on the regular. But I am consistently below 300. Now I am continuing to drop weight, but I'm less strict about it. And I have a lot of thoughts there too. So we're gonna go through some key points, some key points of the journey. And we're just gonna try to talk a little bit about everything today. And then we'll do deeper dives as, as there seems to be interest. And as you know, this show continues on and future episodes. Tip is to consider things to ask yourself things to ask others that you might be working with. So many things. So I just you know, I want to assure you that at the top of my stroke, I like I said I was 500 pounds. I believe I was 489 was the last number that I heard prior to being admitted. And so I know how hard it is to lose the weight. I've actually done it two times in my life where I've lost over 150 pounds, like I've literally lost individual people in terms of weight. Now I'm a bigger guy. So there is 6.8 325 pounds or just shy now. So it's easier, in essence, in a sense for me to lose weight dramatically. But I think all these things still apply. I really just want to harp on the fact that I was a bigger guy for a long time in my 30s I was an alcoholic. I was a cigarette smoker, all the things I never was up until like my 20s I very much played sports. So I do have that in my background. I love sports. And I guess when I got to college and partying and drinking kind of took center stage, sports took it back Sade's but I was still playing friends, recreationally. Basketball was always a big thing. You know, I lost a ton of weight in college, I was able to dunk most of my 20s. And it wasn't until I got back into bad habits in my 30s. And having children or raising children. The things sort of took a turn for the worst for me, obviously, having a stroke at 37. You have to do some significant work in a in an accurate way to your body. So I'm not an expert. I'm not here to glamorize any of the things I did, I just want to be honest about them. It's not even really inspirational. I know some people sometimes tell me like, Oh, you're such an inspirational story to hear how you came back. And like bah, bah, bah. And I do appreciate that. But I did do a lot of things incorrectly. And I wish I had done them correctly. So I really just want to say I know how hard this is, from beginning to end. So when I had my stroke in December of 2018. So let's say at the start of 2020, I started to impatient, we definitely lost some weight. Initially early on, just because I was eating three proper meals a day, I was no longer drinking, no longer smoking. So for me, that was an easy way to start to lose the weight. But I was paralyzed completely from the stroke on my right hand side of my body. I was in a wheelchair. I couldn't open my hand. I couldn't do anything with the right side of my body for quite a while if I'm being honest. And so slowly over the last couple of years things have opened up my hand is you know, I wouldn't say where I want it but it's definitely functional. Like I kid, I can't quite throw a ball a baseball football the way I used to but that is coming back slowly. And I want to really say again, everybody's journey is different. Recovery is going to look different for everybody because I remember being impatient and you might have been in as Some other spot where if you're a younger survivor, you've seen other survivors, and they're Spry in their 70s, they were like a runner, but they had a stroke. And so they were already in better shape. They, you know, the recovery processes. Again, it's different for everybody, but it is really it can be frustrating for sure. Because really, if you're paralyzed, the sort of undoing of that is, is complex, like, some people do sort of just suddenly become on paralyzed, wasn't the case for me took a while. And it was frustrating, and it still is frustrating. But in the beginning, there are things you know, you might need to be aware of, you don't necessarily need to know. But I think, again, I'm doing this from the perspective of like, I wanted to fix everything right away. That's how I am I'm a fixer. Give me a problem, I will solve it. That was tough. When I had my stroke, that was that was something I had to I was keenly aware of very quickly that I was not going to be able to do things the way I wanted. As quickly, if ever. So, again, that's where I'll tell you about tears when it comes to exercise, because in the beginning, I was paralyzed, my whole right side was very limited, I couldn't walk. It took me almost all 2020 the walk, I did slowly make progress with a walker. And I've, you know, we're three and a half years in here. My speech is a lot better, although I was on the call. So I am a little higher already today in this episode. However, I just want to be honest and truthful, it happens. You get tired, everybody, as I said, as a matter of your strokes, whoever or not. So the beginning is tough. The beginning, you really just need to focus on whatever feels right to you. I think for me, it was like, okay, where I worried about my family as a father. But I knew, Okay, I've got to sort of figure this out. I want to do everything I want to be immediately better. You know, that 10,000 hour thing, like I was like, give me 10,000 hours, I'm just, I am just going to take the first 10,000 hours of my life from here on out, and I'm gonna figure it out. Ambitious, yes. The reality is slow down, just start slow, it's going to be a process and anything shy of several years, you're going to consider that a win as you get further into your journey. So I would say start slow. When I say exercise in the beginning, I mean, do what you can do at therapy, do what feels comfortable. If you can walk, that's great. If you can walk slow, even better, if you can walk with a walker, or like, you know, really impatient, you're you're taking care of what they're telling you to do, because they want you to be safe as you should be. But looking back, now, I could say there are things that if I had been aware of them earlier on, it might have helped accelerate my recovery. And these are things that nobody mentioned to me there are things that I kind of figured out along the way, which is why I share them. I mean, we did I did an episode earlier this year. So if you're newer to the podcast, and you didn't catch that one, I do one on breathing and nasal breathing in particular. You know, I know. They give you a little thing at a lot of hospitals, a lot of inpatient rehab facilities, the spirometer with a thing that you blow into I should have brought it out but I have one laying around. I have a million of them laying around. So helpful. Yes, but nobody shows you how to use it. It is but breathing is one of those things that early on. If you're aware of your condition, and you're like I I was a mouth breather. I still am a mouth breather at times. I really have to work at it. This is nasal breathing and breathing. You know the reason I was always turned off from it is because breathwork just sounds like something I would never be entailed. Lo and behold breathwork is really just breathing exercises. And so once I realize that I had that aha moment, I immediately started working on it because I was like, Oh, wow, I feel better. Like it helped with brain fog, it helped with just blood flow in general, which I've had issues with in my my life, because as a bear guy, I had undyed, I had undiagnosed everything prior to my stroke, because I never went to the doctor like a dummy. So like, a lot of medications that I'm on, I can kind of slowly start to come off. You know, breathing isn't gonna fix everything. But it is a really powerful thing to consider working on in the early stages, because it requires little to no effort in terms of actual exercise. But it will surprisingly motivate you to exercise because think about your life. And if you're somebody who struggled with running, or even just walking at a faster pace, or just playing sports, maybe you like sports, but you always get cramps, like your breathing may be the problem. It may not be. It may not be what you think. So if you're able to fix your breathing, that's a really big thing. And one thing that I realized, you know, a couple years into my recovery, because, again, nobody mentioned this stuff, but as a stroke survivor, and I'm not saying everybody, but some of the leading causes of stroke are obviously genetics, you can't do anything about that. But if you're a heavy drinker, maybe you're not an alcoholic, to somebody who is a heavy drinker, you are a cigarette smoker, these things can lead to stroke, there's a good chance that especially as you get older, if you were or are a smoker, you know, you may stop playing sports, you may stop working out because I was a smoker in my 20s. But I played sports, I lifted weights, I was in shape. It wasn't until I became the smoker drinker bother, which sounds terrible, but like, I just I, I was raising kids, I had fewer friends that were still playing sports. So I wasn't saying as good as shape. And cigarette smoking often. Not all stroke survivors are cigarette smokers, but a lot, right. And so if you're able to quit smoking, once you have your stroke, I highly recommend that I'm sure your doctors so you're not gonna say you should, but you probably should. Because you start to realize like, oh, I don't really like smoking anyway, it's now I'm that guy, I smell it on other people. I'm like, Oh, I can't believe I did that for 20 years. That's terrible. And having had a stroke, I could tell you. If I really knew that smoking was going to lead to stroke, I wouldn't, I would I would stop immediately. 20 years ago. That's an unfortunate thing that I can't take back and says Now I know. And so for me smoking and drinking, no longer a part of my life. But I wasn't immediately breathing. I was definitely breathing better. Let's be clear. I think your breathing is better once you stop smoking and drinking. But it still like I was I've been working out for a couple of years. But I wasn't really I wasn't into running I still hated running as like running is stupid, blah, blah, blah. But I got into biking, and biking kind of led into running because I was like, huh, I don't smoke anymore. I should, in theory, theoretically, I'm walking better, like maybe I can run. And so I went on that nasal breathing journey. All that to say nasal breathing, something to look into, you can go way off the deep end, you can go back and listen to the earlier episode this year. I'd love to thoughts on it. We probably talked about it again in a couple of weeks. But breathing is something you can do early on as a stroke survivor, because if you're if you're limited, that is a great thing to do. It's a something to work on. While your body kind of begins to heal itself, where you may not be able to run for a while after your stroke or you may not even be able to walk. But in order to be living and Ben be a stroke survivor, you have to breathe and so optimizing your breathing while waiting for your body to repair itself and untangle itself and build up stamina and strength. Breathing is a really, really, really, really great thing to get into. I can't emphasize and stress it enough. I mean, again, take it from a guy who thought breath work was bullshit. I still think that's not the right term. Because I think a lot of people get turned off from breathing better because of that term breath work. It just sounds dumb. It's not, but it sounds not so great. So that's an early thing. For you, I mean, you again, you, you might have a different take, but I just found that to be really helpful early on. And then so, you know, I would talk to doctors, I would talk to physical therapists we worked on my walking, once I was able to kind of move away from the walker, I did have what's called a fo, which is ankle foot orthotic to help with drop foot. You know, and I slowly over time, I was able to build up a little bit of strength, a little bit of stamina. You know, if you've never been in a gym, I know, it can be uncomfortable if the gym is not your thing. I mean, it can be uncomfortable, it was uncomfortable for me to go back to the gym. To be clear, in 2021, that was a year and a half into my stroke, I decided to leave my full time job at that point and work on my own as an entrepreneur. And so it freed up more time for the gym, I definitely took advantage of it, I started slow, I started with things that could do, I did wind up getting a personal trainer who had worked with survivors previously, just because I wanted that, that knowledge and that help in the gym, I mean, obviously, six foot eight, three iron to bed back then I was probably still 375 I'm a big guy, I wanted to be safe, but I didn't want to push too hard. But I want to push. And, you know, that's unique to me and my personality. And I again, I had a sports background, I have children, I I'm at a different place in my life than the majority but not, not everybody. And some people are way older, and they want to get back to it too. And so you know, you have to understand your limitations yet you do have to be safe. I mean, there's there is no point in surviving a stroke and being sort of laissez faire about things like if you you know, be aggressive be, be whoever you want to be in your recovery, but like, don't overdo it. And sometimes I hear that, that I'm overdoing it from other people. However, know yourself best. Because not everybody is you and you are not everybody. And you know, I always say this to listen to what other people have to say, check yourself have a conversation with yourself is what the person said. applicable to you? Do you need to focus on it? Is it or is it just something that everybody hears? And everybody says to each other? That doesn't always apply to everybody? I find that happens to be the case a lot with me is that yeah, most people shouldn't do XY and Z. However, not most people are six foot eight 325 pounds, have raising three kids and you know, doing the things that I do. My daughter just said to me yesterday, she's like, You need to take it easy. You need to take it easy. Alright, you're not wrong? probably correct. But like, let me let me You're right. Let me cool down. Let me see where I'm at. And let me adjust. So again, there are there are many tiers, to exercising. There are many approaches to exercising, there are different modes. It's not just, you know, again, breathing is a big one. I think figuring out your diet is part of this exercise. For me, I started exercising because I was like, Oh, I'm eating healthy. But I you know, I guess in a sense, it's like some of my doctors for certain reasons, were asking me to eat a lot of protein. So I was like, Okay, well, I'm eating a ton of protein a lot. You know, all good, healthy food, but I was still eating the quantity was still quite a bit. So I kept. For me, I was like I well, I need to exercise to balance this all out. And what I realized was that fixing my breathing helped me tremendously in a lot of ways mentally and physically. And that is part of you know, I really try to use exercise as sort of motivation but also reward but also this strange thing started happening. It's like when you don't do it for a very long time or you've gotten into bad habits. I feel like as soon Are things are hard enough. So like, I started to realize some kind of small workout in the morning, like shortly after breakfast, before I started my day or before I intensely start my day, I guess depending on the day is a good way to help me as a stroke survivor really kind of boosts that energy to get through the day. Later, I started getting runs, you know, now I run in the morning, now I run the evening, I do a combination, I probably do too much exercise if I'm being honest, because I'm no longer addicted to cigarettes and alcohol, but I probably am addicted to working out. My take on that is I'd rather be addicted to working out being athletic and getting in shape and being in shape. Is it just, I don't know, it's fun. And I have been working on scaling back some of the running because I think I did overdo it really early, even though we're through the summer, so I am trying to kind of scale it back to a more reasonable amount of miles. So I'm not shooting necessarily for 120 miles a week. But I am you know, up there. But again, that that I'm further along now, you if you're starting out, I'll be honest. 10 months ago, I was two and a half years into my stroke recovery. I just started running at the age of 39. Thinking I hate this This is dumb. And a couple of weeks into it. Because of all the breath work I did leading up and because of all the biking I did and peloton and last summer leading up into the fall. I finally was at a place where as other let's do that like run three minutes. And when I say run I mean stroke burning and what I mean by stroke burning is I'm not running the way I ran when I was 20 I'm running probably more like a shuffle some people think it's walking. I don't really care what it is and you shouldn't either. That is a big takeaway here. I'm just going to interrupt myself because it can be uncomfortable as a survivor you can feel awkward especially if you're younger and somebody like me who was in prior to my stroke you know in my 20s I was definitely in shape and I was a big dude on the tank like I you know, looking awkward in the gym is something I never really dealt with. But I got over that quick because I was like man I don't care what I look like I don't care how much wait somebody else is pushing like I've survived a stroke. I have MS. Like I don't need to push 325 on the bench anymore like I'm good you know whatever whatever I need a start at 95 workup you know if you start with the bar start with bar if you can't even do the bar Don't worry do a weight a field 25 pound plate do what you can do if you don't feel good about a gym and you have the opportunity and financial means to do some stuff at home do it at home until you're comfortable build up that that that that strength that you feel like you need to be comfortable in the gym. Go later go to go to a place that's 24 hours go to a planet fitness like I know some people crap on Planet Fitness but go wherever you feel comfortable. You know and if that is your home, sir with bands, if you don't have the money for like, any kind of weightlifting or you don't have the desire or space for weightlifting, start with bands. The point is start. If if if if cardio is always been a struggle, start with fixing your breathing. These are all very sort of this all makes sense in the grand scheme of things. But I could tell you as somebody was there, it never occurred to me to fix by breathing in order to get into running. Never Never. And I had no idea just how crappy I've been breathing my whole life. Because nobody really educates you on this stuff until until you figure it out. Or until you hear it from somebody and honestly I probably heard it from other people but nobody said to me. We'll listen. If you fixed your breathing, you won't hate running nearly as much. If somebody had told me that in any one of the 39 years before I started running and liking running. Like if any coach, if any basketball coach football coach baseball coach, golf coach, anybody ever teacher in math class, you they certainly just said hey, I know I know you're not an athlete of mine. And, but I know you're an athlete, and I know I see you struggling and huffing and puffing. Here's what you do. Give it to me, give it to me. I mean, I, I am sitting here looking like a maniac into this camera today telling you, if I had known this, everything could have been different. Now, what I've listened, maybe not, that's a fair assessment. People ask me that all the time. But I gotta be honest, I'm the kind of guy if you grip if they were just like, well, I'm telling you spend 10 minutes, five days a week or two weeks, do these exercises for breathing and just see where you're at? That would help tremendously. Well, that time was an inpatient rehab, you know, if somebody sat down and today, this spirometer is good. Here are some other things you could try. You know, again, with exercise, it's so many mental and physical barriers, like a lot of people you always hear I don't want to feel like crap, I you know, and I get it, you know, if you don't weight left, let's say squats, right, because nobody loves squats, really. If you do check. Now, I love squats now. But if you don't do squats for like, a couple months, or a couple of years, your legs aren't gonna like you the day after you do squats. You have to sort of just stay with that pain for a little bit. But you know, if you slowly work through it, it will it will make a difference. The thing about exercises guests, you get exhausted, tired, you get hot, you get sweaty, you don't all these cigarettes in their sweat every week. But my point is you you build up a routine, you build up the strength and stamina eventually your legs and arms don't get as tired. You know you have you can start really like if you if you're worried about like having dead arms, and you don't want to dead arm certain super late. Nobody's saying you have to go benchpress 300 pounds to benchpress. And just do the motion without weight, like, start to build up strength, because it'll help you get through the physical and mental barriers that you're putting up. You probably are only really in your head and a lot of cases. Now, if you're if you have deficits from a stroke or brain injury, yeah, of course, there are limitations. But there always is a workaround. I don't know your particular case. I don't even want to make a suggestion but like just just talk with your team, talk to other people, what can I do? While I'm trying to break through this next step to the next level. Again, that's where the tiered thing comes in. I think these are all it's intense. It's hard, it's difficult. But eventually that consistency starts to kick in. I'm only seeing it now three and a half years and looking back like okay, I wouldn't have to do as much physical therapy all the time. If I had just done these exercises, or I might be further along on on my desire to run faster if I really did a little bit of leg lifting. Especially leg leg work in the gym, and maybe ran a few less miles a day. You know, instead of doing a half marathon everyday this summer and move I did like seven or eight miles and didn't an hour a weightlifting. You know, and that's hindsight is always 2020. But these are things that make a difference. You know, if you can't really walk at a good pace, start by walking like your pet. You know, if you have a particular problem, you know, nobody's walking a cat. If you have a dog walk the dog is walking the dog the best exercise now, but it is a start. That is the big thing here starting starting to build the habit. Also, when you're setting out to exercise and you don't love exercising, you know, besides fixing your breathing, consider as a motivator away a reward. You know, if you walk your dog for 10 minutes, try walking it for 15 minutes a day. You know, on Monday, you're like I'm gonna walk the dog for 10 to 11 on Tuesday to 12 on Wednesday. Whatever can help you motivate you to build that consistency with exercise is super, super important. And I know that a lot of us get discouraged. I know I have in the past. It's like you're getting on a good path and you get hurt. Okay, scale it back. Take time to recover. Take, take whatever amount of time you need to recover, to recover. But then get back to it slowly and realize, okay, maybe you push too hard. Why did you get hurt? Ask yourself those questions. Was it a fluke? Was it you know, it can be any, any, any, any variety of things, really. So just consider that. Again, there's so many so many things when it comes to exercise, and everybody's got an opinion and everybody's got tips. I think, really, it's a lot. I will say. Finding a place that you feel safe and comfortable is probably number one. Like people always ask me, Why do you run in the neighborhood? Well, I run the same like kind of loop in my neighborhood, and I run it anywhere between 30 and 40 times a day. Which saves me you know, somewhere between 10 and 20 miles. I did like 90 miles just say I never left neighbor. But I'm weird. I can handle that. I liked the monotony I put on some music can I run safely in my neighborhood on the sidewalk in the street a little bit during the day. It's just what feels right for me. Some people like more variety. I also have a peloton tread as of last week. I like that as well. I was running a little bit I started getting going on the treadmill at the gym this spring, which in turn was amazing. And then they moved the treadmills about this far apart. So literally, these big ass treadmills at the gym are this, this is my thumb. This is my pinky. They are spaced out that far apart. So I have since cancelled my gym membership because I no longer like that gym. I went there for two and a half years and the guy is like, Oh, I saw you canceled. I'm like yeah, because you boot the treadmills so close. So like, somebody could hop on next to me and start sweating on me. And I'm not about that. Like I need a little bit more personal space than that. It's really weird. It's strange. It's a whole other thing. I don't get it. treadmills at my gym are one of the most use things and nobody likes it but nobody says anything so nothing changes and it's just a shame but I now have my own treadmill at home which I absolutely love and will use it forever. peloton tried to shout out to peloton always an amazing product I got the bike last year shockingly loved it and then this year decided once once once the gym started doing that with treadmills there I was like nope get the peloton tread and I am yeah I've been waiting for for a while but I finally arrived last week and I really enjoy it. I really enjoyed on mute I love all the peloton instructors but I'm not looking to Yeah, if you've ever seen Sebastian min Sal COEs specials he talks a lot about the gym and the people at the gym and that's I feel exactly the same way because on top of the fact that triples are this close to each other at my gym, like usually if it's not too busy there's people I take the end somebody takes the other end maybe somebody hopped on the middle like I get it five o'clock you know somebody eventually has to go in between the three people are always surprised when people have next to me and like really of all all places the options you want to pick go next to the sick for the guy running I don't know very interesting. Yeah, gyms are fascinating place on the human experience. And I I still don't have the mic, Sebastian. Like I can barely finish my workout because I'm so concerned with being concerned with other people. And they drive me crazy. Like you always see those people like whoa, just just, I'm not a great runner better. Like I'm trying to just run on the treadmill. The worst I do is like I hold on to the side, sometimes for balance purposes. But if you gotta if you're going to do side shuffle, do that at home. Like who these people don't be that person. Don't beat this. I don't think any strokes are as doing this, but like, if you really feel like you can't squat without taking your shoes off at the gym. I'm sorry. Get a SWAT get a squat rack and do it at home in your garage. Take off his shoes at home. If you're at the gym doing squats, I've been doing squats my whole life. I could squat 600 pounds. Even even at this stage of my life as a stroke survivor, 40 year old stroke survivor I could squat 600 pounds and I don't need to take my shoes off. So you don't either. Sorry. A Georgia crazy at the gym. Yeah, just leave. Leave your shoes on at the gym. I don't care. Man that drives you crazy. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to squat 600 pounds, and you're going for a personal record, and you're not as big as me, but you want you think you can do 600 pounds on the squat rack. Okay, maybe you could take your shoes off. If you feel like that's gonna get you to 600 pounds. I'll spot it, Alan. But anyways, sorry, just a little rant there. So yeah, personal reflections, the gym and exercise are important, do not the recovery journey is different for everybody. Do not try to overdo it. Do not do things faster than you're capable of, but know that the gym is good for mental and physical rehab. We talk a lot about that on this show. Not just the physical but the mental and emotional toll stroke can play in our lives or, you know, things can go awry, we can have thoughts and feelings just because there's a lot going on. Sometimes, I found exercise is a great way to get clear to step away from whatever I'm doing, whether that's working as a stroke center and being frustrated with certain things like is a good place to let off steam and I found that running really the breathing in particular, but breathing has led to running that both work in conjunction even if I'm walking or hiking, you know, that's another great one is hiking. Not a big hiker but a peloton tread I'm into it on the on the tread, I'm not an outdoor hiker, but some people like it. And that's a good way low impact little bit more than you would get from just walking off background, probably honestly a little bit more than you get from running sometimes. But to each their own, try it out. I think it's a good route to go. Definitely lower impact. For sure. And then, you know, again, know that there's challenges to overcome barriers, hurdles, some of these are mental, some of these are physical. It just save time, celebrate your wins, share your wins, found it find an accountability partner. You know, I always talk about this and it is still on the horizon. There are some things in the works like I'm trying to, you know, do a few things. Were the kind of refactoring some things with my businesses, but I really do want to build a community online, I think there is a need for stroke survivors to band together. There's a lot of pads there's a lot of different segments, there's there are physical therapists now doing a lot of content creation, there are occupational therapists doing content creation, there are a lot of people who want to help. Like myself, I'm just trying to tell my story in hopes that it helps somebody else, hopefully get them through this podcast. Just know, I don't know everything. I don't claim to know everything I really absolutely. You know, I'm now thinking back, I'm 40 years old, like I just the reason I talk about exercise is because somewhere in my journey, and this sort of like, kind of comprehensive, but like, It's okay in the beginning to not know where to go or what to do or how to feel. It's a lot. We've talked about it many times in this podcast, but for me, I think I got I realized, I was like, Okay, I'm a younger survivor. I don't know that anybody is quite like me. And that's okay. I accept that. I understand that now. Again, I'm 40 years old. So I know. It's on me to figure it out. Nobody's going to figure things out for me. People will be kind to answer questions and generally help in any way they can, especially other survivors are always happy to despair. But there are not a lot of people like me. So my point is I kind of got sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. And I was an I had been since my show, really trying to correct and figure things out. And you know, I think for a lot of people exercise is a great great step to to help kind of break yourself of the the feeling you might have of being sick and tired of being sick and tired. It's like okay, I had the stroke. I'm aware of it. I I've corrected some things. But I know I can do more now and that's okay too. Not everybody's ready immediately start exercising it might take a year it might take two years, it might be five years might take 10 years. The point is as long as You're alive as long as you're breathing. And you want better for yourself. These are things to consider. And it can help in a lot of ways that you're maybe not seeing or thinking. So just. Yeah, I think there are some revelations to have. And people always ask me, how did you get into this, I was like, I just got sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. I I knew I was capable of more, I just wasn't sure how to go about it. I wasn't sure what I wanted. And then you hear people say it a lot. And I think it's true in this case for me, is that there isn't a wrong way to exercise. Like the only wrong way to exercise is not exercise. You know, however small you need to start to start. Take that initiative. Push yourself as questions, you know, to the there's so much to it, but again, I just want to share that with you, I hope. Maybe this inspired you. Again, I didn't start running until last year, two and a half years into my stroke at age 39. Really take the running. I did build up I you know, I didn't just start running 13 miles, I really very slowly. I wouldn't even say slowly but over time, I just kept saying one more lap one more lap. One more lap has turned into quite a few miles a day. I tried to do try. But I don't always do 10 miles a day. That's a lot. That is a lot. You don't have to do that. You probably shouldn't do that. If I'm being honest. I just want to reiterate that these micro progressions do add up over time. So figure out a way to be consistent for yourself. You know, you'll get there. If you want to get there you can get there. People will help people make suggestions, give you tips. If you need that help, you know always reach out to me before we wrap up this week's episodes. A couple things are this week's tip of the couple things I want to talk about that I've been talking about and thinking about. Not a lot this week. Two birds one cave great podcast, Bert and Tom Segura on the comedy front. We see ginger understands you know, lovin binging a lot of his episodes though all three of those guys are great. Whitney as always is fantastic. Always watching her stuff does seem like it is kind of towards in summer. So a lot of podcasts and shows are taking like a little bit of a break. I thought about that myself. Because I don't have a ton going on outside of this podcast. I am working on some things that I will talk about once I actually do them and keyword launch them or whatever. So an interesting post yesterday, I'm actually not going to push the newsletter or survivor science. I do think there are some interesting things happening in my world. I am trying to consolidate things. Yeah, not too much to promote this week. I am still offering free phone calls, consultations paid and free on public downloadable soccer.com Go there check out details on the podcast website DJing as you can see right there. So it's still going strong. They're doing some new things kind of I don't know where we're gonna go with it. Really what I'm trying to do is take that hobby slow, so don't burn out in two weeks. I am building up some playlists I am slowly little bit of learning each day on that hobby front. I'm doing a little bit of woodworking as well that I mentioned last week because I have some stuff that needs to go up back here. Background, got some cool things. We're working on their books got a lot of good books in the queue that I picked up last week. However I have still Yeah, I've been doing a lot of work on the businesses doing a lot of DJing a lot of tutorials to learn record box mixing there's a lot to DJing it's ages, even though I've been around the DJ world and EDM and music in general for a long time now for two years on earth. I was a bartender I was I was I worked the doors and the clubs in Miami I worked altra a couple of times back in Miami days I used to go to ultra I used to go to clubs like now I'm just really immersing myself in the DJ world and as usual there are no there's no shortage of information techniques, things some kind of learning the basics. Last night like I just I I've finally put like 7080 songs into a playlist and I'm going through them and I was like, just practicing last night where I knew it two hours went by just like honestly, I wish I recorded it because it was like a whole set, honestly, and it's pretty good. My little my younger or not my youngest, My middle child was sitting out after his shower before bed. He's watching me DJ last night and I'm just like doing the set. He's jamming out and I'm like, alright, alright, cool. So yeah, DJ is going well having a lot of fun there. So, uh, so reading Titan. They I don't have a ton to mention, but otherwise, you know, exercise big topic, lots to talk about with it. I know I'm rambling at this episode at this juncture of podcasts. So yeah, I am gonna go finish working out for today. I hope you know I just I really want everybody to know that if I can do it, you can do it. I was damn near 500 pounds like I said probably was over 500 At some point way back down but so far from where I want to be. I know it's not easy. I know it's super difficult you know, however, I can help reach out you know, you got thoughts, questions, comments, concerns, things you're curious about? Again, you could book a call at hub a dot local server.com podcasts global search ira.com or any anything you want to send me any questions you have have a chat. Anyway can help me know. Anyways, we'll wrap up episode 27 of loveless murder.