Staying Healthy, Does it Matter in Overlanding?

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Joey – Hey, we’re live. Well, you know, we’re talking about this evening, we’re talking about staying healthy, and we’re behind the scenes talking about stressful things that come into our life that we have to deal with. Teenage drivers is high stress, low reward, high stress, low reward.

Tony – Yep. I’ve got one that’s taking her exam tomorrow, so we’re about to have another driver in the house.

Joey – I’m so sorry. Oh, my goodness. It’s something that I’ve had to deal with twice. And I know that this is going to be your first time having a teenage driver in the house. And it was so long ago for me. I don’t remember the stress level, but I remember that it was there for sure. For sure.

Tony – So, do you remember if it was easier for the second one than the first one?

Joey – No.

Tony – You don’t remember or it wasn’t easy?

Joey – None of it was easy. Yeah, it was just not easy. It was just one of those things where even when you’re sitting in the seat next to them, you have this imaginary break on your side that you wish was there. Well, I have the e-brake. My hand’s probably going to be firmly planted on the e-brake for a hot minute. I’m not betting. Well, you can always look up videos on Instagram, YouTube, and all that, and just put in the search bar, like teenage drivers, and I’m sure it’ll be comforting to you.

Tony – I don’t know, dude. I’m probably going to be— One that sticks in my mind is where the guy had the camera down in the floorboard, and it was back on him and his son. His son was driving— And he said, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. You almost hit a cop.

Joey – Oh, yeah. I saw that one. Actually, I saw that one just the other day. That was a good one. I love it.

Tony – He ran right up on the bumper and he’s like, what, you’re going to hit a cop? Yes. Hitting the cop is not something you want to do when you’re…

Joey – So… True story with my youngest, my oldest great, great driver. Youngest, and she’ll never see this, so I can talk about her all I want to. Youngest, she was going all the time. I mean, she was going to high school. She got out of high school early to work because she had a job on the bowling team, doing all this stuff, extracurricular activities with church. Went through all the process to get her a hardship. So worked so hard, got her the hardship in February. Actually, it was like in October. Yeah, September, October. And her birthday, 16th birthday, it wasn’t until February. So, it was like six months, five, six months ahead of time. And within the first week of her having her hardship, she had an accident. So, she just pulled out, didn’t see a car come. It was in a roundabout, you know, and, you know, to give her the benefit of the doubt, roundabouts are tough for teenagers. And we have a lot of them here in Conway, but she had an accident. They didn’t write her a ticket, wrote her a warning, blah, blah, blah, went to the system and, so, they dinged her, state police dinged her on having an accident and getting a warning. So, her driver’s license where she could drive by herself was six months after she turned 16. So, we worked so hard to get it six months before she turned 16. And because of that accident, she had to wait almost a year after that before she could drive by herself. And to be honest, that was good because she wasn’t ready. She just, she just wasn’t ready. I know probably stressful for you as well.

Tony – And she doesn’t need stress right now. Many prayers. Many prayers. She’s getting over surgery. She’s doing well. Let’s keep her stress level down.

Joey – Oh, my goodness. Well, hey, everyone. Thank you for being here. We’re talking about staying healthy. Tony and I have recently been through a complete life change. And we want to talk about that. And does it really matter in our outdoor lives, overlanding lives? Stick with us. We’ll be right back.

Intro Video – Thank you for watching or listening to the Overland Podcast. We’re excited to be here. We’re coming to you live as we do each week, bringing you the latest in all things outdoors and overlanding. The live show contains listeners, so join us with your comments and questions. Here we go. No pros, just bros on this show.

Joey – And that’s who we are. That’s who we are. That’s right. And I’ll tell you another thing. We are, we are. Trophy husbands. I got this for my anniversary. which was a couple weeks ago. I want to say happy anniversary to my wife. I want to say it loud and proud to all the world hearing. In June, we celebrated our first anniversary. So, the first year is always the best. First year is always the best, but we’re going to try to make the second year even better. We celebrated in Maine, and that was amazing. We didn’t have a show for a while, for about six weeks. I was traveling with my lovely bride. We did, I think, 17 states, two provinces in Canada. A gazillion miles. About 5,500 miles. I love you too, babe. We doubled the number of miles on the Subaru and had to take it straight. As soon as we got back, we had to take it straight into Canada. The Subaru and get it serviced. You know it’s a good trip when you’ve been gone long enough to where you have to have it serviced either while you’re gone or immediately when you get right back. Three things. If you have to wash clothes more than once. If you have to get a haircut. I got a haircut in Pennsylvania, I think. It was a great day because I had been looking for a Slim Chickens for weeks. Apparently, there’s no place in the north or northeast that serves chicken. There are no chicken places. I was really… taken back that Maine is completely overrun with pizza of all places. There are pizza places everywhere and no chicken, no chicken. And so, when we got down into Pennsylvania, we were going on the interstate, by the way, and, you know, they have these little signs on the side of the interstate that tells you all the food that’s at the next exit. And we were like, hey, I wonder, wonder where the next, you know, wonder what I’m hungry. What do you think? Let’s stop. Oh my gosh. Slim chickens. I pulled over. And while we were sitting there, I was looking outside. We were just chit-chatting whatever. And there was a, there was a little place. What is it? Where I get my haircut is, Sports Clips. It was right beside where we were. You know, and you can just walk in there. So, I just checked in, walked in there. 20 minutes later, I felt like a new man. It was great. I was shaggy really bad. I’d already trimmed my beard once, and I trimmed it way too short, and I made myself angry. But my hair was driving me insane. It was… Oh, look at this. Yeah. Tony and I are coming up on 30 years.

Tony – 33 or four days from our 30th anniversary. My wife is just barely over 30.

Joey – So y’all been married about as long as she’s been alive.

Tony – Oh, hush. Sorry. Hush. Telling us that I’m old. Anyway, it was… I am older than you. So you can’t be… But… I am a trophy husband.

Joey – You’re a trophy husband, that’s for sure. That’s right. We got several people joining us on… On Instagram. We’re live on Instagram tonight. Thanks for watching, you guys. There was a couple things that went completely out while we were gone. So, you know, and Matt and Kara were on here just a minute ago on Instagram. And I know, you know, they were gone from their house longer than I was. They were gone about eight, nine weeks. And we were gone almost six weeks. I had my neighbor come and put in our packages inside. So, he was he’s like, man, it’s like Christmas at y’all’s house. Constantly. And, hey, congratulations, Jarrett crystal and he wore 28 years. Congratulations. That’s awesome. Steadfast Overland. One of the sponsors of the show. I’ve been using this. He’s got the beard oils out there.

Tony – Cutting boards, all that good stuff. Steadfast Overland. He’s also coming up with mounts that come off your roof rack. He’s got beanies, hats, all that stuff.

Joey – Actually, I’m looking at getting one of those mounts that comes off the rack with us with the suction cup for, for the Subaru. So, I’m hoping I get one of those pretty soon, but it’s pretty cool. 28 years. Congratulations. That’s cool. But yeah, pizza. I was really taken back that in Maine there, I didn’t really know that they were known for their pizza, but they’re apparently the people who live there, which there’s not very many loves pizza. But here’s the deal. I can’t eat pizza.

Tony – Yeah. Um, why is that?

Joey – Well, so it’s been, uh, it’s been two going on three years now. Um, going on three years now, was my blood pressure was really high. I went into the office, um, I feel like my eyes were about to pop out my head and, um, So I work at a school. So, I had the school nurse, school nurse checked me out and I said, I need to know what’s going on. And she said, well, first of all, you need to go to the doctor right now because your blood pressure is 177 over 118.

Tony – Oh gosh. That’s, that’s like stroke worthy.

Joey – Yeah. And you know, I’ve always had pretty high blood pressure kind of runs in the family. So, you know, hypertension is a thing for me and for my family. And, I’ve been, dragging, didn’t have any energy. And so, I called my doctor and I said, I need to come see you right now. So, I went over there and he said, okay, some things have got to change. Stress level maxed out. And he said, you’re going to have to lose some weight. And I said, okay, here we go. So, he doubled blood pressure medicine. And I went to the sporting goods place and I bought me a weighted vest, one of these vests that puts a little sandbags in. I have figured out that I can do crustless pizza. Thank you for pointing that out, Arla. And I do eat, the other kind of crust that one that’s made with cauliflower.

Tony – yeah. I was going to ask you. I was waiting for you to finish your segue.

Joey – Yeah. Let me finish this story. But, uh, so, so I went, uh, treadmill every night, lifting weights and dropped 52 and two months. I dropped weight a little too fast, uh, I changed up my eating habits. I went complete keto. I pretty much ate rotisserie chicken and eggs for two months. That’s pretty much all I ate. And cheese. I would take rotisserie chicken. I’d go about three days a week or two days a week. Give me a rotisserie chicken. I would debone it, put it on a plate. I’d cover it with cheese, put it in the microwave. I’d eat that for lunch. I’d fix me up some eggs. I ate eggs every day. And so, I went complete keto, zero carbs and drank water and dropped 52 pounds in two months. And I dropped weight a little too fast and I lost a lot of muscle. And it was it was just one of those things where I didn’t really know what I was doing. But what I was doing was working, because at the end of those two months, I went back to the doctor, got off all my medicine. And he said, now’s the hard part. Now you’ve got to maintain it. I got down to the lowest weight that I had been since college. And so, I just got on a regiment where I watched what I ate last year when we got married in June. I went back up a little bit, put on about 15 pounds of that 50, but I didn’t get back up. And I noticed, wait a minute, these clothes that I bought after I lost all my weight, they’re starting to get a little tight. You know, they’re starting to get a little tight. And I’m like, what’s going on here? And I got them scaled, weighed, and I put back on a little weight. And I was like, no, see, I’m not going back that route that I was on. So totally changed eating habits. Went back to the gym. G and I go to the gym. We walk a lot and I’ve maintained, actually I’ve lost that 15 pounds again and I’ve been maintaining now for about a year. So, you have pretty much went through the same thing here lately.

Tony – Yeah. So, like the, the, it was, I forget, you know, what day of the month it was, but it was a Thursday night, the last Thursday night in April. You know, we were, know like many families we had you know running hectic uh lives going on and we had softball we were going to and we ran through the drive-thru at McDonald’s on the way to the game and I got by the time I ate you know on the way there and by the time I got to the field I just felt really sick like i you know, and of course, at that point in time, I was heaviest I’ve ever been. And, you know, I just feel like that I finally reached a point where I was like, enough is enough. And like you, I take, you know, medication for blood pressure and stuff like that. So, you know, I just made up my mind, I’m going to make a change. And I’ve been following the keto. I didn’t go as drastic as you did. You know, I still have a few carbs, but it’s, you know, try to stay under 20 every day. And I’m down about 31 pounds, I think is what it was this morning.

Joey – Good for you.

Tony – So, but I kind of hit a wall though. When I got down to 30 pounds, its kind of, you know, I’ve just been fluctuating 31 to 28 is kind of where I’ve been. So last night I kind of started introducing some more physical activity doing the elliptical. So, I’m going to do that every night. I may actually do it in the morning as well. So, we’ll see.

Joey – Well, and you get to that point, and I’ve got to that point, too, where my body is like, okay, no more. Otherwise, you’re going to look like you’re starving yourself to death. But you also, if you do work out and you do get on the elliptical, you are losing fat, but you are building muscles. Muscle weighs more than fat. So, your weight… may not change, but your shape will change. We came and visited y’all the other day. It’s the first time I’d seen you since June when we left for our trip. It’s the first time I’d seen you in probably seven, eight weeks. We talk almost every day, pretty much every day. We’ve been encouraging each other through this whole process. I have to admit something. I was actually a bad influence on you because you had given up coffee. And I’m like, what in the world are you doing? Because not only did you give up carbs, but you give up caffeine.

Tony – Yeah. And so, to me, giving up coffee, which it helps me because it’s a hunger inhibitor. Yeah. Uh, and you know, but caffeine doesn’t seem to bother me, uh, on my weight, but I was a bad influence on you and now you’re drinking coffee again. But, anyway, I haven’t I haven’t broke the news to you yet, but I stopped. I didn’t drink coffee this morning.

Joey – Oh, my gosh. How do you make it?

Tony – It was. So today was really rough, you know, because I was back into caffeine mode. And by one o’clock, I had the absolute worst headache. Oh, yeah. You know, because. it’s, it had been, almost, well, about 24 hours since the last caffeine I had yesterday, yesterday’s coffee. Yeah. And it, it was just awful. So, uh, this afternoon when I finally ate today, I had a, one of the small cans of Coke zero with it. And like in 15 minutes, my headache was completely gone.

Joey – That’s good. I’m glad that you can get rid of it like that when it comes on, you know, the way to get rid of it. One thing that really inhibits me and we’ll get into how this has affected us good and bad in just a minute. But one thing that really hurts me is being out of my daily routine. You’re in a daily routine. So, you haven’t taken a vacation at all this summer. You were not able to get away. So, at that desk where you’re sitting right now is almost where you plant yourself all day, every day. Just about every day. I mean, this is where I work my day job and all the hobby stuff. And I was worried. I was worried because June the 7th we left and July the 12th we came home. And in that period of time when you’re not home and you have to eat out or you have to eat on the road and you’re out of your daily routine, it makes it hard. It makes it hard to find places to eat. You don’t get as good of nutrition when you eat out because of the preservatives. You never know what’s in their food, different things like that. And it’s really hard to know what’s in food these days because if you look on social media, there’s all these people. And one of the things that really… Interested me was that this guy goes to Chick-fil-A, which Chick-fil-A to me has decently healthy food.

Tony – You know, you can get grilled nuggets there.

Joey – Well, this guy got a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich and he got their mac and cheese. So that was two things. And he said these two things have over 280 ingredients in them. So, you never know what is in the food that you’re getting unless you go to the store, you buy a chicken, you cook it, you know what’s in it. Yeah. Actually, a lot of times, even with that, you don’t. Unless you have a chicken, you kill it and then you put, you know, you never know what’s going in to what you’re eating. And so, it’s really hard. And so, in traveling. When we travel, I knew that we were going to the northeast and I was going to eat my weight in seafood because that’s what you do when you go up there. But seafood is one of the best things you can eat. But when they serve you lobster and it comes in a, you know, a bowl of butter, you know, it’s not the best thing for you. But, you know, it’s not you’re not eating it every day. So, it’s not every day. But I did eat a lot. And, and that’s one thing like, you know, and my wife’s like, okay, if we are, if we’re traveling, we want to eat local food. That’s one of the things that we do when we’re traveling, we want to eat local food. So, when we were in, you know, the UP, we got pasties, which are, you know, meat pies and it’s got breading and stuff on it. We went to the Northeast. We, we had lobster and oysters and things like that. And what? Popovers. Popovers. Oh my gosh, that was so good.

Tony – Yes, you’re right. You’re right. And whenever I get to my goal weight… what your doctor said, that maintaining it would be key.

Joey – I’ll bring some of this stuff back in. But the key is having willpower. And up to this point in my life, I have not had that. But before now, I was younger and it really didn’t matter. I had my whole life to live. But now in almost mid-50s, I am now the oldest person in the last five generations of men in their 50s that have not had a heart attack. And so, I didn’t want to be next. You know, all the men, both sides of my family, mom’s side, dad’s side, had heart attacks before they were 50. My dads had a heart attack. He had a heart attack in his early 40s because of weight. And he also had gestational diabetes because of weight. And I had a much stronger reason to have willpower because I did not want to have those health issues because of the things that I love to do. I have a great life. I want to live as long as possible. And so when those things start becoming real to you, you start having a little bit more willpower. And so now that we’re older and wiser, we start really thinking about those things. Now, it has truly enhanced and greatly affected my outdoor life since I’ve dropped that weight, since I’ve dropped the 50 pounds that I was. You notice small things. You notice that you can actually bend over and tie your shoes without having to hold your breath for 45 seconds. You can actually bend over and breathe at the same time. And think about the number of things that you do when you bend over. Think about airing up, airing down. Having to get down on your knees and get back up.

Tony – Yeah, it makes a big difference. That’s one of my biggest the biggest issues that I face aside from, you know, having to take medication for blood pressure is my feet and ankles hurt, you know, and then airing down and all of those things on a trip. It sort of, you know, is magnified. It is. Even your ability to sleep. I sleep better now. I go to sleep and I stay asleep better unless my dog wakes me up. It’s just one of those things. I sleep better. I don’t have to have a five-inch self-inflated memory foam mattress in order to stay comfortable because it’s not holding up 240 pounds.

Joey – Yeah, I was going to say, I was wondering about that the other day. I still have the factory mattress for our 23-0 tent. And I was kind of wondering, you know, if I get my goal weight, how important is that Exped mattress then going to be? You know what I mean?

Tony – Yeah. For comfort? Well, it’ll be like you’re floating on air. Yeah. You know, it’ll be… You’ll still love it, but you’ll love it even more because it’ll probably be even more comfortable than it is now.

Joey – Yeah. Crawling in and out of a tent is so much easier now, getting up and down the ladder. And there’s so many people, you know, I went and visited an old friend today who had just had a knee replacement and he is a big man. And, you know, when I first started camping with him almost, gosh, 10 years ago, He said, I’m not doing a rooftop tent. It’s getting up and down that ladder. I can’t do it. And he’s only got five years on me. And so, it’s one of those things where I told myself, I don’t want to get to that point where I can’t get up in my tent. One of the things that I absolutely love about the overlanding lifestyle is the rooftop tent. We’ve already ordered one for the Subaru. And when my wife first got up in there, she’s like, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s like a tree house for kids. Yes, it is. I mean, but for adults. But, you know, we were in South Texas where it’s big sky country and you can see for hundreds and hundreds of miles. And when you get just a little way, when you get nine, 10 feet off the ground, you can see everything. She didn’t want to come down. She said, this is so cool. I don’t want to get to the point where I can’t get up and down or don’t want to go up and down the tent. That’s just one of the things. I want to be able to do more hiking. I want to be able to do more of the activities. Maybe do a hike with you at some point would be awesome. That’s another thing it’s done for us. It has really broadened uh what we can do outside the vehicle you know when on the last uh it wasn’t the last go explore trip when we did the high-water mark but when we were down in the Ouachita’s and Brad does a great job of researching the areas where he’s at and he wants to try to get people out to see waterfalls and to take like a short half mile hike and 90 of the people on that trip didn’t want to go and they just want to stay. And so overlanding, yeah, it’s about vehicle-based travel. But what do you do when you get out of the car? And do you want to get out of the car? Yeah, I get out quite a bit without a return. Likely not on this year’s March. It has opened up enjoyable camping for me. And that’s true. Yeah.  you know, and we’ve done whole shows on rooftop tents where it makes it so much easier, so much more enjoyable, uh, where you can pack so much stuff in there and, you know, getting off the ground, it’s safer. Uh, as long as you don’t fall off the ladder, uh, it’s, it’s just that much more enjoyable. And I don’t want to get to the point where I dread having to climb the ladder or get down off the ladder or, you know, and I have, I have a dog. Um, and I throw my dog over my shoulder and I climb up and down the tent. She loves the rooftop tent. I don’t want to have to throw her up there or throw her down. So, I want to be able to get her up and put her down. Yeah, right. But it has really broadened what we do outside of the vehicle because for me, overlanding is not just getting from point A to point B. It’s what you can see and what you can do in between and once you get there. And it has really opened up. you know, how we plan and how we, how we, how we travel. Yeah. You know, this, these, these past few weeks, it’s been getting to a national park or, or actually doing a backpacking trip and, you know, camping along the way, but getting to the top of Mount Washington or going to Acadia national park and, and seeing all the sites and you can’t see everything unless you walk to them. And so, it really made that where it was a lot more enjoyable. A lot more enjoyable, yeah. It’s really opened up where we can do a lot of hiking. Even getting in a canoe and paddling, you’re not out of breath as quick. We’re in our backpack, and we have a goal now. We want to hike in every state in the United States, which I think would be pretty cool. I think it’s a pretty cool goal and something to brag about.

Tony – On purpose?

Joey – On purpose, yeah.

Tony – You want to do this on purpose?

Joey – On purpose. And I have a lot of them checked off now.

Tony – Yeah, I know. I was kidding. That sounds like a really cool thing to do. Joe was talking about, you know, I know there’s obviously here at home, there’s the Ozark Highlands Trail, which is, I don’t know, what, 150 miles or something?

Joey – Yeah, it’s about 130 miles. So, and then there’s one out east the Appalachian trail which is over 2000 miles yeah and then there’s one in Arizona joe was talking about the Arizona trail goes around the Grand Canyon the Ouachita trail is down here by me it’s 126 miles there’s trails like that everywhere this summer we did 44 miles of the longest trail in the United States, the North country trail is over 4,000 miles. It goes from Maine all the way to North Dakota and it goes down through Michigan across the boundary waters all the way into North Dakota. And, you know, there’s people who actually walk that, walk the whole thing. It’s neat to be able to do. And, you know, when we got done with the 44 miles, we felt like we had accomplished something. We had done something. We carried everything that we needed on our backs.

Tony – Except for your hiking poles.

Joey – Except for our trekking poles. Trekking poles. We now have several sets of trekking poles. There’s a certain feeling that you get when you leave your car and you take a shuttle almost 50 miles away and you have to walk back to your car. You get out of that You get out of that van and you’re thinking, man, here we go. You’re watching that van drive off and you’re thinking, what? What did I get myself into? What did I get myself into? Because it’s just one of those things. And a lot of times I don’t have enough confidence in myself. I know I can do it, but I have doubts. I’m going to have to climb this mountain. I’m going to have to sleep where there’s mosquitoes and bugs everywhere. I’m going to have to keep walking and keep walking and keep walking. And that’s the only thing you have to do. for days and days and days is just walk. But it’s fun. It’s cool. And Gia’s niece just got back from, they just did 160 something mile bike packing trip up in Missouri. So apparently there is an off-road trail that goes from Kansas City to St. Louis. And you can sleep along the way. Yeah, I had no idea. So, you can ride a bicycle from Kansas City to St. Louis. So, we’re looking into that now. And I actually, behind the scenes, a lot of people don’t know this, but I have built a bicycle to, it’s got packs on it. You can actually overland via bicycle. And so, I’m interested in that.

Tony – I think that’s cool. So, I wonder if it’s if it’s something you can e-bike, you know, like you can e-bike. Is there enough? juice and a battery to run 160 miles on an e-bike

Joey – I’m pretty sure that you can and along the way there are places where you can charge because it goes okay right along uh you know where there’s places where you can plug into stuff or recharge your phone or stuff like that so yeah and they chose that route because it was almost all flat and I looked into it is 220 something miles. But the cool thing about it is you can park your car in Kansas City and ride your bike and then take a train back to your car. And that’s what they did. So, when she was telling us about it, I’m like, I want to do that. I think that’s cool. So, we can do that. But it’s just one of those things where it’s made life a little easier. You know, being able to get around being able to bend down, get up, get down a ladder, sleep better, feel better. And it’s really broadened what we’re able to do outside of the car. And I don’t get as uncomfortable sitting in the driver’s seat as I used to. So, it’s really helped. And I really enjoy that.

Tony – Nice.

Joey – Now there’s a few problems that come with it that you have to contend with, of course. Your clothes don’t fit.

Tony – That’s one. I was trying on my, I leave Saturday for a motorcycle trip to Kentucky. And, my wife said, hey, I want you to make sure you have everything. Make sure everything is good to go. And I said, well, I need to try on my motorcycle clothes because I haven’t worn them in a while. And I make sure they haven’t hung up and shrunk in the closet. First jacket that I put on looked like it would fit Goliath. I mean, this thing was about four sizes too big. And she said, that looks awful. You need to just give that away. And I thought I paid good money for this. And that has happened with a lot of my clothes.

Tony – You know, a lot of my clothes are too big. They’re baggy. I’ve had to buy new clothes. And so that’s been one thing.

Joey – So Elsewhere says, research the RAGBRAI event in Iowa. You ride west to east across Iowa, 25,000 riders every summer. Wow. That sounds pretty cool. We also have a thing here in Arkansas. There’s a dirt track event that’s supposed to be one of the hardest ones in the nation because of where it is. It starts at Oark Store and it goes through the mountains. And it’s a… I think it’s 150 miles or something like that, but there’s a lot of events like that. In fact, last summer, when we were in Minnesota, we passed an event like that in Minnesota that we’re carrying. Everything that they needed on their bicycle. They were carrying their tents. They were carrying their food. They were carrying their water. They were carrying all that. And I bet we passed 50 of them on the road that they were having an event like that. Check-in stations, different things. So that right there is cool to me. I think it’s pretty amazing. So anyway, I’ll be doing a video on my bike because I’m pretty excited about my bike. And we’re going to get Gia one too so she can go with me because we go everywhere together. But clothes don’t fit have you noticed your clothes getting baggy on you?

Tony – Yeah so they’re starting to I have realized that uh you know they’re starting to be a little bit baggy and you know I’ve had a couple of comments lately too like, you know, bro, your shirt’s a little big, ain’t it? So, yeah, yeah, I’m getting to that point. I mean, I still have a long way to go to hit my goal. I had set, you know, I tried. My goal was to be at 200 by September 5th, which is my birthday. And I don’t think I’m going to make that. That’s like six weeks away, six, seven weeks, maybe. And I still have 40 pounds. So that’d be pretty tough to hit that one. But regardless, I’m coming up pretty close to having to buy something and I’m hoping that I’ll have to buy it again. So, I’m going to try to make these clothes that I have last a little longer before I buy new again.

Joey – So, here’s a question for you. Are you confident Are you confident that you are going to stick with this, that you are either going to get rid of your fat clothes or save your fat clothes in case it happens again?

Tony – No, I’m getting rid of the fat clothes this time. You know, the first time I saved mine. Uh, because I was not confident in myself that I was, that I would be able to keep it off because I’ve lost weight before, you know, the scale goes back and forth.

Joey – You know, I work out and I get sick of it. Now I’m like, screw this. I’m not going anywhere. And I just eat whatever I want and, you know, just get back to the way I was. And but I’ve but I’ve got to that point in my life where medicine is a factor. Heart is a factor and diabetes is a factor. Quality of life is a factor. Yeah. And so, I’m not 20 years old anymore. It’s not one of those things where I can say, OK, I can just I’m just going to eat what I want for six months now. Just lose it again. You don’t know if you’ll be able to. And so now that I’m down to the point where I want to be. I’m not going back again.

Tony – Yeah. And that sort of kind of is a is a great point because I lost 50 pounds before. And then, you know, we went on vacation, we sort of splurged or whatever. And then when we got back, I didn’t really, you know, get back on my diet. You know, I had this confidence that I could I could get back to it anytime I wanted to. Yeah. And as you get older, it is harder to do. It is because you get you get to a point where you can’t exercise. You don’t have the stamina. You’re not able to exercise as vigorously as you once did. You know, you need. a certain amount of caloric intake in order to function. And, and so it is, it’s just one of those things where the older you get, the harder it gets.

Joey – Yeah. but, but that’s a problem. That’s a problem is, is clothes being humongous. And, you know, I looked at this jacket that I spent all this. I mean, it was a very expensive jacket that I had for a motorcycle. And I thought, man, I spent good money on that.

Tony – Hey, I’ve got an expensive Cotopaxi. I’m really bummed about my expensive Cotopaxi. You just got that.

Joey – Yes. You got that for Christmas. I know. I mean, that thing’s going to be hanging down on my knees before this winter gets here.

Tony – Yeah. Yeah. Man, that stinks. I’m actually pretty bummed about that one.

Joey – I’m sure. Another thing that I have to deal with, and I don’t know if you’ve got to this point yet or not, and I know you know this about me, um, but I am cold all the time, all the time. I’ve lost all my insulation. You know, when I go to the office and all these women that I work with have, have the air set on, you know, whatever. And I’m like, holy cow, I’m, I’m going to have to wear a jacket all day. It’s the first time in my career as a police officer that I have ordered long sleeve shirts. I’ve never had long sleeve shirts ever. I’ve always wore short sleeve shirts. Our department has a policy that if you lose weight, they’ll replace your uniforms. But if you gain weight and you have to get bigger uniforms, you have to buy them yourself. So, I got all new uniforms because when I came back to work in August after I lost all that weight, I was having to fold my pants over. And my duty belt didn’t work. It wouldn’t stay up. They’re like, man, we got to get you some clothes. You look horrible. And I had to get a vest, had to get everything. But the problem is, is I’m, I’m cold all the time.

Tony – first day I went back into the office, I had to put a hoodie on and, you know, but I’m okay with that. I used to have to keep in the summertime. I used to have to keep our house at about 70 degrees, 69 degrees, somewhere in there.

Joey – We walked in today. I had it set on 76 and I’m like, it is cold in there.

Tony- Really? I’m not there yet. I’m not quite there yet, but I, I’ve, I feel it coming. But you know, it’s a great place to be in the summertime in Arkansas. It doesn’t feel as hot to me as it used to.

Well, you know, and any of you listening, you know how we go back and forth about me wearing pants and different things, different times of the year, different events where, you know, I’m comfortable in shorts a lot. I’ve, I think that’s going to change. I mean, I’ve already noticed a little bit of change, you know, in that regard where my lower extremities are feeling a little cooler here at home. Benji was cracking me up the other day. He commented on a post. Somebody was asking him, you know, what was one thing he learned on a recent trip? And he just went to Colorado and he only took shorts. Oh, mistake. And he said, yeah, pants are kind of important in Colorado.

Joey – Yeah, that’s I’ve learned that the hard way. Of course, we leave home without a puffy jacket, long pants. Now, it doesn’t matter where I’m going, what I’m doing. I’ve learned my lesson. I took two pair of pants, two pair of shorts on this last trip, and I only wore shorts maybe a handful of times. I was wearing pants every day. And we wore jackets almost every day up there because it was in the upper 60s during the day, low 70s. In the evenings when it would start dropping into the 50s, I had pants. jacket every day. It was nice. It was really nice, especially when you’re walking around. I’m working on my motorcycle. I’m doing a few things here at the house for this trip coming up. I’m having to do a little bit of fabricator work. You’re the fabricator in this couple. I’m not the fabricator. I can wing it. I’m winging it. I told my wife, I said, I’m only going outside for maybe 10 minutes at a time. That way, I don’t get wringing wet with sweat. Well, I was out there about six minutes sawing this little ram ball off this little thing. About six minutes, I’m just pouring with sweat. I come back in. It’s like, well, shot that in the head, you know. It doesn’t feel that hot to me, but I still sweat like a crazy person.

Tony – Yeah. So, you know, I know it’s still hot out there, but it doesn’t feel that way to me anymore. And that’s good for living in Arkansas.

Joey – Now, if I want to live in the Arctic or go up into Minnesota in the winter, that’ll be deathly. Yeah. cold to me but I love the cold absolutely love it um you know I can always put on more layers but you can only take off so many until it gets offensive and so uh you know when we were backpacking in south Texas in December my wife when you know the very first thing that person we met was had a big giant backpack on and he was carrying a sleeping bag I said, what’s the deal with the sleeping bag? He said, well, it got down in the 20s last night. I had walked all the way down and got a sleeping bag. He said, I had to double my sleeping bag up. He said, I was freezing to death. Right then, I was like, oh man, it’s going to get cold. It’s going to get cold up here. I’m going to get cold. It’s going to be horrible. I got my sleeping bag. I was fine. It wasn’t no big deal. Then I thought, Man, if I’m walking to the bottom of a mountain because I’m cold, I’m not coming back. I’m taking everything I want down to the bottom. I’m just going home. Oh, yeah. That’s just crazy to me to walk down the bottom of a mountain with a headlamp on and go all the way back to the top just so you can sleep. No, that’s dumb.

Tony – No, this isn’t like leaving the house in your truck and getting a couple of miles down the road and realizing you forgot your phone and turn around and go back for it. No. I’m staying. That’s a lie. Yeah. So, yeah. my, my internal temperature has changed and having to deal with that. I had to totally change that. I wear a hat every day. I’ve had to totally change the hats that I wear because normal hat, what you’ve got on man, hot. all the time. but I’ve had to totally change the hats that I wear, um, uh, thicker hat, um, thinner hat, you know, totally changed that totally changed. Um, my, my shirts that I wear, the number of layers that I put on, it’s, it’s, I have to totally think about that. So that’s, that’s a totally, totally different life change, what I’m having to deal with.

Joey – And, you know, so much to do. It has created so much to do that we want to do now. You know, where it used to be when I was overlanding, okay, I want to get to this spot. I want to find this epic campsite. I want to sit in my chair. I want to drink coffee. I want to cook. And I just want to enjoy the view. But that’s not how I look at things anymore. You know, I want to get out there. I want to walk around. I want to find the places that people can’t get to. I want to take my backpack and I want to wander. And, you know, it’s totally changed the number of things and the different things that we want to do. Yeah. My wife says, when did you really notice that you were smaller, Joey and Tony? the very first time I noticed that I was smaller, the first time was when somebody took a picture of me and showed it to me on their phone. And what do you think about this? And I’m like, that’s not me. Yeah. That don’t look like me. And I had been looking at myself in the mirror this whole time. You know, you get up in the morning, you brush your teeth, you fix your hair, you put your clothes on, you go about your business and you see yourself a little bit at a time. But when I saw myself actually in a picture, I’m like, that doesn’t look like me. And, you know, another thing that I notice is the memories that pop up on Facebook from a year ago and, and there, uh, just this week. So, my wife and I were on our honeymoon last year, we were fishing up in the boundary waters and I’m sitting there holding a small mouth and I could tell my neck was thicker. My face was bigger. Um, you know, my, my clothes were a little tighter. Um, just looking back on memories like that is, and just going, going to, uh, MOORE Expo a couple of years ago and having that pop up, you know, the pictures of me and you together and looking at ourselves and, and thinking that’ll look like me. Right. That’s different. When I shaved my beard this past time and I shaved it a little too short, it really outlined my face. And I’m like, man, I look different. My wife said, you look really different.

Tony – Yeah. I suppose for me, it was probably about the same in a picture. But, you know, I still have a long way to go. You know, like I haven’t lost 50 yet, but, you know, I can see it in my face. You know, others have told me that. So, I don’t know, maybe about three or four weeks ago, I guess when it when it really started, you know, hitting 50. that I’m, you know, starting to look different, you know, because like you said, if you’re looking in the mirror, getting ready, brushing your teeth, looking, you know, and you see it every day and it doesn’t really look like you’re changing much. Yeah.

Joey – Well, I noticed it. We were up in Michigan and you said, man, I’ve, I’m going again. I’m doing my stuff again. I’m putting stuff on YouTube again. So, you said, check out my new video on Bats Off Road. So, I clicked on it. And the very first thing was your head right there, your big old mug right there, the very first thing. And I’m like, that don’t look like you. That is a smaller version of you. It looks like an AI thing that you did with yourself where you like, all right, I’m Tony, make me skinny. Well, it just went from, you know, round to more, along. You look good. You look good.

Tony – Thank you.

Joey – She says also, when did you really notice you weren’t just smaller, but felt better? So, I noticed that a lot sooner than, you know, what, how I looked. I mean, within the first probably 10 days to two weeks, I noticed that, significantly a change in sleeping, getting better rest, you know, having more energy. So right away, right away. I noticed right off the bat because of what I had changed in my eating. I didn’t feel bloated all the time. That used to be my big thing. I was bloated all the time. I had heartburn constantly. I just felt like I was just bloated all the time and I didn’t feel good. Um, yeah. I noticed that right off the bat. I also, I also noticed that, I wasn’t getting the pressure in my face from the blood pressure. Um, you know, my doctor said, hey, if you feel better, just, just get off all your blood pressure and we’ll see how it goes. So, I haven’t been on my blood pressure in, in a year, year and a half, two years, I’ve been off all my medicine. And so, I can tell that I feel better because I’m not medic, medicated by anything. And then when we go out and hike or on our backpacking trip, I don’t get tired. Yeah. And my wife tells me all the time, she says, you just amaze me because you just go and go and go. The second day of our backpacking trip, we did 18 miles and we found our campsite. I set everything up. I cooked dinner and I was like; I could keep going. I just had so much energy and I just felt good. And a lot of times I doubt myself. I look at all trails and see where we’re going. And the very first thing that I look at is the little scale of the mountains we got to climb down there at the bottom. And I’m like, oh, man, that looks horrible. But when we do it, I’m like, that wasn’t that bad. You know, probably the hardest thing that we’ve done, my wife and I, since we’ve been together, was that backpacking trip in Big Bend. When you go up, when you, you know, it just goes a little way. And when you start up to get to that South rim, it is nothing but stairs for about a mile and a half, almost two miles of stairs, just one stair. And you gain 2,500 feet in less than a mile and a half. And it’s just nothing but stairs and stairs and stairs and stairs. When we did the backpacking trip in South Arkansas, we did, as soon as we got out of the car, it’s got seven peaks. As soon as we got out of the car, we went straight up, did seven peaks. And I felt great. And you know, I’m carrying 20, 22, 25 pounds on my back while I’m doing that. And it’s, it just makes me feel like I can do this. Yeah, and I’m not a strong man by any means. I’m not a weightlifter. I don’t do weight. I do pushups. I do an ab roller and I walk on the treadmill. That’s all I do. And so, it’s not like I’m out there just pumping weights and I’m out here and I got six packs and, you know, I can flex and rip my shirt off like Hulk Hogan at the Republican National Convention. I can’t do that.

Tony – That’d be cool.

Joey – It’d be cool if I could just rip. But I just, I can’t do that. And I’m, and that’s just not me. But, you know, from, from the first time when I lost all my weight, I really feel like I lost a lot of muscle mass. I lost my weight too fast. And I went on right then and I was exhausted. We did 22 miles on the Ozark Highlands Trail. I thought I was going to die. First of all, my pack was way too heavy. Second of all, I tried to keep up with the guys that I was with, and they were going way too fast. And I was about to die. My feet hurt. I was tired. My back hurt. I laid there all night and had back spasms. And this time, when I’ve lost my weight, I’ve ate better, and I’ve also been going to the gym and exercising and trying to keep up. That way, she says, I think overloading helps with health because you’re you bring your kitchen and you can make your food overlanding. Overlanding helps with health because you bring your kitchen and you can make your food.

Tony – I agree. And that’s the last thing is that one of the problems that it is created is having to watch what you eat. One of the things that we have all said about overlanding is we eat better when we’re camping than we do at home. We always do. And we always have. We always go out and we get everything that we’re craving at the store. The steaks, the baked potatoes, the pasta, the biscuits and the bacon and all this stuff that we want to eat. Biscuits and gravy.

Joey – Yeah. I’ve made beans and cornbread for us. We’ve had all the good stuff while we’re overlanding. But the problem is, is that now I am conscious of everything that I put in my mouth. Right. Since I’m maintaining, I will take a bite of this or a bite of that, but I’m not going to eat a whole plate of this or a whole plate of that. I’m really worried about, and my wife and I were talking about this at dinner, the guys that I go on the motorcycle trip with, they’ve never had a problem with weight. You know, they’ve been, they don’t exercise. They’re pretty well fit and they eat what they want. And so, when we go out to eat, it’s hard for me to find something to eat when I go out with them. They always want pizza. They always want pasta. They always want cheeseburgers and everything. you know, this and that. And it’s tough for me to find something to eat. So that’s one thing that you have to deal with is watching what you put in your mouth. And we’re both having to deal with that right now. That’s right and actually so I’m I’ve been kind of thinking about you know my setup the food preps the food that I’m going to take because I’ve actually been only been out on one trip since I started this diet and it was you know just right after right after I started so I still have to sort of get my head around what I’m going to take because I’m probably going to take what I eat at home

Tony – Yeah. Yeah. And the other day I went and I like over the weekend, I took out a bunch of stuff, a bunch of gear out of my truck that I don’t need. Like, I don’t need a bunch of koozies. Yeah. Because I don’t take a bunch of canned drinks with me. You know, like I’m not putting a case of Mountain Dew in the fridge. Yeah. You know, it’s water. Yeah. Taking water. I mean, there’s just certain things I’m looking at it. I’m like, I don’t need this anymore. I don’t need that anymore. You know, and it was, it didn’t amount to a whole lot, but it was certainly worthwhile readjusting gear and all that kind of stuff. And yeah. So, packing the fridge is going to be different. It’s going to be different, but you know, it’s that important. to me to change.

Joey – and you know, and, and it, and it’s, that’s probably the hardest part for me because I’m a foodie. You’re a foodie. We love food. Um, and the problem with food is, everything that tastes the best is the worst for you.

Tony – Yeah, it’s amazing.

Joey – That’s why, you know, obesity is a huge thing in the United States is because we have huge portions and we have anything you could possibly want to eat. And so, all the pizza, the cheeseburgers, you used to do smash burgers every time that we would go out. And so, if you do away with the bread, it’s kind of tough.

Tony – Last night at my in-law’s house, we had pork chops and we had corn on the cob, which I love corn on the cob. And we had other things like that. And I ate the meat. And I ate a little bitty bite of the other stuff. The night before that, they had cheeseburger sliders. And so, my wife, who is… very good about, you know, helping me stick to what I want to eat. She just, she just made me the patties covered with cheese with sauteed onions and mushrooms. And I had that with a little bit of mustard on the side.

Joey – Perfect. Oh, that sounds amazing. It was so good. So, and then the day before that we had ham and eggs. And then when we went out to eat, I had chicken wing. And let me tell you, there is a place, and my wife’s going, I think it’s the Rail Something in Rogers, Rail Something Bar. I hope she’s on here where she can tell you. But they have these rib things. They’re… They’re pork, and they have a little bone in the center of them, and they were some of the best things I’ve ever ate in my life. They’re like the bottom of the rib, but they’re a lot of meat, and you could just pull the bone out and eat it with a fork. But they were actually incredible. So, I just ate all meat. I had chicken wings, dry chicken wings, and I had those rib things, and they were so stinking good. Anyway, that’s the hardest part is finding food that you can eat, that you enjoy, because if you don’t enjoy what you eat, you’re going to quit. You’re going to quit and you’re going to go back to the way it was. Anyway, man, being healthy is tough, but when you get to our age, when you’re early 50s, when you’re wiser and certain things start to matter, you get to a point where it’s worth it

Tony – yeah giving up these things it’s worth it and so I really am looking forward to giving up my medication Man, that’s going to be a huge step.

Joey – Yeah, that’s going to be huge.

Tony – Really is.

Joey – Well, hey, everyone, I appreciate you joining us. This is going to be uploaded on all podcast platforms tomorrow and getting out there. So, make sure you go to whatever podcast platform that you love and download it and show some support for us because we love you and we appreciate you listening.

Tony – Appreciate it.

Joey – On behalf of Tony and myself, we hope you have a wonderful, amazing rest of your week. Get out there and enjoy it while you can. And the weather’s been not too bad. So, get out there and enjoy it. But while you’re doing it, keep in mind your health. We want you to be around for a while because we need you. That’s right. And we don’t, you know, anyway, we don’t want to be doing no funerals.

Hey, everybody, look out for number one. Don’t step in number two. We’re out. See you. Have a good week.