How about this you guys? We're outside. Outside of the black void, it's like another dimension out here.

The sun is shining. It's a beautiful day. And I'm back with another solo episode of the podcast.

The first two that I have done have been received with overwhelming positivity. Thank you for that.

I'm going to be doing more of these. When I put the

word out that I was looking for questions to answer, thinking I was going to do an AMA, maybe answer

four or five questions, the vast majority of the responses that I got pivoted around my diet and my fitness routine in the wake of

spinal fusion surgery as I engage with my recovery and am in this sort of rebuilding process.

So this AMA is going to be singularly focused on that because I have a lot to say about this.

And in addition to a lifetime of training experience, experience with nutrition, I've also learned a lot over this past year.

Many things that I think are salient and hopefully helpful and applicable to your life. So diet,

training, longevity, reinvention, transformation, let's fucking go. So the way I want to open this

is with a little bit of background because I don't want to assume that everybody knows my story.

I was a swimmer as a young person. I competed at Stanford University in the late 1980s as a butterflyer at a pretty high level.

Kind of a bench warmer on that two-time NC2A winning team. But a member of that team nonetheless, where I was training

every single day with Olympic gold medalists and world record holders and NC2A and American record

holders. And I bring that up solely to make the point that I know a lot about training. I've been

pushing my body and submitting to voluntary suffering for the better part of my entire life.

So that was the 80s.

The 90s was a decade of decadence where I pursued my first career as a professional alcoholic.

Needless to say, that did not work out so well.

At 31, I ended up getting sober, and so I spent that decade, the decade of my 30s, trying to repair the wreckage of my life,

rebuild myself up emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, so that I could become a productive member of society.

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