In this first full episode of The Z2A Show, A & J dive straight into the deep end — the broken world of health insurance, personal responsibility, and why modern society would rather stay medicated than motivated.
From ranting about $6,000-a-year premiums that buy you nothing, to the cultural obsession with quick fixes, victimhood, and processed everything, this episode isn’t here to comfort you — it’s here to wake you up.
Aaron lays it out raw: stop outsourcing your health. Jeremy pushes back with humor, logic, and real-world perspective. Together, they challenge what “healthcare” really means and why the bravest thing you can do might be taking care of yourself.
🔥 Expect laughs, uncomfortable truths, and a real conversation about how we lost control of our bodies, minds, and wallets — and how to take them back.
From Z to A — we’re not just talking, we’re rebuilding common sense.
J (00:00)
Alright everyone, thank you for listening to the Z 2 A Show with A &J and we are here to let you know who we are, what this show is about, and why health insurance is a scam, a lifeline or both. And today we have the pleasure to just go off the hinges with this. So what we’re going to go through with this is we’re going to go about who we are.
and what made us want to start the Z2A show. A would you like to go with that?
A (00:29)
Sure. My name is A. I find myself a little more conservative in nature, but I think it’s because I started out as a liberal and the liberals moved so far left and left me standing. They went left. I like to consider myself fairly open-minded and liberal in lot of ways, but I also don’t like things to go progress and change in direction that just seems antithesis to quality, you know, good quality of life and
I don’t think it brings out the best in people. So that’s why I’m stuck where I am. And I see a lot of things that, that bothered me in the world. And I don’t like when we talk about it and it gets, you we get gas lit and say, Oh, you’re an evil person for feeling this way. It’s like, Hey, I just, I have some questions. I want to talk about it. And, um, it bothers me. So it’s like, that’s why I’m here where I am. And I was like, no, this makes sense to me. Why am I being attacked or something that should just be for me? That’s where I am. How about you, man?
J (01:21)
Yeah, ,
With my experience overseas and internationally, I’ve seen a world of difference in how you can talk to people. For example, living in China, you can talk directly to somebody without hurting their feelings. Or even subtle hints about some things because people care about you. And then when you come here, if you say something, depending on what state you’re in and who you’re talking to,
you can easily offend people. And that has really gotten to the point where it’s like, why are we so sensitive? Why does that hurt your feelings?
A (01:53)
was offense the natural reaction to something.
J (01:56)
Why is
offense a natural reaction to anything rather than kind of taking it in understanding, you know several different points about the person that you know or don’t know whether they’re EQ or IQ has the ability to understand what people are talking about nonetheless to be able to convey what they’re trying to say without any evil intent or stuff like that
A (02:20)
It’d be nice to get some engagement because I don’t want to just live in a bubble. don’t think I think I’ve mentioned this before. I don’t think I’m right about everything. I like to be arrogant enough to think I am. But I also know deep down inside that I’m not. That’s my that’s my sin that I carry with me that I work on all the time. But I know I’m not smarter than everyone. I’m not better than everyone. So I’d like to hear other sides. Again, let’s let’s this is one of the reasons we have this is for open and honest discussion.
and collaboration, going back and forth. we don’t always have to find a mutual ground, but we can always understand that we’re humans and we’re not actually just like, we don’t need to call someone evil because they have a different thought or lifestyle or plans for their life. And I can even go into our subject of today, rolling into that. There are so many people who are involved in Medicare that
probably don’t need to be if they just made some adjustments in their life, they wouldn’t need all this medical healthcare. Which brings me to what we’re gonna talk about is health insurance. And my concerns about health insurance being, for me, health insurance is not something that I wanna spend money on. I find it kind of, not necessarily scammy, but I don’t like that I can spend several thousand up to 10,000 or more a year if you’re a family.
J (03:14)
Yeah, I understand.
A (03:34)
And what do you get out of it? You get some vaccines for your kids. You get some checkups. And then you just live your daily life. You’re just paying into the system. And what are you getting back out of it? At the end of the year, if you still need to go do something, you still have hundreds of dollars of co-pays and exam fees that you still pay for. But I paid you $6,000 this year on some sort of bronze tier plan that
that allows me to stay in the hospital overnight for a thousand dollars. That’s the copay. Like what am I, what are we giving it for? I’m not trying to say that all medical health care should be free because you can’t take a service or some something for free. That’s theft and slavery. We can talk about that in a little different subject, but my concern is for, especially for working families or single income families or just even
you know, your 26 or 25 year old, you know, guy or gal who got out of college or is in the workforce, get out of the military and the military had everything taken care of. It wasn’t an issue. If you needed medical, you went to medical. If you didn’t, you didn’t. There was no issues about it. But now that you’re out and like, okay, maybe I need to see someone for something. They have to pan to a system that doesn’t help them get out. One of the issues I have with lot of healthcare
Is there afraid to have people that have chronic illnesses? They they’re afraid to you know, correct them say listen We’re gonna care for you because you have this chronic illness, but you have to work on it, too If you’re not putting the work into it, you’re not gonna Resolve your issues. You’re gonna constantly be having these problems and you’re gonna constantly need need to see us You’re kind of constantly need medication. You’re always gonna need these things. Yeah so
because they’re afraid to do that. think I even watched a doctor talk about he wanted to prescribe medication to a lot of his patients, but he can’t because it’s called exercise and no one wants to take it.
Okay,
so if you make some small changes in your lifestyle, some small things that help improve yourself, and even people talk about self-care and mental health awareness and things like that, those are all good. One of the biggest things for your body actually is having a good positive mental attitude. If you ever find someone who just seems to be naturally happy all the time, they never seem to get sick.
I know you know someone like that. Everyone knows people like that. like, know what? I’ve never really seen you sick. And then if they are sick, they’re sick for a few days and they come back and they’re back to their normal self. They’ve never seen any difference. we need to focus on taking care of ourselves, which yes, sounds like a conservative principle, but it is true. You are in your own body. Your body is your responsibility. Let’s do something to take care of it. And this is coming from someone who weighed 260 pounds a couple of months, well, not a couple of months ago, a couple of years ago.
and has been on a different journey to make himself better. had lots of health problems when I was obese. I had back problems, knee problems, digestive issues all the time, obviously because I was overeating, sleep issues, headaches. I get migraines frequently, frequent migraines.
J (06:33)
Now it’s all been subdued. It’s like, you know, when you go into the workplace and they’re like, ⁓ sign up for health insurance, sign up for health insurance. And it’s like, why does health insurance feel like paying rent for your own?
A (06:46)
Yeah, I actually had a co-worker recently asked me he’s like hey did they have open enrollment you just sign up for it I like no I’m not gonna do that like what you’re not a spring chick. I’m like yeah I know I’m almost 50 years old, but you know you need health insurance like for what you know what I need is health care when I need it That’s what I need. you know it’s When I have an accident, that’s when I need to have my body taking care of I break my arm cut a finger off That’s when I need health care
J (07:11)
And then, mean, with that being said, you know, do you think health insurance actually protects people or attracts them?
A (07:18)
I think there’s this insurance gives people this feeling of an umbrella covering them. Like they’re protected and they’re good. Like when you have full coverage insurance on your car, you’re driving down the road, rockets or windshield, you’re not really worried about it. Someone swerves in front of you, you don’t want to in an accident. But if you do get a fender bender, you pull over, exchange information like, all right, cool. I know I can give my car to my insurance company. They’re going to give me a rental car. I just got to pay gas. And in a week or so.
$500, $1,000 later, I get my car back, which is another thing. Why am I paying you a thousand dollars? I’ve been paying you several hundred dollars a month anyway, but that’s this security blanket that they feel. So the same thing has been pushed on us for health insurance. think with the whole affordable care act being pushed around 10 years ago before with president Obama that everyone thought, all right, cool. I can get this thing I need for free, which wasn’t for free. came out of your taxes. We can go into that again. but
people have this feeling that they need this thing and they want it provided to them at a reasonable price, which is actually fairly fair. If you need something, it shouldn’t cost you an arm and a leg. shouldn’t have to sacrifice some things just to get health insurance, you know, and to be healthy. So instead, what I think health insurance should be is if you can’t afford your health insurance, don’t get it. know, you learn how to take care of yourself.
I’ll give you a quick quote of something I saw on Law and Order SVU from 15, 20 years ago. They’re investigating a crime that happened in this area and some guy living in his car, they’re talking to him and they nicknamed him Flossy because the whole time he was talking with him, he’s flossing his teeth and taking care of himself and they’re asking him why he’s doing all that. He says, do you know how expensive this kind of stuff is? I need to take care of my oral hygiene because I can’t afford any kind of health insurance or anything to go wrong with my mouth.
So I have to take care of this stuff myself. I was like, well, that’s brilliant. Now the guy’s not spending hundreds of dollars every month for his health insurance because he’s taking care of himself. Yeah, he’s living in his car because he can’t afford anything like that. But at the same time, he’s there taking care of himself. That’s what people should be doing.
J (09:16)
exactly. You know with all the turmoil and things that are going on around in this world you know one one thing that comes up right now is you know remember that guy that had killed the ⁓ yeah we saw the headline about him ⁓ calling that guy a hero for shooting the United States
A (09:29)
yeah, UnitedHealthcare guy.
J (09:36)
our UnitedHealthcare worker, what’s the world coming to?
A (09:39)
Yeah, he and the fact that people are plotting and there are women throwing themselves at him. Yeah, there are people who have gotten crazy and throw themselves at serial killers, Ted Bundy, you know, we can all go through that thing. But the fact that we thought this guy from UHC was evil has been taught to us in movies and TV shows that someone who runs an insurance company because that’s what you want and you’re paying them for is an evil person because of some policies that they have.
The policies that they have are there to protect the business so that way everyone they employ can still have a job. And yeah, he’s a CEO. He has a business so he can make tons of money. That’s what you’re paying him for. So to be angry with him to do for doing what you’re paying him to do is kind of silly. And it makes you look like a fool, especially when you celebrate the person who murdered him. Let’s be, let’s be straight up what it is. He planned out a murder.
got a gun, got a suppressor so he wouldn’t get too much noise on the street, walked up behind the guy and put some in his head, killed the guy on the spot because he didn’t agree with how he was handling his business. If you really want to affect that business, collect everyone, get them together, don’t pay your premiums for one month. One month, if that whole company has one dry month, imagine how that would affect them. That’s how you make policy change. You don’t need to murder somebody.
J (10:55)
Yeah, we still hand these companies thousands every year without blinking but one guy stood up That’s why I guess they’re calling him the hero
A (11:04)
Yeah. But guess what’s happening? They’re still giving money to the company. Their policies haven’t changed. They just lost their CEO. They put another person in place. That person, now that family is missing their father, husband, brother, son, because you didn’t like what they did. You didn’t actually make any change. You just murdered somebody. Why you want to celebrate that? Because we have this thing in our head that we think everyone has to have this is the human right to have this insurance. You shouldn’t be charging so much. shouldn’t be screwing people over just to make a buck.
Sure, we can have a moral argument. You shouldn’t screw someone over to make money.
J (11:36)
Yeah, you shouldn’t screw somebody over to make money. But you know, what you’re saying is also part of the issue is that it’s the illusion of bravery. It’s easy to rage online, but it’s hard to stop paying those premiums.
A (11:49)
Yeah, I’ll give another example. I used to live in an HOA and we had an issue with dogs, stray dogs coming in and harassing the tenants. And one of our neighbors was walking with her father’s dog and the stray dogs came in and attacked her and her dog. Her dog protected them. In the struggle as she was pulling her dog away, her own dog bit her thumb off. So she lost a thumb from her own dog. The HOA then decided that
The tenants animals were the problem and they needed to either put them down or get rid of them. So they couldn’t live there anymore. So we all got together, half of the tenants got together one Tuesday evening and we went to the office and we said, no, this isn’t right. And when I got out in front of him, said, listen, this is what’s going to happen. Either you guys are going to drop this case or all of us in here. not paying our HOA fees on the first and that’s in three days. What do you want to do about that? A hundred units not paying you $500.
One dry month, see what happens. They went in, talked with them, five minutes later they walked out. Everything was done. So this is where we need to act. We need to take care of ourselves. We need to not pay into a system that we hate. If we don’t like it, we need to create some sort of change and pain’s gonna do it. It’s gonna suck. But stop making heroes out of murderers. That’s ridiculous.
J (13:03)
Yeah, it’s totally ridiculous. And it comes into like mental health dependency and pill culture, over medicated America. You don’t need Prozac, you need purpose, you know.
A (13:13)
Yeah. Well, as much as that sounds silly, that’s actually what it should be. And I, when I was first, I was prescribed these medications, I’ll be honest. And I don’t generally like to ask people about medical history. It’s none of my business. I’ve heard different words about it, but I will, for the purpose of this, I will explain. I was on Prozac. I’d been on Lexapro. I’ve tried afexor, a bunch of different ones. My last doctor prescribed it to me.
and she knew I was going through some hard times. So we started on a low dose, kind of went to a higher dose. And then within a month, she was contacting me and said, hey, how are you doing? Are you feeling a little bit more leveled out? You feeling a little better? said, yeah, okay. She said, all right, cool. This is what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna start tapering you off to, want you to do today, you’re gonna take your normal medication. Tomorrow, you’re gonna take half of it and you’re just gonna keep taking half of it for another six weeks and we’ll check in again soon. And we did that until we tapered myself off to a smallest amount.
every day and then I started talking to her as I listen, I think I’m gonna do this every other day. said, all right, cool. Keep an eye out for these symptoms. If these things pop up, let me know. Let’s talk about it. Okay, cool. And some of them did pop up. I, you know, messenger, we were talking back and forth. All right, cool. I’m glad you’re on top of that. Let’s stick with what we’ve got. Because my goal is to get you off of this medication. That was the first doctor I’d ever met that wanted me to take medication and get off of
I’ve never seen that before. Anyone else, and I’ve talked to plenty of people, they’ve been on depression, anxiety medication for years.
J (14:37)
Now is it, what did you think about that? Is it the person that wants to stay on there because they’re too lazy or they are they’re too depressed or they think it’s their life is not going to be the same if they’re not on it? Because you know, the business of sickness versus the pursuit of health is a major factor in things. But when it comes to that, you know, you got lack of personal responsibility and then society’s comfort with mediocracy and victimhood.
A (15:03)
that’s a huge Pandora’s box you opened. I’m glad you went there. So yeah, victimhood and then the feeling of, I’m gonna touch on something you mentioned, the feeling of being different or not being able to live without it. I think doctors need to be trained to recognize that dependency on medications. And I know a lot of them do, they’re very trained at addiction noticing, but no one understands the addiction to your mental health meds or your.
J (15:20)
They are already in
A (15:27)
blood pressure medication. don’t understand that and how to tape. We should be able to take everyone off of medication.
J (15:34)
It’s just a business of sickness.
A (15:36)
Okay. I have a hard time arguing with that. I want to take the other side of that, but I’m having difficulty doing it. Let me, let me try to take it so we can have a little back and forth. think it’d be great. I think doctor, most of doctors, want to say the majority of doctors want to see their patients get better. Yeah. ⁓ I also know that they are afraid of, going against the system that they’re
into already about taking people off these medications or not pushing people on these medications. The last doctor I was telling you about, I called a few times when I was having really manic episodes. said, listen, I will go to a hospital for one anti-anxiety medication or a shot of Ativan or something because I’m freaking out that bad. And she said, you know what, A, I really don’t like giving out those kind of medications. I generally only do that to someone who’s in the hospital. was, again, one of the first doctors I’d ever talked to with stuff like that.
⁓ anyone else was like, all right, come on in, let’s get you doped up. Let’s see what you can do. Yeah. Not like that, but that was kind of the invitation and in retrospect, puts you back into that system of, you’re, you’re giving to them. So they’re making money and they’re going to keep you in this machine of making money. And she was the first one that said, no, get you out of that. And I hope there’s more doctors like that. ⁓ I haven’t had that experience. And to be fair, a lot of people I meet who are in these situations, they don’t see that there’s a way out. They don’t start.
They don’t start the road and then find the way to the exit. You know, they don’t, they don’t take exit 27. They stay on the road and in the past exit one, they keep going until we see exit 99 again. And they, they just keep going. They keep staying on it. And they’re like, I’m so sick. I never get better back to your accountability or personal responsibility, your health, your wellness is up to you, not someone else. You can’t depend on it. I went to the doctor to make me better. Yeah. You went to the doctor to find out what’s wrong.
J (17:07)
cross country.
Yeah.
A (17:23)
and then to talk about a plan to make you better. The doctor doesn’t make you better.
J (17:27)
Yeah, so it’s the same thing as saying, you you’re not saying not go to the doctor. You’re saying stop outsourcing your health.
A (17:33)
Exactly. I think you need to start with, um, start with your diet and exercise and research what, what, what foods or what diet is good for you. And it’s going to take some trial and error you can do. and the great thing about today is we have YouTube and blogs and all kinds of ways you can, you can find everyone’s, uh, experience with, with their diet. I’m following this guy, Ethan Bernard on online. He’s, started out as an obese man, 660 pounds. He’s down to four 84 60, something like that.
going making fantastic strides and he’s working with a nutritionist to get the right diet plan that works for him. And I’ll give my personal experience. I knew I needed diet and exercise. I did not want to change my diet. I wanted to able to eat what I wanted to eat when I wanted to eat it. And I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my life if I was eating these foods that were terrible. But I found a diet that works well for me with a little more discipline. I can even make it a little more strict and I’ve been able to lose a lot of weight.
and get healthier and feel better. And I’m starting to feel the desire to exercise. And that is something that will help help me. And I think that’s really what most of society needs to do. So going back to your point of outsourcing your your health care, no, your your your health should be taken care of primarily first. And then when you get to a point where like, you know what, I don’t know what’s going on with me. Yeah, I’ve had this runny nose for a week. I’m kind of sick. I can’t seem to get over it. Maybe there’s something that
These medical professionals, that’s why they’re medical professionals. They go to school for a long time. They learn all these things. They will know something that I don’t. That’s when I’m to reach out and get your assistance.
J (19:03)
that’s your version and a lot of other people have similar versions of taking care of themselves. And the carnivore diet is a big trend lately. it helps out a lot because it cancels out lot of food. the whole part of being in health care or being in the system is they don’t know when they have a new subject that comes in and they don’t know anything about the person. It’s all about the process of elimination.
And mean, that’s a lot of what these food diets or dieting practices are is the elimination of that, know, of certain substances or food types in your body.
A (19:43)
some things that are unhealthy for you that keep, you know, maintain this cycle of unhealthiness. And I’d like to actually touch back on the same system that we’re talking about. Doctors need to see so many people in a day. So when you come in for an appointment, you’ll spend four minutes with your doctor in awkward conversation about a few things. And then that’s it. And then he or she
gives you something, nurse comes in, gives you discharge, they walk out, they wipe the room down, next, it’s an assembly line because the doctor can’t see two patients a day. That’s not enough money for the hospital or for the insurance companies. They need to make more money so they will have more appointments every day. They will have more things happen. They will prescribe more medications. They will have more tests because they need to validate why things cost so much. Like this is what we’re doing. That’s why we have all this stuff going on.
And to me it seems like we’re missing the point of, like I said before, getting to know that person so you can talk to them and figure out what the proper diet and proper exercise is, things like that.
J (20:40)
Yeah, there so there’s always pros and cons everything like we’ve gotten to this life where You know money is practically, you know revolve new our lives revolve around Can’t and then so Earlier you’re talking about you know, we have Google we have YouTube we have everything that you know all these different people that show us their lives and and everything now
A (20:50)
You almost can’t do anything without money.
J (21:03)
A big factor to people not getting everything right is we don’t have systems or school programs that teach us the basics of what your physical being. So as there’s different body types and how different blood types react to certain different foods, we’ve gotten so far into the chemistry of things is that our biological makeup is a little bit different.
A (21:13)
there.
J (21:28)
based on your blood type and your body type. then one thing’s gonna be good for somebody when the other thing isn’t. And it all comes back to that, like, yourself and what category you fall into. For just a quick example, like, Philippine people, they can eat rice all day long, no problem. But you come over to the US and eat rice.
A (21:48)
guess
I’m bloated for a couple of
J (21:49)
that
because they want you to pay to go to college to learn that. And then they pitch you this whole lifestyle of like, ⁓ now that you’re in college, yeah, we want to teach you this, but what’s the next step? It’s like, ⁓ you got to start selling. And it comes back to money.
A (22:04)
So you mentioned ⁓ high school and schools and physical education. When I went through PE and like junior high and high school, you did exercise. I didn’t really like learn what that we should exercise on a regular basis. But most of the people in my class through junior high and high school, you might’ve had one or two obese kids. Very rare. Nowadays it’s rampant. And
going through elementary school, have a 12 year old kid who’s almost 200 pounds. There’s no reason you should be weighing that much at that age. Even if you’re six foot five, you shouldn’t be that fat. it’s genetic. No, no, it’s the sugars that you’re giving them. it’s definitely the sugar. The poisons and stuff. Yeah. So there was actually a meme that circulated a year or two, and it’ll probably come around again. It showed high school athletics. So high school physical education program with a bunch of high school kids and they were ripped.
15, 16 year old guys and gals and they were in great shape. Why? Because it was like they were farmland foods. They were eating their own homegrown stuff or going to grocery stores and having healthy meats without all these antibiotics and steroids injected to them. They’re not eating at McDonald’s every day because there wasn’t, you know, all this fast food so close to them, so convenient and easy, cheap and fast.
They were eating regular good foods and they learned how to eat on a normal basis. They were actually exercising regularly because a lot of them live down the farm. They’re working on stuff. So PE was pretty simple. That would have been a great thing to do. What we don’t do these days is we don’t because we have, it’s been decades and generations of people who aren’t being healthy. And so they’re teaching their kids the same bad, habits. And so when their kids are 150 pounds at eight years old,
they’re experiencing the same problem that their parents did. And their parents are like, I don’t understand what the deal is. It’s like, well, you’re teaching the same stuff to your kids. so they never learned. And then PE in school anymore is not, run a mile on this amount of time. It’s, hey, can you touch your toes? Okay, well, whatever, we’re going to pass you anyway. So, so PE stops being an actual educational class to learn health and exercise. I really think that there should be, you know, a couple of days a week in PE that is you have an hour.
So you don’t necessarily need to exercise today, go home and do some work. But here’s some lesson plans on why exercise is good and needed for you. It’s conditioning.
J (24:19)
especially in today’s society. mean, for the past several years for us. Just a couple of quick points here. Since there’s no general education in being healthy, you look at it’s 60 % of bankruptcies in the US are due to medical bills. And that’s particularly preventable diseases like heart, diabetes, obesity, make up a majority of the costs.
So , look at it, big pharma’s profits are way up and average life expectancy is down.
A (24:48)
So it’s easy to be cynical and say, these big pharmaceutical companies, these medical requirements, they want you to be sick. They want you to constantly be paying into the system. Yeah. So they can keep making money. They turn you into, you know, their labor force, their employee, basically, to make money off of you. They’re, you’re, know, you’re not necessarily their product, but you’re, you’re their mouse, the hamster in the wheel to spend the generator to make cash. And it’s a very easy, cynical way to look at it. I think.
Most doctors on the front lines don’t want that. But at the same time, they run into people with a mindset that says, I’ve come to you to help fix me. I need you to fix me when the fixing comes from you. And that’s the problem. I always thought it was the American, the human body was awesome and that we give all these medications to cure it. That’s not what it is. We don’t give a medication that cures something in the human body. The medication goes in the human body.
to help the human body fight and cure itself.
J (25:45)
Yeah, definitely. Just imagine if car insurance worked like health insurance. You’d need prior authorization to change your oil. Yeah. That would be pretty sick. Yeah.
A (25:54)
And
that’s part of what makes a system so disgusting and doctors are furious about it. Hey, I’ve got this thing I need my patient to do. Here’s, I’m going to give you an order for it. No, we don’t need that unless you have done this other thing. Like, no, he doesn’t need a $2,000 CAT scan. He doesn’t need this other thing. I already have enough images. I’m the doctor. I know what’s good for my patient. And I’ve got some $12 an hour bureaucrat saying, no. How did we get there?
J (26:19)
Yeah, so it leads us into the next segment here. It is like, stop being a customer of sickness. And we’ll start this segment off with, you know, what are simple, simple daily habits that would eliminate most doctor visits?
A (26:34)
What’s worked for me is I stopped drinking calories. I remember my mom a long time ago when I was a kid, she was a little strict on trying to make diet and it’s caused some problems. one of the things I remember phrases, I remember her saying was something had empty calories. So if you go get like, know, hostess donuts or ho ho’s or something like that, you’re just, it’s empty calories, meaning that you’re just putting calories in your body.
that you don’t need. not going to satiate your hunger. It’s not going to actually give you any nutrition. And yeah, those things are great. Who doesn’t like a nice glazed donut? Oh, I love an apple fiddle with my coffee. Oh, I can feel my heart racing right now. Don’t mention it. But in moderation, and by moderation, I don’t mean like once a week. like a little less than that, especially if you’re already unhealthy. If you’re already unhealthy, you need to cut those habitats because you know you got them. I know I got them. I could go to Whataburger and get a whole meal.
15, you know, 15 bucks, whatever, swallow it down. I’m great. It only took me a few minutes, depending on which drive through you go through. It only took me a few minutes to get it. It’s convenient, fairly cheap. But then, then what am I left with? You know, I’m actually going to be hungry a little bit later because I didn’t get enough actual nutrition to satiate the hunger. The calories that are there are just going to be stored. But now I’m feeling empty because everything is left and I’m like, okay, and I’ll go more room to eat. And so I’m going to eat some more and it just piles on and on. So.
Number one is be aware of what you’re eating. Make making sure that you’re like 80 to 90 percent of the time you’re eating healthy. Give yourself that break once in a while. Sure, if you’re okay with it. I’ve done that. I went a little overboard and had some repercussions. I gained a little bit more weight than I was trying to. I was trying to lose and went the other way. So now they’re aware of that. And then go out for a walk. Start trying to get conditioned to exercise. And I say this as a
because as I’m saying it out loud, it’s going to make me do it as well because I have to live up to my word. But just those little things. Get yourself some good sleep, a little bit of exercise and be mindful of what you eat. If you want, if you like a whole lot of carbohydrates, great, because I love them too. try not to eat a whole bunch too much during the day. Focus a little more on proteins, healthy fats and grains and fibers. Those are good things. You can talk to nutritionists. But yeah, your first steps are
Be mindful of what you eat, get yourself a little exercise, and of course, good sleep so you can have a little less stress. But those things will really help you stop constantly needing to go see medical attention on a regular basis.
J (28:54)
, yeah, I totally agree with you on that. Paying attention to your body is a big thing. that’s what a lot of these specialists are, like a nutritionist, they help you see the things that you’re not seeing. And of course they have the background for it.
A (29:07)
And
they experience it, they’ve seen plenty of that. So they know it’s a zebra or not a horse. Exactly. They figured out what that is. They hear the hoofbeats and they go, okay, that’s a zebra coming out a horse. How do know? I’ve seen it 300 times. Oh, okay. It’s conditioning. You’re used to it.
J (29:11)
Yeah.
Yeah, and if you look at it, you know, there’s a big question that is posed to be asked is how does faith, purpose, and discipline affect health?
A (29:29)
So that’s actually a great subject I was gonna get along to. Mental health and physical health do tie in together. Everyone’s heard the expression mind, body, spirit. It’s used in so many motivational speeches and movies and things. And it means a lot, it really does. If your mind is not settled, then your spirit and body are gonna suffer. If your spirit is troubled, then your mind and body will suffer. You’ll have a hard time thinking and concentrating and focusing.
you’ll be eating the wrong foods and your body will suddenly suffer. You won’t be focusing on being disciplined and doing the right thing. being disciplined doesn’t mean you have to be a Jocko Willink or the David Goggins. don’t have to be, know, these guys are machines. You guys are animals, but look what they’ve done. They just put a mindset and they went with it and look how successful they are. So why don’t we do like a diet Jocko or a
David Goggins light if you will you know give yourself a little discipline like I’ve given myself a little discipline I’ve cut out most most of my sugar intake I have a little sugar in my coffee, but I don’t have it in anything else Yeah, and that has been a good discipline and has helped me a lot the second discipline Is again what I’m to work on I I’ll admit it. I need to be more I need to exercise more you’d be more physically active
And then third, spiritually. So some people are going to say, do you mean I need to be in a religion or be some sort of cult? No. But what we all need to do as human beings, we need a purpose, we need a focus, and we need little reminders about when we’re going off track. And that’s what a good spiritual leader or guide will help you do. need to have enough. I’m searching for the right word. Hubris isn’t the right word, but we need to have enough self-awareness that we’re not
We’re we’re not right about everything. And if you can put something bigger than yourself and look at that and just understand that there are things more important than just you and your thoughts, that something else is better for you, whether it’s a focus on Buddhism or Hinduism or Christianity or Islam or Judeo, anything like that, cool, go for it. Do something better for yourself. That will help your spiritual align.
And when that aligns, you can have a much more clearer mind to help focus on your body. And those disciplines will help keep you on the right track.
J (31:40)
Yeah, sometimes it feels like we need a cultural shift before , ever fix any healthcare policy with that. Because, mean, if you think about it, are people using diagnosis as identity badges?
A (31:53)
Absolutely. This is actually something I’ve talked to with a lot of people. Say you know someone who has constant knee problems. They would say, my knee is this or my back this or my hernia this. You don’t own it. You don’t own that disease. My favorite one these days is my ADHD makes me do this. No, you suffer from a disorder. You suffer from ADHD. When you say my ADHD,
Now you can’t let go of it because like that’s my car, my kid, my dog, my gun, my this, my laptop, my computer, my job. Those are things that you own. You don’t want to own an illness. You don’t want to say my cancer. Now I have cancer and I’m getting rid of it. I’m fighting the crap out of it. It’s not my cancer. I don’t want it. That’s what we should be focusing on. And so I’m really glad you brought that up because that is the biggest problem in our culture. We identify with our illness or injury.
J (32:30)
Yeah.
A (32:47)
or whatever, and we make that our label. And we want people to treat us better because who doesn’t want to treat a sick person kindly? Everyone’s like, I’m so sorry. It feels bad. We’ve created a virtue signal of flag waving of I have this mentally illness. I have this. I have that. That’s none of my business. You know, why don’t you just be Lorraine, you know, or Jeremiah or, you know, just be yourself, not, you know, Darnell, who’s, you know,
my ADHD guy. No, he’s just darn L.
J (33:18)
We need to learn how to draw a line between compassion and enabling.
A (33:24)
Absolutely, absolutely. You nailed that one right on the head.
J (33:27)
Yeah, it’s insane.
My heart goes out to people, but at the same time when you go through it and you understand symptoms and the struggle and the path that you’re on, and then once you understand it, then you come up with an action plan to get rid of it. mean, because you don’t want to turn, you don’t want to sit there and be stuck with it for the rest of your life.
A (33:48)
who wants to have attention deficit disorder forever?
J (33:51)
turn a situation to a condition is totally two different things,
A (33:56)
It’s a mindset. You don’t have to always suffer from this. You don’t have to make that your personality. No, you can get over it.
I think it’s like ten.
and you can just get on an exercise bike, barely pedal, move, do a little bit. You’d be really surprised, and again, I’m saying this because I’m gonna make myself do it. You’d really surprised how much your brain will change, how much happier you will feel because you will release those endorphins that are clogged up in your body just from exercising. A little bit of not very strenuous or slightly strenuous exercise makes a huge difference.
J (34:28)
Yeah, it does. I totally agree with you on that. Moving along to the mental health trap that we already spoke about here, to dig a little bit deeper into it. Why are people more anxious than ever despite more therapy and meds?
A (34:43)
because they’re not being allowed to see that there’s a way out. Again, this goes to my anxiety, the identity of owning your mental illness or your mental disorder. You don’t have to own it. There is a cure. So part of these things, this is going to be controversial. It’s super popular right now. So that’s why I’m bringing it up is this trans identifying non-binary stuff that we’re allowing people to think. And instead of going,
I feel like I’m trapped in the wrong body. I’m I know physically I’m a man, but I feel like I should be a woman. Okay. That is a problem. You aren’t a woman. You can’t be a woman. So instead of going, Hey, listen, let’s find a cure for this. We’re enabling that. And that has been the spearhead. And I want to say really the spearhead that’s more, I guess, the shaft of the spearhead, because it’s solidly holding on.
and really pushing forward the idea of all these poor folks. And I’m not just talking about the trans community, I’m talking about everyone who has any kind of mental illness or injury that you are gonna get treated better because you have this society is gonna be look kindly on you because you have knee problems, you have back problems, you have cirrhosis or you have chronic eczema or something like that. No, there are cures for these things and you can be cured of it. And the fear is that if you cure me of this,
Well, who am I? And I’m going to take a little digression, but it’s the same. It’s the same topic. In a deaf community, there are a lot of people who are up in arms against cochlear implants because they feel it’s going to take you out of the community. You’re no longer going be deaf. You’re going to be hearing. And if you’re hearing, then you’re not part of the community. So you don’t identify as a deaf person. So there’s a huge movement in the deaf community that’s very anti cochlear implant.
J (36:06)
No, there.
Misery loves company,
A (36:30)
in a way because they’re saying, you can’t cure who I am. Like, no, no, no, we’re curing the thing that’s affecting you. That’s making life challenging for you. But here’s the best part. If you don’t want it, don’t get it. That’s the beauty of life. You have a choice not to do it, but to encourage and tell other people that they’re not going to be the same person anymore because they got a cochlear implant to cure the dysfunction of their body is, is crazy to me. You know, that’s the same thing we have like
If you’re a teenager and your teenager is talking to the doctor and the teenager is going, you know, I’m going through some things, I’m not feeling quite who I am and I’m not sure about a lot of things. I see so many people are hooking up in relationships and I don’t get it, I don’t know where I fit in. This doesn’t feel right to me. Oh, okay, well here’s some medications to stop your puberty and we’re going to help you switch your gender because you don’t feel correct. Well, hang on a second here. Why don’t we just address the little mental issue that they have? Give them a goal, give them some focus, give them a purpose.
People who don’t have a purpose are lost and their mind is open to everything. And they don’t have filters to properly address everything. That’s the biggest thing that we have going on.
J (37:34)
It’s because convenience has replaced courage.
A (37:37)
That is true. Courage, yeah, courage has been replaced by convenience. And I mentioned fear before, but fear is a big thing that pushes things. This is why political correctness became a thing because people were afraid of offending people and to bring us circle back, Saki, bring us back to offense is doctors and medical professionals are afraid to offend.
someone by telling them like no this is what the problem is let’s address this because there will be this huge civil suit against them and next thing the doctors losing their license simply because they said no you’re not you’re not a girl you are a boy and that’s that’s okay let’s help you get used to what’s in your body just like someone who says I feel like I shouldn’t have these two hands his hand doesn’t feel right okay we go we address that as the problem we don’t just cut the arm off for them and make and accommodate it
J (38:27)
Yeah,
and you know it kind of leads into what I’ve been thinking about over the past year is I started my spiritual journey and you know, I’m not as forward with it as I want to be but I’m slowly stepping into it and you know, I’ve noticed a big difference in how I look at life and how things come due to being Christian and you know putting God first, you know.
the
A (39:10)
the guidelines
J (39:21)
you know folks on the word but it comes to that question is like what role does religion or spiritual grounding play in a mental health because from my standpoint I could say it’s helped me out a lot I went through a lot of changes over the past five six years at the peak of my financial game and then all set on back the bottom again due to you know some you know unfortunate circumstances
A (39:42)
Unfortunate circumstances.
J (39:46)
playing the game too big on online sales and all that other stuff. And I hit a real low point. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. I’ve had some really low moments in my life. And when I came back here to the States, it was pretty low. And then God put me on the path to where I actually started paying attention a little bit more. Cuz I met this one friend of mine, younger guy.
and we’d go to gym all the time and he was becoming a personal trainer, smart kid, and then he’s the one that kind of led me on to be like, God’s the way, you know, , and then we would go to, after the gym, we’d go to Cane’s and eat all the time. I would kind of counterproductive with our exercise and, it’s fried food and I love Cane’s. It depends on which one you go to, but the one I went to up in Iowa.
A (40:35)
That’s my go-to.
J (40:36)
that
A (40:39)
At least at the same time that corresponded with visits to the gym. you you can say, look, I’ve gone to that 300 times, but I also went to the gym 300 times.
J (40:45)
We
would get into 30 minute to an hour conversations about God. He was telling me what he knew, what he was learning. I would have my doubts and I’m like, the Bible is controversial. it’s not. He’s like, there is not one verse, not one thing in there that’s controversial because you can’t just look at it one by one. You have to read the whole thing and understand the correspondence.
and different locations have almost the same thing to say and it’s where I started and I’m like you know I need to start and start walking in the right path so it’s really helped me a lot and I’ve become happier, gotten rid of a lot of bad habits and I’m still working on them but you know eating too much is one of them. me about I did the carnivore diet last year but you know
in society building people up is a big thing, but that leads us to the question is, is society building people up or breaking them down for profit?
A (41:48)
Well, I think society just exists and there are people that want to exploit other people. that’s, everyone in society wants to make sure they’re not being exploited. They’re not being taken advantage of. So they get really cynical when they see things they don’t like and they start believing all the evil, which you could say that’s the devil talking in your ear if you want to go that way. if I’m going to be non-religious, like you’re
taking the Christian route, is my route as well. But I’m going to just try to take a devil’s advocate sort of look at it. Having a focus, having a drive, having something in front of you, a goal or some sort of sight, some road, some path, you need that. people, men need a purpose. Men need to have feel needed at once. And so I can speak to this as a man. And I’m sure for women it is similar, but I can only speak.
my lived experience as a man. When I went through life and I didn’t have either some sort of mentor or a guide or something to look to for guidance for help and assistance and understanding, my life was a mess. I couldn’t discipline myself to do anything. I was eating terribly. There was no exercise. My sleep was awful. I was constantly sleeping. So everything was a fact.
So what we really need to focus on is even if you don’t want any kind of religion to do with it, fine, don’t make religion a thing. If you’re agnostic, atheist, fine, that’s cool. Give yourself goals, give yourself a purpose, a reason, raison d’etre, if you will, a reason to exist, something to focus on. If you want to be the best basketball player, the best coach, the best doctor, you want to be
You work at a hotel front desk. want to be so, you know, give yourself, hey, I want to be either the manager of this company or I’m going to do this for 18 months and I’m going to get this other license that I’ve got. Give yourself a focus, give yourself a goal and that will really improve your health and your life and your focus.
J (43:44)
And indeed it will. I mean, it kind of shows the connection between the physical and spiritual illness. So if you don’t have your spirit in tune with God, mean, then that’s a sickness. You need to fix that because that pertains all around to your life. , it’s a big subject to talk about, but maybe health insurance.
isn’t the problem, but maybe it’s just we outsource our strength.
A (44:09)
Exactly. Yeah. And, uh, did, did kind of wrap that up. I’d like to, um, I don’t want us to answer this. I’d like to ask our listeners to respond and comments and send it. And maybe even send a, a, you know, a contra point contra point kind of idea. What would happen if you treated your body like a business? What would, how would you invest? Would you invest in all the pills and sickness that you’ve got, or would you invest in getting healthier to have a more fruitful and better life?
and tell me how you want to do that.
J (44:39)
Yeah, now we’re not saying skip your meds or doctors. We’re saying take back control
A (44:45)
Right. Don’t depend on someone else for your happiness, your health, your well-being. That’s all up to you.
J (44:50)
And A, thank you so much for having us.
A (44:54)
that
J (44:54)
and you’re listening to this episode we appreciate you very much we’re two guys with two different opinions sometimes we agree sometimes we don’t but that’s the whole thing about conversations real conversations and that’s the whole reason what brought you know brought this podcast in through us you know Z to a zero to America you know America the home of the free and brave and brave that’s right so
A (45:16)
And bravery back,
J (45:20)
Stay tuned. Next week we’re going to be talking about another system that keeps you independent and that’s a few things that we’re going to leave in the air for speculation. And so you can see when we bring them up. A, you have anything else to say before we get on?
A (45:34)
No, again this has been ZDA, where the outbreak doesn’t go forward, it goes back to the basics.
J (45:39)
Agreed. Z to A, zero to America. Thanks for listening, everyone, and have a great rest of your day.
