growNman
growNman
165 Effort Changes Everything
Ever notice how life feels heavy when your habits are sloppy, even if you’re “doing fine” on paper? We take you inside a raw rethink of effort, health, and communication—how owning the gap between expectations and daily actions can flip your energy, your mood, and your relationships. It started with a hard look at miscommunication, a season abroad that forced reflection, and a realization that effort—not luck—moves the needle.
We make a clear case that diet is the foundation of a better day. Think of food as fuel: timing, quality, and quantity affect everything from mental clarity to mobility and self-esteem. You’ll hear practical, no-fluff rules—drink half your body weight in ounces of water, stop eating two to three hours before bed, walk 8,000 to 10,000 steps—and how intermittent fasting windows like 16:8 can help you burn stored energy and quiet constant hunger. We talk about the hidden cost of “delicious food” as a socially accepted addiction, why kitchen discipline beats gym heroics, and how simple routines create compounding wins.
The episode also digs into identity and mindset. When you keep small promises—tighten your eating window, hydrate, move daily—you communicate better, complain less, and meet stress with optimism. We address BMI myths, share real-life travel moments that reveal mobility gaps, and offer an approachable path for any age using calisthenics and consistent habits. If you want clearer mornings, lighter days, and a stronger sense of self, start with what you put in your body and how you use your time.
Press play, take one rule to heart today, and tell a friend what you’re committing to this week. If this helped you, subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review so more people can find the show.
What up do and welcome back to I'm Growin' Man, Shaman John D in the building. So I just got out of work on vacation and I was writing some information down, but I forgot some stuff. I'm telling you. Things you think you're supposed to get and you still don't. But I'm gonna make it right. But I I was just thinking, I walked upstairs and I was like, do my kids know what I want them to have? And say if I die, like the best information I could give them. And I'm gonna give it to all of you guys. But you know the difference with the difference between me telling you guys and me telling my kids. They hear it. It's almost like I browbeat them. But in the last year or so, I kind of just like kind of just floated away from being that person because I don't want my family to dislike me because I want to live a better life on purpose. Not saying that they don't, but they want to do it at their own speed. And when I tell you guys, the stuff works. And, you know, this is free information. This is the type of information that can literally change how you view life. You just have to practice it. The reason why I work on communication is because when I realized how to make my day feel like this on a day-to-day basis, it was only right for me to share it. And I guess ultimately it was to just to be a source of information for those who may stumble across something. You know, things happen for a reason, right? And let's say there's a kid or an adult that stumbles across these messages I have. None of this information can hurt you. Like, if you practice, and it's according to your effort, now I want you to know there's levels of effort that have yielded unbelievable results. But in order to get those results, you will have to put the effort in. When I learned that part, and then, you know, just looking at my life, and I was just like, I thought I would be doing better than this. And then I was like, what does this look like? Financially, I thought I would be well off. And I didn't get there. And I was like, why? And I realized it was my effort. My effort changed with how I use my time on a day-to-day basis. And this is when I was in Abu Dhabi. And I know that might sound crazy, but I was an educator, so it was easy for educators to go to another country to teach. So I don't want you guys to think that I was out here balling. Um I was an educator and I took my family out there. But I lost my family in the process for about a year and a half, more than a year and a half, 20 months. It gave me a lot of time to reflect on how did this happen to me? And when I realized it was because of my ignorance, the way I viewed life, I was very narrow-minded. I really thought that everybody knew what I was thinking when I was saying things, but that they would, it would always, people would always misunderstand me and it would turn into an argument. And that's where I learned that I wasn't a great communicator at all. Or I really wasn't a good communicator at all. And when I started to work, like trying to figure out why I wasn't a good communicator, it it it it came, like it was a lot of reasons. My childhood played a significant role into that. But I learned how I used to cheat. So I never learned about effort because I always cheated my way through so many different things. And I don't know why I got away with this for so long, but now I understand why I wasn't where I thought I would be, because I never understood that effort changes everything. No matter where you are in life, if you put effort into it, on effort into anything, it it can it can improve drastically depending on your focus. So just imagine if the focus was on you. If you focused on you, and that's that's what I'm trying to get you guys to understand this. If you work on yourself, and you know, let me talk about what working on yourself looks like. The most important part of this is what you put in your body. I learned so much over these last few days because those of you that don't know, all I do is try to work on ways to improve. And the diet is something that people should take very seriously because if you can watch what you put in your body, you think differently. People who don't think clearly is because they can't, they have too many distractions. And like if you are not mindful of what you put on your body and where you can control it, I'm saying you can enjoy life, but when it becomes a problem that could where it becomes a health problem and it could shorten your life, I don't think it's fair for the people around you. And I think when you're in that place, you have to understand that it's gonna take a certain effort. And I'm not gonna lie, delicious foods is by far the worst drug that I've seen because it's the it's legal. Like delicious foods are legal, you can get it when you want, uh, and you can just eat it all day, right? And nobody's gonna penalize you. You might get some jokes, but as you just get bigger and bigger because you can't control it, and then it becomes this problem. But I think that's what it is. We you hear about these drugs that be taking people down. This is one of those drugs, it's not as fast as, you know, when you abuse drugs, but it's it you still have a shortened life. Those who've misused food has died early, you know, whether it's from um high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attacks, clogged arteries. It's so many different things that lead to this. Not only that, it can mess with your mental, your self-esteem, because then you're like, how did I get here? And it's like, and or if you if you admit that you have a problem, and and this is this is the information that I'd be talking with my family. I just want y'all to know. At one point I was like browbeating because I I know the deal, like I know how I feel, and I just want this information to get out. Because if anybody finds this, the diet is so important. If you can learn to master your diet, you will have less than the worries of your average man, even above average man. There are men that are doing very well and still have a problem with the diet aspect, and it affects self-esteem a great deal. It affects your mobility, how you move throughout the world. You have to put things into consideration when you're overweight. And I feel like there's too much information out here for us to not take it seriously, right? And I used to think, like, you know, you get your bad habits from your parents. And I'm thinking about like, what are the habits we're giving our kids, you know, because they don't eat like me at all, but they don't eat nearly as bad as we used to when we were younger. You know, they they they're very mindful. We cook every night. So they they know the importance of why we cook, not just to bring us together, but you know, the snacking, the eating late, you know, there's some rules that we have to do in order to like maintain our body to enjoy the quality of life. And if you can take your diet seriously, that means no eating two to three hours before you're gonna go to sleep. And if you are a late person, that's gonna be tough for you because it's gonna be tough. But I want you to know this. I've learned something about intermittent fasting that you can go longer than 18 hours. You can go up to 36 hours and you can find a different, a different optimal level in the body that it hasn't seen, because this is what I've learned. Like you keep fueling your body. Food is just fuel. And if you overuse it, you'll never burn the fat that has been stored for that rainy day. You know, a rainy day is like, let's say it was a famine, and if you're heavy set, you probably live a little longer because you know, your body will use the energy according to its need. But if you keep filling it up, you'll never be able to burn the fat you don't need. So if we if we decided to, if we could learn to fast up 36 hours now, this is by a medical doctor, I've seen it. Uh haven't looked them up. I guess that's bad information. But this is the reason why I think it's real, because I've fasted and I've understood the benefits from it, but nobody was ever talking about it. And I was telling my wife, I thought I found a cheat code for how to keep my body weight down. And now I'm hearing this information where I feel like I can talk about it because there are doctors, medical doctors that are practicing it and showing results through other people. So to me, I feel like I didn't discover it by no means. I was just trying to figure out my body. But if you can eat in the smallest period of time frame or whatnot, the suggestion is you should do, what is it, 16 and 8? So you should eat only like for eight hours of the day, but it has to be in an eight-hour block. And you want to get it all the way down to like four hours. I do recommend you should drink, you should always drink water. They allow you to drink black or green tea, but you should try it. And I'm gonna tell you this I've I'm I'm learning more and more about the human body, but I do know that if we don't take care of it, there's definitely more than enough evidence for us all agree that it will break down and we'll probably die sooner than we should. The information that I'm giving you, it can't hurt. You know, it may let's say if it worked, what kind of person would you be? You know, you have to, you have to, and this is the thing. I don't want you to just try. I'm not one of those people you should just try it. I want you to execute so you can you can feel the level of success that you deserve. Because I'm telling you this, when you achieve something that you didn't even think you could do, you're a different person. You'll you won't ever go back unless you want to prove a point. But once you complete the task of being able to beat addiction, such as delicious foods, change your diet, watch what you put in your body, you become a happier soul. And I really believe that the diet is the core of enjoying a quality life. I'll say this. I've met a lot of people that complain. Whether they're overweight, great shape, people complain, right? But when you people complain differently versus overweight versus in shape, they complain differently. And this is the thing I'm saying. If you don't master the diet, you're gonna complain in a way that's going to make every day a cloudy day. It's gonna, it's always gonna have a chance of cloudiness. And and I don't believe you deserve that. If we can be delicious foods, and and and I do want to say this, I believe they should be enjoyed, right? But when you take advantage of it and you can't function properly or live the quality of life that you thought you deserved because of that, we have to put a stop to it at wherever we are, whether you're five or six, younger, or in that age range, you don't even have to participate in the deliciousness as of yet. You should work on what's healthy for you. And I'm telling you this because you will always be able to eat that. But if you become addicted too early, who's gonna be there to stop you? And I don't think that uh addiction happens because a kid just finds it. There's it's a lack of supervision or parental guidance is allowing them to get addicted at such a young age. So let's say if you're in middle school, high school, you can really work on this yourself. And I'm giving you some things. Drink half your body weight and uh water every single day. Half your body weight in water. Half your body weight and water, no matter what. Yes, you're gonna urinate a whole lot, but at the end of the day, your stomach is supposed to be the size of your fist. And if this is the size of your fist, we need to drink water because our body is dehydrated. It's making us think that we're hungry. Most of the times when your body, when you feel like you're hungry, if you just drink a glass of water, you'll be okay. But there's sensors in your body saying, I'm hungry, I'm hungry, but it's just dehydration. And for some reason, we we do that even as adults. So you don't need your parents' permission to live healthier. You don't. And uh, if you're like a young adult, if you're not where you thought you'd be, if you master your diet, your 30s, 40s, 50s, whatever, is going to be way more exciting than you being caught up in this idea of you only live once and you're gonna do whatever you want. I'm telling you, you can you can turn it around. As you get older with life, now I do know this. I believe people as young as I am, I'm 47, can change their life. I did it completely. I completely changed my life. And it was only through my own effort. But you really won't know what your quality of life could do until you realize you deserve better. And when you do, you just you kind of just treat yourself better. People be talking about self-care, but they'll spend all this money on foods that we just need to do a better job at what we put in our body. That is one of the core pieces, I think, that no matter where you are, if you could do that and you could do it unconsciously, your your experiences hit differently. Listen, I look, I had a friend of mine post something, she was like all excited because she had some money or something. And some some friends of hers was like, we gonna go on this trip. And she went on this trip, and they went to like Paris or something. I want you to know this. Me and my family have been to Paris, and that was our feet was dead. It was, I don't know, we probably got 40 to 50,000 steps that day, and we couldn't even finish it for real because we were so tired. But I said that because I wanted you, like, we're a fairly healthy family. Now, this young lady, she's heavy set, and she said, you cannot go on trips with everybody. You need to evaluate the people you're going with because these people were smaller than me. They all look walking, and I'm like, I'm overweight. And she was just like, oh my God. And she was just like, it was like she couldn't even enjoy the trip. So we have to keep in mind, if we're gonna enjoy the quality of life, we have to be very mindful of what we're teaching younger people about, what we're putting in our bodies. Just because it's delicious does not mean you need to overconsume it and make it a problem when you can hardly like just function in life. I don't want that for people. So if we if I were to die now, that's one of the messages I want people to know. If you can master the diet, you're gonna still complain about things because complaining about things just because you you kind of mock your environment and that's what you do. But in there's gonna be a time where you you stop as you continue your journey. But I'll say this because it's always gonna be people say, I don't complain. Like, when I say don't complain, I mean like about anything. Like something happens, you find the good in it, you know, like it's just like a reflex. Like, even if you get the shorter end of the stick, you're like, dang, I hope they're okay. You know, like somebody's supposed to pick you up and and they don't call or something, you know, I'm like, what the heck? Like, I can't believe like the thought is like, dang, I wonder what something happened. You know, like it being optimistic is a way of enjoying life differently, also, because people who complain, they could complain one thing and they'll they'll just do it about everything before they come back and realize what started them to complain. So I do believe if we worked on a diet, that would change how people interacted with each other. Because I think a lot of times we just be mad because we didn't get enough information or we didn't get the benefits of somebody else we saw get benefits as if their family just started out. They they was grimy at one point too. You just gotta figure out what part of history are you in. And I think the part of the history that I'm in right now, I know that the diet is gonna be very important because as we get older, people are gonna die, and you just don't want them to be the health complications because of food. Um you you have to be active, like as an 8 to 10,000 steps. You know, they they that they said you should do five, five miles a day worth of walking. It's like 10,000 steps, right? I say you can get by with 8 to 10,000 steps if you're drinking half your body weight in water and you don't eat any more than two hours before you go to sleep, and I wanna say fast, but I think that'll be too much. But I do believe you should get into the practice of fasting because I'm seeing hearing all of the health benefits as I was like kind of just adopting it. I'll show you. I like so hypothetically we'll we'll have dinner about six, and then me and my wife will have a couple drinks and a thing of popcorn. And now I can't even have microwave popcorn anymore because I heard that those have I heard it before, but we kind of just got lazy with it. So I'm gonna have to buy a real popper. But anyways, we have a thing of popcorn, and so I'm lying, so because I'm still eating, but that's a snack. So I don't I go to sleep about 9.15, 9.30, and I don't eat until I get home from work. And normally I get home about 4:30. So I have like a small time period. Now, there's some times where I'll eat at work because in my mind, I'm not gonna lie, I was trying to reincorporate because I didn't want to be the weirdo not eating. But I think I'm gonna go back to doing what I do because I'm hearing all of the benefits. So I think I'm gonna challenge my body again and see what level I can get it at being at this age. And if I die early or if I die a little later, or you know, whatever happens, at least it's documented, you know, because I feel like this is probably the rawest journey you're gonna get in life, because I'm gonna share how it goes, because I really do enjoy giving people information that's helped me along my walk. Because if I could have gotten some help along the way, I think that I would have appreciated. No, I don't know. I don't know if I would have been there. I think probably I had to bump my head the way that it did. Um push-ups, sit-ups, you don't have to go to the gym. Now, if you want your body to look really, really nice, you can go to the gym and spend some money. But I believe you can do it through just basic calisthenics. Because I I see people go to the park and they just look crazy. They don't even do weights. But you you there is a different type of workout they do also. But I'm telling you, if you do these things, and when I say push-ups and sit-ups, if you don't care about, you know, your physique, you only have to do enough to just just to build strength. You don't have to like build up muscle mass or anything. I just want you to be healthy so that you know your body is when something's ailing in your body, it causes everything else to work harder. So if you could take care of your body, it'll be less likely for it to break down as you move through life. And I think the sooner people understand that part, the the it's almost like think about it. If you don't watch what you put in your body, that means you're willing to do anything. And some people don't realize that. They'll come up with every excuse in the book on why it's okay to eat what they want. And they'll be the ones that complain all the time. And I'm just saying, if we could be more mindful, and I know some of this might sound so but sometimes I guess you you just need somebody to talk to you like that because there's no reason why you deserve to be in that situation in life. Nobody does it on purpose, even though it's being done on purpose. Once you realize why you're doing it, you can change it. You just have to want to put the effort in. And that it all comes back, it's circled around. The diet is so important, but if you don't have the effort to complete the diet, you won't ever know the person that you could become. Because there is a different peace of mind when you you're healthy. Just think about it. There's a healthy version of you, and it's this version of you right now. Let's say if you say, I'm already healthy. There is a healthier version of you. Which one do you think is gonna like you're gonna enjoy the most? The healthiest version of you is by far the one that's gonna have the most fun. And I know you're like, well, I uh how am I gonna have fun if I'm not doing these other things? There are more things than just clubbing and drinking. But if you do these other things, you can you can supplement yourself. We just overindulge in certain things where it causes us to get the consequences of obesity. And I don't want people to hit that. I remember, oh man, I'm finish this up. I remember uh when I was younger, and people was like, you should go look for your BMI, and I went to look at my BMI, and I'm like, oh my God, it says I'm overweight, right? And then people was like, no, it's because that was the white people's index, and you know, African Americans got heavier muscle mass and all of this, right? So that's in my mind. So I was just like, I'm gonna still work out though, but I was still what 215 for the most, but my heaviest was 231. And I was working out, and my golly, like I'm I'm just looking back, I just can't believe I was really working out. But I was super big, and I wasn't even trying to be big. This is me working out, not realizing that the diet was the problem. The workout is in the kitchen. Um, but the idea of getting BMI, I'm hearing all these excuses, like I don't have to do that because of these, because of this information. But after I caught my BMI, I'm looking at myself at my but when I was in that mind state. And then when I caught my BMI, I'm like, I like the where I caught my BMI because you're a different person. And look, you can always gain the weight if you feel like, no, I'd rather like myself when I was this person. You'll like yourself when you're the healthiest version. Y'all make today better than yesterday. Don't worry about anything you can't control. G A T A. Get after that action, or that action will get after you. Be great on purpose. Boom.