Sherman Hu:         00:01          Welcome to the Registered Massage Therapy Podcast with Nick Nicola and Sherman Hu. And great news – after the last episode.

Nick Nicola:        00:13          Yes.

Sherman Hu:         00:14          Let’s share with everyone…

Nick Nicola:        00:17          Are you going to throw a montage?

Sherman Hu:         00:20          LOL.

Nick Nicola:        00:20          Michelle and I got married – we’re officially a couple. Long overdue. We didn’t really tell anybody because we’ve been kind of doing it our entire relationship anyways. Nothing’s really changed. We just got a paper from the government saying you guys are a lawfully wedded and I get half of everything she owns and vice versa.

Sherman Hu:         00:48          Give me a snippet of your time. A slice of life while you were there in Mexico.

Nick Nicola:        00:58          How do I say this? I guess the picture I see in my head is the kids laughing hysterically in the pool and me trying to do the same while mom is in the background reading a book, with a drink in her hand. And me trying not to tell them that my arm is killing me from playing ball with them for four and a half hours in the pool.

Nick Nicola:        01:19          We got one of those skip balls, throw it in the pool. And I’m not even kidding. We didn’t even leave the pool for like four, four and a half hours. And afterwards, Finley asks, “You want to keep going?” And I was like, “I can’t feel my arm”. I didn’t want to tell him no…

Sherman Hu:         01:36          Skipball…is it heavy or light?

Nick Nicola:        01:36          That’s kind of like a rubbery ball.

Sherman Hu:         01:39          Like a squash ball?

Nick Nicola:        01:40          But it’s squishy as well. You throw it into the water and it skips in the waves and so on and so forth. Needless to say that happened for about four and a half, five hours. But all I can see is Finley’s face laughing. And then Declan in the background. He learned how to catch, which was a really cute thing, you know. So his brother really helped them out with that quite a bit.

Nick Nicola:        02:04          And we all got pretty decent tans. The boys burn a little bit cause they’re see-through.

Sherman Hu:         02:10          LOL.

Nick Nicola:        02:10          …but it’s okay.

Sherman Hu:         02:11          …what’s your complexion type? See through.

Nick Nicola:        02:13          See through.

Nick Nicola:        02:14          Um, is it transparent? Or is it translucent?

Sherman Hu:         02:18          Transparent, translucent and then opaque.

Nick Nicola:        02:19          Opaque. You can pretty much see their soul through their skin. Yeah. So if that makes sense. Yeah. But it was amazing. Honestly, you know, the weather, we couldn’t ask for anything better. We had only one rule over there – you can have dessert before dinner – as long as you make sure you eat dinner as well. Yeah. So they were 100% committed to that. It was the funniest thing because we’d get to our table and they’d just make a beeline to dessert – we know everything on the dessert table before you even knew what was in the buffet, which was kind of cool.

Nick Nicola:        02:56          And they had a permanent red mark around their lips because we told them they can get as many strawberry Daiquiris as they want. Right. So I’m not even kidding by like the fourth day, regardless of showering and not showering, scrubbing their face or not, they had this like Joker red lip and it was the funniest thing. I was like, I can’t even take pictures with you.

Sherman Hu:         03:14          Right. Can’t even take you seriously.

Nick Nicola:        03:15          Yeah. But they were super cute. They had a great time. They didn’t want to come home. I think it’s the first time they really got to experience this whole, all inclusive vacation, at least old enough to really appreciate it. Understand it. Michelle and I are very excited for our honeymoon.

Sherman Hu:         03:33          Hehe.

Nick Nicola:        03:33          We got a plan. It was an incredible trip, but it’s tiring. You know what I mean.

Sherman Hu:         03:39          It’s different with children.

Nick Nicola:        03:39          It’s different. It’s not the same. Not that we didn’t have an incredible time. It’s just nice to not think about work for four or five days, which doesn’t happen. We can’t wait. So yay, “Three o’clock in the morning”.

Sherman Hu:         03:58          So now that you guys are back… hehe…

Nick Nicola:        04:02          “Business owners! Everyone said it’d be great!”

Sherman Hu:         04:07          I know usually coming back from a trip, most people have to hit the road running, you know, catching up with everything.

Nick Nicola:        04:14          Right. Yeah.

Sherman Hu:         04:15          So you got backlog.

Nick Nicola:        04:16          Yeah. I wanted to cancel on you this morning. I was so tired.

Sherman Hu:         04:21          It would be for a very, very poor reason if you did because I mean last night was, you know…

Nick Nicola:        04:30          …Yeah, it was a great night last night. That’s probably why…

Sherman Hu:         04:32          …you should let them know.

Nick Nicola:        04:34          We went to go watch End Game, the Avengers movie.

Sherman Hu:         04:38          So if you canceled on me it was not because of work, it was because you partied last night with the Avengers.

Nick Nicola:        04:44          I mean, you can’t really party in a movie theater. I gotta be honest, man. Like we sat there and these two girls came and they asked us if they can sit by their friends. You know, we’re like, okay, it’s cool. It’s just two seats over. Unfortunately the seat I was in – the chair behind me – was broken I’m a big dude. I’m not what you call a petite man – by any stretch of the imagination. So I’m sitting there leaning back the whole time and Michelle’s like, “Oh, it’s good movie, right? “Yeah, my lower back’s going to spasm on me, but this is terrific.”

Sherman Hu:         05:16          It’s a good thing your wife is a massage therapist.

Nick Nicola:        05:19          She never helps me. She is a cruel human. Okay. Don’t let them fool you. Just kidding. She’s incredible.

Sherman Hu:         05:24          Kind of like the shoemaker’s kids…

Nick Nicola:        05:27          Yeah. We made a deal early on in our relationship that unless we absolutely need treatment, we don’t give each other treatments because we’re here from eight o’clock in the morning till eight o’clock at night. Treating or doing something work related. So we have to find their own ways of staying healthy and maintaining, stretching, foam rolling. A lot of working out – Crossfit’s pretty much every day. I know it doesn’t look like it, but I can lift a lot. That’s why I look like this.

Sherman Hu:         05:57          Haha…

Nick Nicola:        05:57          …it’s not for the center pages of a GQ or Esquire magazine…

Sherman Hu:         06:03          Esquire Chilliwack. GQ Chilliwack.

Nick Nicola:        06:04          GQ Chilliwack. What would that look like?

Sherman Hu:         06:09          That would be funny…

Nick Nicola:        06:09          I guarantee you there would be…

Sherman Hu:         06:11          You’d probably rock it out amidst all the other, you know, farm boy physiques and Dad Bods…

Nick Nicola:        06:20          That’s a good word. I saw that when we were in Mexico.

Sherman Hu:         06:23          Okay. You saw physiques, Dad-Bod physiques…

Nick Nicola:        06:27          …And I looked over at Michelle, I’m like, just please never let me get there…

Sherman Hu:         06:32          Whack me in the head with a a foam roller if I get there…

Nick Nicola:        06:34          …I just don’t understand. I know life is hard, but how important is your health to you? You know what I mean? And this man had a young child with him. I’m like, man, I basically adopted two kids and I want to be optimal and I want to make sure I’m 100% all the time.

Sherman Hu:         06:52          Yeah.

Nick Nicola:        06:52          So even when they’re 60, they can look at me and be like, I can’t believe Dad’s still..

Sherman Hu:         06:56          Okay. Let’s talk about this for a for a bit. Dad-Bods, it’s the trend. I mean, it’s in magazines.

Nick Nicola:        07:03          Yeah.

Sherman Hu:         07:03          But what is the significant risk to men – that you’ve researched on having that – let’s say a bigger belly?

Nick Nicola:        07:14          It’s unhealthy, right? All around. And I don’t mean unhealthy in the sense of like, you’re going to die tomorrow. It’s not that it’s about movement functionality, duration in what in which you do things, right?

Nick Nicola:        07:28          You look at someone who’s kind of given up on the idea of trying to stay somewhat physically fit, in being active and it becomes a dormant lifestyle. So when their wife’s asking him to go to the store, go to Home Depot and pick me up some sod or pick me up some bags of dirt, whatever it is – these bags are 40, 50, 60 pounds. And if you’re not willing to do the bare minimum to be able to pick up things like that or go into the garden, get on your hands and knees and not have that spine hygiene or that core strength to pull weeds for an hour and then you come in and spasm, don’t get me wrong, it’s great for our business. Right? But that’s not the business I’m looking for. Right?

Nick Nicola:        08:07          So when you see Dad-Bods, you just think of yourself like it’s just a little bit of effort. I understand life is hard, but what’s your self worth? Right? Is it important to you to try to maintain a certain level of athleticism or flexibility, range of motion whenever you want to call it? Just to get yourself to that next level so you can play with your kids, so you can pick him up in the pool. And it sounds funny…

Sherman Hu:         08:31          …it has to do with strength, flexibility, agility, mobility…

Nick Nicola:        08:36          …and do you want to be able to wipe your butt when you’re 65 years old?

Sherman Hu:         08:42          … That’s a realistic thing. It’s that many, many years of that physique – your caregiver has to be able to have the strength to care for you in your physique.

Nick Nicola:        08:51          That’s the least of your concern. You know what I mean?

Sherman Hu:         08:56          That’s true. I just think that was some study about the size of a man’s belly associated to some kind of disease or aging or some risk.

Nick Nicola:        09:07          It can be, I mean, unhealthy is unhealthy and it gives you tons of things. You’re probably pre-diabetic, you know what I mean? Congestive heart failure is a real risk amongst other big diseases. Not even going into the extremes, which those are the extremes. It’s just nothing wrong with doing just a little bit, 15, 20 minutes to not only activate your body, to get your metabolism going, but to really help the brain start turning over in the morning. You know what I mean? If you’ve got to kind of combine the health, that’s essentially one of the biggest things right now.

Nick Nicola:        09:44          I’m looking around, I’m vacationing. What’s your self worth? What’s 20-30 minutes of your life to feel great? Even if it’s stimulating the mind for two hours.

Sherman Hu:         09:57          Okay. So let’s say we have two guys. Jack and John. Jack has a Dad-Bod, John has a Dad-Bod. Let’s say Jack is totally comfortable. He doesn’t feel any lack of self worth. John does. Both of them are listening in and they go, yeah, I know I could do something better. I could do something better. What’s the first step? What’s the simple, easy first step?

Nick Nicola:        10:20          Honestly, and this is going to sound kind of silly. I think a lot of people nowadays need to mentally prepare themselves to commit to something. I think step one would be to say, okay, you know what? I think I’m ready now. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile. I think I want to take the next two, three weeks and commit to just increasing my water intake. Instead of drinking one liter of water a day, I’m going to try three. That little subtle change triggers the mind, which triggers the body. There was a study that came out, I think it was 2011 that proved that drinking more water than we normally do. So anywhere from two to four liter mark actually increases your brain functionality by 100%. Decreases your appetite, naturally, when you’re drinking water and you can just naturally lose weight just by drinking water. I mean, that’s a very easy thing to do for four weeks.

Sherman Hu:         11:17          And that’s the easy, simple stuff. We’re not even talking about physicality yet.

Nick Nicola:        11:20          Nope. This is just nutrition and…

Sherman Hu:         11:23          …just hydrating your body.

Nick Nicola:        11:23          That’s exactly right. So I would say the first few weeks just work on the little things, just chipping away and say, you know what? My goal is to drink water. My next goal is to no more chips. No more chips. No more pop. No more beer or alcohol. You know what I mean? So you start chipping away. The problem is can you commit for t he first three to four weeks? The next step is can you commit for the next three, four weeks after that? Now once you build a routine, when does that routine become your habit? Right? Once you can’t live without that habit of being healthy and making healthy choices, it’s very, very hard. But you have to find a way to get that. Nobody can do that for you, but yourself. That is a mental game that you have to play around. So when it comes to that question, I honestly think mental preparation is probably one of the biggest …

Sherman Hu:         12:18          … Underestimated. Well, Robin Sharma, I discovered it in his book, the 5 AM Club speaks to a study by the University of London that speaks to developing a new habit actually takes 66 days. The first 22 is a destruction of the old habit.

Nick Nicola:        12:34          Absolutely.

Sherman Hu:         12:34          The next 22 days, something to do with integrating it. And then the last 22 is like the final lock-in. When most people say, “Oh yeah, 20 days into a habit …”. That’s just to destruct the old. You haven’t locked in the new.

Nick Nicola:        12:51          Absolutely. I’ve heard it too, I’ve heard the same things, right. For 21 days instead of 22 but the 22 concept makes sense, right? 22, 44, 66, it’s an easy way to actually assimilate and figuring out what’s going on. Yeah, I’m a big, big believer in that. So, after that question, I’m thinking to myself, how do you see the body physical?

Nick Nicola:        13:16          So when you’re making these big changes, what you’re going to start seeing as your body tapering down, even if you don’t recognize it, other people will, you know what I mean?

Sherman Hu:         13:25          Do you feel that you recognize it in yourself, in the mirror first before others or the other way round?

Nick Nicola:        13:29          No, the other way around. You never do. I think that’s part of the human psyche. I’m not an expert on that. If you want to call somebody, call my sister. She’s a PhD in Sociology. That’s what she’s studying. So self-image is obviously one of the biggest things that people go through, right? So no, even for me, I’ve been working out consistently for seven months and I still feel very, very big. But I asked Michelle and I asked our trainers, our friends at Crossfit, and they’re like, “Dude, you look like a different beast entirely.”

Sherman Hu:         13:59          Okay.

Nick Nicola:        14:00          You know what I mean? I went from a square block and now that v-shape is coming, starting from the shoulders. Now, I mean, I know my next steps, my next steps are going to be a little bit of cardio, cut down the weight. I’m still very heavy, but muscles weigh very, very heavy on me. I always bulk up, now, but for other people, well we need to see is that when the changes happen is when you’ll feel it in your clothes right away.

Sherman Hu:         14:25          Correct.

Nick Nicola:        14:26          You’ll wear the same clothes, but they fit differently. “Oh, this the shirt’s really tight in my upper body then, but I have this little bit of a wave down here. That’s new.” You know what I mean? “Oh, I went down two belt sizes” and for women it’s like, “Oh, this dress feels different. I don’t look different. I don’t feel different. I jump on the scale and it says the same thing”.

Sherman Hu:         14:47          Which is also deceiving.

Nick Nicola:        14:49          Very, very deceiving. And that’s a very dangerous thing – also to keep that in the back of our mind because just because your weight says you’re one thing doesn’t mean that’s what you are. The next thing I think after the mental preparations is nutrition. I’m not an expert in nutrition, to say the least. We have a lot of clients, patients and friends that are either Dietitians or Nutritionists. But what we do know as health professionals is in, I’m sure people have heard it a thousand times over and it feels very silly to say out loud again…

Sherman Hu:         15:21          …so less Strawberry Daiquiris…

Nick Nicola:        15:24          …Yeah, that wasn’t me. That was the kids. I had Jim & Sodas, a lot of it. It’s Mexico. It makes up 80% of everything you do. You can work out or you can not work out if you don’t have to, but if you regulate your nutrition…

Sherman Hu:         15:44          It’s a huge factor. And also underestimated, right? I know that from strength training, you read, you hear, it’s about body compensation. Nutrition is the part that plays a huge role.

Nick Nicola:        15:57          Yes. And how you’re going to perform as well, right? Not just in the gym. This is just life in general, right? A lot of times you hear about people crashing out, you know, right after lunch, it’s two o’clock in the afternoon. “I’m zonked!”. You know what I mean? They start at eight o’clock, nine o’clock and they’re done by 1:30, 2 o’clock. That’s just cause the levels, the sugar levels aren’t regulated in the body, right? You have lunch, everything comes in, comes in, comes in, and then you get that high and then you just a hard crash and then you got to try to taper off. What are you doing? You’re drinking coffee at 3:30, 4 o’clock afternoon. And don’t get me wrong, if Michelle and I are not prepared by eating properly throughout the day, we have the same crash.

Sherman Hu:         16:39          That’s right.

Nick Nicola:        16:39          You know what it means? We’ll need our coffee. I’m not saying we’re perfect, we’re nowhere near perfect. But what I’m saying is there’s ways that we’ve taken steps and measures to get ahead of these harsh up and downs or you know what I mean? So that’s a huge, huge one. After that, you know what, look into walking. Walking’s not hard.

Sherman Hu:         17:00          Start with that wonderful, easy mobility.

Nick Nicola:        17:01          That’s it. The Vedder Trail there is absolutely stunning. Can’t get enough. It’s very easy on the joints. It’s a flatline, front to back, you can literally do eight kilometers an hour and you wouldn’t even realize because you’re really enjoying the scenery, right?

Sherman Hu:         17:19          Down by the river.

Nick Nicola:        17:19          Absolutely, absolutely. Next thing, if you feel it’s not enough, it’s not enough stimulus for you – Cultus Lake has great trails. There’s Elk (Mountain), there’s Teacup…

Sherman Hu:         17:26          We’re in Chilliwack!

Nick Nicola:        17:27          That’s exactly it.

Sherman Hu:         17:28          We have so many trails.

Nick Nicola:        17:30          We have a million trails. Our community forest has probably some of the easiest and nicest terrain that we have here and everybody can do it. I’ve seen mothers with their babies strapped on their back or their chest walking up and down these hills. What’s two, three kilometers of scenery and getting fresh air, you know what I mean? There’s also studies that say when you’re in the middle of nature it stimulates something in your mind that really relaxes you. So little things like that and if you want to take it to the next level, then yeah, go ahead and look at a gym. You know what I mean?

Sherman Hu:         17:58          But you don’t really need to…

Nick Nicola:        17:59          You don’t, to start.

Sherman Hu:         18:01          Just start upping about water…

Nick Nicola:        18:05          …Nutrition…

Sherman Hu:         18:05          …Refine your nutrition. Improve that.

Sherman Hu:         18:07          Start walking.

Nick Nicola:        18:07          Start walking. Just just give yourself 20, 30 minutes. Just go for a walk. It’s not hard. It’s a natural thing that we do.

Sherman Hu:         18:17          Correct.

Nick Nicola:        18:17          Go do it. You know, you look back in the day, these people used to put buckets of water on their back and walk. We don’t know how long, you know what I mean? It could be that creek could be 10 minutes away, it could be 10 miles away, but they still have to do it for survival. So why not get back into that? Why not stay away from the couch and the TV that we’ve become so accustomed to and give yourself a chance to bring yourself back, literally reclaiming your health.

Sherman Hu:         18:46          Yeah. I’ll bring a bucket to my neighbor, up Promontory and then walk it back home.

Nick Nicola:        18:51          Try it …

Sherman Hu:         18:51          …and that will be good.

Nick Nicola:        18:52          That sounds like a Spartan race. Have you ever? I think they did that once? I think they did it as something with sand bags. 50lb sandbags up this crazy hill for 400 meters and I think they had to bring 10 or 12 of them up.

Sherman Hu:         19:06          Wow.

Nick Nicola:        19:08          That’s bananas! “Oh, I’m just going to climb a mountain with 50 pound sandbag.”

Sherman Hu:         19:12          And then you got, yeah, I was going to say, you know, you have somebody like a mother in Africa going, “Oh yeah, we do this all the time…”

Nick Nicola:        19:20          “… on a regular basis. Baby’s in the basket, and she’s walking back and forth 30 km a day.

Sherman Hu:         19:26          She goes, “It’s a competition? I do this every day!”

Nick Nicola:        19:29          Yeah. So that’s, that’s what I’m saying, I guess essentially, if you really want to work on trying to make yourself great and more importantly, I think our image here is trying to help our people make themselves great. Either through the video, if this inspires you at all, by all means. If it doesn’t, hey man, it’s a little information that you got. You know what I mean? We try to inspire as much as we can because knowledge is power to us. As therapists, we only have, like I said before, we have a fraction of time with you on our table. We can’t do everything. You know what I mean? If I could make miracles happen, you can nickname me Jesus and I’d be charging a lot more money. You know what I mean? But that’s not the reality of life. And the reality is if I can give you knowledge, if I can inspire you even a little bit to get off from your routine and do something a little more proactive for yourself and which in turn might lead into the entire family, which I didn’t really touch on it, but it is a contagious thing to do.

Sherman Hu:         20:29          Right, right. Which is a beautiful thing to see.

Nick Nicola:        20:31          It’s unbelievable when families are all together working out. But if we can kind of get you to that point, we can inspire you enough to spark something. I think we’re doing our best. I think that’s how we measure success. And I think that’s what’s really, really important.

Sherman Hu:         20:47          When you’re saying you have very limited time with your clients or patients on the table, but just what we’re sharing here is helping them knowledge-wise, but mentally going, “oh, I can flip the switch a bit”. You know, and I think a lot of it, like you said, a mental game, but also being given, showing yourself grace. “Okay, this is a marathon. This is not a race. Enjoy the journey.” Even if you have a paper and go, okay, one day, two days, you know, just how many days of the habit of …

Nick Nicola:        21:20          …Writing down goals is probably one of the – you’ve heard a thousand psychologists, sociologists and experts say, if you write down your goals and look at them every day, you can actually achieve it.

Sherman Hu:         21:29          That’s right.

Nick Nicola:        21:31          But yeah, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. You know, take that step, step by step, inspire yourself. You know what I mean? That’s not, how do I say this? It’s, it’s very difficult to do. Like who are we kidding? It’s super, super hard to get yourself ahead of the curve. I just hope I can kind of sparked something inside of people and get them excited about what I see. And that’s the thing, we get to see people’s potential before they do because we’re trained to, you know what I mean? When it comes to a positive outlook, Michelle and I got that in spades and we have to, you know what I mean? Because we believe in it.

Sherman Hu:         22:08          That’s right.

Nick Nicola:        22:09          And if you don’t believe in yourself or if you don’t believe in the concept that you’re going to get better? You know what? That’s on you…

Sherman Hu:         22:15          It starts here (pointing to brain).

Nick Nicola:        22:15          Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take your time and it’ll come. You know what I mean?

Sherman Hu:         22:18          Thanks for that, that piece of knowledge and wisdom and a positive mental attitude and sharing with our audience. You can find out more about the services here at ReclaimedHealthGroup.com. This is the Registered Massage Therapy podcast with Nick Nicola. Thanks. I really appreciate it …

Nick Nicola:        22:43          …a little more professional this time. Dang it, I feel like I lost the bet…

Sherman Hu:         22:49          Hey man, this was good.

Nick Nicola:        22:50          That was great. Thanks Sherman. Appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. Thanks guys.