17: Fat Man Rants . . . with Tim Kaufman

Meet Tim Kaufman of Fat Man Rants! 

This man, and his wife Heather, dramatically up-leveled their lives with a whole food plant based diet. You will be amazed and inspired by his story of transformation from 400 pound narcotic, alcohol, and food addict to plant-based athlete. You do NOT want to miss this one! OMG it's good!

Tim’s story is one of love, gratitude, perseverance, and responsibility. Despite having a debilitating and painful genetic disorder called Ehler’s Danlos where the connective tissue all over his body is like bubble gum, he found the determination to make a change. He watched the movie Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead, followed by Forks Over Knives and made up his mind change his life forever. 

It wasn’t easy at first, but he’s a different man now (and so is Heather). Tune in to hear this amazing story as well as Tim’s tips for getting started. 

Visit his website, watch him on YouTube, or connect with him on social:

www.fatmanrants.com
https://www.youtube.com/c/Fatmanrantscom/featured
Instagram (IG): https://www.instagram.com/fatmanrants
FaceBook (FB): https://www.facebook.com/TimKaufmanFMR

Grab his FREE book here:
https://membership.fatmanrants.com/checkout/cart

Anything else you want to hear about? Let me know! Send me DM on social. I genuinely want to provide (and translate) all kinds of great info for you.

You can find me:
www.vitaltransformationsllc.com
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susiespell

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As always, thanks to Lemon Music Studio for intro and outro music.

Transcript

Fat Man Rants (Tim Kaufman)

[00:00:00] Susie: Welcome back. Today I have Tim Kaufman from Fat Man Rants. On his website there's a quote on there and it says, "eat more plants and move your body. All you gotta do is a little more than you did ". And so today we are going to hear how he went from 400 pound, addict to a plant-based athlete. A very inspiring story and one of my first questions for you, Tim, is how did you get the name Fat Man Rantz? 

[00:00:31] Tim: Well, first of all, Susie, thank you so much for having me on the show. 

[00:00:34] Susie: You're welcome. 

[00:00:35] Tim: I really appreciate it. Um, I appreciate all the work that you're doing to spread the message of health. Thank you so much for that. 

[00:00:43] Susie: And thank you as well. 

[00:00:44] Tim: Yeah. So the Fat Man Rants thing um, this whole thing kind of happened by accident. The really short of it is, it's kind of a funny story. When I first transitioned to whole food plant based, It was totally outta character for me. I had grown up, and I'm sure we'll unpack a little bit of this later, but I had grown up we, like meat was a hobby. Like it was a life for me. And so we raised all our own animals. I hunted, I fished, I mean, on the weekends we would smoke sometimes 300 pounds of meat in my backyard. Um, so when I first transitioned, I was super excited that I could use, you know, some of the same spices and seasonings, and lentils and things like this and, and tofu.

And so I started posting my food like constantly. And so we were at a family event. My brother-in-law's a big, huge bodybuilder. I was gonna say something about food. He goes, You don't have to let everyone know what you eat every day. Like, we get it, we get it. You're eating healthy now. That's great. Why don't you start a blog or something.

Well, I had no idea how to start a blog, so, I kind of watched a few YouTube videos. I started a Facebook page, which I had no clue how to do. I wasn't really into social media. And then I had, um, I wanted to be like fat guy something, and I was always ranting because I was super dogmatic about this. I was excited about it and I wanted everyone to know what I knew.

So I had three post-its, I took 'em to work. I'm a teacher. I teach engineer. And I laid out these three post-its, and one of the domains was Fatman Rants, and that's the one that we decided on. And from there, like, I think we have almost 500,000 followers now. 

Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. 

The idea was, uh, the rantings of a former Fatman. I'm not sure I would've branded exactly that way looking back, but that's how it all started. 

[00:02:46] Susie: Well, hey, and it's unique so people remember it, right? 

[00:02:49] Tim: It is. And the tagline, um, I, my first TV interview I ever did, I was so nervous, and the interviewer, she's like, So in one line, can you tell us, if you were to give people advice, what would you tell 'em? I'm like, I don't really know. Eat plants, move your body. All you gotta do is a little bit more than you did yesterday. And that was like the blurb that they kept playing over and over on tv. So that's how that all started. 

[00:03:16] Susie: That's great. So tell us, um your evolution. Like you said it really is a lifestyle, right? Grilling in your backyard, and those are, the friends that you have and the family and you're used to doing all that stuff. So to do something different than that takes a lot of gumption and commitment and courage. What was your life like prior and what was the impetus for you to really change and, and how did you discover this way of life?

[00:03:46] Tim: Well, that's a super loaded question. You know, as far as courage and stuff for me, that wasn't it. I was trying to stay alive. Um, it was urgency, so it didn't take so much courage. It was raw fear, to be honest with you. But you're right, for me, like it was culture. Um, my dad and me hunted together. That's what we did for fun. We fished together. I was kind of raised on a dairy farm from, I started working on a dairy farm when I was 13. So, you know, eating healthy meant we didn't buy meat from the store, like we raised our own meat and it's kind of wild now. I had my own animals. I at 14 to 15 years old. And then to be fast forwarding to my forties, you know, at a farm sanctuary, I'm seeing an event where I'm singing Happy Birthday to a rescue cow. It's kind of full circle, right? Yeah, and like even like the, with the hunting, the first, you know, big deer I ever shot, I have tattooed on my arm. So like this wasn't just like, Oh yeah, I like meat and cheese. This was ingrained in who I was. 

But I'll back up a little bit. So I live in a super rural town. It's not as rural as it used to be, but um, I tell people that I'm from New York and they automatically think New York City, which nothing could be further from the truth here, right? And, um, I'm near Buffalo, but really we're not, you know, 20 miles from Buffalo as all like farm country.

So that's kind of where I grew up. I started working on a dairy farm really young and um, I kept getting injured and kept getting hurt all the time. And my wife and I, my wife's name is Heather. We started a life really young. I had just turned 20 when we got married. We were high school sweethearts. I went from working on a farm to the factory, started working more over my head and my shoulder kept like popping out of the joint.

It kept dislocating and it got really bad, like to the point where I would sneeze and the thing would just like dislocate. . So I went to the doctor, he's like, Okay, we have to do this thing where we tighten up all your ligaments and tendons and kind of fold them over each other, stitching back up to bring everything back together. And when they opened me up, they found out that everything just kept stretching. So as they're trying to tighten everything up, it just kept stretching. And I was diagnosed with this disease called Ehler's Danlos syndrome. Which basically I have a genetic screw up that the collagen in my body is like bubble gum. It's super elastic. 

And so here we are starting a new family. The prognosis was by 25 I would be in a wheelchair cuz I was loaded with arthritis already in my early twenties. And the doctor's orders were, do as little as you possibly can to conserve what you know, life you do have left in your joints, and definitely get out of manual labor and switch careers. They actually wanted me to go on disability, which I wouldn't do. Um, so I went back to school and started the very long task of uh, getting into education and a couple master's degrees. But throughout that process I was in a lot of chronic pain. So I was given some painkillers when I left for, from that surgery.

And, um, I got into the cycle that I think a lot of people get into with narcotics. I mean, you know, they never work as well as they did when you first started taking them. So you build up a tolerance, you start taking more. And then we started changing, from Lortabs to, Percocets than Oxy. And this is going back, um, probably almost 20 years ago, maybe even longer than that. My doctor said, I want to try this new drug called Fentanyl. Well, at the time, you know, I had never heard of Fentanyl, and now it's such a popular street drug that everyone knows. And I probably would've had a lot more caution.

But the fentanyl was a transdermal like drip, so I had it 24/7 and then on top of that I was still taking, you know, opioids, like they call it breakthrough medicine or stay ahead of the pain. And back then without, you know, computers weren't that like on the scene yet, so it was all paper scripts. So I got really good, at getting like three and four doctors, those at the doctors all the time.

Um, and I can kind of manipulate the system and I could get away with a lot more if I paid cash. So I developed a real addiction to opioids. And while that's all going on. Um, I couldn't sleep at night and cuz, I think a lot of it was physical pain that had turned into emotional pain cuz I knew, um, in my mind I kind of knew I was an addict, but I would've never admit it.

I started drinking, which I had never really drank before, but the first time I brought a bottle of vodka home I sat down and drank an entire liter right after I took a bunch of pills and I just passed out. And that was the beginning of my next cycle that would last for years. Um, and I had got to the point where my kidneys were actually shutting down. I mean, I was really, really sick from this stuff. 

And the other thing that I was also turned into an escape or an addiction was fast food. We had never eaten real healthy when we got married. Cause I think like, you know, between time and convenience and kids, um, you need to get what's cheap and what's fast and what's easy. And, these are all highly processed foods that came from really cheap sources. I was eating, fast food almost four times a day, most days. All those addictions and food was really the same type of dopamine hit, um, that I would get from the drugs. The difference was the food was everywhere. It was super easy to get. So I would sit at Burger King and I would get that same kind of feeling before I got a prescription of pills. You know, I'd get this little excitement. I was happy for a little temporary bit. I would get the food, it would taste delicious. I'd crumble it up, put the wrappers on my passenger seat, and then I'd feel guilt, and then I'd feel like crap and the cycle would just repeat just like the drugs and the alcohol. 

Through all that, I found myself at about 38 years old. Um, my doctor says I was well over 400. We don't really know how much, over 400 because he literally could not weigh me anymore. I was on about 20 prescriptions a month, um, for all sort of statin. I was on two blood pressure medicines. I was on indicin, um, obviously a ton of narcotics. And I was really, really sick. And so that's kind of where. You know, I wish I could say that there was this big light that came on and, I walked to the light and my whole life changed. But that's kind of not how it worked. 

Really before I found the whole food plant based lifestyle thing. I think the first thing that I found was gratitude. I know that sounds, sounds kinda woo woo, but that my wife's mom was like a second mom to me. And cuz you know, Heather and I started dating at 13 and 14 years old. So, you know, I was always at her house and her mom had been like, sick with a cold flu kind of thing. So we finally convinced her to go to the doctor to find out what was going on. And she was diagnosed with leukemia and that flipped our whole world upside down. 

And at this time, um, my whole world was centered around me. I mean, cuz that's what happens when you're an addict. Like everything you do is to manipulate, to get what you want. You learn how to lie to people that you love and you do things that, you know, I'm not really proud of. But once that came into the equation, now, we gotta figure out who's gonna stay overnight with mom at the cancer hospital, who's gonna get to kids to where they need to be. But the one thing that happened when I went into the cancer facility is I walked up, um, to Heather's mom who was just waiting for a transfusion, super tired, super fatigued. She was sound asleep. I walked up to the side of her bed and she opened her eyes super slow and she said, "How's your knee?" And it just totally crushed me.

Um, she's struggling to hang on to live one more day and it shows you what kind of person she is, right? She was worried about my knee, but I walked into the hospital that night thinking that my whole life I just complained about what I didn't have, what was wrong with me, why did I have this disease? Why did my knees hurt all the time? And there were people behind me that would get a leg amputated the next day to get rid of a tumor. And they would do anything to have sore knees. And there were people behind me that would never come out of that hospital. And I started realizing that I had more than I thought I had if I just focused on the things that I should be grateful for and wasn't.

So that was kind of the first thing. And as Heather's mom is going through all that my father, we thought he had pneumonia cuz he had a cold that he just couldn't kick. And he went in, uh, for a chest x-ray and he was diagnosed with kidney cancer that had metastasized through his whole body. So he had stage four cancer and the doctor gave him six months to live.

 My dad was my best friend in the entire world. He was my best buddy. We did everything together. He taught me everything I knew. We hunted together, fished together. We were best friends. And just like that, he has six months to live. My dad didn't make it six months. He made it six weeks to the day of his diagnosis. He lost his battle with cancer. And then shortly after that, Heather's mom lost her battle, which she went from leukemia to lymphoma. Then ultimately a brain tumor would take her life. And two of our most precious people in the world just sound like that died. You know? It was terrible. Um, so along with the gratitude, I, I also realized how precious life was and how we're not promised tomorrow. And you, we get caught up into life so much. We forget how important our health is, you know? 

So along with that, uh, we had just done stuff we never thought we would have to do. We never thought we'd have to plan funerals, especially this close together. I don't know what made this one particular morning special, but I was sitting down in a chair and Heather used to have to put my socks and shoes on me, and she slid my sock on and she kind of patted the side of my legs.

And she's like, "All right, you're all set." And when our eyes met, I could not stop thinking about I was next. We just got done with two funerals and the next one she's gonna have to do is gonna be for me. And then after the funeral, she's gotta raise two kids alone. And that just like, it really floored me.

So my goal ultimately was to put space in between the funerals. I knew I was not gonna be around long, I knew that the amount of drugs and alcohol and at my size, I was having trouble breathing. I knew I wasn't gonna last long. So I had to do something. So I did what all smart people do. I went on YouTube to get medical information.

[00:15:54] Susie: Yeah. Which some of it can be helpful. 

[00:15:57] Tim: Yeah. Yeah. But too much can also not be helpful. But I found this bariatric surgery thing, I found this guy that was like 400 pounds. He did bariatric surgery. A year later he's running marathons. I'm like, That's it, that's what I need to do. So I called a local company that does 'em here in Buffalo. Got all signed up. I went to a couple classes, um, had to fill out like practically a book. And the only thing I had left to do to schedule the surgery was my doctor had to sign off on it. I thought he would be super excited about it. When I went into the doctor that day my blood pressure was 255 / 1 15, and I was on calcium channel blocker, an beta blocker, and we just kept upping the dose on those and they weren't touching my blood pressure.

My resting heart rate after sitting for almost an hour in the office was 125. Wow. And he thought I was gonna stroke out. My, my heart was pumping so hard. I would lay down in bed at night and put the remote on my chest and it would actually get air. Yeah. It would like jump off my chest. Along with that and all the narcotics he wouldn't sign for the surgery because he didn't know what the effects of the anesthesia would be with my heart and all the stuff I was on.

So he denied the surgery and I mean, I was crushed so, When I came home, there was a little bit of relief because like, well, I'm off the hook like I tried, it's not my fault now. But I went to bed that night and I couldn't stop thinking about, , Heather's mom and my dad. They were doing anything they could to clinging just for one more day to spend with their family. So I owed it to them, , just to do something. I had to either get better or die trying. And so I did probably what most people would do. At the time it. Was called Atkins, which is probably now like keto. Right. And Atkins was great because it was all the foods that I loved anyways, and I did lose weight on that. Probably lost about 50 pounds. But I was still on all my medicines. I still felt like crap still, you know, super tired. But I sat down on the couch and I turned on Netflix and this film came up called Fat Sick and Nearly Dead. Oh, I didn't seen that one yet. Yeah, and it's great. It's basically Joe Cross, this guy from Australia, super cool accent comes to the US and, um, he spends 60 days consuming nothing but fresh vegetable and fruit juice out of his juicer. He loses a bunch of weight, gets off a bunch of his medicines, cures himself from an autoimmune disease. And it's super, super inspiring. So, Here I'm eating chicken wings and cheese for dinner that night as I'm watching this and I'm like, Oh my gosh. Like that's what I gotta do. So never putting any thought into it. I was so distracted by what Joe had. I never stopped to think about what he did to get it. And so by the time the credits rolled, I had ordered a juicer. Um, January 1st was coming up, and that would be actually 10 years ago. This coming January and January 1st, I pulled a trigger on a 30 day juice fast.

 The first time that I went to go get vegetables for the juicer, you know, I got a little bag of produce that came home, put everything in the juicer, and about two tablespoons of juice came out. And I'm like, Yeah, we got a problem here, . Right? 

So the cool thing that happened throughout the process, probably the biggest thing was learning how to shop. we had always just bought tots, pizza rolls, hot pockets, all this process stuff. Stuff that was easy, you know, fried chicken that we could just open the box, pop it in the oven, and now, here I am,, waving bunches of kale across the farmer's market at Heather saying, This is only 99 cents., let's get a bunch of it. And so it taught us how to shop for produce. It taught us where to get produce. I remember like midway through my juice fast, I went and got a 25 pound, bale of carrots. And the lady at the register said, How many horses do you have? So, Juice on your counter.

Yeah, the first couple days of the Juice Fest were insane. Super hungry, super tired. I just like, I just, a couple times I wanted to give up and I just went to bed. 

[00:20:41] Susie: And so how did you keep going? That can be very hard to move through Cause you have adrenaline and these other stress hormones that come on board that really you think, I'm dying, I have to eat something. How did you get past that other than going to bed? 

[00:20:57] Tim: Yeah. So it was hard. But I'm kind of like, my whole life, this is probably why I'm an addict. I'm either all or nothing. If I'm gonna do it, I'm going all in and that nothing's gonna stop me. I wish I could give you this huge philosophical thing, but I really didn't know what I was getting into. I just kind of did it, you know,

[00:21:18] Susie: Was Heather doing the juice fast? 

No. No. Cause I don't think she, she knew what was going on either. And the one thing about juice fasting cuz Joe Cross made this a really, um, you know, a really point that he kept hammering home is like, you shouldn't be hungry. So when I was hungry, I would just drink more juice and there were some days I probably drank a gallon of juice. And then there were others. I didn't really feel like drinking that much juice. So, I don't know, I don't know what the answer to that question is. And the other thing too is like, I had quit smoking in the past and I knew there's this method that I think they teach you at AA that once you get, 12 hours in. If you, screw up now, you basically wasted those 12 hours. So for the first few days, that's all. Like, I did not go hungry for 24 hours to eat something now. And then the voices in your head start with, Well, it's an apple. Like, how can you get mad? But in any event, I made it through the first three days. And once I got to day four the hunger kind of subsided. And day five, um, it was a miracle. It literally was a miracle. On day five, I woke up in the morning and the same position that I had fell asleep in the night before. And, oh man, I still get choked. I've told this story at least a thousand times. I still get choked up. That was all I wanted to do. You know, that was, that was why I kept taking so many pills and so many drinks because I just wanted to be able to sleep through the night. A lot of people think that narcotics like, they're like a downer. So, but, but you can't ever get real sleep.

 Yeah, it's a sedative, but your sleep architecture is different. 

[00:23:08] Tim: Yeah. You have insomnia, but you're tired. It's the wildest thing ever. And I got a good night's sleep on day five, and it was like, so cool. And then by day six, I, I started forgetting to take my indicin and that's a really heavy anti-inflammatory. I started feeling better. I started waking up before my alarm. As this thing went on, just I would notice more and more I'd wake up with like all, not all that crust in my eyes. And I started seeing better. And by day 20 it's like, oh my gosh, this is fantastic, but I can't live on juice the rest of my life.

But as I turned Netflix back on because I had watched Fat Sick and nearly dead, the film Forks Over Knives popped up in my feed. And,, I'm super fortunate to be good friends with Brian Wendell now, and I told him that film did not just save my life. It literally gave me a completely new one. It showed me that everything I had been juicing, I would just eat and I would add some whole grains and legumes and, basically that's what I needed to eat. And so it's coming up on 10 years and, um, I haven't consumed any meat or dairy. It was definitely a process along the way. Just to give you a little glimpse I lost, over 200 pounds.

Um, I haven't been on meds since I think 2015 maybe. So all that stuff has gone, The drugs are gone, the alcohol is gone. I'm still definitely a food act addict. It's just I'm addicted to cashews instead of whoppers, you know? Right. But yeah. I'm probably most known for, um, like turning, I was like a crippled, I was, I was ama to be on, I was always in a mobilizers, canes, crutches, handicapped parking passes. 

And so they tell me that I'm an athlete. I don't really know if I believe that, but I've done,, a 5k. That's kind of the kind of a cool quick story if you don't mind.

[00:25:13] Susie: No, go ahead. Yes. 

[00:25:14] Tim: So Heather used to always want me to go for a walk with her and I physically couldn't. Right. And I really couldn't be a good dad. I couldn't be a good husband. I couldn't be involved. I had got to the point where I couldn't even get in the car for more than 20 minutes because I would get so nauseous everywhere we went I would be throwing up. Cause I was just so motion sick all the time. Plus my knees couldn't bend to get in and out of the car. 

So Heather comes home one day and she goes, "Hey, We're going for a walk, Do you wanna go with?" And so I used to tease her all the time. I was like, Why would you walk? We have a car, you know, what did you do to the car?

And so one day I'm like, You know what? All right, I'll go for a walk. And she goes, Serious. And I'm like, Yeah, I'll go for a walk. We have these like railroad tracks that they turned into, asphalt trails for us. The goal was to walk out the first, uh, crossroad and come back, which would've been a mile and a half round trip.

 I made it not even halfway. And I was an absolute mess. I had to sit on a rock, Heather and the kids had to go back. Pick me up in the car and take me back home. I was a mess, uh, for about two days. I couldn't get out of the rocking chair. I was packed in ice, almost went to the emergency room, but something inside me wanted to go finish that stinking walk cuz I was ticked I couldn't finish it. I don't know if I was embarrassed. I don't know if it was the pride thing, but I went back, I finished that walk. And walking kind of became my thing. And it was hard. I was in, Im mobilizers, which means they basically had my knees locked. Cuz every time my knee would bend it would like whip out a joint. I would wake up, sometimes my knee caps would actually be on the backs of my legs. Um, super, super unstable. And then with all the weight on top of it, there was so much like traumatic injuries going on plus chronic stuff altogether. But I started walking and then I fell in love with hiking, which they told me never to do cuz my feet need to be on flat ground.

And then from there I got good at the hiking thing. I actually climbed a mountain, which was pretty cool. The same doctor that denied me my surgery, um, I saw a picture, my cousin showed me a picture from, We have the Adirondack here and the high peaks are the most beautiful thing in the world to me.

And he showed me a picture of one of the summits and he's like, You gotta see this with your own eyes cuz the pictures don't do it justice. So here I am, like 350 pounds IMers, not, I'm supposed to be in a wheelchair. And I'm like, Yeah, I think I'm gonna go do that like next summer. So I went to my doctor and I'm like, Hey, I'm gonna be climbing a mountain, so I have to get rid of these immobilizers.

What can we do? And instead of like laughing at me or saying,, that's not a good idea, he's like, All right. And he sent me to a prosthetic place and they casted my legs, sent them out to California and they built me these really cool carbon fiber titanium braces. And I just started every day after work, I would go just walk stairs and I could only walk four or five stairs the first time.

 I just kept adding more and more stairs until I got to 20 and then 50. And then before I knew it, um, I couldn't count stairs anymore. So I was going with, time and I worked the whole winter and right into the spring. And in June of 2012 we headed off to the Adirondacks I got about halfway up the mountain and I just, I couldn't go anymore. I was just so fatigued. Came back home, regrouped and went up again about two weeks later and I summited my first high peak, which was yeah, 4,000 feet. 

[00:29:07] Susie: Wow. 

[00:29:08] Tim: And to stand up on top of that mountain embraces this like, It was the coolest thing ever. And then I got really good at climbing and I started taking my family there to, We're probably gonna retire there. To this day, that's like our playground. And so I started climbing, getting more stronger. What was happening with me with the physical activity, along with the food and the greens and the fruits and all the different colors. The inflammation was just getting driven out of my body, so,, not only was I eating anti-inflammatory foods, but my diet was a hundred percent inflammatory before.

So all these fast food, sugars, oils, meats, all that stuff, dairy, especially dairy, was huge for me. Not only am I not getting these inflammatory foods, I'm fighting the inflammation off of anti-inflammatory foods, studying the effects of just almonds and cherries or what they do. They're actually more powerful than over the counter Motrin.

And just learning, I was absorbing all the stuff of how food can benefit me. I got very selfish about eating right. I wanted to get as much nutrition out of the food as I could. All of this was happening along with the strength I was building in my muscles mm-hmm. That was taking over where my joints were failing.

 I still very much have eds, but I also have a 500 pound deadlift which is, is a lot in the world of lifting. So for this to happen with an EDS patient was nuts. And, um, Stanford actually took hair follicles and d I don't know what they did with all, all the stuff they collected, but they're really interested in what happened.

[00:30:51] Susie: Did you have to work with any physical therapist or connective tissue specialist, or you just did this and as the inflammation went down, you just were getting better. 

[00:31:02] Tim: Yeah, I say it was like accidental, but I don't believe in accidents. I don't believe in coincidence, but that's a whole nother topic. So, An EDS I'm not telling anyone what to do. They definitely should go to their doctor and EDS is different for, there's a, there's like 20 different types. So it, it actually can be super dangerous. I'm fortunate cuz I just have the hypermobile and the skin stuff. But most of the physical therapy that I would do was even isometrics. We got to the point where I got kicked out of every physical therapist cause there was nothing they could do. I saw some of the therapists for the bills and we would just do isometrics and just me pushing on a hand, I would dislocate out my back. Always the goal was, you know, don't stretch cuz everything's stretchy, don't move cuz you're gonna screw everything up. So all the advice I was getting was a complete opposite of what I'm doing. 

So from there, super quick, cuz, I kind of don't even like talking about all the fitness stuff cuz you don't need all this crazy fitness to be healthy. Like walking. My doctor once told me, he said, Look out in my waiting room. See all those people sitting there waiting to come see me. He goes, I would lose 75% of those patients if they would just walk 40 minutes a day. Briskly. , 75% of the patients would be gone. That is crazy. I totally believe it's true cause I see it now, um, with my own eyes.

 So from, climbing the mountain, I signed up for a tough motor cause I thought that would be cool and. I really wanted to walk. I was really getting into seeing how fast I could walk and I was getting really good at it. We would walk, you know, sometimes 20 miles in a day. 

[00:32:47] Susie: And so when did you get Heather wrapped up into this?

[00:32:50] Tim: Yeah, so that's where I'm going next. Okay. So, so I came home one day and I'm like, you know, I think I'm try running. And I said, Would you sign up for a 5K with me? And she goes, Isn't that like a marathon? We don't do that. No one in our family runs. And I'm like, I know, but I think we should try it. So we sign up for a 5k and I'll never forget my daughter, my daughter comes home and she's like, Do you guys know real people do them? Like, that's real people thing. So it was our first 5k, we worked our butts off,, just running like a hundred feet and hyperventilating and almost throwing up. And so we trained for this 5K and. To this day is my favorite finish line. We ran the 5k. My goal was to not stop running, just run the whole thing.

And, you know, speed is relative, but it definitely, I didn't break any records. And so Heather was about a minute ahead of me and when she, I'm gonna start crying. Dang. Oh. When we, just started hugging after that finish line, I was sobbing so hard that people thought we got like bad news when we were out on the course. It was a really special day. I felt so good about myself, I felt so proud of myself. And we did that together, which was super cool. So on the way home, I kind of gave her a nudge and I'm like, Hey, how about a 10 K? And she goes, Are you nuts? We almost died . Um, but two months later we were able to run our first 10 K and that was for the cancer hospital that her mom was at, at benefited that. So that was super special. 

And on the way home I gave her another nudge from that and I'm like, You know what? We really should do a half marathon. And she goes, You're crazy. You're insane. I want nothing to do with this. And that night I went home and on my dresser, my handicap parking pass was about to expire in the month of September, and I knew I would never need one again. And I thought, Man, wouldn't it be cool to park legally in a handicap spot and run my first half marathon? I knew that would be super tough, so I took a picture of Heather's mom and my dad, and I taped it on that pass, and I wore that handicap pass for my first 13.1 half marathon. So that was super special.

Awesome. And, yeah, and then from there I got into marathons and then actually ultra marathons where I was running 50 miles and I got into cycling and these a hundred mile bike races, which led me to Iron Mans and Triathlon and yeah. So I spent a wild ride, you know, it's been a wild ride.

[00:35:36] Susie: Right, so, did you maintain that gratitude practice that you had started? Or how did you start it? Was it just thinking it, or, were you writing it down? How did you develop that gratitude? And 

[00:35:45] Tim: it's, Yeah, so that's kinda wild. 

So , the old Tim was like, Carhartt's huge beard. Look at the ground, like writing, You don't read, you don't write. Like that's for, you know, like nerds. But yeah, for some reason I picked up a notebook and I just wrote in that notebook, This is the first day of the rest of my life. And I did, I wrote like a kind of a prayer kind of thing, gratitude thing.

And I started logging my food in. It's funny to look back cause it was like mozzarella cheese sticks. Turkey burgers. , I was doing everything wrong, but what I was doing is at least recognizing that what I put in my mouth was having an effect on my body. Right. But yeah, I didn't really journal that long.

 You know, the gratitude was almost forced on me because, honestly, I feel like sometimes gratitude is a comparison game and we always think that we have it so bad and so rough and there's woe is me and Oh no, you know, I got up this morning and my phone was in charge and I cannot believe to say, well, someone is starving to death, you know, in, in the desert. So for me to see that huge comparison, that this wonderful, healthy lady that loved life so much is. Dying. It's sad and at the same time it's super reflective on like, you don't have all these problems. And another big step there was she was doing experimental chemo. So they had her in the pediatric wing.

Oh. She was getting special attention. And you know, me having younger kids, I mean my kids are almost 30 now, but having younger kids to see these parents in the pediatric wing with their kids with little bald heads. And it was just, it was devastating. 

I know one of my first stop within a pediatric icu, so 

I mean, it really wakes you up to all the stuff that you have. Cause a lot of the things that we need to be grateful for is the things we don't even recognize. Cause those are the things we should be the most thankful for, right? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. The things that we don't even think about. 

Yeah. And it really does change your outlook and it changes, chemicals in your body, what you think about changes. Sure. Your body. 

It's perspective, right? Like the whole thing is a game of perspective, 

[00:38:00] Susie: right? It is. I wanna ask you a couple questions. One is, I saw that you do some things where you help people, you have a membership and things like that. So I wanna ask you about that and also ask you if you have any tips for people who are trying this out, trying to figure out how to change. What are some of that low hanging fruit, the things that are easiest to change or that you found easiest? 

[00:38:22] Tim: Yeah, so actually The membership in. Yeah. That stuff's all great. People can find me anywhere at Fat Man Ranch. They can go to my website. We have so much, out there that, that's in fact my whole cookbook that, that literally the manuscript that went to the printers. If you just go on my website, you can download that whole thing for free. We go live every single Sunday. Well, we try to, We've been super busy. We have a restaurant as well. Oh. And I teach . I teach engineering to high school kids for college credit. That's like my real job. We have a plant-based restaurant, uh, where we do meal prep and quite a bit like 30,000 meals a year.

[00:39:04] Susie: Wow. 

[00:39:04] Tim: And that's just me and Heather for a long time. And we finally got some employees. Um, and then we also have our digital realm. But the point that I'm trying to make is this we. Do a lot just , our stuff is all over the place there's literally thousands of hours of video.

We bring people right into our kitchen, we cook with them. My recipes are crazy simple, like three, four ingredients. You don't have to know how to cook. That was a big thing for me. Like I didn't cook anything but meat. I knew how to marinate and smoke meat. So I think the simplicity, which this is where we're gonna end up going anyways, but the simplicity is where my success lived.

So my point to all the resources is our entire cookbook that we sent to the publisher that's available for free. We got a whole bunch of,, recipes. They're all over the place. So just search anything, fat man rants. 

But the tips, like I have like 3 million of them, the people that I've had experience working with, or even friends that are out and again, off again, some of this stuff is not fun.

Um, , especially the one thing that I'm gonna talk about might not sound fun, but I think it's important. The first thing for me has nothing to do with plants. The first thing that I had to figure out how to do in it likely was the hardest thing, is figuring it out how to love and accept myself. And again, I know that sounds crazy. No it's not. You have no reason to get yourself better if you don't have enough respect for yourself to want better. And we have to want better for ourselves so we can do better and then in turn, take care of the people that we love. . . This is not a game, you know? I think that was a big turning point in my life we all know that, you know, death is coming and we're not promised tomorrow and everyone can pay lip surface to that. But do you really understand that? do you really get that how important this life is and how precious it is?

And, to some people it's like, well, I'd rather eat bacon, and die five years early. You say that. Until you're there and then you wish you could undo all that. And I think a lot of this stuff, people understand that eating broccoli is better for them. You know, I love these posts,, finally taking control of my health and they're going like full, carnivore diet, you know, bacon and cheese and we know that's not true. We know that's not the healthy way to live. But the point is this, first you have to learn how to love yourself. And that's hard and it's not perfect. 

And I think that's a good lead into the other thing, that your journey is not gonna be perfect. When you see people on Instagram or see people like me and Heather that have lost 300 pounds together, We still, 10 years later, there's still struggles. There's still temptations, there's still that, , I'm not gonna say that we're gonna fall off the wagon, but It gets easier, but you're never done. I think what happens is you look at these people that, seem to have everything together. They seem to be this beautiful, perfect world. And it, social media is lying, right? Like they're only showing you these highlights, right? And so then we compare ourselves to that and we think like, Man, I can't do anything, right? I can't stay on this stupid plan. I'm just gonna throw my hands up because I'll never be like that. And you gotta stop that. You gotta realize that this is about progress, not perfection, but you still have to be responsible to not let that be an excuse, right? But the path is not a straight one. there's ups and downs. You're gonna lose, but you have to get up in the morning. And realize that you're gonna fight again. And that's where you know, the loving yourself to want better for yourself. Right. Kind of resets every single day,. So that's the first thing That is a very long explanation 

[00:43:07] Susie: yeah, that's a good one though. That's a good one. 

[00:43:10] Tim: As far as the food plan this stuff works a hundred percent of the time if you do it. I've never seen it not work. If it's done the closer you can get to the whole food, the better the food is. You know, I do this demonstration. in fact, we're doing a class tomorrow, a free class locally, and I'll take an apple and then like a hostess apple pie. Mm. And I show the progression. You take an apple and then, you take the apple sauce and then the apple juice and then the frozen apples with the sugar and cinnamon all the way to the, highly processed, hardly apple anymore. The closer we can get the whole food, the better we are all the way around.

Right? 

The thing about my transition, I was really dumb and I was glad I was dumb. I knew nothing. I knew that I could eat rice, beans, potatoes, and vegetables, and that's all I knew how to do. And I had an Instapot and I knew that whatever I threw in there usually came out good. If it didn't, we turned it into soup. That was my failure plan. Right. And so I just kept it simple. And people will say, Well, I don't want to eat the same food every day. We already do. Like our, our diet consists of pizza, chicken, wings, subs, tacos, pizzas. We just eat the same four things. Right? I know. As soon as like, Oh yeah, I eat rice, and Oh, I could never do that.

Yeah, you can, you can. First of all, your palette changes, so keep it super simple. And then another really important thing, I'm probably giving you way too many tips. That's really only number two. Yeah. 

The third thing is to stop looking ahead. Goals are great. You can see behind me, I love goals. I set thousands of goals. I'm a very goal-oriented person, but the goals can really jack you up because a lot of people get to a goal and they don't know what to do. Like they reach the goal. Now, what do you do? So habits are where the money is, right? Mm-hmm. goals are a great tool to build habits, and everybody wants to change a lifestyle, right? Everyone told me you need to change a lifestyle. But here's the thing though. No one can change a lifestyle. You can be a lifestyle medicine. I, I appreciate that. I respect it, But go tell people that are 400 pounds. You need to change your lifestyle. They're gonna look at you. They'll probably hit you with a cheeseburger, to be honest,

But if you tell people, That your lifestyle is just made up routines, right? And those routines are just made up. Habits and habits are just made of good choices. Everyone can make good choices, and the only choice that really matters is the next one on their plate. That's it. And so we get into this thing where we wanna look, Oh my gosh, what am I gonna do this summer?

What am I gonna do? I have a wedding in three months. Stop. Just worry about that next plate is the best plate and make that a good choice. And if you are consistent with these good choices, they will automatic. You don't have to worry about habits cuz it will turn into a habit. Then your habits will just turn into a routine. The routines will turn into your lifestyle. And before you know it, you won't even realize you changed your lifestyle. Cause all you did was make good choices. That's a, that's, it's so easy, but it's so easy to get distracted about what's out there. The cool thing about this lifestyle is it doesn't matter if you have 400 pounds to loose 200 pounds of use or no pounds to lose if you just wanna get healthy.

It is literally the same process. The only factor is time. How long it takes your body to get to where it needs to be, right? Mm-hmm. , that was a lot of words, but that's only three. 

So love yourself, keep your food simple. Worry about your next plate. And this one's gonna sting a little bit, but I know in my journey, this is a super important one.

Stop looking for motivation. Motivation is a killer. It really is. It sounds good. Everyone wants to be inspired. They can look at my before and after pitch and whoa, it's brilliant. Right? The problem with motivation is it's hinged on your emotions, right? And the thing about it is, that's not how we live life.

That's how we wanna live. Our diet and our health is how motivated we are to do the right thing. But imagine if your kids come home and say, I have homework to do today, but I'm not feeling motivated. What are you gonna tell 'em? Well, wait until you can watch them before and after pictures or a nice movie to get you into the spirit.

No, you go do that cause that's your job. And if my mortgage company called me and said, Hey, where's my money? And I said, You know, just not really inspired this month. I'm gonna lose my house. So here's the thing. If you know how to eat the most healthful way you can eat with whole food plants, because it's kind of a no argument there, then you are now responsible to eat that way for yourself and for the people you love.

You don't need motivation if you have responsibility. No one's motivated to change dirty diapers. No one's motivated to pay their bills, right? We're responsible to do it, so we do it. That stings. And I know, that's harsh, but that's reality, right? 

So there's my four tips. Make sure you learn how to love yourself. Keep your food super, super simple and easy. Find something you like. Repeat it. Only worry about that next choice. I'm not saying to not be prepared, cuz preparation is key for this. I know it's key for a lot of people, but don't get so hung up on next month, next year, how much you got to lose. And then lastly, stop looking for motivation and be responsible.

You are given a gift with this body that you have and it's your job to take the best care you can of it. And that's my four tips. 

Very good. I love them.. Are there any other movies or books or anything that you found inspirational or that you would go back to? You said Forks over knives that it was, what was the first one? Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. 

Yeah, That sick and nearly dead. Forks Over Nines is great. Game Changers if you are into athletics at all. That's a, that's a great win. Game changers. And the thing too is we didn't really touch on this a lot, but,, I came at this a hundred percent selfishly for my health, but as my journey, you know, moves along,, you realize that obviously this is way better for the animals.

Obviously farms aren't. I thought they were, Cause I grew up on a farm with 60 cows. Our food does not come from 60 , it's brutal what they do in these factory. They're disgusting and they need to be shut down. The environment,, obviously when you look at the studies, how much water it takes to grow lentils compared to a pound of meat,, it's insane.

And the economy, you know, the economy is huge. If you work or you have a business and you make money, this affects you. Just to give you an idea, And I'm gonna , I think it's 19,800, but it's around $20,000. In 2009, my insurance company paid for my pharmaceuticals close to within a few hundred dollars of $20,000. In 2015 and 16 combined, they spent $122 on. Vitamin b12, which I could have got over the counter, but I felt guilty that they weren't paying anything. That, to me, just pharmaceutical, that is not any, you know, EKGs, all the other crap that I used to get, that's just medicine. 20 grand. Just imagine this is a hundred percent repeatable.

I did not have willpower. I wouldn't have been an addict. I had no, magic pill. But 20 grand, if we can repeat that across the whole western world. We don't have a health crisis, you know, 

[00:51:14] Susie: you would think that everybody would be jumping at it. 

[00:51:16] Tim: Yeah. And I'll tell you what, it was like pulling teeth to get these numbers from my insurance company cuz I put 'em in a book. Well, the book's not published yet, but, it's insane that,, for the economy, we have this crazy healthcare crisis that they want to keep collecting more and more money. Um mm-hmm. , it's not working. Right. I teach engineering and technology. Our technology from, when my dad had a kidney replacement, they practically cut 'em in half. Now they have a little tiny,, one inch slot and , we're doing surgery right now. I'm teaching my kids about doing surgery with robots, in third world countries. We're doing 'em from Buffalo and you know, these nano robotics where we put little robotic parts right in someone's vein and they like, it's almost like Mrs. Frizzle in them at school bus . And we're putting more money and more technology. But we're getting sicker and sicker and, you know, type two diabetes, a third of the population is pre-diabetic or diabetic. What's going on? We keep looking for all these cures and these fixes with technology and money, but we never look at the cause and the causes on our plate. Right? The causes on our plate. So now you know why they call me Fat Man Rants. I'm sorry, I got No, I love it. And that's true and you know, I did an interview it's gonna be released early December, talking all about regenerative agriculture. So that really is repairing our land from all the decimation we've done 

Sure.

[00:52:42] Susie: Over the last 50 to a hundred years. Because if we keep going in that direction, maybe none of us will be here, but. And, and not to mention the nutrient quality of the food that's grown, 

[00:52:55] Tim: yeah. We keep, doing all these mono crops, we just keep replacing chemicals and it's not work. It's gonna run out, you know, the, the soil is alive, it's trillions of organisms in one teaspoon of soil and we're just, we're killing 'em all, but, Yeah. 

Oh yeah. Resources. Yeah. So game Changers was huge. Fed up is kind of cool. There's a lot of new ones out there, um, that aren't quite as popular. But if you go on Amazon Prime and do plant-based, there's a whole bunch of new ones. I'm drawn blanks right now, but there's a couple like heavy hitters in the plant-based community that are in a few too. 

[00:53:31] Susie: I know Netflix or whatever, when you watch one thing, it shows you suggestions, so.

[00:53:36] Tim: Sure. Yeah. I like, all the ones that you mentioned. There was one that when I told you before we started, I think that I had gone to a lifestyle medicine conference and I was hearing all this information and we got to preview the movie called Code Blue, which your doctor doesn't know Will shock you.

Yeah. Dr Saray 

right? So that one was, Yeah, she's really good. She's cool. 

Yeah. I spoke at Plant Stock at the Esselstyn's and she was doing some of the filming. I remember I signed a release. Um, I don't know if they were just doing interviews there, but yeah, I met her there. She's a really, really cool lady.

Well, you know, I appreciate your time and your wisdom and your experience and, I know you've inspired so many people. You'll keep inspiring them as you go along. And hopefully this has become like a way of life for you now, 

yeah, it's almost sad to be honest. Because we, we do a lot of free classes for our community and I know it exactly the day it happened, the guy comes up to me I know we gotta go, but this is a super cool story. Yeah. So this guy, he's taken one of our classes. We were doing like free community classes and we were talking about potatoes.

And this guy, he was kind of creepy, to be honest with you. He was like dressed in camo and he just always sat in the back, never heard him say a word. It was a six week program and this is like week four. Still never introduced himself, never said hello, just kind of, Oh, I'm just keeping an eye on the guy. And I was talking about potatoes. Someone said, Well, what kind of potatoes? And I'm like, Well, sweet potatoes is gonna be your best shot, but if you like,, red potatoes or Yukon goals , that's good. Just start there. And this guy stands up and he goes, If you're telling me I should eat potatoes as a type two diabetic, you might as well stick a gun in my mouth.

And he left. But he came back next week, . And I said, Can I just talk to you real quick? I said, Have you ever heard of Dr. Furman? He said, No. I'm like, Here's what I want you to do. Go on Amazon and buy the book called The End of Diabetes by Dr. Joel Furman. Mm-hmm. . And so by week six, this guy, he comes up to us at the end of the class, tears just screaming out , like almost ugly crying, right? And he goes, You changed my life forever. And I'm like, I didn't change anything. You made the changes. But he had been on insulin for decades. For decades, and in the matter of two weeks, his insulin went down to almost nothing. He goes, My doctor told me next month we're probably gonna be off. Insulin altogether is so powerful. But, I looked at him and I'm like, Well, what'd you expect? that's was like my attitude. I remember driving home that night thinking, man,, I used to get so excited about this, but it's such the norm. They don't even get excited.

It's like, well, duh. You knew that was gonna happen, didn't you? But that's how, actually how normal it is. This stuff works. The results they say are typical, but they're very likely like it's gonna happen. Right. So as far as a way of life, I kind of just don't even think about it, you know?

Mm-hmm. . Yeah. 

Well, like you said, you're a new person now. You have a new life 

now, . Yeah. And no. Yeah, it's great. 

[00:56:51] Susie: How has it affected your children? 

[00:56:54] Tim: So my kids are kind of older. We didn't really tear that apart, but so Heather was not plant-based for the first two years for me. They would get their pizza and chicken wings. That was like the main stapler house. And I did what I knew how to do. I would take a sweet potato, cut it in cubes, put it and oven roast it, and I'd be eating my sweet potato. And every time I turn my head, she's stealing my sweet potatoes. And then,, she's like, Hey, can you put one of those in for me? I'm like, um I guess, if you want just a plain sweet potato roasted. So she starts stealing my food and then I start cooking like stir fries. And then I said, If you guys want chicken, I'm not doing so then it was like, I'll make the stir fry. Heather had this little tiny pan where she put a chicken breast in, mixed that in for her and the kids.

And then she got to the point where she. I don't know if it was just lazy. She just stopped doing it. It's like, why even bother? Mm-hmm. . And then super long story, very, very short. She was having some, some issues and so she had a fibroid the size of a grapefruit and it was starting to push on her ureter to her kidney.

Yeah. So she had to go in for surgery and she, she ended up getting a complete hysterectomy. But when she woke up, I went up there to see when they were wheeling her out and she was just a mess. She was sobbing cuz it brought back all the memories of her mom. Mm-hmm. And she was a mess. And she's coming outta the hospital. She goes, I don't know what's gonna happen in my life. There's a lot of things that could take me out. But It will never be my food. And she flipped a switch and went whole food plant base like instantly. Cuz she did not want to ever have to go back to the hospital. I mean, I'm not saying that, you know, whole, I could tell you this, in the past two years I've had a major spine surgery.

I've almost had my foot amputated. I lost four inches of bone. I have a fusion. I feel great. I'm doing great. I'm training for Ironman Placid right now. Oh my gosh. Plants can do so much, but life happens too, you know, And I think that's another thing where people screw up. They're like, Oh, I'm eating plant based and you know, my cholesterol's not budging. I'm out. don't do. Yeah. Yeah. But, so that's how she came along. \

The kids eat what's at home now. My son hasn't lived with us in years. He's kind of vegan, but I would guess he would be a junk food. Vegan. My daughter is vegan probably 95% of the time.

And we do have a restaurant, so she's always stealing food from our plant-based restaurant. Right. But, I'm not gonna say that she doesn't have ice cream once in a while or something like that. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. 

I would love to hear more about the restaurant, but do you do just the prep or is it like a sit down restaurant? 

It, um, that's a long story. , 

So we set it up as a community outreach. Like we had a burger company. We had a veggie burger company, . Mm-hmm. . And we were making like 400 burgers every 11 minutes like we were going crazy. Wow. My dream was to supply all the schools, get rid of the hamburgers, We'll make veggie burgers cheaper than you can buy subsidized meat for. We pulled it off. We actually could make these things for about 50 cents a burger. Um, we started talks with some of the schools and boy, that's real political, but we couldn't get into a lot of 'em. We got into a few private ones. We needed a place to house a hub so people could come pick up burgers cuz we were, we just couldn't deliver 'em anymore.

We were gonna do a little hummus, have a little like front kinda, I don't know, coffee, that kind of thing. And then in the back I was setting up a classroom. We were teaching classes we could hold about 30 students, had a projector. I would do instapot, Air Fry oil free dressings. Wow, that's a lot. Stuff like that.

 It was great. I mean, we were doing all this for free, hoping that people would buy a few things on the way out to keep the lights on and then Covid happened. Oh. And the health department shut us right down. They said, You have a store so you're essential, keep the store open, but you can't do any of your education. So we did go a little bit virtual, but then we had people that had lost jobs, like right in the neighborhood, and everything was stopped so fast, no one had money. So I picked up a couple giant insta pots, like commercial ones. And we started cooking rice beans and we just put a Facebook thing out.

Like, Hey, we have these things called good neighbor meals. You can come get three. But you have to take two with you to give to someone else. Cause we didn't wanna deliver so we started selling,, like 20, then 40, then 80, then a hundred. It's like, dang, we're getting pretty good at this. So through COVID we started a meal prep and it was just me and Heather. I think the first year we did like 30,000 meals out of that, but we So tired. 

[01:01:52] Susie: Right. I was say that's a lot of work on top of a day job. 

[01:01:55] Tim: The right. This food industry sucks. Yeah, that's terrible. I've heard that. But so now the, we did have sit down, we have like four tables in a bar. For the most part, our biggest customers come in, they grab either a pack of five meals or 10 meals and they're out the door. They pre-order. The menu rolls every week. Um, and then we have our staples. We do a lot of smoothies. We sell,, thousands of smoothies. We have some cold press juice, granola trail mix, that kind of stuff. 

[01:02:25] Susie: Yeah, that sounds like a lot of work, but a lot of heart put into it for your community. 

[01:02:32] Tim: Yeah. So tomorrow we're doing a burger and fry demo at a church that they let us use. And we'll probably, I'm guessing we'll have close to a hundred people there and I'll make a hundred burgers and then they'll leave with two recipes and a burger and we'll hang out.

[01:02:48] Susie: Nice. 

And people need to taste the food too, to realize they're not gonna be missing out as much as they think. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. 

[01:02:58] Tim: I think it's important too, in our journeys that we help people. It keeps us accountable, you know, it keeps the kind of a passion alive in us and I think it's helpful both for them and for us. 

[01:03:09] Susie: Right. And being of service actually helps you with longevity. 

[01:03:14] Tim: Absolutely. Yeah. The Blue Zones, man, that's another good book is the blue zone. 

[01:03:19] Susie: It is, it is. Well, listen, I really appreciate your time. Thank you for,, sharing all your wisdom and your heart with me today.

[01:03:27] Tim: Sure. And thanks for having me. I'm sorry for talking your ear off. No, I don't know why they call me fat man rants! 

[01:03:34] Susie: I love it.