EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,002 words- 0:00 – 2:42
Jelly Roll’s new reality: 300 pounds down and feeling reborn
- NANarrator
(drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJelly Roll
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) I just really feel like... you might have a chance here to, like, really help some people that were big. You know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh-
- JRJelly Roll
Like that in this pod we might have a chance to like-
- JRJoe Rogan
... one million percent.
- JRJelly Roll
So I brought a bunch of notes about what I went through. So don't, don't look at me like a super nerd today-
- JRJoe Rogan
No, man, I-
- JRJelly Roll
... but I wanted to make sure I got my... I wanna help people, dude. I just... Man, I never thought I'd lose this weight, dude.
- JRJoe Rogan
I like a dude with notes.
- JRJelly Roll
(grunts)
- JRJoe Rogan
Especially a dude who lost 300 fucking pounds.
- JRJelly Roll
Let's go, baby.
- JRJoe Rogan
Let's go. Look at you, dude.
- JRJelly Roll
Dude, I feel great, yo.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, you should feel great.
- JRJelly Roll
I feel really, really good, dude.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're a totally new human being.
- JRJelly Roll
It is, man. And you know what's crazy? I, I, I don't wanna get super spiritual out the gate, but I will, 'cause I think God wants me to right now, 'cause of you saying that. There's a scripture in the Bible that says, uh, "In Christ all things are a new creation," which I thought was interesting, because it didn't talk about restoring the old. It says that in God we are a completely new creation. You know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JRJelly Roll
So like I... I was looking at it at first like I'm restoring my heart. But then when you're saying that, I'm like, "No, I didn't restore my heart. I got a whole new heart." This is a brand new heart, Joe. You know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
It might be cloaked as the old one, but God touched it. This is a whole new heart, baby. It's a different heart.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, listen. Every seven years doesn't every cell in your body get replaced by new cells?
- JRJelly Roll
I think so.
- JRJoe Rogan
Isn't that what the number is?
- JRJelly Roll
That's crazy. And it happens on a holy number.
- JRJoe Rogan
Throw that, throw that into our sponsor, Perplexity, and find out if that's nonsense. But I think that's true. I think that's what happens. So you do have a chance to be a new human being.
- JRJelly Roll
And think that it would happen on a holy number like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a myth, God dammit.
- JRJelly Roll
No.
- 2:42 – 6:26
From struggling on stairs to 10Ks: the pace of long-term change
- JRJelly Roll
Feels good, man. A whole different human. I was... We were talking about it. When I first came to your club, I couldn't even walk all the way up the steps without stopping, like, every seventh step. And today was my, um... Me and Cam did my first 10K yesterday. We did it a little bit over. We did 65. So today was recovery run day. I did two and a half miles just having a conversation with you while you were swinging kettle bells.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
I was like, "Look at who I am, Joe. (laughs) I'm an older guy."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, just chilling, doing two and a half miles on a treadmill. Just wow.
- JRJelly Roll
Just chatting, man. Just watching the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
... the Peter Yan fight again. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And you... You were fucking... You had a nice pace.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You looked casual doing it.
- JRJelly Roll
Feel good.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, you could tell you've been working, you know?
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not like a new thing. Your body's acclimated to it. You could really tell.
- JRJelly Roll
It's like... And I, I heard Tony Robbins once say that we grossly, um, overestimate what we can do in a year, and we underestimate what we can do in a decade.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- JRJelly Roll
And for people that might be listening to this that are dealing with severe obesity, I wanna give you this game. You will grossly overestimate what you can do in 90 days, but underestimate what you can do in a year-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- JRJelly Roll
... when it comes to your health. Like, it was right around my 30... I turned 41 three days ago, and it was right around my 39th birthday that I started really considering taking the step to try to make a major change in my life. And I thought about it around my birthday, 'cause I knew my next one was 40. You know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JRJelly Roll
And I was like, "I don't think I've ever met a 500-pound 40-year-old."
- JRJoe Rogan
They don't-
- JRJelly Roll
You know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
... come around very often. Usually that's when they-
- JRJelly Roll
That's about it.
- JRJoe Rogan
... drop off, yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
No, that's... that's when it... And it felt like I'd already cheated the game. I'd had multiple heart issues, you know. Um, and I was like, "Man, I should, I should really start trying to figure this out." And I felt like... I, I could feel myself dying, Joe. You know? And it was crazy, because I spent most of my life (clears throat) thinking that I... when I got to this point, or that I'd... Well, I never thought I'd get to this point. We'll start there, as far as success. But I-
- JRJoe Rogan
Bro, even your hands look smaller.
- JRJelly Roll
Dude.
- JRJoe Rogan
You have new hands.
- 6:26 – 9:38
The real turning point: stopping the cycle of self-deception
- JRJoe Rogan
So what was... You, you knew you were doing bad. You knew your body was not... it was not going to be able to function at, at that weight for very much longer. And so what was the pivotal moment where you made this decision?
- JRJelly Roll
(smacks lips) Here's, this is good. This is why I wanted to do this with you. Thank you for letting me have this space 'cause this is what I want people to hear, is that every time I thought I had a critical moment, it was a, it was an emotional moment. So I'd get all fired up. I've been trying to lose this weight my whole life. And I've, and I'd yo-yo, 50, 70 pounds down, go back up.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) .
- JRJelly Roll
Me and my, my nutritionist, Ian Larios, were looking at notes yesterday. I spent most of 2022 between 480 and 560 pounds. Like that year. That's how much I fluctuated-
- JRJoe Rogan
Damn.
- JRJelly Roll
... in just a year up and down.
- JRJoe Rogan
560 is so crazy.
- JRJelly Roll
Crazy. You know, so it's like I was just such a... So when I sat down to try to lose it this time, I said, "I'm gonna take a different approach. I'm gonna really take my time with it, and I'm gonna think about what I'm doing and be intentional. I'm not gonna let it be an emotional thing, where you just jump up and go, 'I'm gonna go run today and do, do, do.'" And I was like, "Let me, let me figure this out." And clearly, I've dealt with drug addiction. So I was like, "Maybe there's something here." Like how come, um... (smacks lips) I actually have this in my notes. Overeating wasn't a failure of willpower for me. It was a biological loop that I didn't know how to interrupt.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a good way to put it.
- JRJelly Roll
You know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
That's good. The problem with food addiction, as opposed to every other addiction, is that you have to keep doing the thing you're addicted to.
- JRJelly Roll
You have to.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's the only one.
- JRJelly Roll
And it's everywhere.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
Not that crack isn't everywhere-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JRJelly Roll
... and heroin isn't everywhere, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, s- but it's not. I've never... I've never seen heroin-
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah, there's not heroin on this table.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- JRJelly Roll
You know what I'm saying? There is a cookie on here somewhere probably.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, no, no, no. Food-
- JRJelly Roll
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Food... There has been.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But food is something that you need to sustain you, to keep alive. Like imagine if you were a gambling addict, but you had to play a few hands of blackjack every day.
- JRJelly Roll
Every day.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's crazy.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah. Like, you had to. Like, you gotta play at least two.
- 9:38 – 12:57
The rainy walk: earning belief from family and rebuilding trust
- JRJelly Roll
And lucky for me, Al- Alina, um, um, their daughter, him and Sage's daughter was a country music fan. So she comes in like, "You ever heard of Jelly Roll?" And they're like, "No." She's like, "You gotta listen to this song and then you gotta help 'em." So Gary called and Gary was like... And I said, "Gary, I'm gonna start." But he said, "Just start by trying to get 10,000 steps a day and get in a cold plunge." I'm like, "Dude, I'm 520 and something pounds, Gary. And 10,000 steps a day is crazy talk." But I got in the cold plunge for six minutes, and I would go for a half-mile walk. That first Monday comes, Joe, it is pissing rain. Pissing rain. I mean, cats and dogs, dude. And I wake up and I'm like, "Shit." And I'd been studying about lying to yourself, that when you tell yourself you're gonna do something and you don't do it, your body then starts to know that you don't mean what you say.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JRJelly Roll
So now when you tell your body to do something, your body looks at you like, "Bitch, you ain't ever meant what you said to me."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JRJelly Roll
"You've never followed through. What are you... Fuck you. You think I'm gonna run 'cause you tell me to run, dude? You lie to me all the time." And I was in that concept, and I came out that morning dressed up in my stuff and I was like, "Man, that rain's pretty hard." And my family... And this wasn't them being a lack of support, Joe. This was just... I think this was me lying to them for so many years, you know, that they wanted to save me my shame again-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JRJelly Roll
... and my embarrassment. And they go, "It's okay." Uh, I think my wife's like, "It's okay, Papa." Um, or b- my, my daughter was like, um, "Just wait till the rain quits and do it on the treadmill or something." But in my mind I was like, "No, I'm going outside," you know? And I was like, "I'm done lying to y'all and I'm done lying to me. I told y'all I was gonna go do this walk, and I'm gonna do this walk." (exhales) I didn't wanna get emotional this early. But I'm good.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's nothing wrong with emotions, brother.
- JRJelly Roll
I'm coming... I'm coming back from that walk, and I'm coming up my driveway. It's up a big hill. I'm bringing the camera too. It's a huge hill. And I'm coming up the driveway to the hill, and all my family's out there cheering me on, clapping, hands up. (sniffs) I'd done nothing but lie to them for years about this weight. I had done nothing... I had never proved to them that I was gonna change or that I'd be a man of my word in any regard. They had every reason not to go out there and cheer me on. And that was like a big mo- That was the moment, you know, where I was like, "Damn." And I realized that in addiction that, um...... an addiction, the family will kind of cater to the addict, it's nature. You know, like if, um, somebody in your family was a drug addict, you would, you would help with their kids, or you would, you know, you would, you would feel a need to help in their absence. It's what we do as a family, it's human nature. (sniffs) And, um, I realized then how much my addiction had been hurting this family. You know, how much that my sex life with my wife was horrible. Dude, I married a fucking big titty, blonde, beautiful woman, dawg. You know what I mean?
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- JRJelly Roll
Like, I married the kind of woman that makes you smile when you cry, Joe. (sniffs) You know? Um, and I couldn't, I couldn't even get aroused, I was so big. I mean, I was having to play f- I was having to play Twister to have sex, left foot here, right foot in the X.
- NANarrator
Mm-hmm.
- 12:57 – 15:49
“Ask for help”: therapy, food addiction curriculum, and the mental model
- JRJelly Roll
You know, "Are we, are we in there yet? Tell me if you feel something." I mean, it was bad. (sniffs) You know, my daughter, I think about my son. Um, you know, my brother would have to go throw football with him, I was too big to throw the football. And I was like, "These are, that's what my addiction has done to these people, and here they are cheering for me. Oh, dude, we're turning up. We're fucking, we're, we're, we're gonna figure this out." (sniffs) So then I knew it was a mental thing, and I read a book called The Fox, The Horse, The Mole, and The Boy. You ever heard of this book?
- NANarrator
No.
- JRJelly Roll
It's a children's book. Joe, I mean, if you don't mind pulling it up 'cause it's, um, it's just, it's just, it's, somebody kind of recreated Winnie-the-Pooh, but for my, our kids, you know? (sniffs) And it was a children's book, and I open it up and it g- it has a moment where it goes... Yeah, yeah, The Boy, The M- Fox and the M- it's a, uh...
- NANarrator
Oh, I have seen this.
- JRJelly Roll
Joe.
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
You wanna talk about a seven-minute read that will change your life? But there's a quote in there that goes, uh, I forgot if it was the mole, but the, the, the fox or something looks at the horse and goes, "What's the hardest thing you've ever done in your life?" And the horse goes, "Ask for help."
- NANarrator
Mm.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah. It's just all these, like, really cool little things. But when he said, "Ask for help," I was like, "Wow, I need to ask for help." It's like whenever I was addicted to drugs and I had to walk in that room for the first time and go, "I don't have control." (sniffs) So, um, I called a company called On Site that does, uh, therapy. And, um, I went and spent two weeks with a lady named Mary B who wrote the curriculum for food addiction in the world. Like, she is a 80-something-year-old woman with glasses, sweet soul of a woman. And we locked in a cabin, and she said, "We're gonna figure out what this is." (clicking) And I spent, I'd say, maybe two or three weeks in this cabin with this sweet old woman. And it was like, uh, no phone, out in the woods, I walked every day. I played with the horses. I mean, I just went and laid in grass. (sniffs) And, um, it really took me all the way back through all my years, and it was the first time that I didn't just try to rush to lose the weight. I tried to figure out what, why I was carrying the weight. (sniffs) You know, and that's whenever I figured out that I, that, that overeating for me wasn't a failure of a discipline. I'm a pretty disciplined guy. It was just a, a biological thing I hadn't learned how to interrupt. I'd been doing it my whole life. It had been my constant go-to for stress. It had been, it was everywhere all the time. (sniffs) I was eating for... I had to start figuring out what I was actually hungry for, you know? Like, when we talk about obesity, Joe, there's groups. (sniffs) Like, if you're 340 pounds here, 330 pounds here, you know, it's po- depending on your height, of course, you might be dealing with a discipline issue. Maybe you just like extra food. We can make small changes and get that off. You start getting over 300, 320, you start, that starts being morbid obesity. Like, there starts to be a real thing there, you know? (sniffs) And I'm seeing it more now because I talk to 10s, 20s of guys that are over 500 pounds that have reached out to me like, "Please, what is this magic, Yoda?" You know what I mean?
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- 15:49 – 20:55
Sugar, processed food, and the “color came back” inflammation story
- JRJelly Roll
I'm like, I'm like, "Consistency's the magic." But one, once I realized why I was eating 80, 80... Here, here's the note I took from therapy. I had, I took, had my wife translate all my notes from, uh, when I was out there. (sniffs) And it goes change, uh, uh, y- first of all, you change the way you think and talk, but 'cause 80 to 90% of compulsive eating happens between the ears, not the teeth. So the average obese person that's that big, and I learned this from her, is that they're only eating 20% of what they're thinking about eating. This is an all-day loop that's in a, in a, in your head. It's like a drug addiction. (sniffs) You know, I used to walk in, um... Me and Schults laughed about this. I used to walk in rooms and scan. Like, I would walk in a room like the predator. Like, I would, I would do one thing like the Terminator and be able to look you in the eye and be like, "There's a bottle of Snickers on that counter."
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- JRJelly Roll
"There's two M&Ms over here. They have some Lay's potato chips over there." Like, I knew my way.
- NANarrator
It was mostly sugar?
- JRJelly Roll
All sugar. (sniffs) Me and you were talking about-
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
... dude, sugar, well, processed food. I, I didn't... You know how they said g- uh, so Gary was like, "Get on a keto diet or a whole food diet at first." And I was like, "I don't think I eat whole foods now at all anyways. I think I just eat processed foods with maybe protein in it." You know, I mean, I don't... Dude, I haven't ate a piece of bread except for Thanksgiving in two years. Joe, I was color blind. We talked about this.
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
I was-
- NANarrator
This is a crazy story.
- JRJelly Roll
This is a true story, Joe.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- JRJelly Roll
I, my wife will tell you, this is, she laughs about it now, but I couldn't see... I seen shades of colors, like, uh, general concepts, but, like, hunter green, emerald green, like, what? Green is green to me. I never realized there was nuances and prettiness and that some were brighter and toned different. I just seen them like shades. (sniffs) So bad that, like, that's why I wore black. Johnny Cash was a lot of it, but too, you know, I'd always have to ask people does my shoes match?
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- JRJelly Roll
You know, I was always off. Dude, I'd say nine months into no sugar, I start, I think, I forgot what it was, but it was a plant at our house. And I come outside and I grab my wife and I go, "Dude, how long have we had that pretty purple tulip there?" Or whatever it was. And she goes, "What?" I was like, "That is the prettiest purple plant I've ever seen." She was like, "You've walked by that plant for two years. What are you talking about?" I was like, "There's no way we've had a plant that pretty I didn't notice it for two years." It was bright purple, Joe. I mean, it was screaming Holy Rogue purple. And then slowly, I started looking around the next few days, and o- over the next months, I was like, "I'm seeing clear color."I couldn't quit talking about it. I bought coloring books. My wife was laughing.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JRJelly Roll
This bitch used to have to give me a tie to match to go to court. You know what I'm saying? And I'm in there coloring. You know what I'm saying? She's like, "What are you doing?" I was like, "You wanna color?" And I go, I've d- I've got, like, 300 coloring pencil sets.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JRJelly Roll
I was in a g- I was at a deer blind with Cam Hane talking his face off about a bird yesterday. He goes, "I didn't know you like birds like that." I was just, "I like color." He was like, "Really?" I was like, "Yeah, I didn't see color for, like, 20 years." (laughs) I was like, "It is awesome."
- JRJoe Rogan
That is so... I would never-
- JRJelly Roll
It had to have been the sugar.
- JRJoe Rogan
Must have been. It must have been just rampant inflammation through your whole body, massive lack of nutrients.
- JRJelly Roll
It was-
- JRJoe Rogan
And your body probably was like, "Fuck colors, let's just keep this dude alive."
- JRJelly Roll
That's it. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah, fuck colors, just keep him alive. Damn.
- JRJoe Rogan
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- JRJelly Roll
Yeah. And it was... (sniffs) I'd never planned on living, Joe. Like, ever. Like, it was never in my plan, like, of life. Even as I was getting successful, I was, like, coming out here and, like, life was getting good for me. And in my mind, I was like, "Okay, good. When I die, at least my kids might be okay and they won't be ashamed of me."
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- 20:55 – 27:07
Labs don’t lie: insulin, A1C, inflammation, testosterone—and what helped
- JRJelly Roll
You know what I'm saying? Like, dawg, you know what I'm saying? (laughs) Like, it's gonna be cool. You was talking about my, uh... You mind if I run through these for a second?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, please.
- JRJelly Roll
Well, let me, let me preface this. So, um, 'cause I wanna talk about the labs. You were talking about my inflammation. But I got with Gary Brecka and I did a blood test. And this is something else I encourage big people to do, and your basic provider will pay for it more often than not. If you have just, like, a standard insurance, just tell them you wanna run it, just standard blood lab. But tell them instead of just your A1C, this is important, you wanna see your insulin level. Because I was diabetic, but I wasn't insulin resistant. So my diabetic marker, when I first got checked, was a six point... My A, my, my A, uh, my A1C was a 6.4, okay? Which is the threshold of what being a diabetic is, the pre-diabetic, the last point of being a pre-diabetic is 6.4. And I thought that when you are, when your blood work says you're a pre-diabetic for 15 years, geez, whatever. You know what I mean? Like, w- this is not gonna kill me or nothing. I've had... Yeah, it's what it said last time, I'm fine. And then finally, s- they checked for my insulin. It was over 40, Joe. It was, like, insane. And I don't wanna get this wrong.
- JRJoe Rogan
What's it supposed to be?
- JRJelly Roll
It's s- like, under five.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, Jesus.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah. So what happens is when your body goes to burn when you fast, it has to burn through all your insulin before it'll start burning through your, your f- your reserve fat. So when you're at that high of an insulin level in your blood, it's, you're having to fast so m- you're hardly ever getting to the reserve fat burners because it's just constant insulin.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JRJelly Roll
So... And this is where GL1Ps come in. This would be a great time to talk about this. So Gary goes, "Hey, man, your insulin's high. We'll just give you a shot and this will change all this." And I was like, "Cool. Send it. Whatever, I'll try it." And then my, uh, my wife's manager, Mimi, started the shot. Did wonders for her, but she had the worst stomach issues. I have a bad stomach. I started calling people and going, "Hey, man, uh, how's this shot working?" They were like, "Dude, we're losing weight. Food noise is gone. You gotta try it." I was like, "What's the side effect?" They were like, "One bad side effect, it tears your gut up." And I was, I had a... So I had bad reflux. And you know, that's the worst thing a singer can have. Nothing is worse for us than reflux.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
So I got scared of it. So I called Gary and I was like, "Gary, I, I can't do it. I'm afraid of it." So then I started doing research and I was like, "Well, if I'm not gonna do this, I'm gonna have to fast to get my insulin levels down a lot." So I was fasting and I was losing, like, next to no weight. And I was doing the right thing. And as a big dude, that's the most encouraging thing, Joe, discouraging thing, is when you're actually not lying to people. 'Cause you know, as a fat person, I'm c- I'm programmed to lie like a drug addict. Like, "What'd you eat today?" "Oh, grilled chicken and salads." And I just ate seven Snickers, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JRJelly Roll
So I was like... Or I'd brush it off like a big thing. My, my nutritionist would come in and be like, "Did you eat something last night after I left?" I'd be like, "Yeah, yeah, I just ate a little bit. D- not bad, just a little bit. A little bit bad." But I wouldn't quantify what little bit bad was. It was-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JRJelly Roll
You know, it, you know, it's like... So I was just in a... I, I wanted to start being way, way more honest about everything in the process. And that's, was probably the biggest thing. So I would not lose the weight. And I'm like, "I'm, I promise you, Ian, I didn't eat nothing but what you handed me, bubba." He's like, "Just stick with it." And I just stayed with it, stayed with it. And then, uh, Gary got turned into Gary Brecka and took over the world. And I was, uh, lucky for me, I bumped into your friend, a guy named Brigham down here in Texas. And he introduced me... You've met Denise, right? Denise-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure. I love her.
- JRJelly Roll
This lady's the lady who really... Gary started this journey for me, and I'll never be able to thank him enough for it, but she brought it home.And Gary probably would have, but she, she had a brick and mortar and was just easier to get to. Gary travels the world. And, um, I go to her and she goes... She runs my blood again, and my insulin had gotten down to like 37 by fasting, and she goes, "You're against the GL1Ps, aren't you?" I was like, "Well, I made it this far and I don't wanna do it with an asterisk now. Now it's just stubbornness." At first it started out of a fear. Now I'm just fucking stubborn, you know? And, um... And this is where I don't wanna hide anything that I did do, 'cause I think it'll help people. She said there's an alternative. She said, "If you took a fourth of a dose of Metformin, which at 2,000 milligrams is what they would prescribe a diabetic want. Let's say we give you 500 milligrams, which is a real low dose, once a day, until we just see this marker go down." She said it might take a year because we're not trying to rush it and throw a bunch of GL1s at it. We're like, "We're just... We're gonna do this really slow." And that's what we did. In the first month I listened to her and I was losing, you know... I think... I looked at Leanne's notes today, we were losing like, you know, s- four to six pounds a month. Then it got up to that 12 and 13, that number we were looking for. You know what I mean? Of what we expect from a guy my size. But it was just that easy. Once... Now my insulin... So I said all that to give you this. Oh, I'm so excited about this, Joe. My insulin was over 40. My insulin two weeks ago at Ways to Well with Dr. Denise was 4.6.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- JRJelly Roll
My A1C was crazy, right? And that was just... We've only been on the Metformin for a year in November. So I think we're gonna come off of it now. A1C was 6/4, it's now 5/4, which that marker is a three-month average of your blood sugar. Like, that's a real number to move that much. I know it doesn't seem like a big number in a year, but that's like crazy. Uh, my C-reactive was like in the 6s and it's 1.2 now. That's an inflammation marker. Vitamin D, while I was getting sick all the time, was at 28.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm. Hmm.
- JRJelly Roll
Vitamin D is at 100. This was the big one too, and this is where, uh, they say, "Are you natty?" I say, "No, sir. Absolutely not. I'm a 40-year-old male. There's no way I was going to be natty." My testosterone was one of a prejuvenile child when you're that big.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- JRJelly Roll
It was in the thir- like, the 50s.
- JRJoe Rogan
Jeez.
- JRJelly Roll
And you know it should be in like the 750s.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
My free test was 2.3, Joe Rogan.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God.
- JRJelly Roll
My free test. You know what it is today? 149. I fucking... Well, you remember that problem we talked about with my wife?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 27:07 – 34:41
Breaking binge patterns: “reset, reconnect, reengage” and safer substitutes
- JRJelly Roll
You know what I mean? If I woulda just had to keep nicking it down a pound a week, 'cause I was just having to get that insulin down so slowly. And, uh, that helped a ton. And the test, of course, helped bring... 'Cause my estrogen was so high, my test was so low, it finally got the estrogen down and the test up so the fat starts burning. I'd done the mental work. I'd started really figuring out like why I was eating the way I was eating. 'Cause once I recognized the pattern, my three Rs changed it for me. It was reset, reconnect, reengage. So every time I would go into my pantry to eat something, 'cause I'm a binge eater, I'd stop. My, my, my therapist taught me this at OnSight. I'd stop and I'd, I'd reset. So I'd step out, first thing. "Get out of the pantry. I have no business in here. Bad place for me. Go somewhere I'm safe where I can connect, near my wife or somewhere safe." Reconnect. "What was you in the pantry for? What version of you, what storyline of yours walked in that pantry? Was it 15-year-old Joey that thought he was a gangbanger and thought he was a thug, that was just trying to be cool, that was actually a sad little boy that couldn't connect with people? Is that the boy that just walked in there and tried to eat some cookies? Or is this a 35-year-old man or thir- a 39-year-old man that's stressed from work? But I tell you what you're not in there eating the cookies for is 'cause you need them. You just ate a great meal."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JRJelly Roll
"You feel fucking awesome." You know what I'm saying? (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
"Like, there's nothing about that cookie that's good for you. And also, Jason, you are not a one-cookie kind of guy. You know what I'm saying?"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JRJelly Roll
"You are gonna go eat the bag of cookies." You know? (laughs) And then, then, then I reconnect, then I reengage. 'Cause sometimes you go through all that and you go, "You know what, though? I was thinking in there, but I do need to go grab the salt." Just go in there and grab the salt and get out. But where I'm so programmed, it's back to old storylines, is y- I walk into some... I've been going into the pantry to eat bad for so many years, I walk in there and forget what I'm in there for.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
I have to... 'Cause if I sit there long enough, then it's like, "Oh, well, there's a-"
- JRJoe Rogan
There's some stuff that you can eat that does nothing. Like, you c-... If you just wanna munch on something, man, get some celery and some radishes. Those motherfuckers have like zero calories.
- JRJelly Roll
Raspberries and blueberries were a big one for me.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's p-
- JRJelly Roll
They don't have zero calories-
- JRJoe Rogan
They have calories. They, it's good-
- JRJelly Roll
... but you could eat like-
- JRJoe Rogan
But it's actually good for you.
- JRJelly Roll
... a bucket of them-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
... before you get into the hundreds of calories.
- JRJoe Rogan
If you wanna have some like raspberries with some salt on them... Or not some raspberries, rather some radishes with some salt on them and some celery, there's nothing in that. You just eat it and you don't have to worry at all. You're just getting some fiber and some nutrients.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah. Pickles.
- JRJoe Rogan
Pickles are great.
- JRJelly Roll
Pickles are another one I'd get on to.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
Early-
- JRJoe Rogan
And also, like if you get like good fermented pickles, they're actually good for your gut.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah. I d- I, I did all the cheats early. So like... But when I say cheats, like I was hungry so I'd, I'd go to my nutritionist and go, "Hey, man, just feed me whatever looks like the most food."
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- JRJelly Roll
You know, fluff it up. You know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- 34:41 – 41:26
New playground, new playmates: environment, mentors, and identity change
- JRJelly Roll
They say, they say addicts, um, addiction swap.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've never had a bad addiction, fortunately. But I've had a bunch of addictions. You know, like, I've had, like, video game addictions. I'm addicted to playing pool, I was addicted to martial arts. But I've been addicted to, like, things that are beneficial, luckily.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Luckily. But I'm scared of all the other ones. I know that, I know it's the same thing.
- JRJelly Roll
How much of that do you think has played a part in your environment and friend group?
- JRJoe Rogan
It's huge. Huge. 'Cause if you can get around a bunch of other people that are addicted to good things, then you're all just doing good things.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you're all feeding off of each other.
- JRJelly Roll
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. That's, it's everything, man. You, you imitate your atmosphere always. This is why I can't be around negative people. I just c-, I'm too sensitive. When I'm around negative people, first I try to help them, then I try to coach them, then I try to, like, like, see the world through their eyes, and then I'm reacting to them, and then I'm like, "Fuck, man. You're not helping me and I'm not helping you."
- JRJelly Roll
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're just dragging me into your vibration.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I don't like it. And if you don't want to change, uh, there's not much I can do with this. And so I gotta just ghost you.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I gotta separate. Because you, if you s- save a drowning man, you know, sometimes you can drown yourself.
- JRJelly Roll
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know? And there's a lot of people out there that have wasted years and years of their life i- in toxic friendships.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah. Oh.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know? With negative people.
- JRJelly Roll
Guilty.
- JRJoe Rogan
We've all... It's-
- JRJelly Roll
That's what made me bring it up.
- JRJoe Rogan
... easy to do, man. It's not, it's not a, a mark on your character. It's a normal thing that people do. And when you're around a bunch of people that are positive and that are inspirational, then all of a sudden you start holding yourself accountable. You're like, you know, "What would David Goggins do?"
- JRJelly Roll
Right. Yeah, true.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know? Like, what would Cam Hanes do?
- JRJelly Roll
What would Cam Hane do?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. What would Jocko do? And then that, that's a good thing.
- JRJelly Roll
What would Rogan do?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. You gotta-
- 41:26 – 45:53
Disconnecting to reconnect: quitting social media and reshaping attention
- JRJoe Rogan
Tell me, what have you done with the phone thing? So the phone thing is interesting.
- JRJelly Roll
It's been real interesting. I got one now. I got one th- two months ago. I took a year... It's a part of the weight loss. I took a year off of a phone completely. Well, you know, I used to get drunk and give my number to everybody at a bar. So I would wake up after an awards show and have, like, 3,000 unread text messages-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JRJelly Roll
... of people like, "Congratulations." And I was just like, "Oh, God." I was missing, like, big messages, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that's a problem with me.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I got a, I got that problem.
- JRJelly Roll
Yeah, I could imagine, where you look back-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
... and you're like, "The president texted me."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
No, not me, but I bet that's happened to you-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
... where you're like, "I missed an entire text from somebody of that stature."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JRJelly Roll
You know? And you're like, "Dude, this is crazy." And I was like, "I don't..." I think that I was using it as another way not to connect. I have an avoidant personality. Like, I'll isolate, or I can do it just right in a room full of people if I hop on the phone. And I was just like, "Man, I wanna be more present." You know? I remember sitting, doing stuff with my son and daughter, and I was, like, scrolling Instagram, once again, watching bar fights. You know, nothing, nothing that was helping. You know what I mean? I was like, "I'm just-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JRJelly Roll
"I'm just, like, completely disconnected from what's really-"
- JRJoe Rogan
It's another addiction.
- JRJelly Roll
It's another-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
And with my personality-
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh-huh.
- JRJelly Roll
... I gotta watch those.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
So I got a phone two months ago, and I just didn't put social media on it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
I have YouTube 'cause that's my app, and I'll trust... You know, YouTube is where I get good stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Me too.
- JRJelly Roll
It doesn't give me 60-second bursts of shit I don't need.
- 45:53 – 1:16:23
Bowhunting as a new obsession: humility, mistakes, and meditation
- JRJelly Roll
You always been a outdoorsman?
- JRJoe Rogan
No. I, I used to fish when I was a kid. I used to really love fishing. And, um, you know, then I'd... I got away from all of it for a long time, until, uh, Rinella took me hunting, and that's when I got that mule deer, that one that's sitting on the table right there. That was the first animal I ever shot.
- JRJelly Roll
A bow or rifle?
- JRJoe Rogan
Rifle. That was a rifle. And then Cam took me on my first hunt with a bow. I got a black bear.
- JRJelly Roll
That was your first hunt as a bear?
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh-huh. Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
God. I'm trying to get him to take me to one of those in May.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's good. Uh, it's-
- JRJelly Roll
And I wanna do elk next year.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, bear is a good one, because first of all, it's scary, you know, which I think is good. And, uh... (laughs)
- JRJelly Roll
Dude, that's fucking flipping me out, Joe.
- JRJoe Rogan
And there's something about eating a bear that's just wild. It's just... It feels-
- JRJelly Roll
'Cause they're kinda fatty, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Feels crazy. It... Yeah, well, not that bad. I mean, they, they definitely have a lot of fat on 'em. They taste good. They ta-
- JRJelly Roll
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a big misconception. I mean, I've never eaten a grizzly bear, which I've heard are pretty rough, but my friend Ryan Callahan just shot a grizzly bear and he says it's delicious. Um, I think i- the thing about a bear that's a little daunting for a lot of people is trichinosis. And, uh, you have to cook a bear, like, a hundred and... I think the... I think the number is 160. I think that's what it is, where you, you know, you gotta make sure that that meat is 160 degrees, you know, so you don't get any parasites. 'Cause trichinosis is rough.
- JRJelly Roll
God, I can't believe your first b- bow hunt was a bear. I'm on my first bow hunt as we speak.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JRJelly Roll
And it's for a deer. And I could... I definitely... I need to do this if I'm gonna see a bear.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's-
- JRJelly Roll
I am out there, b- I mean, stomach in, uh, uh, heart in stomach, stomach in pants the whole way out.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I think Cam took me, um, bear hunting because, uh, in Alberta, the way they do it, uh, it's, uh, they do it over bait. So they, um, they set out oats and they use beaver carcasses and all these different things so the animals... And people are like, "Oh, that's cheating." Listen, there's no other way to find these animals in Alberta. They're... You're talking about dense forest, dense forest that looks like a box of Q-tips. Like, you can't see shit out there. They're... You're not gonna find them before they see you coming or hear you coming or smell you coming. There's n- There's... If you wanna hunt them, you have to use bait or you have to use dogs and, you know, that's how they used to hunt them in a lot of places. They used to, you know, tree 'em with dogs, then people would shoot 'em. And people are like, "Well, that's horrible too," but there's... You have to control their populations. If you understand wildlife biology and wildlife management, you, you must control the populations of predators. And then, you know, like John and Jen up in Alberta where they took me, they know how to cook bear, like really good. J- Jen is an excellent cook, and she, she'll cook a bear roast and she rubs it down, put it... puts it in a Traeger and they'll slow cook it for 12 hours and-
- JRJelly Roll
Oh, they're smoking the bear. Was it the bear you killed?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, my God.
- JRJelly Roll
You got to eat that one?
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, we definitely ate some of that, too. And there's another thing that Rinella taught me, um, called bear candy, which was great. It's, like, basically, like... It's like Chinese food. It's like sweet and sour bear.
- JRJelly Roll
Wow.
- JRJoe Rogan
It was really good. Yeah, and then Cam, uh, brought over some bear sticks. He gets some meat sticks made at this one butcher that he goes to, this one meat processing place. But you... Bear is... The, the misconception is that bear tastes bad. It does not taste bad. It tastes like beef. It tastes like a w- a weird-... beefy kinda animal. You know, here's a weird fun fact. When settlers were f- the pioneers first were making their way across North America, they didn't eat deer. They were eating bear. And they were using deer for skins.
- JRJelly Roll
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, a deer skin was worth one dollar, and that's where the term buck come from.
Episode duration: 2:34:48
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Transcript of episode UWz6_CXt5T8
