Transcript provided by YouTube. Slightly edited with AI.
Welcome back. My name is Bel, and I’m here from Belief in Fatherhood. I have a good friend here, JT Tapia, whom I want to introduce himself. He has been, as I told you guys about my health scare earlier this year, I got to the point where I just did not… I knew I wanted to live, but I didn’t want to live like this. I didn’t want to live with a lack of control, a lack of focus, a lack of direction. And JT, who I was told about JT through Rouson, a buddy of mine, just took all the excuses away and was kind of like, “Well, what’s the plan? I have a plan that we can put in place. I have accountability, a system, and habits. What are you going to do?” So JT’s been helping me make an amazing shift. Today, we’re going to talk about some things that he has going on, some things I have going on, some concepts you guys aren’t even ready for because I just discovered this stuff. But JT, please introduce yourself.
Yeah, so my name is JT Tapia, and for the past two decades, I’ve been knocking food out of people’s hands. So, I’ve owned and operated gyms for 23 years. About three years ago, we sold all the gyms and strictly focused on the aspect of nutrition. We’ve been helping people transform anywhere from people that need to lose 25 lbs to people that need to lose 200 lbs, and we do that in a very unique way. Our approach is multi-disciplinary, focusing on helping people with habits. Also, my master’s degree is in substance abuse and eating disorders. We’ve recognized that food is not just food; it’s often used as a drug to alleviate a lot of the pains of life. So, with that being said, we’re Christians, and we believe that we are responsible for this body that we’ve been given and that we should steward it in the best way possible. We see it as not even a necessity but an actual biblical command.
I think what attracted me was just seeing the results. I’ve seen you working with Pastor Mason, I’ve seen you working with Rouson, but Rous was the guy who was just kind of like, “Hey man, you know, I guess he just kept seeing the progression of my weight gain and was like, ‘Hey man, I’m like, get away from me. I actually enjoy when I’m eating, thank you very much.'” And I knew that I wasn’t ready until I was willing to have an honest conversation with myself, which was, “Why are you self-sabotaging?” A lot of that had happened because of the loss of my sister, right? Today is my sister’s actual birthday, February 22nd. So she would have been 37 today. What’s beautiful about that is that I wasn’t ready to have the conversation about grief because I wasn’t sure I was excited to live. You know, we talked about that on our orientation call because you were very comfortable having the conversation, like, “Alright, well, you know, we’re going to talk to this guy, I’m going to tell him a thing, and maybe I might pitch my thing.” And I was just like, “Yeah, man.” The first time I actually said it was on the phone with you, and I was just like, “Man, I don’t think I’ve actually been taking care of myself like on purpose,” you know what I’m saying? So when you’re talking about habits and we’re talking about addicts about habits, okay, because I’m an addict, right? Sure. We’re also talking about the comfort of what food gives me as a safe place. I can’t afford a trip out of town, I can’t afford these other things, but I can afford a Wendy’s, you know what I’m saying? Once I was able to figure out what it was, and you’ve helped me with this, it changed my life. But what do you do with someone who knows they need to change but they’re not ready? Because I got people in my life that need this message, but I don’t even know how to initiate that conversation.
No, that’s great. I mean, I think you hit it right on the head. I think the vast majority of people don’t think they need this until they either get a health scare or one day they look in the mirror and they go, “Whoa, what happened?” or someone takes one of those side pictures at a party, yeah, and they go, “Whoa, I have two chins.” You know, I don’t like the way I look. And that impacts them in such a way that they actually take action. The truth of the matter is we believe that 99.9% of people are addicted to food to one extent or another. Yes, and the reason for that is because obviously food is great, food was meant to be enjoyed. But like all other things that were meant to be enjoyed, most of the time, we tend to sort of pervert those things. And so, food is that innocent drug. As a matter of fact, a lot of people that are watching this are probably listening to and going, “Wait, food, really an addiction?” And what it takes is actually putting those people in abstinence from certain foods for them to understand how addicted they are, right? Because the vast majority of people I talk to are like, “Wait, no, I’m not addicted to food. I only have 10, 15, 20 pounds to lose.” And I have people that come to my program that don’t need to lose any weight and are addicted to food, yeah. And so, it’s the reason why you use food, right? And so, anytime that you get stressed, there’s adversity, there’s friction in your life, what we’re looking for is our brain is scanning for a dopamine hit. Dopamine is that neuro-receptor that’s associated with well-being. And so, we either get that from… you have a vice in your life. For some people, it could be drugs, alcohol. Those are kind of the more notorious vices. But no one ever thinks about food, yeah. And yet, it’s the addicting thing. And so, you know, you talked about going through grief, right? And maybe not even being able to express that yet. You’re living that grief out practically every single day and tapping into that vice that’s sort of alleviating that pain. And you’re finding that in food. And so, it gets tricky. But you’re in a place where most people still have yet to get to, which is the recognition, “Hey, there’s an issue and something needs to change.”
Yeah, I think one of the things that you said that made it so easy to onboard, right, and this is something that James Clear talks about in his book “Atomic Habits” when he talks about just showing up or, you know, showing up to the gym for five minutes or just… right, and that starting that process was I got the grocery list. I go to the grocery store. And then I got to cook the food. But your first thing wasn’t cook the food, it was preheat the oven and turn on your favorite song.
It’s easy to be patient with your kids, but if I’m on the road with you and you’re driving slow, I’m gonna be mad, you know what I’m saying? So, like, I think that I had to reconcile that. Like, “Oh, I need to spread this thing out.” What fatherhood has allowed me to see is that this existence is transferable. It doesn’t have to live under this one umbrella. And so, you know, that’s been something that’s, you know, has been life-changing for me. But I’m also toying around with this other concept. And this is just, I don’t know if you can speak truth to this. So, um, I realized that when you’re from poverty, um, you see what other people see as the goal. Yeah. You see other people’s tools as goals. So, when you see a house, you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I just want to own a house.” A house is a tool. Yeah, right. But we think of it as the goal because we’ve never owned houses, right? College degrees, “I just need to graduate.” You get a college degree, now what? Right? You go to the grocery store, you get the food, now what? Right? And the same thing with marriage, the same thing with, you know, relationships, children. We don’t have a plan for the tools, right? A foundational family is a tool. And so, 100%, you know what I mean? So, I’m interested to know, you know, one, I want to know a little bit more about your father, but then I want to know, like, what are the tools you’re using right now in your life that are allowing you to live the life you want to live? Yeah. So, my dad, um, he’s a product of his environment. He grew up very, very poor. He went to work when he was eight years old, and he left when he was 12 and came back as a millionaire doing all the wrong things, right? And so, because I don’t want to glorify that part of his life, I’ll spare the details, but, um, you know, he’s a notorious guy inside of the dark history of Colombia. And he justified it with, “I had to get out of poverty one way or the other.” And so, even though he was never present in my life, my mom did something amazing in that she never spoke ill about my father. She never, and now her sort of thinking behind that was like, “You were going to find out as an adult who your father was. It wasn’t going to come from my mouth, right? Because I was never going to speak ill of him, right? He made his choices. He did what he had to do based on who he was.” And so, I always appreciated that. Um, I was able to draw some very great principles from my dad. My dad loved his mom, right? He did everything for his mom. And in the same way, I’ve always had sort of this idea to protect women and stuff like that. I’m a father to two little girls. Mhm. So, it’s been interesting because what you said in terms of what the family does for us to mold our character, right? I was praying hard. I’ve always… Everything I prayed for has come to fruition in my life. I wanted a boy, and I prayed hard for that boy because I wanted to play soccer with that boy, my little boy. Well, I had two girls, and I had to stop and think, “Why did God give me, you know, why did God give me two girls and not a boy?” Well, when I was a man of the world, I treated women… Mhm. I didn’t respect women.
So now he gave me two little treasures so that I can understand the value of women, mhm, and interacting with them has taught me how to be a better husband. Yeah. Perfect example of that is I remember my little girl at like four just going nuts and throwing a tantrum. She’s crying, and I’m doing the guy thing, “Why are you crying? Stop crying. Everything’s okay.” She was like just bawling, bawling, bawling, bawling. But then I decided to pick her up and hug her, and I just heard her go and relax, and I… That day was… I mean, that was the most impactful lesson ever. Yeah. So now I walk into my marriage and when my wife is agitated for something, I don’t try to fix it or hold her, yeah, I just hold her, right? I just love on her, right? And that’s just one example of the many, many lessons that, you know, marriage and being a dad, you know, brings to the table. And, you know, I understand some people, for one reason or the other, can’t have kids, but man, having kids is an amazing blessing, yeah, when you understand that it’s there to mold your character, um, it’s there to… If you’re a believer, it’s there to move you forward in your progressive sanctification, uh, being a father, being… But doing it right, yeah, being a graceful leader, mhm, the blessings are just never-ending, right? The lessons are never-ending. And so, so, um, I’m a reader. I’ve done, you know, school has been a big thing for me, but my biggest lessons have come from being a father, being a husband. Man, I love that. So, I want to just, you know, talk about my journey with the program. So, still, M, just… Come, just being honest with you, ’cause I already know you, you got smoke for me on this confession. I’m not feeling the food, right? Right? But that’s because I’m a salt, yeah, I’m a heavy, you know what I’m saying? I use the other side. I don’t even like, you know how they got the holes perforated for the salt and all that stuff, yeah, I dump it in my hand and I, you know what I’m saying? All over, regardless. Um, I’ve been more consistent with this, you know, I’m 17 lbs down. I haven’t… I haven’t got under the 200 yet, which we were expecting, mhh, but um, and that’s because of my routine, sure, you know, my routine. I need to keep working on the slow burs, but I am in a better place than I’ve ever been. I feel very comfortable and good in my body. Like, um, it’s easier for me to breathe. I’ve been sleeping deeper. Um, I think when we first started, I was getting like four to five hours of sleep, and now I’m getting seven and eight. That’s awesome, um, so I already can see the difference and feel the difference. I’m… I’m… I’m committed to the end. I want to see… I’m already for the next stage, you know what I’m saying?
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