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Eric O’Grey on Being Rescued by an Obese, Middle-Aged Dog: PYP 161

eric-ogreyEric O’Grey co-stars in a 6-minute video that’s been viewed over 50 million  times. He’s been on NPR, Rachael Ray, Oprah.com, and Today.com. He runs multiple marathons a year, advocates for animal rescue and plant-based diets, and is in the process of inking a book deal.

All because of a scruffy, obese, middle-aged rescue dog.

In 2010, Eric was himself an obese recluse, chowing down on two Domino’s Meat Lovers’ pizzas for dinner, and avoiding as much social contact as possible. He hadn’t been on a date in 15 years, because he felt so damn unattractive.

He was spending a grand a month on prescription meds (and that was just a fraction of what his insurance company was ponying up), and the most relevant medical advice he’d been given was, “Invest in a cemetery plot. You’re gonna need it sometime in the next five years.”

(Side rant: Don’t you love it that doctors can be that blunt, but are afraid to tell their patients to stop eating bacon?)

The bottom fell out one day when Eric delayed a plane by 30 minutes because they couldn’t find him a seatbelt extender. The man in the next seat turned on him and complained, “I’m gonna miss my connection because you’re too fat?” That night, Eric prayed for God to kill him.

The next day, Eric caught Bill Clinton’s interview with Wolf Blitzer, where Clinton revealed his vegan diet to the world. Eric noticed that Clinton looked healthy for the first time ever.

That gave Eric hope that he too could change. Despite decades and dozens of failed diets, Eric made an appointment with a local vegan naturopath. She changed his diet, and told him to adopt a dog.

And the rest is history.

[powerpress]

Eric and I spoke on all manner of things, including:

  • “I was a snowball rolling downhill” – the vicious cycle of obesity and social withdrawal
  • why he decided to forgo bariatric surgery
  • the difference between MDs and NDs – keep mopping the floor, or turn off the spigot
  • the importance of support systems in making a big change
  • Eric’s allotted lifeline to his past: 6 cans of tuna fish
  • coming face to face with Peety, the rescue dog: “‘Really?’ we both said.”
  • losing 5 pounds a week without effort (from 340 to 180 in 10 months)
  • the root cause of his obesity -“I was a loner from a broken home”
  • how Peety was Eric’s bridge of absolute and unconditional love and friendship
  • “I wanted to become the person Peety thought I already was”
  • the tragedy of The Biggest Loser and the scientific misinterpretation of its failure
  • the American diet as a deadly collection of addictions
  • going pre-med to understand the link between food and health
  • eating as much as we want, if we do it right (vs portion control)
  • why Eric describes himself as plant-based, even though he’s “every kind of vegan”
  • the three films and three books he recommends to everyone (sadly, I didn’t write any of them, although I do appear in the background of one of the movies for about 3 seconds)
  • why Eric took up running after he lost all his excess weight
  • eating up to 5000 calories a day while training for long distances
  • the Shmulik podcast
  • becoming a spokesperson for Mutual Rescue™
  • and much more…

Enjoy, add your voice to the conversation via the comment box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.

Links

EricandPeety.com (go there for links to pretty much everything else)

Bill Clinton's interview with Wolf Blitzer

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Check out my online TV show, Triangle Be Well. This week I talk about how to talk with your doctor about your health and healthcare choices.

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Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

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Dr Howie Jacobson

This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).

My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.

Here are three gigs that I do:

1. Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation

I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high  performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.

At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.

My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.

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I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.

We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.

The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.

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So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.

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What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.

Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.

 

Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

Gratitudes

Thanks to Plant Yourself podcast patrons – Kim Harrison – Lynn McLellan – Brittany Porter – Dominic Marro – Barbara Whitney – Tammy Black – Amy Good – Amanda Hatherly – Mary Jane Wheeler – Ellen Kennelly – Melissa Cobb – Rachel Behrens – Tina Scharf – Tina Ahern – Jen Vilkinofsky – David Byczek – Michele X – Elspeth Feldman – Leah Stolar – Allan Kristensen – Colleen Peck – Michele Landry – Jozina – Sara Durkacs – Kelly Cameron – Janet Selby – Claire Adams – Tom Fronczak – Jeannette Benham – Gila Lacerte – David Donohue – Blair Seibert – Doron Avizov – Gio and Carolyn Argentati – Jodi Friesner – Mischa Rosen – Michael Worobiec – AvIvA Lael – Alicia Lemus – Val Linnemann – Nick Harper – Bandana Chawla – Molly Levine – The Inscrutable Harry R – Susan Laverty the Panda Vegan – Craig Covic – Adam Scharf – Karen Bury – Heather Morgan – Nigel Davies – Marian Blum – Teresa Kopel – Julian Watkins – Brid O'Connell – Shannon Herschman – Linda Ayotte – Holm Hedegaard – Isa Tousignant – Connie Haneline – Erin Greer – Alicia Davis – Heather O'Connor – Carollynne Jensen – Sheri Orlekoski of Plant Powered for Health – Karen Smith – Scott Mirani – Karen and Joe Crabtree – Kirby Burton – Theresa Carrell – Kevin Macaulay – Elizabeth Rothschild – Ann Jesse – Sheryl Dwyer – Jenny Hazelton – Peter W Evans – Dennis Bird – Darby Kelly – Lori Fanney – Linnea Lundquist – Emily Iaconelli – Levi Wallach – Rosamonde McAtee – Dan Pokorney – Stephen Leinin – Patty DeMartino – Mike and Donna Kartz – Deanne Bishop – Bilberry Elf – Marjorie Lewis – Tricia Adams – Nancy Sheldon – Lindsey Bashore – Gunn Marit Hagen – Tracey Gulledge – Lara Hedin – Meg from Mamasezz – Stacey Stokes – Ben Savage – Michael K – David Hughes -Coni Rodgers – Claire England – Sally Robertson – Parham Ganchi – Amy Dailey – Brian Tourville – Mark Jeffrey Johnson – Josie Dempsey – Caryn Schmitt – Pamela Hayden – Emily Perryman – Allison Corbett – Richard Stone – Lauren Vaught of Edible Musings – Erin Hastey – Sean Owens – Sagar Naik – Erika Piedra – Danielle Roberts – Michael Leuchten – Sarah Johnson – Katharine Floyd – Meryl Fury – for your generous support of the podcast.

Disclosure

This post may contain amazon affiliate links. I may receive compensation from your actions on such links. It don't cost you a dime, tho.

1 comment on “Eric O’Grey on Being Rescued by an Obese, Middle-Aged Dog: PYP 161

  1. Thank You says:

    Thank You for another wonderful podcast.

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