Matt Buckner's low point came one day about 9 years ago, when he was 41. He was getting ready for an international business trip, and realized that one of his key medications, tramadol, was going to run out during the trip.
The drug, which Matt took for the back pain caused by his morbid obesity, was one of five meds that he consumed every day. The others were for hypertension, high cholesterol, acid reflux, and depression.
Matt also suffered from sleep apnea; his wife would force herself to stay awake at night so she could hear when he stopped breathing and wake him up.
While waiting on line at the drug store, without an up-to-date prescription since he couldn't get in touch with his doctor on short notice on a Friday afternoon, Matt looked around and saw the other people in line. All of them old and sick. There's where he was headed.
Matt took action.
He started with keto and extreme caloric restriction, which helped him lose 50 pounds in a single month. But it was unsustainable, and he was not a nice, happy person during that time. He would deprive himself of food and work out hard at the gym as punishment, as expressions of self-loathing.
Eventually, he discovered Forks Over Knives on Netflix, and the suggested next movie was Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. While eating a whole-food plant-based diet made some sense to Matt, it was the extreme deprivation and maniacal focus required by consuming nothing but vegetable juice that really appealed to his inner masochist.
The next set of influences, including Rich Roll, Josh LaJaunie, and Rip Esselstyn, gradually shifted Matt away from his carbophobia, and into a lifestyle that was predicated on self-love rather than self-loathing. And one that was sustainable from both physiological and psychological standpoints.
Matt is now one of the unofficial running coaches for members of the super-secret “Missing Chins Run Club,” and has been a huge help and inspiration to many others who want to shift to a healthy, active lifestyle.
Matt's hope for this podcast – and his public advocacy in general – is to inspire people to realize, “Hey, if that guy can do it, then so can I!”
As he approaches his 50th birthday, he's looking forward to more wild adventures, including running the Leadville marathon again (or is it for the third time?), pacing fellow Chin Jason Cohen in the Leadville 100, and back-boning the Chins relay team in the 200-mile Florida Coast to Coast Relay this coming April.
Links
The Grind: A Missing Chins Podcast
The Missing Chins Lifestyle Health Club on Facebook
Forks Over Knives
Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead
Florida Coast to Coast Relay
Leadville 100 mile race
Jason Cohen on Plant Yourself
Josh LaJaunie on Plant Yourself
Rip Esselstyn on Plant Yourself
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.
2. Executive Coaching: Quick Wins for High Performance
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.
3. High Stakes Conversations for Fast Growing Small Business Teams
I help small business teams have high stakes conversations with skill, humor, and grace. When people feel safe, they can do their best, most creative, most collaborative work.
So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.
You CAN Change Other People!
Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.
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
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