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Fat Burning Chef George Bryant

All right so george why don't we just uh start with your story a little bit of of your background as a former marine so when he struggled with eating disorders losing a bunch of weight I know a lot of people can really connect with that yeah, you know my story better than most feel free we call it the roller coaster journey of george because it's been very tumultuous and up and down so keep me on track with this one so uh to really start with it like abel mentioned I'd lost a total of about ninety seven pounds which I think I've gained about ten back so I'm about one seventy one seventy four right now but at my heaviest actually ballooned up to two forty seven so the journey kind of started when I was a kid I had a very unhealthy upbringing with my family like I don't ever remember having a family dinner with my actual family which was pretty crazy family dinners were considered takeout come home plop on the floor in front of tv and that's if everyone in the family was even there so gr...

owing up it was ingrained in me that you know quick was easy and easy was healthy and obviously we know that that's not the case you've been talking about it all day so it was my first formal dance and I went to get fitted for ah suit at the dance and I was there and the gentleman there was being extremely helpful may help me trying to suit but the problem was is that my jacket and my pants we're too different complete sizes and he was trying to be really really quiet about it supportive and a family member made a comment you know what it was that first comment that started that really unhealthy relationship with food and I didn't have any mentors or any gods to really teach me along the way so in high school being the new kid that moved all the time having a very rough family path social services being on my own since I was like fifteen I was picked on all the time didn't have a really good support structure I turned to food as a comfort so when I would get stressed and when I would get bogged down I would run and hide and I would I would binge eating I would eat any any any any until I couldn't eat anymore and then I would cry I would purge and it was just horrible and uh the social pressures of being a teenager is enough in this world already and then having a very dysfunctional family on top of it with the peer pressure in the social pressure that comes along with not being the popular kid just developed these horrible habits so I decided that at seventeen this was not in a good environment for may so I forge my father's signature on the documents to join the military um later found out but he supported may so it's cool um I graduated high school barely I think my teacher's kind of just passed me to get me out of there and they're like this guy will do better things if we just let him leave there was like this this imprisonment camp and I graduated high school three weeks later I left for boot camp a za marine I figured that if I wanted to kind of break the mold that I was built into that I had to find the hardest thing that I could do just to kind of give myself the confidence to do it so it was july twenty ninth, two thousand two I left for boot camp parris island some yellow footsteps very intimidating place when you get off of but you don't even get off the bus they come to the airport they're screaming at you when you leave the terminal before you even get on the bus to go here so that was a really fun twelve weeks and it started a really, really awesome journey for me in my life so I joined the marine corps did the boot camp thing I had to lose you know this I had to lose about forty pounds to go to boot camp because I was overweight side a recruiter that put me through like the weightlifting and wrestling paces like the day before my way and I was in a sauna and trash bags running up and down the stairs till exhaustion like the most unhealthy thing that you could possibly do and I'm mainly upset because I could have just eat bacon on lost the weight the same way and not dealt with that whole journey in my life so I got me down to wait I graduated boot camp a soaking wet one hundred fifty five pounds like that that's like covered in gallons of water I may be weighed one fifty five so I looked like skeletor or like my cheekbones were collapsed like it was it was quite a view so that was right in the, uh the end of two thousand two and then went through my marine combat training there my job and then in two thousand four I actually deployed to somalia lovely place, destination, vacation, wedding go for it and I was there for thirteen months actually, and when you're there I worked eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. All you have to do is eat, go to the gym and sleep when you're not working so I had this whole napoleon complex that it developed from being overweight in high school and then being the skinny guy like I just wanted to prove everybody wrong, so I was like, well if I eat is much as possible and I lift as much weight as possible, I'm going to get his biggest possible kind of like what you talked about earlier, I was exceeding memories and sugar and everything, and I ballooned up in my bulking phase is what what weightlifters call it so my overly bloated inflamed an overweight face to about two twenty five or two thirty, and the worst part was, is that such a young age? I was twenty at the time. You don't understand the ramifications that those severe changes have on your body. I'm I'm not sure I mean, I'm not tall, I'm you know, five, seven and a quarter on a good day, and, uh, my body is not designed to walk around carrying all that excess way and eating all those things that I'm not literally ingrained or in tune to eat. So what had happened over time is I was still there. I weighed two hundred thirty pounds, I had to spend my days going out on foot patrols for miles and miles a day, hours and hours a day is one hundred thirty to one hundred fifty degrees. Well, over time, my lower legs, actually. Became extremely inflamed and I thought what I developed with shin splints, you know, and what's the big thing, the military, if it doesn't hurt you put a bandit on, it takes him ibuprofen, you go on for the day like we're not allowed to be hurt, so I kept that mentality and it was actually on my twenty first birthday where most people go out and binge drink my lower legs exploded in the middle of somalia, so I have what's called exercise I had what is called exercise induced compartment syndrome, so I was running to a helicopter and my legs started to go numb, but I didn't really have the option to stop you, khun deduce why didn't stop just for my own survival and my legs, they felt like shin splints, I was literally pushing as hard as I could not like, well, you know what? I really have no choice, and then they could, they kind of went numb and I'm like, well, I'm going to make it not a big deal. Well, what happened was all the blood was rushing for my heart down to my legs and I had such a massive frame, and then I also had on about eighty pounds of gear, the blood actually made it to my foot and couldn't come back up so the compartments in my calf you have four compartments in your calf anterior post here into overflows they started filling with blood and couldn't drain so they filled until my skin literally ripped open off of my legs great story right? I'll never forget my twenty first like I said big bacon would have been the better choice s o that's where that's where things really like got real for me I got medevacked out um I came back to united states I had six surgeries over the course of six months on dh that's when my eating their sort of really really took control and came back in my life because I was such a control freak everything I did I was in control of my food I could control whether I was a big guy control whether I was the skinny guy but it was all up to me and I had to relinquish that control because I was in a wheelchair for twelve months with a pc a pump of pain meds into my body I had no control and when you don't have any control and you're not ready to relinquish it and get a healthy relationship with food I did but I knew best and I turned to food for comfort and I started binge eating I mean I remember I used to order whole domino's pizzas pepperoni taken entire bottle of ranch and an entire bottle of hot sauce and I would eat the entire thing, and then I would spend the next eighteen to twenty four hours either purging and not eating or crying and just taking pain pills and and it's not healthy and it's not a glamorous thing to talk about, but I think it needs to be talked about more because this happens and it's so prevalent in society. And, you know, I've been on your podcast numerous times, and we've talked about my eating disorders, my struggle with food, and we get the most touching and amazing e mails from people that just needed someone to talk about it, to say I would really want to work on this s and drive them towards this lifestyle. So I spent twelve months in a wheelchair about eighteen months total of physical therapy. Originally, they told me they're going to amputate both my legs. I didn't like that answer then they told me I'd never walk again didn't like that answer either on dh. Then I met this awesome physical therapist. I got moved to hawaii at the time, awesome physical therapy out there, and she put me in some vibram five fingers before they were cool. No one knew what they were like that back in the day, like two thousand five and really worked hard with me for about six months to eight months and realized that I needed a goal. I needed control again control. So she signed me up for a triathlon, like, six months down the road. I mean, mind you, I could barely walk on a treadmill, you know, I was using a cane, I was going around on crutches, but she knew that if I had that goal that it would click. So she worked me every day, every day, every day they tried to medically kick me out of marine corps, then ironic. Now that I'm out now, andi, I thought and thought and thought I'm like no, I'm doing my twenty years, you're not going to get rid of me. I'm gonna win. I did that try off long. I placed third in my age division for a sprint which was crazy. The fact I could even run three miles after what had gone on with my legs. It was pretty difficult. But then that started the next the next journey which we we all talk about the triathlon endurance athlete phase where, you know, bukit up epo was the fuel of choice where you go out to dinner and you knocked down six pounds of pasta before a race two days later because that sugar is going to do really well filling up your waist and then the booze on then the homemade energy packets. So I did that for about two years. I did do travels and why it was great for me. It kind of got me started in this whole health thing. And when I realized that the physical therapist help me lose this way, it kind of healed my eating temporarily. It could put a band aid over it because I'm like I will. I look decent again, you know, like it's, not about image there's no, really social pressure going on, causing problems right now, so I just kind of lived in and continued it. I'd get to a point where I would call myself skinny fat. I was like one hundred eighty five pounds with a t shirt on. I looked amazing, you took my t shirt off and it looked like I was carrying around a spare tire and I was ashamed of myself and I could never figure out why, but I mean, I was literally eating a diet primarily composed of carbs and sugar. I mean, it is possible this and bread this and I had to have my brown rice and I had to have my oatmeal in the morning and all these things that I wouldn't even touch with a ten foot pole now but they were they were healthy at the time so I stayed around that wait for awhile got my eating disorder and check it kind of state regulated I got to the point rounds deploying again so I was deploying over and over again and then fast forward uh, two years ago I was in afghanistan, my last tour in afghanistan before I get out and I was literally awake for like twenty four hours already and I had like, another day and a half to go before I could sleep so you know, outside of snorting coffee beans in tabasco like you really run out of things to do and I don't like reading like I'm not gonna lie to people like if it's got pictures all day yes, no pictures I am not doing it but it's the exact opposite effect on may it bores me so much it keeps me awake like and I have to tell you that my my boredom pretty much saved my life because I was in afghanistan and in this one humvee someone had tim ferriss his book the for our body and rob wolfe's book the paleo solution and I was like, what is this barely a thing? This is stupid, right? And actually open tim's book to the very inappropriate parts that are in there the funny comical things there runs, get tagged in there and then I got to the dia portion of like, all this is awesome and then like this, this is cool. I don't really like beans anyway, so, you know, it's him sole slow card thing, I was like, well, I'm just going to do without the beans and then once a week I get to eat, whatever the heck I want as much as I want that lasted like a week because I realized really quick after that first benjy, it was sending me right down, you know, negative road again, and I want to get out of that. So I started looking around some or I googled him, and I actually found him and rob talking together and that's how I stumbled on paleo and rob wolfe's book, and I picked his book up, and this is how I know that a miracle we're meant to happen. I picked it up and I didn't put it down till I was done, and I was like, it was like that moment like that. Ah ha, moment that we always talk about when people want to change their life, it hit that moment for may, you know, and everything kind of came full circle and cleared. And I was like, I have some mental clarity now and I really this is so simple to may I can eat meat, I can eat vegetables, I can eat these things as much as I want whenever I want and I can feel good, I don't have the sugar crashes, I don't have the cravings, I don't have anything to go along with it, and I was like, I got to try this my best friend lay me at the time was in afghanistan with me, of course I had a rube someone in with may way, we've been doing drinking the crossfit kool aid and doing all this other stuff I'm like, hey, guess what else you got to d'oh now you gotta eat like this in the middle of afghanistan with may this is going to be great because we have so much control over our food uh, so we did the best that we could, um I made friends with a few people in california, so all these companies of food products that I wanted to eat, they couldn't ship out to afghanistan, I would buy in bulk and masses and send the california that package them up and send me steve's, paleo kids and caveman cookies were sold on amazon and amazon is crack for people in afghanistan because two day delivery happens in afghanistan, right itself if you anybody has any family friends in afghanistan, if you want to buy him something amazon it up, they are awesome, I think like thirty percent of their business has to come from us like I'm only a prime member because amazon gut and took care of me in afghanistan, so we ordered these cave men cookies I going nuts online in order pounds of mac in abyan nuts like pounds and pounds got it really like almonds? Um academics has tasted amazing to me and now I know why and they're all fat and good for may and I would live off he's the best I could, so my diet consists of going to the child all for breakfast because at a salad bar harbor old eggs, I would literally put hard boiled eggs in my pocket and walk around afghanistan one hundred twenty five degrees outside. I got gear on, but any time you find if you tap my pocket you'd crack an egg because like they're always on may and then I'd eat jerky and nuts for the rest of the day the best I could. So afghanistan came in, and when I came home in april of two thousand eleven and I was like, now is the time I've been cross fitting pretty extensively I dropped from one hundred eighty five pounds at about a hundred seventy five I felt great I look to me I had a two pack which was like who I mean like I was taken selfies in the mirror I was I was all over the two packed like the vanities have completely over because I have never seen that before like I thought keg was it for may so I kind of got hooked on that one and then I was like, I'm gonna do this paleo thing like I'm gonna do this whole heartedly here's the problem the only thing I ever cooked was when I gave someone a credit card and pay them to make it for me I'd never ever made anything like unless it was one of those you have those box meals where you take out the box or some policy in in a can thing you dump it in together and throw it in the oven and I was like dinner gourmet right? Or I'd go to the store and I buy the prepackaged cookie dough not bad like coconut and then bring it to someone's house with two daughters made you cookies and like all these air awesome like a homemade I'm like what do you mean? I'm like I opened the package put it on the platter sprinkle some coconut, tossed it in the oven homemade and that was that was literally extent of my cooking so it was very, very daunting and intimidating for me to be like ok, I have this life that I could live be completely healthy ideal feel great sleep better all my allergies to go away I'll lose weight regulate my hormones everything but it's going to require some effort and then I had this sort of life where I could eat all this package stuff but go down a road of bulimia orthorexia, body image issues, binge eating depression, chemical imbalances no serotonin levels everything and I'm like this one's easy for may, you know, like it I equate it to cars for people you know, like one of the things we both experienced I'll tell me both get e mails all the time is I can't do this or it's too much for me. It's too stressful for mayor it's too expensive for mayor I just I don't need to feed my body like that and I just help people make fun and like, go put water in your gas tank and drive to work and they just like they gave you this blank stare and I like what do you mean your car wouldn't work if you didn't put the right fuel in it and I'm like, but yet we have this vessel that carries us every day throughout the day and we ignore it ninety percent of the time because of convenience because we've been ingrained and trained to use technology and facebook and iphones and cellphones and everything has to be fast and we run around in this sympathetic state and our bodies were never like optimally processing our food because we're all over the place. So that's why I started loving cooking like I was like I got to teach myself on a couple of paleo websites bill in hailey was the first one we're going to their wedding next week we have way have the paleo royal wedding going on every paleo blogger I know is flying out we're baking cookies for their cookie table we got an entire gluten for menu we got jenny's grasp it ice cream that I must talk about on I just realized it after the fact I love you hayley um so we have this amazing thing going on, but those are the people that I looked up to you I found this website on like these people have taken control, their health bill quit his corporate job, hayley stopped being her makeup artists and they they took this journey of cooking and food dea then they put such love in their food and I was like, this is like amazing to me and they're like the sweetest people in the world, so you kind of gotta stick with them and I was like, I'm gonna make their recipes so I started with their website I made a couple of recipes from the gym I'm like this is easy and it tastes amazing. It just so happens that the first responders cookies not like the best way to start, but it was better than what I was eating before, but it really opened the door for me, and it made it fun, and it made the whole journey is a learning experience for me, and it resonated a lot better with me, so I was more likely to stay on it. So I kept cooking and I spent thirty days I didn't work out and into anything except eat paleo and smile a whole lot more than ever smiled in my life, and, uh, the results were absolutely amazing that two pac turn into a six pack. Um, I automatically had this card to take my shirt off the beach, even I don't really go to the beach, but I wanted to be a cz vein as that sounds, but I had this whole new phone confidence and everything just felt great. I never had issues or thoughts about bingeing on food or purging or, you know, eating too much or like having this obsession with working out like it kind of relinquished all that control for me and taught me that I was going to be completely ok. If I just stood here and ate what I was designed to eat and let my body operate like it was designed to dio and I felt amazing, you know, I smiled a lot more depression went away, my allergies. Um, I know you talked about your allergies with food, but I was always there to dust dirt dogs. We paul in grass hey, I mean, I carried epipens around just when I went in the backyard, so after I went paleo for thirty days, I did self experimentation less. We all do, and I ran over to the bush and rubbed falling all over my face, and I had a friend standing by with my epipen, and I was like, if my face swells right in the leg, like, right here, and then we stood there for, like, a half an hour and I was fine, and I'm like, you got to be kidding me like what's going on, you know, I've spent my whole life in this this area where I thought I was allergic to all these things seafood, a bunch of their foods, and it was literally just chronic inflammation that had prevented me from eating all these things, so, um, I made some recipes, I started a facebook page, I didn't even know what a blogger wass I ran this facebook page for about thirty days, and I was posting recipes in the note section, and I'd people like her jet arrest people, where is it? I'm like right there that where's there? Apparently, no one uses the note section on facebook. I still don't even know how to get there now to get what I have, and they're out of their ex about how ingrained I am on that one, and they're like, we want to start a blogger and of course I did though what's a blogged, and they're like long. They sent me to blogger made this web site up, posted some photos and recipes, and off it went, and that was I was two years ago, and then it took two about a year and a half ago of living this lifestyle, teaching people like how I've learned the whole journey like the journey from day one for me, I taught myself food photography, I talked myself website design, I taught myself how to cook, how to do all this stuff. So it's been this amazing like, life altering journey for me? And I really just want to share it with the world and and let people know that it can be fun and it can be amazing, and it doesn't have to be stressful and like the worst. This is my favorite thing. The worst thing that's going to happen is the food isn't going to taste good, like the worst thing, like your car is not going to crash. Your electricity is not going to get shut off. You may burn your kitchen down, but I highly doubt it because I don't have complicated recipes with the worst thing is going to happen is you have to throw some honey on a desert, some mustard, barbecue sauce and some food and child down and never make that mistake again. You know, so this whole journey is like just teaching people fun, love cooking excitement in the kitchen, being creative and trying new things and like just living the roller coaster and like the pretty much just continual high that you get when you eat this way because it doesn't really stop for me every day, every time we see each other, every time we catch up with these events and these conferences where I come out of it, it's, like we always have good news. And it's just like this lifestyle has spawned amazing good news for me so I can say that I haven't had any issues with any eating disorders in about a year and a half I told the world about it about eight months ago uh this guy got me drunk in boston at two o'clock in the morning about about a year ago and I'm standing the middle of faneuil hall bawling my eyes out it two thirty in the morning there was a slight missed two it was something out of the notebook just with where the bromance so that intimate mode they kind of kindled everything we became best friends and business partners and it's been an amazing incredible journey and then it get me standing here with you on creative life it's so cool and one of the coolest things about your journey to zero it from a couple years ago didn't know how to cook anything at all and now you have like ninety thousand facebook fans like his many is creative live who love your cooking yes he went from zero so like a food celebrity so for those of you out there who are just like oh I don't know how to cook that is not an excuse george right here standing here right now peru rules that that is not an excuse you get anyone can just get in and make some cookies and on that note why don't we do some of those improv cookies. All right, we're talking so, george, people are asking, where can they find your block with all of these amazing recipes? Oh, yes, yes. That's it actually easy. Once on my web site is civilized caveman cooking dot com I know it's a tongue twister, but I thought it was really cute when I made it. I misspell it myself almost every day when I try to go there google is your best bet. Just civilized cavemen but that's my website my facebook dot com slash civil as cave man twitter is cooking cave man, because civilized is one letter to loan instagram missive last cave man and then obviously, I'm linked off abel's website. We have an awesome app out called cave man feast. Um, I personally use it more often than not a few people sitting here use it. Thank you. As long as it tastes good. Then I'm going to completely support you and highlight that you tell me it's bad. I'm not gonna talk, but yes. So I post you know, I try and post about one or two recipes a week, and I have, I think two hundred seventy paleo rescues on my website gluten for great for dairy free desserts the world famous recipe that got able hook is my crock pot pulled pork alison and the audience is a huge fan of it as well actually about abel a crock pot for his birthday because I thought it was a sin for him to cook this meat in this thing he had in his house and I wanted it to come out perfect every time but one of my favorite things about it is the time issue is one thing we run into people time I don't have time to make this I don't have you know like the space to do this I can't without all these pots when I want to cook well, I kind of answer that question for you take a pork shoulder, rub it with rub put it in a crock pot with a quarter cup of water and walk away so this guy the way that we kind of get introduces we ran into each other a few times and he's just like you I mean you like barbecue stuff I'm like absolutely and he's like you should try my my pulled pork it's the best you've ever had him like yeah yeah right whatever george way thought I had him on my show we talked about a little more just like no, you should actually make it I'm like all right, you know I've been to like so many of the best barbecue restaurants all across the country and, like, I know what good barbecue is, but I'll do it anyway, whatever, george. And so, you know, we go to the farmer's market, we get a four pound pork shoulder, throw it in the crock pot, you know, spice it all up before we do. Basically pull it out, take it apart, pull the pork, may cure beastie barbecue sauce on the side, and then I chow down on the best pulled pork in my life, and and it was after that, I'm just like, man, we got to do something together. This we both believe in exactly the same thing. You're changing lives. I want to help you in whatever way I can. And so I'm so stoked that you're here.