778 - The Surprising Link Between Physical Health and Recovery_Edit PR
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[00:00:00] Hey, what's up my man? It's Athea Sam here. Welcome to Unleash The Man Within. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you're having an amazing day. Uh, and look, I want to thank all of you who have been submitting questions, sharing our content, subscribing and listening, continuing to support the podcast, it means the world to us, it helps so much.
I cannot tell you, uh, really appreciate it. Please continue to do that. And if you haven't left the rain or review yet on your preferred platform, make sure you do that as well. That signals to other people that there's quality content here, [00:01:00] and this is actually worth a listen. And, uh, look, we can't do this without you guys.
So I just appreciate the support so far, please keep it coming. It helps us, and you just might change someone's life in the process. Today, we're talking about the surprising link between physical health and recovery. This is a little bit of an interesting subject, and there's, you know, there's no empirical data.
This is really something anecdotal, and it's even a tad bit personal. Although, I suppose there's, you know, indirectly is some data and we could, we could talk about that a little bit last month. I did an episode. I'm going to pull up the name here. I did an episode about the five physical side effects of porn addiction really interesting, you know, because I think I don't think people really appreciate the, the scope of porn's impact on the body.
You know, I think people talk a lot about how it affects someone's relationship. I think a lot of people will talk about how it affects somebody's. spiritual life and their mental health and all that kind of stuff. Uh, but [00:02:00] there's actually five and you can, you can go back. Uh, we talked about them in more detail, but I'll, I'll actually outline them here again, just real quick.
Um, porn induced erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, delayed ejaculation, infertility and eating disorders. Okay. So those are the five effects. And it's very interesting to think that if porn can cause such a deterioration of the body, You know, consuming pornography, then quitting pornography could cause one to treat their body better and maybe walk into greater.
measures of health. And again, that is just a hypothesis. I don't have data to back this up. Although, you know, again, some of these things like they're kind of obvious. I don't think we need a scientific study to know that it's true, but what we witnessed anecdotally is very interesting. And this is something I wanted to talk about today because I've been, you know, just sharing little details about my physical fitness journey.
Uh, you know, we recently just had, um, Sal DeStefano on the podcast. Um, or actually I think Sal's going to be on here in the next episode. Sorry. [00:03:00] Um, who's, you know, he's one of the leading experts in the fitness industry. He and his mind pump team, they're fantastic. Um, I've been really impacted by them and their messaging and their programming.
They've helped me, uh, revolutionize my fitness. Uh, but that's only really the last two and a half years. Uh, my fitness journey goes way, way, way, way back. And I wanted to share a little bit about it because, um, one of the physical side effects of porn addiction. Is an eating disorder, you know, and that was an interesting study.
I think it came out of the Middle East or maybe it's out of Australia. I'm forgetting now where they basically demonstrated that that guys who watch pornography were more likely to engage in, you know, those kind of toxic eating behaviors like binge purge and that kind of stuff. So what it tells us. Is that there's something about pornography and the messaging that is influencing the way people are perceiving their bodies.
Uh, we would better describe that as body. dysmorphia. [00:04:00] So again, if you learn to quit pornography and you do it the right way, which is not just trying to eliminate the symptoms and will power your way through the temptations, but to actually get to the roots to actually be holistic in your recovery and And if you're actually doing this the right way, what should happen is that your view of yourself begins to change.
You know, our third pillar of recovery is identity shift. It's that you, you shed the old identity of, I was addicted. I was a person who couldn't, you know, resist temptation. I was X, Y, Z, but now I am this person. I am ABC. You know, I have a new identity. And part of, of viewing yourself differently. Includes your body.
It includes your physical well being. Now, if you're 200 overweight, it doesn't mean that you know, when you quit porn, you're gonna look at yourself in the mirror. You're gonna be like, man, I'm sexy and I'm in the best shape of my life. Okay. [00:05:00] But what it might mean is you say, man, why am I out of shape like this?
You know, this is crazy. You know, I, I know I can do better. I know I deserve better. And these are the kinds of stories that we we hear, you know, is people start to quit pornography, right? They start to To just go through the process. They get to the roots and they naturally are not watching pornography as much when they're tempted, they have a lot more resilience, et cetera, et cetera.
And then they start to make better decisions for their life. You know, they start to pursue promotions at work and they start to get paid more and they start to maybe start that business. They always wanted to start. And, uh, you know, there's different risks that are being taken. We actually even talked about that in an episode earlier this month, but what I'm really trying to level here is that they start to see themselves.
of greater value and scripturally, there's even a basis for that. You know, in first Corinthians three, it talks about how the temple of God is holy. And we are that temple. We are that temple. We are a temple of the [00:06:00] Holy Spirit. Now, does that mean that every single believer needs to be absolutely ripped, you know, 3 percent body fat, six pack abs and all that stuff.
Of course not. Okay. And I don't want to connect these subjects too tightly because I think, I think that whole being about a temple of the Holy Spirit goes well beyond just our physical body, right? There's, there's, there's deeper dimensions to this. However, at the same time, Uh, one of the things that should happen when you start to quit pornography is you will start to look at your body differently and it means that you'll have a healthy respect for it, a healthy appreciation for it, even if it's not in the shape or condition that you want.
Uh, but thirdly, what might come out of it is you might feel a bit more motivated to get in the shape and the kind of condition that you want. Uh, you know, I, I quit pornography in February 2016, uh, my first time ever at a gym, you know, lifting weights. I was, uh, it would, it would have been 2010, I think, or 2011.
And I [00:07:00] was lifting weights with a buddy who was like, Oh yeah, you know, I've been looking for someone to lift weights with, and he read bodybuilding magazines and all that kind of stuff. And when I look back on it now, he was riddled with insecurity. And so I picked up a bunch of his insecurities and we both kind of have, you know, Kind of frames and so he was really self conscious.
He wants to get more muscular and want to feel big and I, um, you know, even at that age and even when I was still struggling with porn addiction, to be honest, I just kind of wanted to get healthier. I want to take better care of my body. I, uh, I was skin and bones and everybody in their mother would have said, Hey man, you should probably go lift some weights.
Uh, but to be honest, that that was, that was not my thing. It was not about like, man, I'm going to look Jack so I can get girls. I just want to take better care of myself. So But, um, because I didn't know better, I didn't have that stability within myself. I adopted a lot of this guy's philosophies, a lot of his mindsets.
And look, you know, we were young, like, it's not, I'm not trying to throw shade at that guy. He was figuring himself out as well. Uh, just like, you know, we all are at that stage of life in [00:08:00] particular. But the point here is that you can, you can kind of do these good things for the wrong. And so that was me, you know, this is, um, I'm struggling with pornography, I'm trying to figure it out. Um, you know, I remember there were certain times in my addiction where, you know, if you, I, again, I don't even know what, I don't know how they titled videos now, so I haven't been on the site in so long.
But, um, back in my day, at least when I was struggling and watching a lot of pornography, so many of the videos were titled around the men. Appendage right around it, around his body part. They're describing the size of it or the length of it or whatever. And I would get so self conscious that I, I used to go and like, I would get a measuring tape and I would measure my own because I felt like, man, if I don't match up to this, like what woman is, is going to want to be with me, you know, I'm inadequate, I'm insufficient.
Uh, these kinds of insecurities existed. That's sort of the point that I'm trying to make. All right. Now, my second bout of, uh, taking care of my physical body was in 20. Okay. [00:09:00] And, uh, early 2016, um, and I was, uh, I was a pastor and lifting weights sort of became this really nice outlet for me. Now, I also had my last relapse in the beginning of 2016, and this is where things get really interesting.
So I quit, uh, pornography. And again, it's not like, you know, the next day. March 1st, 2016. I looked in the mirror and I thought, man, I'm going to get ripped or man, I need to take care of better care of my body. But I'll tell you what happened probably about a year later is I was no longer working out because it was just a stress reliever or whatever.
I was working out because I felt really good in my body when I would take care of it. I just felt it was nice to feel strong. It was nice to kind of push myself a little bit to see what I could do. And the whole experience of working out began to shift because my entire view of myself. And of my body was beginning to change, and it was really, really cool.
And what it did is it laid a foundation. It built a set of habits that have [00:10:00] now served me for many years since. And like I mentioned, you know, before I started lifting weights consistently for the last two and a half years and being more intentional and just kind of educating myself because I didn't really do that before.
Before I was lifting weights, I was actually, you know, I was running and I was doing some HIIT workouts online and I always had this kind of muscle of just taking care of myself. Uh, you know, it's funny, um, Sean, my lead coach and I, we were recording some content, uh, maybe about a month ago. And I, I saw him, he came on one day and, and he said, He just looked bigger.
He just kind of looked jacked. And I was like, Hey man, you look great. Like what's, what's going on over there. And he was like, Oh yeah, you know, Sean, he's always just been very good at taking care of himself. Uh, but again, these are, these are the kinds of shifts that start to happen when you quit pornography.
And the reason I wanted to talk about this on the episode today is because I think, um, I think sometimes we forget that other areas of our life that are also struggling. Are often more related to porn addiction and that struggle with pornography [00:11:00] than we realize. And this is the beauty of taking a holistic approach and really getting to the roots.
If you get to the roots of porn addiction, you end up solving the root problems of a bunch of other areas of your life as well. Now, it's not the pill that just fixes everything. Okay. I want to make that. Super clear. But what I would like to suggest to you is that if you're willing to embark on the journey of getting to the bottom of things, getting to the root issues, really putting in the work and improving yourself on an internal level, you will not just quit pornography, but you will probably want to take better care of yourself.
Physically. You probably eat better. You probably exercise more. Your relationships get better. Your spiritual health gets better. The list goes on and on, but I'm telling you somewhere on that list is taking better care of your physical body. I'm living proof Sean's living proof and we've seen it happen.
We've seen it happen in tons of our clients as well. So it's a good reminder guys that everything in your life where you feel stagnation, where you feel stuck or maybe you even feel like you're receding, Hey, that might actually have to do with the same root issues that are driving that porn addiction.
Get to [00:12:00] those root issues. You'll take care of everything else at the same time. Okay. That's everything for today. Thank you again for listening. Make sure you leave a rating or review on your broadcast platform. In the meantime, thank you guys for listening. We'll talk soon. Bye bye. [00:13:00]
