We discuss how:
– Skylor started having symptoms of Ankylosing Spondylitis four years ago
– They were quite light initially, but progressively the pain became so high that he had to drop out of college
– He needed painkillers to sleep, two or three times a night
– He tried lots of possible remedies and was even considering spine surgery
– Then one day he tried fasting, and had a 40 percent pain reduction overnight
– A couple of months later he found the episode of the Paddison Podcast with Cherie
– Listening to it he convinced himself to start the Paddison Program
– He’s now on the Program and having excellent results
Clint: This episode is going to be a lot of fun. I’ve got Skyler here with me to talk about Ankylosing Spondylitis, I don’t know his story yet. This is going to be an all new information for me. But he’s telling me that he’s had one of the most transformative years of his life. So I’d like to welcome you Skyler to the Paddison podcast.
Skylor: Hi, yeah it is quite awesome to be here. I’ve been thinking about this for a little while thinking I should e-mail you just to see if I could do something like this and it’s a real honor to be here seriously this is of course thing.
Clint: Fantastic. Well thanks for finding a suitable background in your large house there in Missouri so that we can get something that’s quite nice to look at for folks watching this on YouTube. We’re going to have a chat about your story, your pains that showed up and what you did about it. We’re probably going to chat for a while like we do on most of these episodes so before we do that, give us like a little bit of a, give us just a snapshot of some of the results that you’ve achieved. Not a long version, just in 30 seconds or a minute.
Skylor: All right. Well, to put it really really short, I was to the point where some days I was totally bedridden. I really had a hard time walking even my joint was so inflamed and it was it was really really rough. Specifically, so bad one day that my mom actually had helped me go to the bathroom and you know that gives you an idea. And now I’m able to, I was at the YMCA a couple days ago playing basketball with high schoolers that are you know they’re not they’re not going easy on me. And you know I might have been a little too hard for where I am at right now but that’s I mean I know that my body is in a place where I can recover from that now. I can run, jump, you know I can do anything I really want with pretty little limitation. And it’s pretty awesome.
Clint: One of the inspirations for this you mentioned came from Cherie which was a previous podcast guest. She was the first guest that I had on talking about Ankylosing Spondylitis, and she also inspired another guest who recently appeared on the show with the same condition. So we have a lot to thank, a lot to say thank you for Cherie, and I did actually reach out to her recently. Her and I are still in somewhat regular contact and thanked her yet again because these stories that we share on these platforms enable us to reach other people with similar diagnoses or similar symptoms. And they can then be inspired to make changes, and sometimes it’s just that one thing that we learn or that one person we listen to can be play a massive role.
Clint: So hopefully you’ll be able to be that person for some other people, and I’m sure that there’ll be things that we talk about now that appeal or that help many other people. So let’s go back, we’re only talking about a year ago wasn’t it that you said to me before we started that this all happened. Tell us, how did this go down?
Skylor: Well it really first started when I was in high school, I was 17 years old, and I’m only 21 now by the way so it’s only been about four years little less than four years. But it was April I remember very specifically because it was just a couple days after prom, and I woke up one morning specifically after a really really hard work out the day before I was always very in to exercise, but we might talk more about that later. And I just had a little what I would like you know there’s some type of tweak that happened in my back and my Si joint, my lower back and just not quite right. But you know I’m just you know I’ll just go to school, so I went to school. Next day I’m like well doesn’t feel any better and this is very contrary to what I used to feel, usually you work out a little too hard which is what I thought it was, and then you get pretty feel better the next day. That didn’t happen, day after day, after day, it didn’t heal, month after month it got worse. And that was my junior year of high school, I can gloss over a lot of the details that summer wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great. It kept getting worse and then later that next year whenever my senior year of high school started, I just got to say oh man it was the worst year of my high school when it was supposed to be the most exciting year. Where a lot of cool things are happening, you’re thinking about what you’re going to do with your life. It was like hell, it was terrible I mean I’m sitting for seven hours a day. And I’m thinking when is this going to end because I have to go to the bathroom in rest period, and stretch, and (inaudible). And by the end of the day I would come home and that’s the only thing I could do is like I just need to lay down and let my spine decompress. Anyway, let’s gloss over some more, that summer was really bad, I’m just going to give it to you it wasn’t good.
Clint: So let me just interrupt and clarify if it’s all right. So it really did begin, let’s say three to four years ago the initial, the first year sounded like it was fairly light. But the second year sounded significant. Which of the years was when that was the worst or are we getting to that?
Skylor: Oh you’re getting to it, yeah it was definitely, it was a gradual progression. So, I went to college and it wasn’t far, it was only about an hour maybe a little over an hour from home. And my freshman year I like to attribute a little bit to the mental state I was in it was very exciting and meeting a lot of people college is fun in general there’s something to do. And I was walking a lot which was probably good, I mean I’m sure that definitely helped a little bit. So that year was totally unbearable but it surely, it wasn’t any better than my senior year especially I mean it didn’t get all that much worse. But my sophomore year it just really compounded, and compounded, and it kept getting worse, and worse, and worse. And by the way I’d taken all these summers leading up to it, it was like my mom and I’s like goal in life was like hey we’re going to figure out what this is, we’re fix it, and we’re gonna do everything we can. I had nothing stopping me, I would stop at nothing, because I mean when you’re in pain 24/7 you’ll do just about anything.
Skylor: So I got to my sophomore year, and I’ll just like gloss over details again. It got so bad eventually I actually dropped out in October of last year because I was just, I was I couldn’t sleep in the middle of the night. Because if I wanted to sleep, I would have to pop painkillers, NSAID’s two or three times a night. I was really having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning sometimes I’d have to have my roommate help me out of bed, and it was really embarrassing. Sometimes I couldn’t even walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night if I had to go to the bathroom. It’s just you know, this will put it in perspective. I remember one specific time when I was on this amazingly beautiful trip, this is the summer before that by the way. But this really encapsulates how terrible it was, it could take the best situation and make it just unbearable. We’re on this picturesque journey to Colorado in the States, and it was with our church group our youth group, and I was kind of like you know teaching as a young adult. And anyway, I have had a lot of amazing experiences with that same trip we go every year, and just that year specifically it was just, it was this amazing thing that was supposed to be amazing but it was the worst experience of my life because we know we’re always doing things. I was in such a bad way and I couldn’t show it because I didn’t know how to articulate it to people. And there was specifically one night when I just broke down, and everybody saw it, and it was it was really embarrassing. It was after I had been in the shower, and I was shivering after it gets kind of cold if you’re drying off in the shower. And the pain was so bad just from shivering that I collapsed into a pile on the floor and was just crying that God would kill me slowly. I was in such a bad place as suicidal. So I figured by that time I know later on in my sophomore year but I had to drop out, I couldn’t do anything else. There was nothing I could do at college I had served my time if that makes any sense.
Clint: And so obviously even with your best efforts this would have distracted you from all of your studies and so forth, you probably weren’t doing as well as what you did at school comparatively because you’re in pain all the time. Was that the case? And what about socially?
Skylor: Definitely academically because mostly because I was missing a lot of class. I was having a hard time walking across campus or in in case of morning classes especially getting out of bed. Socially, I want to say that surprisingly I didn’t suffer as much socially, and you know Clint what I really think that was it was a coping mechanism. I was trying to express something outwardly that I didn’t feel inwardly even in the slightest, and in some way shape or form that kind of tricked me into a tricked in a light sense. But you know that kind of tricked me into thinking that I had this kind of sense of peace when I didn’t. And I never told people about this, I mean they knew oh Skylor’s got, I would always see a back injury but I just don’t know how long it’s going to take to recover. And I have gotten tests, but I don’t tell them about all the tests that come back negative because and that leads to more questions and you know I can articulate the answers. So yeah it did suffer academically but surprisingly I feel like I tried to compensate for that socially and whether that was a good thing or a bad thing I don’t really know but it shows I was not in a greatest position.
Clint: Don’t you think it’s interesting how common it is? In fact it’s almost the default position to make up a variation of what the thing we’re suffering from is when it’s an autoimmune disease? What is that? I still haven’t understood that. It’s almost like the acknowledgement that you have an auto immune disease is the modern day equivalent of having leprosy or something anything but let someone else know that it’s that. See when it’s cancer and not to put any diminishing sort of commentary around how bad that is, but at least you get the support from loved ones and everyone comes to your house holding a pink balloon, and says we’re going to do a walk and raise money for you. And you can do this, and here’s someone else who recovered from cancer. You can do it and come I’ll let’s do it, and everyone’s behind you and it’s almost in a way offset by positivity. But with an auto immune disease you’re like, it’s a back injury it’s you know it’s not something, it’s fine let’s go party let’s go party. And it’s all done, suffering in silence, and that’s why you go to the dark places. Like you mentioned before when you collapsed in the shower, the dark places I’ve been to are just shocking because you just think is this just something I’m going to live with in silence for ever? And is there ever a way out of this? And it’s so bad sometimes on your mental state, and no one gets it. And because it’s your own body attacking yourself. You get into this cycle of fury and panic and you got nowhere to go because it’s all inside you and it’s you and you versus you. I mean it’s shocking isn’t it?
Skylor: Clint, I got to say it is awesome talking to somebody who understands it as well as you. I have honestly, I think I have my mother who is I know we talk like much support. My mother was my support, my mother, my mother, my mother. Because she went through somewhat similar problems but I gotta say it is so cool watching you get enthusiastic about this, just like I do with people only to see their eyes glaze over, and they’re like why would you take me out again? I just, it’s so cool that you get it, and it’s called talking to you about that. Anyway, just a side comment.
Clint: Okay excellent. So what I don’t like to do in any kind of platform is spend too long on the misery. So what we’ve done we’ve really established that you’ve had a lot of challenges here and that you really were in this desperate state. I mean it couldn’t have got more desperate really. Struggling to get out of bed especially your mental state was in the worst, you know you don’t want to go beyond that. So let’s now transition, what I’m curious is what did you try to do to help this before you came across the stuff that I share? Because the stuff that I share, most of my listeners know what that is. We can go through you know some of the ways in which you implement that and we can learn from you and the variations of that that you did. But first of all what didn’t work that you were trying during these years?
Skylor: Well probably just about everything.
Yeah. I glazed over those details but man whenever I think anybody who is struggling who might be watching this you know you really will try anything and you’ll throw lots of money at the issue. And we did try a lot of things, we had a lot of x rays, we looked at a lot of different procedures didn’t seem like they would actually help. Spine surgery was coming up next on the list which we were thinking which so why we didn’t go down that road because I mean the benefit not many people really benefit from that especially people with like chronic degenerate spine diseases like Ankylosing Spondylitis or any type of our arthritis people and really benefit all that much from it. So yeah we had tried you know right before finding your program we were like doing this. I mean I was all out, because I’d came home and a hundred per cent of my energy was devoted to researching this. It was kind of like how you go for a couple months, and you just try everything and you know procedures and go to how however many doctors how many chiropractors, you throw more pills. There was one time I was taking like 30 different pills a day and some of them were like most of them were like herb supplements are like 5 HTP or B12 or antecedal cystine or whatever fill in the blank I’m taking or fish oil. I’m taking so many pills and I’m thinking you know even if my mindset was. I mean it’s so benign and it’s weird looking back at it now because it’s it’s dumb now and then I look back on it. But I was thinking you know even if only one of these works, I got to feel something but I didn’t I didn’t I didn’t and sometimes when I made you felt just a tiny bit better the next day I’m thinking well what was it? What was it? And I wasn’t thinking it could have been up to random chance it’s just tiny fluctuation, and that might have been attributed to my mental state where I was just looking so desperately for whenever I felt better. And I just couldn’t find really anything. You tried everything.
Clint: Total overlap with my experience and my journey through that. I put up a slide when I’m giving my keynote presentation to show the stuff that I took over the years, and on the slide there are 50 odd something things. And what’s most interesting is that when I created that slide I did it off the top of my head. So I listed 50 odd things that I could remember that I took, and put them on one slide. And those ones that you mention were everything you mention was on my list as well and a whole lot more. And so you know we get to a point where you know we’re basically taking everything that we’ve ever heard a positive review online, if one person said oh that helped me you know we add that to the mix and then when we do wake up in the morning we do think something may have shifted. You’ve got 50, 30 in your case, 30 variables. How do you know which of one of these 30 is doing anything and in fact put all those together in the body so confused probably can’t even possibly make an improvement forward. So okay, what were doctors saying before we talk about now you know the implementation of our program. and how that went? Talk us through what doctors were telling you, obviously surgery was was raised. What about medications?
Skylor: Medications, usually just nonsteroidal anti inflammatory that’s pretty much that was until the very end when we actually got the technical diagnosis. I never really took the diagnosis but it kind of pretty much gave it to me. But yeah it was always, whenever I went to a doctor the consensus was pretty much just like yeah you’re healthy, looking you had a lot of vitality. And you know 17, 18, 19, 20 year old kid and you know if you have any pain you just take it. And I did, I took them like mad because I had to, I had to. I couldn’t get through the day, sometimes I couldn’t get out of bed or sleep if I didn’t. And it was frustrating but at the very end we did get with my rheumatologist the appointment it was about a year ago. Whenever he gave me that diagnosis of Akylosing spondylitis he actually prescribed me a pretty heavy dose straight on to Humira. Didn’t even mess around with methotrexate, prednisone or anything like that, and I didn’t really know at the time I had known a little bit about those drugs.
Skylor: And I knew Humira was definitely like on the higher end of usually what they moved people up towards, and the fact that he was wanting to give me a pretty high dose. My mom is pretty sure about this and I think she’s right now I think about it is that he is stating his thought process was, this guy so young, he’s got his whole life ahead of him. Why don’t we just kick this thing out of the park right now give it, I mean shoot it is hard and as fast we can, unload as many rounds of ammo at it as we can. So maybe that was his thought process, maybe and I don’t know. But I never actually took the drugs, this the crazy part I am I’m so glad I didn’t. But man was it rough, man I feel like most people would have.
Clint: Yeah, but the approach of trying to smash it or throw all the ammo at it as you said is actually the non-scientific description of what they actually want to do in every case. So the approach for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis according to my rheumatologist to explain this to me in no uncertain terms, we want to treat it aggressively to get it under control as quickly as possible. That is the approach. Okay. So you know in that sense your rheumatologist was suggesting something in line with those recommendations, but let’s not shy away from the fact that methotrexate and all these other disease modifying drugs they’re pretty heavy ammunition as well. So yeah he’s just bypassed those ones and gone for that. Well anyway you didn’t take that. So tell us what you did, give me your healing journey. Tell us what happened.
Skylor: Yeah. Okay. Well, it’s kind of hard to totally start. Well I know exactly and instigating incident because I was learning a whole lot through the years, because I was researching a lot. And especially once I came home and dropped out of college I was researching a ton. But the one instant incident that really just set it off for me is actually very similar what happened to you oddly enough, is my mom one morning I was actually doing, I had tried tons and tons and tons of like diet modifications but never a total work around. It was just take this group out put this thing in. And at that time I was doing a lot of green smoothies, a lot of supplements, and I had you know I was actually doing kind of Keto at the time I was doing the ketogenic diet. And I actually did see improvements on the ketogenic diet surprisingly but nothing like what I’ve seen here. Anyway, so my mom suggested me you know you’re not getting where you want, she just threw the idea out there just like we threw it so many ideas. She said, why don’t you try to juice fast? Why don’t you try to juice cleanse? And which I had no idea what your program is at this time. And I said alright let’s try it, I’ll do anything, I don’t care.
Skylor: Not eating was the only thing I hadn’t done that you gave, and it was like I woke up on day two I was like, I am almost out like I want to say a 40% reduction almost overnight. And then I was like ah I’m going another day with this, you know I don’t care if I don’t get to eat I feel good you know. So I went another day and I was like I felt 50% better in like two days. I mean you know if that didn’t solidify the belief that okay something is happening in the digestive system along there something is happening. And there is a problem whenever I consume things, and I was on this track because that was like that was like the first clue that the detective picks up. And this is probably three months before I got your program two maybe even two.
Skylor: But I have followed that rabbit trail down, and I was coming across I feel like you know it would have taken me years just like it took you years. It would have taken me so long to figure out all the information that you present in your program so well and just well laid out. I probably would have figured it all out eventually, maybe I don’t really know but gosh Clint, it would have taken me so long. And to have access to a program like yours that just lays it out cut and dry clear as day. So here’s what you got to do, and that’s pretty much it, that’s so useful. So yeah. After that I’ve been down the rabbit trail and I found Cherie the one interview that you had done with her, and that was kind of the thing that made me say all right so a lot of the things this guy is saying by the interview it’s pretty in line with what I’m going for and why don’t I just follow this trail a little bit farther you know pay an extra 50 bucks. It’s the cheapest treatment I’ve ever played, it’s 50 bucks is the cheapest treatment I ever paid for you know. And that’s what I got out of it yeah so I had to follow the rabbit trail but it led me to a good place.
Clint: That is a fun story to listen to for me especially because there’s so many parallels with you know the fasting and finding the relief immediately, and making the absolute solid deduction from that that it has to be the digestive system and for me that was it. I was certain, there was no one could tell me that it wasn’t the digestive system. And that’s when I experienced the deepest most profound sense of hope. Because I’ve learnt from doing physics at university, if you can influence something, then you can gain some control over it. And so if we can influence the digestive system by fasting, we can gain some control over it. All we needed to work out was, well what can we eat to get the same result as what we get when we’re fasting, and that became a multi year experimental journey.
Clint: But when you started our program how did I mean first of all it’s written for rheumatoid arthritis, I’m sure there was a little bit of friction with that because of the titles of our different conditions. But I’m sure that you were able to see past that and just follow the process. How did it play out? And did you go full tilt or did you do half half? And how were the results?
Skylor: Well yeah there was a little bit of friction, that I think okay well I have Ankylosing Spondylitis so I probably wouldn’t you know I probably wouldn’t have thought much of it if I heard you know is it just rheumatoid arthritis. but I saw Cherie’s story and actually I saw the recent podcast you did with Judith, and by the way if Judith is watching she said she watches all your podcasts so hi Judith. I loved watching your podcast, It was really entertaining. Anyway where was I?
Clint: So you started the program.
Skylor: Yes started the program. So, I had started it and it was full on, I mean I jumped into this as I was like I’m going to be a hundred percent compliant because if this works I wouldn’t know. Because I had known this is really in line with what I’m already finding, and let’s just give it a try. And I had tried you know things that are just about as hard to program already, at that time I was like I said it was right before I found your program I was doing kind of ketogenic and that was not working out so well long term, partially because I was actually loosing too much weight.
Clint: Yeah. now can I jump in there? I heard some good commentary around this from Dr. Neal Barnard who you may be familiar with if you’ve spent enough time. Okay so for those who don’t know Dr. Neal Barnard, he started a charity in those states called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. It’s an enormous operation and they run clinical trials. He’s published so much work for the public through his publications are available on Amazon books and so forth Kindles. But he also has published a lot for the medical community through scientific journal papers and he’s one of the pioneering experts on type 2 diabetes. And he’s also an authority across so many other medical conditions using a plant-based diet, low fat plant based diet. So we had the benefit of having him speak at a conference in Melbourne which I hosted just the other day, and I got to listen to him talk in fact I sat next to him at dinner and we had a great conversation about rheumatoid arthritis and I’ll talk about it at another time. But what I gleaned from him when he fielded a question about the ketogenic diet, he said most of the benefits that you feel symptomatically from a ketogenic diet once you begin is because of a sudden caloric drop. So you actually not eating as much calories once you remove all the other sources of calories from your diet, and it’s difficult to hit all of the calories that you need when you’re only eating this small portion of food group. So that was his comment around that. He then alluded to much more to be said on this topic. But during the Q and A and you’ve got 25, 30 people with their hands up, that was his first response.
Clint: He’d also just covered an entire hour of presentation, why high fat animal foods are bad for you so it was pointless to then reiterate all of that again. But safe to say that’s why we can feel some symptomatic relief when we shift to a ketogenic diet. But let’s also add to that if you’re coming from a classic American or Australian, New Zealand, European diet, what you’re doing is you’ve got all of these high fat foods, oily foods,, junk foods, processed foods, and then you’re shifting across to a diet that whilst it has its limitations is a cleaner it’s actually like the foods that the body it least would be familiar with. And not all this junk food and all the saturated stuff that’s come out in, at least your diet suddenly got cleaner and simpler. And if you add to that less total calorie intake then you’re going to feel better for a while. But is it a healthy diet for long term human health? It certainly is not, but sometimes all we need to see is a sudden improvement and people can stick to this stuff for years thinking that because they got that initial improvement it’s the right diet for them.
Clint: Thankfully it didn’t fall into that trap and stay with it for a long time. But I did interrupt you just to make that comment because I think a lot of people field questions from their friends and and have family members say what about this Keto died, what about this Paleo diet and stuff. And again whilst benefits can be observed short term you know it’s the long term impact that that’s worrying.
Skylor: Yeah. I going to say when you talked about Dr. Barnard, just a side note health fitness and lifestyle intervention as well as stress management and spiritual growth all these types of things just health as a general thing has always been an interest of mine. That’s why I said it was very good exercise and eating clean before I thought I was eating clean. But I got to say now, Clint seriously this is like this is such a part of my life, I spend so much a ridiculous amount of time just like scrolling through medical journals like it’s trying to find interesting stuff you know reading Dr. Barnard studies on type 2 diabetes. I have become like my dad calls me doctor sometimes says my grandfather asked me questions they say is what I want to do if I have this doctor. So yeah I know it’s you mean I feel like I kind of have the same type of brain as you. I love listening to information in all these guys Garth Davis, Michael Grager, Michael Klapper, Dean Ornish. And when you called me, I was actually just listening to the rich roll podcast which somebody as rich roll out some guy too in the plantbased movement. I was listening to him interview Dean Ornish and Anne Ornish on his podcast online you can find it on YouTube but it’s awesome I moved about halfway through it. Anyway, that’s besides the point I just going to say this is a big part of my life and when you say oh you know Dr. Bernard Oh yeah I know I know Dr. Barnard I would love to meet people like that too.
Clint: Yeah, very very humble guy. Happy to listen rather than talk, well over a dinner table which I think is a sign of people who are wise. If you’re the one yapping away all the time you’re not learning are you? I find that if you’re the one doing all the talking then, when I do a lot of talking on this podcast I do so because people have often commented under YouTube videos or email me and says I’d like on the podcast when you share your own experience or try and teach something are as we’re also listening to the guest and so that’s what I deliberately do if feel I can contribute something that I’ve observed in amongst my support group, where I interact and coach people really closely and learn a lot about their situation, and how to help them or whether or not it’s from just from emails or from conversations like that.
Clint: So yeah the community is fantastic, we have got such great celebrity doctors, great celebrity fitness and sports people within the plant based movement that it is a movement that’s exciting. And it’s something that is only just beginning so someone like yourself you can set up an Instagram page, you can post images of yourself and talk about how your training and what you do to reduce or keep at a minimum your SI joint pain. Post pictures of the foods that you eat, the people who you’re influencing, inspirational quotes. All this sort of stuff and you can gain a large following of people who are inspired who support what you’re doing, and it’s fun, and it’s exciting, and it’s changing the landscape of the way we eat and it’s saving the planet. And you feel good about the fact that it’s a no animals are suffering as a result of us being on the earth at least in that capacity in eating capacity. So you know good for you get into it. You know you’re so you got as you said you’re young and vibrant and have great vitality. And also you look good and you’ve got a great story so keep that going beyond this conversation.
Skylor: Oh I will.
Clint: Use this as a platform and one of many that you can build a following because I’m sure a lot of people want to continue to see how this goes. So, you and I both have a tendency to chat to let’s move on, let’s get through. I want to hear how the program went and I specifically want you to share tips on things that you learned that you emphasized. Part of the program whether it be the smoothies or the exercise or stretching whatever it might be, implementable tips for other people. So let’s get to that in a second, first of all take us through the pain reduction that you experienced when you started implementing this process.
Skylor: Okay. Yeah so obviously in the beginning I knew I was going to do well on the juice fast because I had experience that for. So the juice fast was it wasn’t really that hard, maybe because I don’t think it’s because I’m a super disciplined person. I think beacuse I was just is used to trying really hard things and ridiculous things at that time. So it wasn’t too hard for me specifically but I understand if that is really really difficult for most people. But it was actually, I mean maybe I shouldn’t say it wasn’t difficult re adapting to the foods because it was slightly. But I think with the way I was already eating, it wasn’t super hard because I was somewhat restrictive by nature anyway because I was trying to do healthy eating and you know let me actually say I don’t like using the word restrictive. If people say oh you have a really restrictive diet, and I say ,no I don’t have a restricted diet I just have a real diet. Because I’m just eating real food, I’m not eating fake food that we make or we kill for our own was unnecessary you know.
Clint: Let me comment on that as well, if you don’t mind because I something that’s yeah that’s a big, a big turning point for me with my journey. There’s a gastroenterologist called Dr Hiromi Shinya who I’ve mentioned several times I mentioned him in my book. So he wrote the enzyme factor it’s in a box here we’ve moved so many times I know where the book is but he’s got the enzyme factor in the microbe factor. When I read the enzyme factor, what really changed my views on food profoundly was that this is a gastroenterologist in his 70’s and he had built his diet around watching what people eat and what their colons look like. I mean that’s a fascinating way to develop your own eating habits. And his diet primarily consisted of a mixture like the two grain or the three grain mix in our program of buckwheat, quinoa, Amaranth, millet, and brown rice. Okay? Now I tried all of those, and recent version of our program have omitted the Amaranth because it’s just a pain the arse it gets in the cracks on the tiles and everything so I had taken out the Amaranth and postponed the brown rice because I found it a difficult reintroduction. So hence we’re left with millet,, Buckwheat, and quinoa. Well I don’t like millet, so I took millet out and that’s where the two grain mix came from that’s where Buckwheat and quinoa came from. And they were the first foods I was able to eat after doing raw foods for 8 months and so first cooked foods I was able to eat. Now he ate the same thing breakfast,, lunch and dinner. He eats the same food every meal, buckwheat, quinoa, millet, brown rice, Amaranth, same thing over and over again. And he obviously eats some other snacks like some fruits, and vegetables, and green leaves, but the bulk of his calories and his nutrients come from these simple meals that are repeated over and over again. And he even talks about in his book, he loves sushi. He’s Japanese and he says sometimes very occasionally as a special treat I’ll have it but I know it’s not for health purposes it’s just that I just feel like it sometimes but for health benefits that’s what he eats. So it’s not a celebration of food, it’s using food as a purposeful medicine.
Skylor: Yeah I got it.
Clint: That was huge and like okay look, you don’t have to eat thousands of different things you just eat the healthiest stuff as much as possible and you have the healthiest possible body.
Skylor: Yeah, even if we really wanted to if we like there are so many thousands of varieties of plants on the planet you could try a new variety of banana every day for the next year and not even be here half or even a maybe (inaudible). I mean there’s so many bananas but we all need one type. But whereas with like you know with meat there is like beef, pork, chicken, and then if you’re gonna count other animal products like eggs, milk, whole dairy products. Like five maybe six or seven things that we just disproportionate, we eat a disproportionately large amount of our calories from those things that we say all is not a meal if it doesn’t have beef. It’s like well you know where I have much more variety if I’m looking for plant-based options, if I want to I have so many. I feel less restricted now than I ever have, and by the way just a side note, growing up I had a lot of body image dysmorphia I really did. And my family really relate with that and I got to see through this restrictive way of eating, I have basically cured my body image dysmorphia. I mean it was so bad it was like growing up I never went to the pool because I would not take my shirt of in front of people And now you know I went to the pool this last summer, I look better than I ever have, I felt better than I ever have, and I was proud to show it, and I loved it, and it was the most enjoyable experience.
Clint: That’s awesome. That is just absolutely fantastic. That’s one of those unexpected benefits that you just don’t even imagine could happen from doing something like this. Well done, so so cool. Okay let’s let’s let’s keep things moving because I want to respect people’s time who might be listening and try and keep it and keep it moving along. So let’s talk about symptomatic reductions, and how you did it.
Skylor: Well yeah as what once I got onto a kind of the baseline foods, I actually I think this is it seems like this is a somewhat common thing with people that follow your program. I stuck with those for a long time. And it really wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I mean I just I stuck with them probably for 2 maybe even 3 months actually, just because you’re feeling good you don’t want to. You talk in your book, if you’re in that healing groove you don’t want to get out of it. And I you know I’ve had hiccups, I’ve had times where I get out of that healing groove, and I get down I’m like why am I feel this way? One of those was actually just like last week, I was kind of down and out of the healing groove and you know I’d jump right back into it kind of did it all reset you know jump back. I’m actually like on the baseline meals right now. And it just it’s amazing how it just works. So whenever I went through that I do it for a long time, and whenever I started reintroducing foods it didn’t seem like I had any real problems with the exception of like citrus. It seemed like large amounts of citrus didn’t go super well specifically lemons. Now I didn’t try it more than once so it’s not like I could guinea pig myself again and see if that’s. But remember this was earlier on, this is one of the first foods I reintroduced. Who knows how much my intestinal biome has repaired and gotten even better since then. So who knows, I very well could tolerate lemon now, I would almost bet you probably could.
Clint: What order of food did you go roughly? I know it’s impossible to remember, but I mean even if you sort of give me an idea around whether it was some fruits or whether it was just some very low starchy veggies or do you remember. Can you give me just a rough idea of what reintroduction order you had?
Skylor: Yeah I can. So I remember specifically the first one was zucchini, and then it was yeah and that was awesome. It was like wow this is something different but it was it wasn’t this life changing thing, I was wow I’m eating something different after like 3 months. And all I did was like shred it onto my salad is kind of like I made it so I’m more moist and anybody by the way will tip on the Paddison Program is whatever Clint says, giant salads. I took that to heart and seriously in my salad bowls are like twice the size of my head. It’s huge, and I love it now, I love it.
Clint: You look so healthy. Something’s working, because you look extremely healthy. I don’t know what you used to look like in the past, but like the moment I saw you I’m like, this is a young, very healthy looking handsome man. That’s the first thing I thought.
Skylor: Well thank you. I’ve had, It’s very weird to get this as a 21 year old. But just people who haven’t seen it and a couple months may well maybe more or more like 8 months or so they say, oh my gosh your skin looks great.
Clint: That’s it, you skin looks amazing.
Skylor: I probably have terrible lighting in here or something, it’s definitely not the best camera angles. But you know I sometimes you know I don’t feel like many people have this, and I don’t want people to think this is a pride thing I want them to think and this is like this is more of a just like I’m happy with the way I am kind of thing. Is I’ll sometimes wake up in the morning and I look at myself in the air like this happen all the time but I’m like, dang I got thing going for me. And just like you know it’s it’s weird because before then, I might have said that a little bit. But you know now wow I don’t stink as much and that’s another benefit is once I eliminated dairy I noticed that I don’t stink as much when I sweat. My skin is better, my skin was never terrible but now it’s like you know I have no skin problem. I mean if I ever had a pimple, It’s like 1 and done, and it’s like one day problem and it’s a never sticking around. Thank you for noticing that other people have to and it’s really awesome. It’s really awesome.
Clint: Yeah yeah. And I think one of the reasons you can look at yourself and say dang things go on, and I think that that’s good and that all of us should look for ways to compliment ourselves and to have the highest self-esteem possible. Because why not, I mean if society thinks that that’s facetious or whatever then society is destined to fail. Because we need to look at ourselves, and love ourselves, and look in the mirror and not look for the things that are wrong in our face but the things that exist behind the eyes it’s us in there. There’s a spirit that is that is glowing and that wants to do great things, and wants to be loved, and wants to share love. And when you can look in your eyes, and you can feel that for yourself it’s because not only have you got the physical external stuff that really is just the luck of the draw or the gene pool you can’t be a you can’t take responsibility for that nor can your parents it’s all really genetically unpredictable. But what you can project enormous love for yourself, is that you’re not accepting something that’s an enormous inconvenience and problem in your life. And then running with it with the victim mentality, you’ve turned that around and you’ve got something that you can reflect upon when you look in the mirror and say I am a conqueror, I am a champion.
Clint: I have taken information and I’ve applied it, and I’ve taken my own feedback and experience and modified this. And I have done something absolutely remarkable. And at your age with the blessings of the physical appearance and what you’ve achieved, who gives a toss about the university right? You can always re-enroll in the university, you can always get that education. Which by the way was an important part of my life and I highly recommend you consider whether or not it’s right for you. But you know as this achievement it’s like Anthony Robbins says, when you’ve conquered like your greatest fear, everything is surmountable. Everything after that becomes easy compared to this enormous challenge. So whether or not you’ve got 1% SI pain or whether or not you’ve got 5, the point is you know how to control it. You know how to be on top of it if you want zero you go and take a day where you do a fast for a day, big deal. The point is that you have really achieved something remarkable that most people don’t achieve in their lifetime, and that is why we can look in the mirror and say we are a strong, powerful, wonderful, human being. So I think it comes down deep deep within.
Skylor: Yeah. Amen brother. By the way I thought I might point this out just in case anybody that is watching maybe has AS was wondering, I didn’t just have SI pain, it had by the way it had spread. It started on my SI joint but it spread all the way up my spine, and it actually seemed to be becoming more of an arthritic like systematic problem because they actually do. I did get a little bit of problems in my shoulders and my knees as well so it was spreading to my whole body. But it spread primarily up just my whole spine up to the base my head. But anyway that’s just besides the point so just in case somebody is watching and think, oh well this guy doesn’t quite understand because he didn’t have the progression. He didn’t have it all the way up the spine like I did. I did I trust me I know, I know that feeling of being completely bound and not being able to even twist, even the tiniest bit or bend over you know looking up like I know that feeling of being completely bound up by tightness and pain. So yeah just in case anybody was was wondering or if they were wondering or just so they know.
Clint: That’s great. You know one of my friends who has his own podcast in the business space, he says he tries to eliminate the yeah, but, comment from when he’s creating podcast. You want to eliminate the yeah, but, stuff because people watching this they say yeah but exactly didn’t have this or, yeah but of course he’s young. Well yeah but it’s because of whatever. So I’m glad you pointed that out and you clearly had the full spectrum of the AS symptoms which is a really really substantial. So can you tell me anything more about your introductions, your reintroductions? Before we talk about how you are now and then I want to wrap up with some tips for people.
Skylor: Sure, yeah. Reintroductions I think like I said first one was definitely is zucchini what I remember, and then I can’t remember exactly what I did but I can give you a general guideline of what the ones that things that came first. Definitely the miso paste, it would have been lemon and that’s it at that point it was one of the first foods I reintroduced which is maybe one of the reasons I reacted to it so I think I could probably tolerate that now. Another one, let’s see like a brussels sprouts, cauliflower, I didn’t actually introduce fruits for a little while surprisingly.
Clint: Yeah, I’m picking up on that.
Skylor: But I seem to tolerate fruits pretty darn well now. I mean actually if this gives you an idea, I tolerate fruits really really well because just a couple weeks ago I was this is when we started emailing I was telling him we were going on vacation we end up going on a cruise out of Florida in that area which is why it was cool cause I thought I heard you were in Florida at a time like we were in the same state anyway. So well we were on that cruise, I was thinking OK how much you know substance (inaudible) get some good baseline meals. So at dinner I really really had a heart of the waiters about like no (inaudible) please! And it took them till the last night to actually get the orders right. And lots of the time had to rely on just the fruit that was on the upper deck it’s always available you know. So I was like people looking at me like I’m absolutely crazy I had this big plate a cantaloupe, like six bananas, three pairs and that’s my breakfast. And people look at me like, and they had some oatmeal too so I had some oatmeal. And they just look at me like I am this monster, and I’m like why this is amazing, I love eating this way and it was the coolest thing ever.
Skylor: So I noticed that after that week I didn’t feel as good, that’s probably what led to me wanting to go back on this reboot because I was relying so heavily on fruit not saying anything wrong with fruit. But something might be wrong with fruit for you have the intestinal environment that has been so impaired for your lifestyle choices. So maybe you just don’t eat fruit for like 80 percent of your calories like I did just that one week. My point is I can tolerate them that well, but after I’d kind of gone through the non starchy vegetables I went to like potatoes and then I did some berries like strawberries and blueberries and banana. So yeah that was probably my first couple foods I went with.
Clint: That’s fantastic. And what about some of the more challenging more heavy sort of starchy stuff? You mentioned potatoes that sensational, because what we look for if people are listening for this. You’re looking for foods that are highly convenient that provides you with a great range of nutrition but also that are able to provide you with energy. Because we don’t want to be snacking on little bits and pieces all the time, and trying to get by on things like the zucchini, and like yellow squash which aren’t going to give us any pain but nor do they give us any energy so we’re not getting anywhere. But once we can get rice, and potatoes, and corn, and even some oil free sour dough breads or some pasta. Once we can get into that world, I mean the world is good because then we always got something that satiating and that also tastes nice. So were you able to get some of those foods in as well?
Skylor: Yeah. I actually had pretty much, really no noticeable problems with anything but maybe if I if I’d eat a large amount of beans. That’s probably because of their higher protein content, as you know people with arthritic conditions generally their guts definitely don’t favor the high protein environment. So I just can’t take it easy on the beans, and I think you talk about that a little bit in your program when you’re combining maybe rice and beans together go a little easier on the beans, If you want to try reintroduce some. But it was like anything that I introduce, it was never like night and day. Like I woke up the next day I’m like that’s a no no, I never had that, I never had that which is a awesome.
Clint: So that was a little more subtle, it was like I think that that’s not quite as good as how I felt the day before.
Skylor: Yeah it was subtle so, I can’t say anything definitively about it. Okay maybe maybe I don’t do as well with large amounts of beans. Who knows, maybe I would but, I don’t think they I mean beans are amazing but I kind of like rice just as much. So I figure if I just mix an equal portion of rice and beans together, I get the health benefits of both. And you know I’m not missing out on anything.
Clint: Excellent. And of course, rice and beans is one of those staples that if you go throughout South America, at least traditionally if we rewind the clock maybe 50 plus years. That’s all everyone eats, just beans and rice, beans and rice. You know Melissa used to go to Costa Rica sometimes or she’d go to and she also was part of an opening for a restaurant chain in Hawaii, and she say whenever you see the surfers, the surfers were coming out and they were always just eating beans and rice, beans and rice. So you know it’s just such a staple isn’t it? It’s just it’s a complete delicious, great little combination, and very very hearty.
Clint: So, let’s wrap up by giving some tips. Are there some things that you emphasized? I noted one time you mention here about the large amount of leafy greens, clearly that is a success path for everybody. There can be nothing sure in life, taxes, death, and leafy greens will make you feel better. So, anything beyond that? Was there like did you favor baby spinach over the others or did you like this? And then anything else that comes to mind, I want you to talk about maybe some exercise. Anything else you can think of.
Skylor: Ah well yeah. So obviously yeah get as many leafy greens as you can. I mean that’s like I saw you hammering that throughout the program, I’m like all right I’m going to hammer this like nobody else is going to hammer this because my mom’s saw and she’s like. My mom is a very healthy person always kinda has been at least as long as I have know her. And she was like oh my lord Skylor, are you going to eat, you can’t. I’m like watch me, I will it’ll probably take me an hour and ten minutes but I will. Anyway more tips, one thing that I found that helps me a lot. And you talk about this is actually biking, I actually didn’t do stationary baking. I love being outdoors as much as possible, and riding my bike around. If it gives you any idea, if anybody is in the Midwest or in the United States right now you know how it is right now. It’s cold, it’s snowy, but hey the roads got cleared off today and it was exposed concrete, I’m out riding my bike for at least 20 minutes. Because like doing it and it helps me makes me feel better. I’m sure it has to do something with the movement of the hips and the SI joint, probably something like that. I mean I’m sure that’s definitely and it’s just exercise overall. It just so happened to be that biking really really helped me.
Skylor: I know you talk about bikram yoga a lot, I could never find a bikram, I wanted to so bad, I could never find a Bikram Yoga close to me. So but I did do, I do yoga very frequently, probably I mean pretty much it’s like almost like a religious practice like 20 minutes every morning at least, not literally religious. But you know I very often do yoga right when I wake up in the morning. I don’t know if that had anything to do with my success. I kind of just really like doing my exercise at least some of it in the morning right when I wake up.
Clint: I’m the same, person I do exactly the same thing. I have a sequence of stretches that I do, and sometimes I don’t get through them all, sometimes I just do a couple. But certainly a hip hinge forward bend is the first thing that I do everyday. So like when you’re about to do a deadlift at the gym, your pelvis gets tilted forward, give the hip hinge, and then I reach down, I just slide my fingertips down my ankles, and it just hits the spot every morning. And then I just do that, and then I have another little weird one that’s a funny looking thing which is like almost like, legs far apart, toes pointing opposite direction, just opens up the hips and then I sort of do a like a very wide legged semis squat. These two things just seem to help my particular restrictions open up a lot every morning I feel good after doing that. So, funny we come back to Dr. Shinya again, Shinya does the same thing, he wakes up every morning he says he gets his stretches out of the way. Now he’s 70 right? So you know by then you’d expect to have a few things that are a bit stiff and stuff. But you know I think it’s good practice. What does a cat do when it wakes up in the morning you see big stretch. I watch my kids being the most pure version of a human that’s had no influence on what we how we should behave every morning when we get up they just wake up, and I see my two year old and she’s like, you know I mean? She’s stretching like that it’s normal isn’t it? It’s the right thing. We should get that stretch has gone through the body in the morning. And sometimes we get out of bed and we get straight into our morning routine without doing it and I don’t think that helps.
Skylor: If there is one way I can make that into like a technical tip, is find exercise that really works for you, you might have to experiment a lot. I mean it just so happened that bike riding was something that I already really enjoyed doing. And it just so happened helped me a lot which is great, it’s very convenient. I love going out you know 30 minute hour by grades every single day. Even after my morning exercise, usually my morning exercise especially in the winter right now is usually just in my bedroom. And I just tell myself every morning, if I’m not feeling good in this place, do something, do something. And that’s another tip is, don’t tell yourself, I don’t feel good enough. Do something, just like you say my neck isn’t feeling so good one day. Do something that is just involving my legs, try some squats right in place just get blood flowing. And I tell myself what I’m not feeling it, just got to do something, just do something, that’s it. That might be something that really helps them.
Clint: I love it, that’s Skyler’s version of the Nike Just Do It. That just doing something. It’s so true. I used to ask the question, what can I do right now to help this situation? And then when it was done I would say, what else can I do right now to help the situation? So it became this never ending loop of what can I do right now to help this situation? So whilst we keep asking these questions we get the answers, it’s a better question than what’s my future going to look like or how are we going to deal with this today or what did I do to deserve this? Because you’ll get answers, the brain will give you answers to any question and if we ask the right question we get better answers, we get answers that empower us. So these are good tips, Is there anything else you can think of? And I’m sure you’ll think of about 20 once we jump off the recording. But just to stimulate some creative juice here, what about with regards to, do you snack a lot? Or do you eat a lot at each meal?
Skylor: I don’t tend to snack as much, I don’t know if that’s really a thing that a lot of people. I know it’s the thing that I didn’t do but I don’t know if it’s preferred for your program. I know it shows on your program you know three times a day just seems to be kind of what I do. I find that if I try to snack a lot, it just ends up eating a whole lot of my day. And you know it’s like wow I spent like how kitchen today. I know I’m going to get you know had fun trying to get fat on the Paddison Program because I’m not going to. You know I look better, and feel better, and I was already a pretty decent shape but you know I look better now than I ever have. Anyway you’re not going to get fat by that. But yeah just about 2, sometimes 2, usually 3 meals a day. I try to move more towards three meals a day because I find if I do two meals a day I end up trying to stuff myself all too much. But my meals are big, you know people see me eat my meals even if have 3 meals a day they’re like, oh my god you’re gonna eat all of that. I’m like. Yeah you want to slim figure? Eat plant based, and eat as much as you want, all the time whenever. And it works.
Clint: Exactly, oh it’s so good. Have you got any things like an air fryer or a rice cooker?Have you got any of the tools that have helped you?
Skylor: Oh sure yeah. So I don’t have an air fryer, I’ve really thought about just you know, just saving up and getting one and they’re not all that much. But I didn’t really have a need for one so I just didn’t end up getting it. If it’s a need for you and if you really want I think you should. Anyway, maybe I’ll end up getting one of these days. But yeah instant pot was actually, that’s a big thing I don’t know that the big thing in Australia is it?
Clint: It is not, but one of our very popular support group members Ellen, she’s always putting up content about her instant pot. I mean she loves it so. Do your family have one?
Skylor: Yeah, it’s just as helpful as you know I don’t know how to really tell. I mean if you don’t have an instant pot just go by one it’s worth it, it’s really worth it. For anything you want to do. I mean it it cooks that staple you know 2 or 3 green glen. I mean it cooks it in about 30 minutes or something. It’s fantastic. So some days like usually I’ll end up finishing it that night, I wake up little 5 minutes earlier in the morning put it in the instant pot. Go do my exercise, and then it’s already well and done by the time I’m done with my exercise. So instapot, awesome thing to do. And if if there’s if there’s one last tip, I don’t think we’ve touched too much on the mental part of healing. But that was a huge part of me too. I know we probably don’t have much time to go into it.
Clint: Go for it. We’ll make this our last topic
Skylor: So really the importance of keeping yourself. I mean if if you notice every time you start going down spiraling spiraling down, and you start telling yourself I feel worse. What am I going to do about this? You’ll notice that every time you do that if you continue to do that you won’t feel better the next day. But the days that you tell yourself I’m going to do something about you know you like you said how am I going to do something right now to make the situation all better. And then afterwards do it again. When you start to have that mindset, and you say you know this worked for me once I can do it again you know I have setbacks every here and there. Whenever I have that mindset, things tend to get better and I make that pretty much universal for everybody. Is that a coincidence? I don’t think so you know.
Skylor: And some of that comes from, you know you can’t have it all from within yourself, it also comes from other people and specifically me I don’t have a lot of people my age. I live in a very small town Mid-Missouri so my support during the Paddison Program was like seriously oh my gosh my mom, my mother is a godsend. She was the support, the person that kept me going that I could tell all my feelings to how this is going. She was the person I talked to, and she still you know my mom is like my best friend. Nothing against my dad is just like you know sometimes, my dad and I can’t quite relate like my mother and I do because partially because my mom and I have this connection through this experience. She was the one who is with me at my darkest hour, because she was the one who kind of knows how I knew how to deal with me with that. Because she was a we can’t go into detail, but she had a similar experience early on in her life not with an auto immune condition but with some unknown kind of pain thing fibromyalgia like stuff. So she kind of could relate with me, so she was there with me in my darkest hour. And also now in my one of my triumphs. Now we’re like best friends and we always were kind of best friends, very kind of a momma’s boy which I’m proud of. I’m proud to say I’m a momma’s boy.
Skylor: So having the inward talk, the self talk, that’s really really important. It’s it’s just as important as everything else, because if you’re self-talk is bad everything else is going to suffer. And same thing with your support, if you have no support then your mental state is going to suffer, and then you’d have that same problem. And then the third thing I would say is some type of you know you talk about just meditation, just some type of spiritual practice to bring you closer to what you feel is an actual purpose. Because if you don’t have a greater search for a greater purpose about what am I going to do after I do this? Then everything is meaningless if you have no intent for, what am I going to do after I do this? Why do what you don’t want to do any of us in the first place? If you have no intent, then life is meaningless. But it doesn’t have to be. You talk about make healing a must, you talk about that? You talk about creating a really compelling future for yourself, you could do that for yourself. You just have to make that compelling future for yourself greater than the pain that you feel right now, and I know that’s really hard. But you gotta stay make small steps. I mean it just works, it’s one thing I just say I say all the time, it just works, just try it.
Clint: Yeah that’s great, that’s absolutely great. You really have a great familiarity with all the stuff that I’ve put out. So I’m really really humbled to hear you sort of quote many of the things that I’ve put in the program, and that I’ve pulled from other sources that have worked for me. And was something that you said was absolutely so true and it’s so subtle so subtle that it takes someone who’s been really through the trenches with this to discover this and to know the power of this. And is what you said with regards to you have a couple of days where you feel that spiral, it seems to perpetuate a negative outcome physically. And it’s true that once you feeling that healing groove, once you develop this sense of I’m winning,, I’m winning this is working, I’m getting there. And if you have a couple of days like that, as long as you don’t go and eat the wrong thing and do something silly you’ll know that that actually helps the progress, that helps the momentum. So that’s a subtlety that is very interesting that you’ve observed that you’ve been able to articulate that. I don’t think we’ve covered that with anyone else in any other episode, so I’m really glad you mentioned that.
Clint: Okay well Skylor thanks man, this has been a fabulous discussion. and I’ve I’ve been really really having a good time chatting to you and I want to thank you for sharing your story and I am sure that this has been great watching or listening for other people so congratulations on how far you’ve come. I can see that the fact that your passion for not just getting yourself better but for this whole movement of of plant based nutrition for human health and the planet and for animals is something that you’re very passionate about so this will very likely not be the last time we cross paths. You should come to some conferences.
Clint: There are plant based conferences throughout the US. I’m not geographically tuned in to where Missouri is so much as the guards to where these conferences are occurring but I’m sure that everything is within a three- or four-hour plane ride for you. And there are conferences on the east west coast and in North Carolina and all over the place you’ve got the plant-based nutrition for health care or low 90s the acronym always gets me but this one that’s happening in this year in September. There’s another one and that ones in Oakland in Oregon which is up near San Francisco and that one is fantastic. And then there’s one by plant stock which is happening in North Carolina. And I think that once in August. There’s one by plant the one that Neal Barnard organizes or his or his organization organize that once in Washington D.C. And that was in July. Each one of these are absolutely sensational conferences and with your personality your passion and your story. You should go to one of these conferences and you will love the food you’ll love the presentations you’ll learn a ton. And most importantly you meet people who are absolutely sensational and you become friends and you can keep the conversation going on on social media later and make it super super cool Super cool like when you say like the way to connect with other people that becomes really enjoyable and some of the friends I’ve made these conferences I hold very close to my heart. Get out there man.
Skylor: I would love to go into something like that. That’s I’ve had my eyes on a couple a couple of conferences like that so yeah. Yeah, if you ever you’re going to be one of those. I will make an effort to get to it. Because I would love to meet Mr. Paddison in person that would be so cool.
Clint: That’s ll be great to meet you in person. As we’re recording this, this will go to air at the end of February 2019. So for folks listening to this in the future. Last conversation I had with the organizers of plant stock I meant to be speaking at that event this year. That’s the North Carolina event. And I would have otherwise not mentioned that because not confirmed. But but no harm done in saying that that is a pencil in thing. So if I find out that that’s going ahead I will make that public. And Dr. Barnard actually asked me to speak at his event in 2020, so that would be July 2020. And if anyone’s in Hawaii I’ll be in July in 2020 as well speaking on Oahu and also Maui. But I’m hoping to put a lot more dates together once we get stateside. We’re going to be in the United States from August 2019 this year onwards and once over there I’m going to have sort of you know now with our third child now nearly seven months old. You know we’re stopped with the kids, I can start to look towards more of this stuff. So we’ll meet each other at a conference whether I’m speaking at it or not.
Skylor: Yeah I’d love it. That will be awesome, it is so cool.
Clint: Thank you, back to you. Thanks very much for for sharing your story. Let’s stay in contact, I’m looking forward to seeing you down the track in person and just want to thank you for your time once again.
Skylor: Yeah. Thank you for years as this is so cool. So awesome. To me it’s like a it almost seems like a prophecy fulfilled this moment right here even though I’m just sitting in my house. Thank you for your time, it’s a real honor to be here. Awesome.
Clint: Awesome, thanks Skylor.