033 | Unlocking Peak Performance with Dr. McCoy: Proactive Healthcare and Precision Medicine

Patrick Longergan [0:06 – 1:16]: Welcome back to the Vital Strategies podcast. I’m your host, Patrick Lonergan. At Vital we believe that the most valuable things in life aren’t a big bank account. One area that we won’t trade any amount of money for is our health. Today we’re going to be talking to Doctor Tom McCoy. He is my personal concierge doctor, and his practice is focused on proactive healthcare so you can live a full and vital life. Doctor Tom and I get into the difference between the traditional medical model and the new framework that he’s developed that creates a specialized plan for each individual to optimize their health. Stay tuned as we cover everything from why good sleep is critical to our well being, why CrossFit might be the best way to optimize health, and how relationships matter to our well being. Stay to the end to hear why doing hard things in the gym is good for our mental and physical health. Let’s dive in with Doctor Tom McCoy. Doctor Tom McCoy, I am excited about having you on the podcast today. We’ve been working together for a while on what we’ll call my proactive healthcare, and I’m excited about all the new things you’ve got going on and just really digging into what proactive medicine looks like versus reactive medicine. I think it’s sort of an uncommon thing out there that most people aren’t familiar with. So thank you very much for joining us today.

Dr. McCoy [1:16 – 1:24]: Very excited to be here. And I know we have a lot of interesting topics to dive into, so let’s quit beating around the bush and get after it.

Patrick Longergan [1:24 – 2:44]: I love it. So I want to frame this conversation. Our whole focus is we help our clients pay less tax, build more wealth, so they can live a great life. And we feel like that great life piece is made up of this acronym called Reach. And so the r is for relationships, e’s for experiences, a’s for advancement or growth, c is for contribution, and then h is for our health. We think there’s three components to the health. There’s spiritual, emotional, and physical. And so we’re going to dive into the physical side today, and I’m going to argue that if you don’t have the physical health, none of those other things really matter. So this is going to be good. I first got introduced to you because I went to a, my sort of standard primary care physical, and I said, hey, okay. My dad has been a fairly active guy and has been what I would consider healthy his whole life, but he had triple bypass surgery, he’s developed diabetes, and I want to protect myself against those things. And they run me through all this stuff, and they go, you’re healthy. And I said, okay, great, but what do I need to do to, like, not end up down that same path? And they didn’t have any good answers for me, and so I started looking and ended up running across you. And so I’m excited to get into this concept of proactive precision medicine versus a typical primary care healthcare scenario. Can you tell us what the difference is, what you do at McCoy medical, and how it’s going to be different than my standard doctor appointment?

Dr. McCoy [2:45 – 5:00]: Yeah, no, I think that’s a great place to start. You know, and to take the example that you just gave of, you know, what most of us experience when we go into a typical primary care visit is that if your blood pressure is within normal limits and your bmi, which has so many issues with it to begin with, isn’t significantly out of whack and you are relatively well put together, you’re going to get a clean bill of health. And the issue with that is that a lot of the diagnostic studies that are really the most important ones to indicate whether or not you are truly going to have not just a long life, but a life of vitality that will allow you to enjoy those years that you are alive are not done in the traditional primary care setting. And, you know, I think a lot of us in that world are aware of that. But unfortunately, payers and the powers that be don’t have a vested interest in spending the time or dollars optimizing. You know, they want to keep you in a space where they’re spending as little money as possible. And then if or when you do get sick, try and find ways not to support your journey. It’s all of our disillusionment. So, yeah, I think that when you look at the comparison of precision medicine to what happens in the mainstream model, I think the definition of precision would really be, we are looking to support the health journey of the individual in front of us. So where many decisions get made for individuals based on epidemiological studies that are done for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people, and don’t really take into context the nuances of the person in front of us, and they all get lumped together. But when you take the time and create the space to actually get to know the person in front of you, understand what their health goals are, understand what their greatest areas of health exposure are and risk are, and address those in a systematic fashion, that’s when you can really start to move the needle and put people in a position to where they can live a very long and active life, which is the goal.

Patrick Longergan [5:00 – 6:12]: Yeah, absolutely. And you hit on so many of the things that I was looking for, the optimizing my health. Like, I think about this from so many areas of my life. I go and I find a coach in areas that I find are important, right? Like my business, I have a coach. In my fitness, I have a coach. In my mental health, I have a coach. And so it’s like, why wouldn’t I have somebody that can look at what I’m made up of, right? Sort of get inside me and go, all right, let’s look at your DNA, your blood work, all of these things, and go, all right, here’s how we’re going to optimize what you’re doing and then also take it a step further. Not just my supplementation and my food, but, like, let’s figure out how to move your body in a way that, uh, you know, you’re, you’re going to be well and have this vitality into the future. Because I look at things, there’s. I just appreciate how you’ve helped me. You know, I’m turning 44 here shortly, and it’s like I’m still hitting some prs, you know, in the weight room, uh, which surprised me. You know, I’m not trying to, but every now and then, the weight’s moving well, and I’m like, let’s move it and see how it goes. And I’m like, okay. I feel like what I should be the back half of now as a college athlete and those types of things, but I feel like I’m on the back half of my athletic career, but I’m still performing at a pretty high level. And it’s like, this is fun. I’m not dropping off at all. So I appreciate that. Thank you.

Dr. McCoy [6:12 – 7:20]: Yeah, you know, and I think it, you know, you highlight an important point there that I think is different that from, you know, what we do. McCoy medical and a lot of more individualized practices is that none of us should be settling for good enough. Right. And unfortunately, in the mainstream model, oftentimes, unless red flags are being raised of concern, you’re going to be shuttled along, because for a clinician who’s in a very busy clinic and they’re seeing 30 to 40 patients a day, Patrick, if you walk in the door like, you’re an easy mark, right, you’re a quick turn. Two minutes. I just bought myself 15 minutes to catch up on charting and get ready for the next train wreck that’s coming through the door. Right. That is not the dynamic that we should be setting up. Right. We need to give every individual who rocks through the door the appropriate time and consideration and counseling and be able to do this. You have to have the space to do that. But preventative counseling and understanding what’s going to help you achieve the goals that you didn’t think were possible is just as fulfilling and as important as helping somebody at a different point in their healthcare journey.

Patrick Longergan [7:20 – 7:38]: Yeah, that’s fantastic. So I guess I’m very curious. When you discovered in your medical education, like, okay, there’s a problem with the current system, and when the sort of light bulb went off where you’re like, okay, we’ve got to find another way and how this, what I’ll call new framework, was developed. So can you walk us through that?

Dr. McCoy [7:38 – 9:39]: Yeah, I mean, I don’t think any physician who works in mainstream medicine thinks that it’s a perfectly oiled machine. I mean, none of us are under that illusion. We all know that there are serious issues. The challenge becomes, okay, well, what are we going to do about it? And how do I even begin to do something different? Right. And, you know, with the field that you’re in, you can appreciate this. For a physician who spent their entire scholastic life essentially studying the science is to say, okay, now I’m going to be an entrepreneur and open up a business and figure out how to do that while I’m taking care of, like, the inertia to overcome, to step outside and to, you know, jump out of the nest is huge for anyone. It’s very scary. It’s very intimidating. So, you know, I think that that’s a big part of it. So I think most people are in that system now and they know that it’s messed up, but they’re scared and they don’t know what to do about it. So that, I think, is there for most of us. I had the fortunate experience to train at a county hospital where I worked the majority of my career before I left, and it was an unopposed program. So we did all of our own surgeries and ran the ICU and worked in the ER. Right. Which led to a wonderful breadth of experience and ultimately gave me the confidence that when I knew it was time to transition and do something different and help people proactively instead of being reactive. Right. I was in emergency medicine for almost 15 years, and once every month or two, I would find an extra 15 minutes where I could sit with somebody at three in the morning and actually have a discussion. But generally, people are coming to you on their worst day, and this is not often the best time to have those types of conversations. Right. And it’s an amazing experience to save somebody’s life, but you never see them again.

Patrick Longergan [9:39 – 9:39]: Right.

Dr. McCoy [9:39 – 10:24]: There’s no connection, and that’s what’s expected. Right. So the sense of fulfillment that comes with partnering with someone to identify goals and give them a deep understanding of where they are, craft a path together of how to get there, and then seeing them achieve that over time is so fulfilling. Right. And something that you can relate to in watching people through their financial planning and how they achieve their goals. Right. It’s no different. And I own a gym as well, and it’s the same thing when I coach there. I mean, watching somebody achieve things that they couldn’t do three months ago, six months ago, a year ago, and then be able to do things that they never thought they were going to be able to do, it’s an amazing experience. Right.

Patrick Longergan [10:24 – 11:20]: Yeah, that’s fantastic. And I want to point out that in the ER, you were saving lives, like right then and there. Now you’re changing trajectory of people’s lives and you’re saving lives in a whole different way. I think about the statement of some people are they live for like 18 years and then they die 70 years later or something like that. And it’s like you’re giving people life, this vitality all the way through. You’re able to perform and do things and be excited about all of the things that happen in life. And I think there’s also something too. Like we talked about emotional health. I don’t know how you have good emotional health if you don’t have good physical health. Right. Like, they’re so interconnected that if I’m not moving my body on a regular basis, I’m not going to be well emotionally either. And so I don’t know, I see what you’re doing is you’re giving people so much more life the way you’re doing medicine now versus the way you were sort of reacting to these crisis situations. So, good for you.

Dr. McCoy [11:20 – 12:46]: Yeah. It’s funny because that contrast was really one of the main drivers to push me to make this kind of my full time focus. Right. Because when we went through the pandemic and was leading the department and taking them through that, you know, for a long time, I had been working swings and overnights the majority of my career. And it was funny because when the pandemic happened, I really had to switch to days and set out an outside facility and a tent hospital and all the workflows and everything that were going to come through with that. Yeah, but it was interesting because what I realized is that once I got my circadian rhythm in check because my schedule changed, my physical health improved significantly. So it was this very interesting dichotomy where it was definitely one of the busiest and most intense times of my life. But a lot of the underlying health issues that I had, both physical and emotional, got so much better when I was living in sync with my circadian rhythm and my biorhythm. And so after, you know, getting through the pandemic and then ultimately having the opportunity to do this full time. And that’s how it is for a lot of us, right. It’s that end of one experience where we actually go through it, and that really solidifies, kind of philosophically, our worldview and gives us a deeper understanding that we can share that with somebody and help them experience that as well. Because when you have something that’s that profound and life changing, like, you don’t want to keep it to yourself, you want to share it with other people.

Patrick Longergan [12:47 – 13:06]: Right? Yeah, that’s fantastic. And so I’d love to sort of dig into what do you see as the, like, foundational. We’ll call it level one. If I’m moving towards being, well, what does that look like? What are steps one, two and three that most people like should get sort of tuned into before they start moving on to the next phases?

Dr. McCoy [13:06 – 13:26]: Yeah. Yeah, it’s a great question. And, you know, it’s interesting because we work with the best athletes in the world to people in their seventies and eighties who are in wherever location they are in their journey. We’re all humans. Our needs. To quote a crossfit quote from Glenn Glassman.

Patrick Longergan [13:26 – 13:26]: Right.

Dr. McCoy [13:26 – 14:21]: They differ in degree, not kind. It’s the same thing when we talk with our professional athletes, right? It’s a human first approach. And when you take that lens through which to view health, it starts with how you fuel your body, right. What your fitness regimen looks like, and then recovery, which includes sleep and autonomic nervous system balance, and what your sympathetic inputs look like, which is a reflection of all of your allostatic stressors that you experience from friends, family, work, your engagement with social media. All of those things go into that bucket. How do you find balance? And we can spend a lot of time talking about the minutiae of this, that and the other. And, you know, this supplement or that medication. And if you’re sleeping four to 5 hours a night, none of it is going to matter.

Patrick Longergan [14:21 – 14:22]: Yep.

Dr. McCoy [14:22 – 14:27]: And so you have to start there with everyone, and you build from those core pillars from there.

Patrick Longergan [14:27 – 15:17]: Evan. Yeah. I love that. I think sleep is probably the. It’s the best legal performance enhancing drug on the planet. Right. Like, if you want to perform at a high level physically and mentally, you’ve got to get some sleep. And this is something that I’ve had to learn the hard way, just figuring I could grind, go to bed at midnight, get up at 430, just keep it going. And it’s like, nope, I wear whoop. I love the data. Had this thing for three or four years. It’s. I don’t need it anymore, but I kind of like to know it. So it’s changed my behavior to the better sleep consistency. I’m not opposed to people drinking alcohol. I just look at what it does to me and it’s like, it screws up my recovery. So we’re like, all right. You know, just to highlight all those things. I think those are all fantastic, but I think the sleep piece is one of those that people. They’ll stay up watching Netflix, whatever. Everybody seems to be sleep deprived. Like, get dialed into your sleep because it really, really matters.

Dr. McCoy [15:18 – 16:14]: It’s funny, because a couple points there before we move on, to me, you’re preaching to the choir, right? You’re somebody who spent the majority of my career sleep deprived and would regularly work 24, 36 hours without stopping, and to my physical and emotional detriment. Right. And in addition to that, you know, we just put out an ebook, right. With our professional athletes. And they asked me what I wanted to write about was the first one. And so it was a no brainer, you know, sleep was the first one. They’re like, really? I’m like, yes, my friend. We start with sleep. So, yeah, we’re a little surprised with that, that it wasn’t nutrition or a training protocol. But as you said, the science is very clear. And you can look at reaction timed, perceived level of exertion, recovery, peak performance outputs, more nuanced findings with coordination and scoring. And, I mean, all of those studies have been done, and there’s a very clear, linear relationship there.

Patrick Longergan [16:14 – 16:54]: Yeah. And I don’t. Can’t believe everything you see on social media, but I saw some study that said the percentage chance of getting injured on poor sleep goes up dramatically. And it’s like, across the board, you know, sleep is so good for you. So good. So we sort of laid the foundation there. How about fine tuning? You’ve talked about dealing with some professional athletes. And I’m looking forward to getting to that and later in the conversation. But what are some of the fine tuning things that you’re doing? Sort of tip of the spear protocols that you see is, like, beneficial? And are there any things out there you have tried with your athletes? You just sort of came across that maybe are hyped up, that aren’t necessarily getting the results that you would expect?

Dr. McCoy [16:54 – 16:57]: Patrick, I can’t give you all the secrets on the first date, man.

Patrick Longergan [16:57 – 16:58]: Okay.

Dr. McCoy [17:00 – 17:12]: But I will say that, you know, there’s a number of other diagnostic studies that we feel at McCoy Medical are key to understanding kind of where you are on the health continuum.

Patrick Longergan [17:12 – 17:12]: Sure.

Dr. McCoy [17:12 – 19:02]: And so everybody who comes into the practice. Right. We do a body composition analysis with bioimpedance if we need to, ideally with a dexa, because, you know, the first thing that we want to identify, especially the dynamics in our population, is, are you under muscled? Are you over adipose? And what is your level of visceral adiposity? That’s step one, two, and three. On top of that, it’s been very clearly demonstrated now in a number of very large studies, the importance of having a above average, higher elite vo two max for your age group. So we do vo two max testing on everybody who comes in to the practice, and then a relatively comprehensive set of labs is an important thing to do. And this falls into that bucket of, you just don’t know if you don’t know. And the number one killer in the United States is heart disease, by far. And too many of us have strong family histories and have never done those tests before and don’t have any insight into our risk. And unfortunately, what happens in the mainstream model is when there are signals that you should do a bit more of an evaluation just doesn’t happen, because a lot of those calculators are those epidemiologic calculators that don’t even start to apply until you get over 40 years old or have multiple comorbidities. You use this analogy a lot, and this is one that Peter T. And other folks use. It’s like, I’m not going to tell you to wait until you have cancer to tell you to stop smoking. You can make those arguments in a lot of areas of health in regards to insulin sensitivity and metabolic function, in regards to your level of cardiovascular fitness, the earlier we start, the easier it’s going to be to move the needle. You have to do the right test to be able to understand kind of what it is you need to focus on in triage yeah, I love that.

Patrick Longergan [19:02 – 19:21]: And one thing that we talked about was I went and got my, I believe is called calcium scoring tests. It’s like, okay, there’s some history. My number should be zero. Let’s just go confirm that it’s zero, because if it’s anything above zero, maybe I should start making some changes now. And the good news is it was zero. And so it’s like, there’s nothing to be concerned about. But I appreciate that.

Dr. McCoy [19:21 – 19:52]: I was just going to say, I mean, this is the thing that I think is so interesting, right, in the blogosphere and the podcast world, this point, right, with, you know, so many people who are taking a keto approach or carnivore approach and have very abnormal lipids, it’s very easy to find out if there’s an issue, right. And I see people who have significant abnormalities on a lipid panel, and we get coronary calcium scores, or cctase or clearly, and they’ve got clean coronaries. And it’s fantastic. The point is, is that, you know, we want you to be an informed decision maker.

Patrick Longergan [19:52 – 19:52]: Right.

Dr. McCoy [19:52 – 20:11]: Right. You want to have all the information before you so that you know that you’re making the best decision for you and it’s going to be different. Like, I don’t have an agenda. Right. My job is to put the information in front of you, and we can make that decision together. But ultimately, it’s your decision to make, and I’m going to support you in whatever that is. But we want it to be an informed one.

Patrick Longergan [20:11 – 20:48]: That’s fantastic. So I want to move on to, again, those foundational pieces that you laid out, food and movement. We’ve talked and we believe those things are medicine. Right. Like, that’s. Let’s. We put the right foods in our body and move. Well, that’s good. So you’re the CEO of CrossFit Medical Society, and you also own a Crossfit gym. Now, one thing that I’m sort of proud of is I do CrossFit. And the first rule of CrossFit is always talk about CrossFit. The second rule of CrossFit is don’t forget the first rule of CrossFit, and I don’t talk about CrossFit that much. So I’m happy that you’re here, and it gives me a chance to, like, exercise the first and second rule of CrossFit.

Dr. McCoy [20:48 – 20:50]: So I think half the audience just tuned out.

Patrick Longergan [20:52 – 21:48]: I’m sorry about that. But they should tune in because this is. I look at where I was. I did my 12th CrossFit open this year, you know? Yeah. Been around a little longer than that, but I just happened to be lucky that there was a gal that opened up a Crossfit gym. A friend of my wife’s drug her there, and she was like, I think you’d like this. And so I went, yeah, I was terrible at most of it, and it’s been interesting to track my progress. When I started off, I was in the bottom third of my age group, and now I finished, I went to quarterfinals, and then I was in the top 25%. In the top 25%. So it’s like, okay, I’m getting more fit. And every year, I like to just track my fitness compared to my age group, and it’s like, am I moving in the right direction? You know? So I’m excited a little bit about this conversation on maybe more than a little bit on the CrossFit side and how you see, like, the CrossFit methodology fitting into health and wellness.

Dr. McCoy [21:48 – 21:48]: Yeah.

Patrick Longergan [21:48 – 22:01]: I think we just need to acknowledge, like, games athletes are not. That’s one level. But I think there’s something like, when you look at the foundation of CrossFit, how it’s so good for your health and you don’t have to be a games athlete to do that.

Dr. McCoy [22:01 – 25:43]: Yeah. I appreciate you bringing all of that up. I think that’s. But it links directly to what we know is and are core components of optimizing your health. And if you’re a CrossFit aficionado. Right. You’re familiar with the sickness wellness fitness continuum. Right. And CrossFit is one of the training modalities that hits all of the pieces that are going to allow you to move and continue to move from the wellness to the fitness domain. And why is that? Well, let’s talk about the biggest health challenges in our country and around the world in many ways, and why Crossfit is such a powerful intervention. And it’s not that you can’t do these things in other ways. It’s that Crossfit is essentially put it into a box and wrapped up with a bow and can hand it to you every day when you walk into a class. Right. And the first one is that you’re lifting heavy stuff and you’re building lean body mass and muscle, and there is a direct correlation with quality of years and independence, which all of us want. None of us want to end up in a skilled nursing facility. All of us want to continue to live in the home or the apartment that we are in for as long as we can and be independent and not to mention the impact on metabolic health and insulin sensitivity. When you have more of the most metabolically active tissue with this muscle, you need to lift heavy things to do that. In addition, for women, axial loading impact for bone mineral density and mitigating osteopenia, osteoporosis, extremely important. What is the other thing that we talked about already? So having a very high cardiovascular capacity, how do you train and improve your vo two? It’s by doing high intensity interval work. What do we do in crossfit? A ton of that. We do it almost every day. A lot of times on Thursdays, which are often mono days. A lot of that is structured in a traditional vo two workout pattern, and it gives us opportunity. Educate people about that. The third piece, which I think differentiates crossfit from so many other fitness approaches in the space right now, is community. And anybody who’s interested should take the time to read the surgeon general’s report on the impact of isolation and loneliness on health that was put out last year. And that and being socially isolated or lonely is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and connection to a community, which you get in spades with Crossfit, who is reinforcing positive health behaviors, which in the lifestyle concept approach, which we have, when you’re trying to establish habits that are going to allow you to maintain and continue to create health, it is all about commitment to the process. Being there day in and day out. And when you’re part of a community or a tribe, if you’ve read James clear’s work and atomic habits, the impact of going against that tribe or community makes it significantly harder so you can leverage that power. A lot of our area of interest. And then what I focus on is the impact of community on diseases of despair. And this is such a huge challenge for us right now with anxiety, depression, and substance use disorder. And Crossfit, because of its high intensity interval work, is one of the best ways to start to develop new brain pathways that are much more functional and sustainable to replace a lot of the deficiencies that exist in those other areas.

Patrick Longergan [25:44 – 27:23]: I love that. So there’s so many things you touched on there. I’d like to just go back and chip away at some of these. So there’s a book called the Good Life, and it’s one of the longest studies ever done on life expectancy and that type of thing. It was a Harvard study, and they highlighted that exact same point you did around loneliness is akin to being, like, a heavy smoker. And it takes so many years off of your life. And so I’d like to just point that piece out. And then another thing along with that is we’re more connected than ever connected via social media, but it’s isolating us. And so I’ve taken some steps to just create some boundaries between me and social media to just make sure that I’m using it in a healthy way. I think it can be an effective tool to. My Instagram is full of people like you. It’s health and fitness. It’s tax and finance. It’s Lego. It’s all the things I’m interested in and sort of none of the things that instill FOMO. So I think putting some healthy boundaries around social media is important. And then a couple things you talked about, like lifting heavy things and how important that is for building muscle and bone density and that type of thing. I’ve done some triathlons and sort of lived a little bit in that world, and it’s. It’s good and fun, and it’s good for my cardiovascular health, but it doesn’t have that weightlifting component. And then we can also look at just sort of the globogym model where I’m just, like, pumping iron, and sure, I’m lifting heavy things, but I can’t jog down the hallway or run up the stairs after my kids. So I agree with you. That’s the piece that crossfit brings together and the community. Every time I travel, I love just stopping into a gym, dropping in, and people are just so welcoming, like. And you all suffer together, and you have a good time, and it’s. I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like the Crossfit community. It’s fantastic. So I appreciate you highlighting all those points and how they fit into our wellness in general. Cause it really does matter. So, thank you.

Dr. McCoy [27:23 – 28:16]: I think it’s important, right, for us to remember that we are living with the physiology and genetics that were developed right over tens of thousands of years that is constructed and gives us a human experience. It’s very different to what we’re designed for, right. But we are social creatures, and we are designed to function optimally in tribes. And this is coming from a car carrying introvert. But we are designed to do hard things collectively together towards a shared effort. And that’s the beautiful thing about the structure of acrossfit class and the community, is we are working collectively together, doing hard things, supporting each other, and overcoming challenges over time, and watching each other grow. This, I think, ties into an innate physiologic and genetic need that we have as humans that modern existence robs us of in many ways.

Patrick Longergan [28:16 – 28:38]: Yeah, I love that. And you touched on another point. Thank you for bringing all these up. There’s a book called the Comfort Crisis that talks about how we need to do hard things, like, it’s good for us. And I just see that I like doing hard things at the Crossfit gym because it helps me do hard things at work, helps me do hard things in my relationships. It just, like, transfers to so many areas of my life. And so. Yeah, that’s great.

Dr. McCoy [28:38 – 28:45]: No, I think Michael Easter’s work, especially the comfort crisis, should be required reading for most of us.

Patrick Longergan [28:45 – 29:10]: Yeah, I know. And it’s got me outside, more like, I’ll throw on my rucksack and walk to the office. And I got a shower here, so it’s like, I’ll work out in the morning, you know, put my backpack on, walk to the office, shower up, get ready to go, and it’s like that sunshine on my face being outside. And I know you like to be outside. You hunt. You. Can you just talk us through a little bit of the things you like to enjoy? It sounds like you like to be outside, and I think that’s good for your health, too. So.

Dr. McCoy [29:10 – 31:11]: Yeah, and this is an area where I think that the science is pretty clear, too, and it ties into what we just talked about around our kind of physiologic and genetic needs. So, you know, I do, because I have identified for myself that living in tune with my circadian rhythm is so important, I want to try and utilize those cues throughout the day to help reinforce, force that cycle. Right. So part of that is getting morning light exposure. Another part of that is getting natural light exposure during the day and then trying to be outside in the evenings when I can. And then throughout the year, one of the things that I’m most passionate about is being able to take extended trips in the backcountry, where I’m completely unplugged and off the grid. And if I’m fortunate enough. Right. That provides a lot of the food for my family for the coming year. And so Michael talks a lot about that in his book with misogis and what that means when you take a period of time and you push yourself on an adventure where there’s a good chance that you wouldn’t be able to complete it. Right. And so, for me, being able to go into the backcountry in the wilderness for two weeks, and if we get fortunate enough, have to pack out a 400 pounds of meat on our backs. It’s a real challenge, especially when you’re in the middle of nowhere and that pushes you. And those are good things. We all need those outlets. And you return from that, you know, with a level of resilience and determination and grit that, again, our existence. And as his book is so aptly titled, the Comfort Crisis. Right. It creates this situation to where we lose that. Right. And then because we don’t have it, we can’t apply it to these other areas of our life when we meet hardship. Right. And so I see those experiences as much as, you know, being amazing and individual as training for when I come back to this world that we have to exist in so that it doesn’t throw me for a loop, you know?

Patrick Longergan [31:11 – 31:37]: Yeah, no, and you mentioned the misogy. And the thing I love about that is the way he defines it is with training, you have a 50 50 chance of succeeding. And it’s like, okay, that means it’s going to be really hard. And then. So that, that’s like the first rule. The second rule is don’t die. Don’t set it up in a way that it can kill you. So it’s like, all right, it’s. It’s good. Yeah, we’ll make sure that that book’s in the show notes.

Dr. McCoy [31:37 – 31:37]: It’s a great.

Patrick Longergan [31:38 – 32:19]: Check it out because. Yeah, I agree. It’s one that was recommended to me and I’ve recommended it to a lot of people and just so much of that hit home for me. So great. All right, so the last thing I’d like to touch on is you’re partnering with proven athletics in Nashville. Tia Claire Toomey is sort of the face of the proven brand. Her and her husband, Shane Orr, sort of founded that. She’s a six time crossfit world champion. So you’re obviously working with the best of the best and helping them optimize their health and recovery. Are you seeing some protocols again that maybe we can take from these elite athletes and apply to our everyday lives? We’ve already talked a little bit about sleep and recovery. Like, that’s an important piece. I’m sure they’re, they’re dialed in there, but is there anything else that you’re like, hey, this is something that’s worthwhile for the everyday folks?

Dr. McCoy [32:20 – 34:37]: Well, I think the most important thing, right, that you just glanced over is completely not true because, you know, in addition to proven right, we work with people in the NFL and MLB and pro serving all these different sports. Most of them get to that level because they have an unbelievable amount of natural or God given talent, and they can perform at that level despite not having their sleep or their nutrition dialed in. And sometimes we sit down in these meetings and like, are you kidding me? Like, this is what you eat every day. This is how little you sleep. And so it goes back to what we talked about before, like, we’re all human. Like, the needs differ in degree, not kind. And so it starts there even with the fittest people in the world. Right? But that being said, there are things from a performance standpoint that, you know, I think the science supports from an ergogenic aid category, and it’s really about identifying. Okay, what’s going to give us the most bang for our buck? Because, you know, CrossFit is very different than doing an ultra, which is very different than doing the Tour de France, which is very. All these buckets are different. So what protocols you put together, how you execute with them, and again, not overburdening somebody with so many pills and supplements that they get confused and throw their hands up in the air. It’s really about identifying, okay, what’s highest yield, what’s going to get us where we need to be and how do we execute on it. And a lot of times it’s the same things that you’re doing, but it’s timing, it’s the distribution throughout the day. I think for a lot of the CrossFit professionals, we spend a lot of time talking about recovery and autonomic balance because they train so much and they push so hard that developing a toolkit that they can dive into and whether it’s certain breath work exercises or journaling or what they’re doing with their morning or evening rituals, et cetera, to kind of bring some of that balance back, because they spend hours upon hours a day in the sympathetic zone. And so learning how to do that even immediately after a workout so that you can start to balance that autonomic nervous system is hugely important.

Patrick Longergan [34:37 – 34:45]: That’s great. Thank you. All right, Doctor Tom, this has been fantastic. Is there anything else we should be talking about that we haven’t talked about so far?

Dr. McCoy [34:45 – 35:46]: Man, that’s a great question. I think that we’ve hit a lot of the high points. I think the takeaways, I think, for us, from this discussion, for people listening, is that if you haven’t found avenues to kind of push on your boundaries or push on your edges or put yourself in uncomfortable situations, you should try to find those, because you will respond well to that. And the other big bucket is that it’s very easy to exist in this world now. And as you alluded to think, you’re socially connected but not have a real community. And whether that’s through your local church or your box or your affiliate or where you train or another group, you volunteer for whatever it is you need to seek that out, because you’re not never going to be, as you know, going back to your acronym with reach, as emotionally well balanced and happy, no matter how much of an introvert you are if you don’t have those things in your life. So work to seek that out and develop it over time.

Patrick Longergan [35:46 – 36:01]: I love it. That’s fantastic. So how do people get connected with you? I know you’re obviously busy with all of the things you’ve got going on, but if somebody’s like, hey, I want to learn more about Doctor Tom McCoy and McCoy medical and everything they’ve got going on, what’s the best way for folks to get plugged in?

Dr. McCoy [36:01 – 36:35]: Yeah, I mean, the reason why we started this work is because we love developing long term relationships with people. So we’d be more than happy to talk with folks if they have interest in working with us or what we do. Website’s a great way to connect with us. They can book an exploratory call. McCoy medical.com on Instagram, vital human doc, all one word. They can find me there. Crossfit medical Society, they can connect with us there. But the McCoy medical and the Instagram IG handle are probably the best ways to get ahold of us.

Patrick Longergan [36:35 – 37:01]: Fantastic. We will have all of those pieces in the show notes and, yeah, I just appreciate the fact that we’re so much of what we’re doing, our clients are trying to do is be proactive instead of reactive, and you fit exactly into that mold. Like, let’s be proactive with our health and live a fulfilling, like, vital life all the way to the end. I would much rather, like, burn out than fade away. Right. You know, so it’s like, let’s come skidding in on fire at the end, and that’ll be okay. So, yeah.

Dr. McCoy [37:01 – 37:26]: And to that point, Patrick, I think that the other important thing for people to know is that they don’t have to settle. Right. And I think a lot of people are in relationships with their care team or what have you, and they just think, well, they’re a doctor. This is the system. This is what I got. I guess that’s how it is. And it’s just like anything else, right? If you don’t have a connection with that person or you feel like they aren’t providing you what you need, you know, keep looking. The right person is out there. You just got to find them.

Patrick Longergan [37:26 – 37:36]: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s also important to make people aware that we’ve never met in person. I’m in Iowa, you’re out in. Forgive me, I’m not even sure you’re in Nashville.

Dr. McCoy [37:36 – 37:40]: We have brick and mortars in Nashville. And Ohio. We’re in Ohio today.

Patrick Longergan [37:40 – 38:21]: Yeah. So it’s like, we don’t need to be in the same place for you to help me be proactive with my healthcare. And so anybody I’m across, I’m sure across the United States, maybe even internationally, it doesn’t really matter. That’s the cool thing about the work you do. You can help people be well no matter where they’re at. So I couldn’t encourage you more to reach out to Doctor Tom McCoy and McCoy medical and get plugged in and just. It’ll be worthwhile. The foundation of just about everything we do starts with our health. You know, if we’ve got the energy to keep pushing through the day and allow us to have great relationships, do all the experience things, continue to grow, make a contribution and ultimately be healthy, that’s exciting. That’s what we’re looking to do. So, doctor, I appreciate you being here today and sharing your wisdom with us this and I’m sure we’ll be talking soon.

Dr. McCoy [38:21 – 38:27]: Yeah, I really enjoyed the time, Patrick, thanks for taking it and look forward to chatting again in the future.

Patrick Longergan [38:28 – 39:34]: Thank you for listening to the Vital Strategies podcast. We wanted to give you the first look at the tools we are developing that will help you with the four cornerstones of wealth building. To be an insider to get access to the tools to help manage your cash flow, create a tax strategy, invest wisely and protect the wealth you are building. Go to vitalstrategies.com cornerstones. You’ll be the first in line to get access. These tools are designed to help you pay less tax so you can build more wealth and live a great life again. That website is vitalstrategies.com cornerstones. I want to remind you to rate and review the Vital Strategies podcast on your favorite platform. Your feedback helps us towards our goal of saving our clients and listeners over 1 billion in taxes. Those dollars are better used in your hands versus the government bureaucracy. Thank you for listening and for being a vital entrepreneur. You’re vital because you are the backbone of our economy, creating opportunities for your employees and driving growth. You’re vital to your family, fostering abundance, not only financially, but in all aspects of life that matter most. Finally, you’re vital to me because you strive to build wealth, make an impact through your business, and live a great life.