Episode #524: Transforming Lives Through Nutrition and Fitness-Arman Eckelbarger's Approach

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1:03 This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks NYC. I have the pleasure of bringing a friend of mine from 23 years ago back in the dial up, the DSL, and the check your email back at Kinko's days. Armin, coming in from Inverness, Florida. Welcome to the Hi Fi Wi Fi fitness industry and the Halo sector. Good to see you again, man. Thanks for reaching out. Oh, no, bro. Great seeing you too. Good memories. Yeah. Yeah. So we're using the term wellness back in the day, and and I was fine with it, until I realized where it came from back in the day. But you and I were talking about websites back at that time, and you were doing some corporate sales. Yeah. So, you know, give us a a just for the listeners here, this podcast is gonna be about, you know, longevity and and what Ramin's kinda learned and gleaned over the years.

1:52 Basically, set up a b to b strategy, work with executives, and work with teams, to try to accomplish those goals. So, Armand, why don't you talk about your your progression over the years and, you know, why you kinda landed where where you are now? Well, I was in the consulting space when we were working together, and that was going well. But then, I started having kids, and the wife kinda got in the way of that. So I ended up having to shut that down and had tried to find something more 9 to 5, and then I got into insurance and investments, which, you know, I I did that for 8 years. It wasn't me, so I decided, well, with that struggle going on, I'm gonna get back into the space. And then things have changed a lot, which is for the better. And so since I've been back in it, I've really evolved with all the changes. And so now it's at a point where there's new stuff coming out over the past couple of years, which people are probably familiar with. But it's also growing really well, and that's how to improve your health span, your muscle span, and your lifespan the long term so that you can actually enjoy, you know, your fruits of your labor if you've been doing well financially, and you don't wanna go through whatever else is going through. All those chronic health problems, and it's just failing society. But there's there's a lot of great answers now, but people they're kinda they're kinda, like, confused massively on what's the best approach is, you know, the fitness approach, the nutrition approach, and all the other things that pop up.

3:16 So So you look at to basically do this on on a curated one to one basis? Do you have a a plan that you kinda put push people into? Obviously, everything it's gotta be somewhat customized, you know, be based on the individual. But, you know, talk us how you do the evaluations and then you just say a 3 months, 6 months, hey. This is how you should live it, or is this like, hey. I'm your I'm your coach, and I'm gonna look at me, and I'm gonna keep you going? Yeah. So it's really up to the up to the client what they what they need and what they'd like. But the way the process works is if you would like to learn more about how I operate with people, then you you do a deep dive, questionnaire. That questionnaire would be sent to me. We schedule a call. It could be a Zoom call or phone call. And I go through this questionnaire to learn about your beliefs on nutrition, exercise, health in general so that I can determine if we're gonna be a good fit to work together, because there's a lot of belief changes that have to happen based on my experience and the people I work with to make things work. So after we conclude the call and we both feel like we could work together, then at that point, the next step is gonna be extensive lab work. And I mean extensive lab work.

4:23 It's not your typical lab work you would get at any medical doctor. So we're talking about all your hormones. We're talking about a metabolic panel, your CBC. We're talking about your inflammation markers, your iron levels, Apple B, which is a better cholesterol marker, etcetera. There's quite a few. But we also do a DNA methylation test. The DNA methylation test helps determine what raw materials your body needs based on different mutations in your genetic structure from your parents. And this is very unique because then you don't waste money on supplements that aren't needed because we know after doing the test. So once the lab work comes back, the DNA test comes back, that's gonna be evaluated. Okay? And I have 2 different medical teams that evaluate this. One medical team is gonna evaluate it based on nutrition and supplementation, And then another medical team is gonna do the same, but there if there was a need for a prescription, then they're gonna issue that if you're gonna if you'd like to proceed with that strategy. So you have science based protocols going on that are gonna make sense to you after you do these calls with these medical teams.

5:28 I'm the guy that quarterbacks the whole integration process. And so I'm gonna integrate with the supplementation, the nutrition, the exercise regimen, your sleep, recovery, and then also making sure that your home home run optimization is working well. People don't realize Let me hormones. Yeah. Go ahead. Let me let me interject just to ask you a question. Because something you said at the beginning here is something that just recently came up, one with a a potential significant other, and one with a potential client where our beliefs were different. And it was very true whether it was cultural or whether it was how this individual kind of approached their business or what we were trying to do in a deal where, you know, I might come out and say, hey. We're selling your business. You know, we're gonna sell this business, and we're gonna go to market with a number that I think clears the market that I feel like is fair and that the buyer's gonna say that I got a fair deal. And and this potential client, you know, wanted to basically, like, me to price it, you know, like, 10,000,000 you know, 25, 30% more than what, you know, it it's worth. And I've been doing this a long time. Just have you been you you know, I know what's gonna scare people away until you're out of your mind, Pete, or they're gonna say, hey. That that sounds reasonable.

6:34 Therefore, we we didn't take on the retainer because I knew that, like, I wasn't gonna be able to manage the process the way I wanted it to. And it was also some cultural that happened Separately, we'll talk about offline. So when you say, like, I gotta make sure we have belief alignment, what what does that mean to you? And what does what should that mean to other people? And, do you try and change people's belief? Or do you say, look look, like, we this isn't gonna work because I'm not gonna be effective for you? Well, for one example, one huge belief issue is nutrition. You know, you know as well as I do, there's a lot of opinions on it. There's a lot of stuff available. So I need to understand, you know, are you a vegetarian, a vegan, or do you do you a person that cannot get rid of processed food? You just have to have that as far as your nutrition strategy. Are you a person that, you know, refuses to take a supplement because you you just don't want to.

7:24 You know, what things are you seeking to get results on? And then I can explain to you why the things were important. So and then there's other things. Well, I don't wanna lift weights. Okay. Well, okay. That's fine. But then there's things you need to understand about when you give up not doing that, how it's gonna affect your longevity. Because you need it for bone density, you need it for muscle mass, you need it for a lot of reasons. And if they're not willing to go down these things just like in your situation, then we're probably not gonna be good partners, and so it's okay. I mean, I'm just not the right fit. They need somebody else. Right. I did I think that's something that most companies should should start to do, because it usually ends up in either, you know, a lot of aggravation where you're trying to, like, offload someone and they're not getting results. And, basically, you knew that was gonna happen upfront. So, and especially in the finance business or in very similar, like, trying to get a financial deal done, trying to get your life, you know, in order and see the results in the mirror and also see them, you know, scientifically. You get a deal done or you don't get a deal done. The wire transfer happens or it doesn't. Right? So that result doesn't lie. Neither does the what what you look like in a mirror. Exactly. You have a real mirror and not one of those, like, fancy ones that, like, change change the way you look. Well, here's the thing. We take it a step further because you gotta look at your labs later after we've done the initial baseline. Your labs need to be improving.

8:46 Otherwise, we got mud on our face. Okay? And that's why it's really important that we have the right alignment with the people following through with everything. Because once you see everything changing, you feel the changes, you see your labs improving, the motivation level really shoots up. And it's very encouraging, and plus the results continue to to manifest themselves the way you'd like. So So you know that the investment you're making is is working for you. And the biggest thing is that once it's all said and done, what we end up teaching you is how to take back control of your health and physique for the long term. You know what to do as you learn these processes. People don't know what to do most of the time. They're late. They're trying to get a personal trainer. They're gonna try to get a nutritionist. Yeah. I mean, it's just to to grab all situation that doesn't solve the whole spectrum of what's involved, in my opinion. Well, what what's the cost? Because you talk about extensive lab tests. You talk about 2 medical teams. You talk about, you know, DEA, markers. You know? And, it it sounds to me like, you know, like, putting the car up on a on one of those, you know, truss or whatever they call that thing.

9:52 You know? And then we're gonna take the wheels off, and we're gonna really, like, tell you how many brake pads you need, which obviously everyone needs a brake pad. Right? And so once you get it up there, and the wheels are off, like, we gotta say, oh, man. This ain't gonna work. Well, I've never had never had that happen at this point. Usually, there's things that could be fixed. But, typically, people are confident in themselves or they're not. So somebody's not really confident, but they do wanna make the commitment, make some changes because they are very curious, and they're thinking, well, this sounds like it should work. Then I have a 4 a 3 month program, which is a 12 week program. Now I have some people who's like, listen, I'm in. What's what's it gonna be for a year? Because it's includes everything. I make it as seamless and simple as possible.

10:35 Any supplement you need are delivered to your door. If you need help with nutrition, I have nutrition apps. I have nutrition booklets. I have all kinds of support mechanisms there. And I also have an app for the training and nutrition and your measurements and all your baselines too. So everything's on your phone in a snapshot. But I'm making sure, most importantly, that you have good clarity about what you need to do day to day. So with concluding everything, and the medical teams are vetted, so a typical and it's bay and I also can adjust it based on what I think I need to do for the person. So there is flexibility. But like a typical 3 month program, the 12 week program would be $4,000. The 1 year pro $4,000. 1 year program would be $75100. But all you have to do is execute with everything I give you to do, and we build on that. So I hope that's kinda simplifies that.

11:29 This is Pete Moore. I wanna let you in on a little secret. There's this company called Promotion Vault, and what they do is they give out rewards from retailers that allow you to incentivize your members without having to do zero down and 1 month free or giving away shakes or giving away t shirts. What you wanna do is build a rewards program that lasts, that people value, and that doesn't discount your own products and services. So here's the deal. There's something called rewards vault. The rewards vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile. They are going to answer questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be able to target those members, and you're gonna reward them inside your club, inside your spa, and outside of the club and outside of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay their monthly dues, and to be rewarded properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards. You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me.

12:28 This is real. Are are you seeing companies you know, there's obviously, you know, like the Mayo Clinic and some of these other Cleveland Clinic, those types of groups that have these, you know, executive, you know, management type of weekends, or you go for 2 days, get all your, you know, body scans, and and the company pays for that. Are you seeing this as being mostly out of pocket? Are you seeing insurance companies? Are you seeing people, saying, hey. I want I want this to be part of my corporate benefits plan? Well, it's an interesting point and a great question. So for first of all, like, with my program, it's also approved through TrueMed. So you can pay for this program through your HSA or FSA account. Nice. So you have that. That gives you flexibility. Now the scans and things are very expensive, so they're not gonna be covered by insurance unless it's an absolute medical need that has to be confirmed by a medical professional. So anything that's considered exploratory with insurance is not gonna be most likely covered. Now it could be exceptions, but that's been my experience. And, also, my wife's a benefits has a benefits company, so kinda have an understanding of how that works. But the flexibility of the FSA and HSA is really good. Yeah. No. It's huge. Yeah. We we just started covering them. And then for people that don't know, with one of the changes in the IRS code, it appears now that you get a letter of medical necessity. That's that's part of the the Issue. Of of the getting the reimbursement. Yeah. Yeah. So so with TrueMed, with Flex, doctor B, or some of the groups that are issuing these, letter codes, medical

14:00 necessity, which taps into the HSA, FSA. And now on DoorDash even if you go to, a DoorDash and you go to, like, a Walgreens and if you live in a big city and you get you you know, I'm not saying I'm too lazy to go walk to the drugstore. However, I might be doing something else at the same time. Yeah. Point being that that's unlocking a lot of value in Yeah. In dollars for people on their, on their HSA accounts. Well, if you think about it, most people aren't using their HSA. You know? You're you're using it for medical things, and other times they're not using it for medical things. They don't know what to use it for, or they just it sits dormant. So it could be used now on a regular basis. I mean, it includes everything that I have to offer. It's just a matter of, you know, submitting it and getting it. You get your letter letter of medical necessity, through TrueMed, and then they handle all of it for you. All you gotta do is submit everything to make sure you get you get the, the disc discount. Well, they'll save you getting ones. When when you take a look at, doing scans, and I haven't done one yet.

15:00 Those are on my to do list. But how often should you get them done, and how often does it make sense to, like, see results? Well, anytime you do a scan, that's a budgetary consideration, because the scan's gonna run, like, $1200 or more. I've never had one done because that's still out of my budget as far as I'm concerned, and you have to really get them scheduled. And then, again, you know, the bet you gotta get it cons you gotta set up with a medical review. So there's a lot of moving parts, in my opinion, to get one done. Now that's gonna get simplified, I think, more down the road here with all the new technology. But for now, like a full m r MRI scan, you can get it done. It's just, it's gonna vary, though, as far as total total cost and so depending on what your budget is. So I don't know if that answers your question or not.

15:43 Yeah. No. But when and then switching gears to, like, looking at, you know, longevity and and, you know, with Halo, we're trying to solve loneliness, diabetes, or and obesity by by people like you being part of our our, you know, ecosystem as well as companies that are trying to raise capital to address those 3 big issues. You know, you take a look at, like, pickleball as an example. UnitedHealthcare came out and said, like, there's an extra 4 and a half $1,000,000,000 worth of, cost associated with, you know, whether it's knee injuries or ankle or what have you. At the same time, it's like, well, it's probably, like, $15,000,000,000 worth of benefits to socialization, loneliness, you know, depression, not having friends, you know, irregular eating habits or, you know, not leaving your house.

16:28 So how do you think about one, you're talking about muscle, you know, recovery and and muscle, you know, is the currency, if you will, to make sure that you live longer. At the same time, like, you know, whatever age I am, I'm probably going out to play pickleball, and I'm gonna deal with the consequences of that. Yeah. Well, the best way to deal with that is being as good as she good as shape and condition as you can be in. And so strength training is gonna keep the ligaments and tendons where they need to stay and keep the muscles around it so you're less likely to have those strains or tears. But you also gotta reach your body if you have an abnormal feeling in the knee or something that you've been playing pickleball, okay, you need to give it a break and then rehab that as quick as possible, which it will if you leave it alone and work on it. So there's a you know, it's always a risk that people take, but if you're leaner, less likely to have a problem. If you're heavier, yeah. If you're going side to side, you got a good chance of straining the knee, or falling, hitting the hip, you know, all kinds of things that that can happen. Yeah. Yeah. So so given what you're doing right now, give us a couple of, you know, either case studies or, you know, moments that you said, hey. I'm in the right place, and I've helped these people without using their specific names or, you know, what what Okay.

17:45 Good point. I had a from here. I had a couple that were referred to me through another client that really enjoyed what I had done for him. And so it was the husband and wife team. They just sold their business, and so finance is really good. And, they were really, you know, curious to see what I could do. So, you know, we talked. Everything worked out. They felt comfortable making changes. And so then we got the lab work ordered, and it was not good. That was and he he didn't even know, but he was already diabetic. He had 10.6 on his a one c, And he had gut issues. Both of them have gut issues. Their stomachs were not digesting properly. Inflammation was high all the way around, elevated homocysteine levels. I mean, cholesterol and there's things I understand about cholesterol, but, you know, apo b is your better marker. It was high. I mean, it wasn't good. And hormones were flat lined, so this and the guy didn't even realize what kind of shape he was in, and he just knew he wasn't feeling right. And the same thing for the wife. So, you know, we got started. You know, they had to lose some weight. They were overweight. So what I do for the most cases with people in that in that situation, I have a carb cycling strategy, which is nutrition because people don't understand insulin. So you need to understand insulin if you wanna lose body fat, and that's a key element. Some people refuse to understand that, but it's a fact. And so to help them with the insulin, to help lose the body fat, I use berberine in a strategic way so that it doesn't affect, muscles when they're training. So that's one way to

19:17 help push the insulin down and control it along with, at the same time, nutrition, making sure that they're I don't count calories because that's not necessary when you're looking to lean somebody out. Carbohydrates are the focus because that's what's causing most of the issue and then eliminating the processed food and sugar. And so there's a lot more that we did with these these couple, but at the same time, designer workout programs, put everything in place. They executed well. They focused. And, I mean, they had just done a 360. Their static is because a one c is 5.2 now. This is after 6 months. Could you crash course on insulin real quick as you as you reference that? I really understand that. Yeah. So what people don't understand about insulin is when look at what people eat every day. I ensure high carbohydrates. Everybody thinks carbohydrates are harmless, but at the end of the day, that gets stored as fat. Insulin is a fat storage hormone. Alright? Now it has a property to help putting nutrients into the cells. That's important. But at the same time, if you're overcome overconsumption of carbohydrates and sugars is high, that's gonna be stored all this fat. Because if your muscles are liver or you full of glycogen, there's no place where to go. So if you're not even exercising and you're eating all this, it just gets worse and worse. And the problem with elevated insulin, it tends to affect your hunger hormones like leptin and ghrelin, and ghrelin's when it says, hey. I'm hungry. It's it tends to stay elevated more so you become, you know, resistant to it, which also leads to insulin resistance, which leads to all kinds of problems. And so resistance leads to basically damage

20:47 in the mitochondria. And this starts to overload the liver. So and one way to check the liver is check your alanine transsemination level. If it's over 25, then you're probably on your way to insulin resistance. And what this basically means is your mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell, is not getting what it needs, and they're starting to malfunction, which affects your energy. Just as a I know it's kind of a long winded kind of long winded statement. But No. I think it's helpful, to I think it's important because I think a lot of terms are used and thrown around as if people understand what that means, with a lot of these, you know, either chronic conditions or or disease Well, insulin, if it stays elevated condition of it. Yeah. I mean, insulin if it stays elevated is a chronic condition because it also causes inflammation. And if you become insulin resistant, then as you continue to eat, you can't it's that's when you start becoming die prediabetic and diabetic, and then that's, again, tissues are getting damaged all the time because it affects the capillaries. So you know? And you when you start to affect the capillaries, that's part of the damage.

21:52 This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast. We are partnered up with a company called Higher Dose, higher dose dot com. They are the leader in workout recovery products, infrared technology, LED light masks, neck enhancers, and other products such as PMF mats and sauna blankets. If you have not gotten on the workout recovery train yet, your time and your stop is now. You gotta get these products in there before these workout recovery and spas end up saturating your market, having your members walk out of the club and going into one of their locations for $200 per month where they're paying 39 to you. Let's become an expert in workout recovery if we are already an authority in workouts. Higher dose, check it out. There's a wholesale code, and we look forward to helping you augment your products and services to meet the demands of your members. And, hey, let's get people happy, healthy, and sweating, and the recovery should be just as good as the workout.

23:03 So, you know, you as a, you know, as an entrepreneur and and building this business on, on coaching and and longevity, for other people that are doing something similar to you, you know, maybe some, like, tea leaves on, like, how you know, obviously, you've been doing this for a long time, so you got a network in place. But do you go to trade shows? Do you you kind of put a lot up on LinkedIn? It's like, hey. I'm an expert, and this is, you know, how I get my my leads or how I build my business. Obviously, I'm doing the same thing clearly with this podcast as well as, you know, commenting on things that I see in the market that maybe I could opine on. So talk about kind of being a coach and entrepreneur and knowing that, you know, you're not necessarily looking to scale your business. You're looking to optimize yourself at the same time as optimize other people.

23:49 Well, so for me, like, I've I actually went to my first Biohacker conference, which was in Miami, which is very interesting. And so I got some networking done there, and met another medical group that I wanted to just partner with, which was really nice to have, and learned a lot too. There's so much technology coming down the pipe on this because, you know, there's a lot of money to be made because the wealthy people are trying to figure out how they can live a more quality life. More reason because they have the resources to do that, and so they're very open minded. So there's a lot of funding going in that area, and so it's good to stay up on top of that. As far as the the marketing for me, it's mostly referrals, social media. I do a lot of posting, you know, like, 2 posts a day with the LinkedIn. You know, I have 2 I have a personal LinkedIn page, and then I have my business LinkedIn page, and I do the same thing for Facebook and Instagram. Those are the main ones that I kinda focus on. I'll do stuff on TikTok. I have a YouTube channel, which is you know, I get a lot of reaction on that. So it just depends on, you know, what the what the what it takes for people to learn more about what's going on out there. I'm still working on all that because it is a a work in progress as you probably know when you're trying to to, you know, find the right people. So it's, that's kinda where I'm at with that. And then and then closing here, we'll have all the information in the show notes, but got any quotes that you, live by or something that's in your office that you, that refer to?

25:13 And I don't really have anything that's, too set in stone. I kinda just kinda move around with what's what's out there. I do like to say, you know, teach people how to take back control of their health and physique because people just don't know. I mean, they just really don't know. And when they start learning how things work, then it's like, oh, no. I kinda get it. But it's hard for them to even have that vision. So other than that, I also tell people, you know, if you're gonna train, train like a savage. You know, give it all you got. I gotta yeah. I I gotta get back into training like like a savage instead of dancing on my bike. But, anyway, we'll talk about that a little time. Alright. Well, Arvin, good to see you again, man. Glad you reached out.

25:55 Longevity is obviously the key to, key to life here for all of us moving to the next phase of, you know, maybe not as competitive sports, but competitive ish. So we'll go from there. You'll be more competitive. That's a fact. Got it. Alright, man. Great to see you again.