The Weight of Change: 600lb Ethan Benard on His Weight-Loss Journey

Hey crew, it's Adam. I'm a husband, a father, a pastor, a follower of Jesus who just like you is trying to learn what it looks like to fully live and follow Jesus in the middle of real life. It is one thing to be someone on Sundays, but what about Monday through Saturday? And so here, we're gonna talk about faith and making a difference in the messy, ordinary moments where it's often the hardest to live out. Some weeks, I'll share what God is teaching me. Other weeks, I'll sit down with leaders, pastors, athletes, friends. There's no fluff, just encouragement and truth for your life between Sundays. I'm so glad you're here. Well, hey crew, it's Adam. You're listening to Life Between Sundays. We're so excited you're here. Yeah, this is the second episode of Life Between Sundays, but overall, it is episode 330. Yeah, do we like start over? No, we cannot start over. No, we're not starting over. I need to be encouraged. I'm like 330, okay, we can keep doing this. We can keep doing this. Okay, 330. Yeah, but this is the second week, and it's been fun. I had a person pull me aside this last week and say,

hey, I like the new Rebrand, let's go. And so that was really, really cool, just to talk with them about why and whatever else. So yeah, I'm really excited. I just like the look of this more too. I do too. I was getting sick of the blue. I was getting sick of the blue too. The blue, you gotta go. And I usually do not like pictures of me whatsoever, but the cover, the cover pic. It's a great photo. I'm like, man, that's great. He really boosted his self-confidence. If you zoom out even further, I just look better and better and better. Just make you a spec. There it is. Okay, we got episode 330, a fun episode for you. Let's give your high, low, and your Buffalo. Gosh, that Buffalo again. Whatever you want, a high, a low. I think my high this last week, so this was a week that I saw coming like three months ago. I knew this last week was gonna be a busy one. But for me, a highlight was having my friend Brad Lominick here. So Brad has just had a huge impact on me, and it was super fun to be able to introduce him to a whole bunch of friends

that have heard about Brad for a long, long time. And how did you meet Brad? I met Brad, he used to put on a conference called Catalyst, and I just sent him an email, and he said, hey, you should come out and join me and volunteer at my conference. And so I did, and it began just a really, really close friendship. So somebody that I just respect so much. And Thursday night, we had a crew night, which is this invite-only men's gathering, which is one of my favorite things. I've done it twice now, and it's way out of my comfort zone, but it's really fun to gather a group of friends very, very intentionally. I probably knew 90 of the 106 that were in attendance. Oh, some of them you didn't even know. Yeah, because a couple of people said, hey, can I invite this guy friend or this guy friend? And I was like, all right, I'll let him in. And it was just really, really cool. Probably my favorite thing of the night was seeing older men connecting with younger men, and vice versa. There was one guy who is, I think he's in his mid-60s, and he said, I don't really know why I'm coming to this. When he left, he said, hey, incredible, I have the number of three younger dudes, and I can't wait to grab coffee with them.

I was like, let's go. So that was a highlight. Very, very cool. And you don't have a low, or a random? I'm trying to think of a low. I think my low was feeling maybe stretched too thin this last week. Yeah, this was the new series. Yeah, new series, the crew night, we had some other things going on. So it was just a busy, busy week. I'm trying to think of a puff low. There's gotta be a buff low in there somewhere. I don't know. I ordered a turkey call. What? I ordered a turkey call on Amazon. It was the easiest turkey call. For why? Because at my little tiny cabin that I have, I'm gonna try to attract turkeys there. Just to hang out with them, or what? Just to see. I'm not gonna shoot them, I'm friendly. So you're just gonna bring them in? I'm gonna try to bring them in and see what happens. That's a buff low. It's actually a turkey, it's not a buff low, but we'll get it. The turkey call?

Just to make friends with the turkeys, okay. Bing, bing, bing, bing. Okay. It's gonna be great, it's gonna be great. I wish you the best in this whole adventure. It's gonna be awesome. I'll definitely send pics if I find them. Today we have a conversation with Ethan Bernard. Can you give us a little rundown? Who's Ethan and why you should listen? Ethan Bernard, if you are not following him on Instagram, you definitely need to. There's only hundreds of thousands of people who follow him. He came across my feed one time. I wasn't following him, hadn't heard of him. He's a guy who started on a weight loss journey at 660 pounds. As of right now today, I just checked earlier, he's at 440 pounds, so he's lost 200 and some pounds, which is just absolutely remarkable. And I think specifically as we start this new year, I did the interview a little while back, but I'm like, I wanna push this into the new year, specifically as we're chasing goals and we're trying to do life change or trying to transform an area of our lives, having someone like Ethan, what I love about Ethan, he shares the good, bad, and otherwise in the weight loss journey. You know, some weeks there's no weight loss

or some weeks he gains weight and he's doing everything imaginable to try to lose it. So he's just a really inspiring person. So we talked about kind of motivation, like what keeps him motivated. He's tried to lose weight in the past and has, and then gained it all back. And so we just talked about like, what's maybe different this time. And so maybe it's weight loss for you, or maybe it's, I don't know, there's something else you're trying to make a change. I think this will be really, really encouraging. So go follow him on Instagram and then sit back and relax and enjoy this conversation. Is it going all right today? On paper, everything's going really well, but I've been struggling mentally a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, you've, I've heard you mention that online a little bit. Oh yeah, I'm like, I put 95% of my life online. Yeah. So if I'm feeling something, they're going to know it. Yeah, yeah. Can, if you don't mind, can you share what is that, what does that look like for you, the struggling mentally part? My wife has been really open about her battle just with depression.

And so it's something I don't know personally, but I know through her. Yeah, man. So like for me, it's like I have been just ruining myself, bro. Doing like the, like, it's not that bad, right? Like I'm probably over-dramatizing it, but I've been going to the gym religiously. I've been eating in a crazy deficit. And I've been like, that stuff sucks. Yep. Like any movement at this size sucks. And eating less sucks. I don't care what people say about that. It sucks. That's basically what a journey like this is, is just being able to tolerate things that suck. Yeah. So I've been doing a lot of things that suck. And the scale's not moving, bro. Like not in nearly as much as it should be. And I get like, oh, Ethan, if you zoom out, look at how far you've come. That's cool. But this last three months, the scale has basically been on like a maintenance pattern when it should be on a downward trend. Yeah. And that in itself sucks. But what also sucks is that it actually,

in my mind, it validates some of the criticism that people have of like, oh, this guy's not losing weight. Because they're not wrong. Yeah. Listen, I've used to be a full-time gaming creator. I've had tens of thousands of hateful comments thrown my way via the internet. I don't care about that. But when there's some validity to them, then it starts to actually hurt. Yeah, yeah. Well, and even putting yourself out there, Ethan, about something so personal adds to it. And not to over-spiritualize things, but the target gets bigger. Oh yeah, for sure. Because of that, I know totally different. But me as a pastor, as my church is continuing to grow and grow and you write a book and you got a podcast, I feel the spiritual warfare infinitely greater. Oh, for sure, dude. I already feel that. Like I was hospitalized for 62 days in 2021. It was rough. And the whole time, like I went through a scenario. I'm not gonna talk too much about it because the hospital sucked and that whole part of my life sucked, right? But that whole scenario, the only thing that a lot of people

were praying for me, man, like a lot, like our support group was insane. But the main thing that my parents were praying for me about through that entire thing was destiny. Isn't that wild? So I was doing streaming full-time. Obviously, I wasn't doing any faith-based content or anything like that. I was just a fat guy sitting there playing video games, making people laugh. And I was good at it. And I had a very large audience for that industry and I loved it. And I loved my life for the first time as an adult ever. And then in the midst of that, I got COVID. And while I had COVID, I got a bacterial pneumonia in my lungs somehow. What? So I got put on a ventilator for like 10 days. I spent three weeks in the ICU and then I spent another five and a half weeks in a rehab hospital. Whoa. But I went from broadcasting and thriving. professionally and like being happy and starting to lose weight and like heading in what I thought was the right direction for the first time in my life to being in a hospital for over two months and not even understanding why God kept me alive. Yeah. Yeah. That was the biggest. It's so it's such an interesting aspect, Adam, because my faith the whole time I was in there, I was like, God, if you're real, like if you have a purpose for me, keep me alive. Right. Yeah. And then when he kept me alive, I got home and I spent three and a half years wondering, God, why did you even

keep me alive? Yeah. Like I was a disgustingly angry and bitter. Like I wasn't the same person I was before the hospital when I got back. Oh, I had crazy stuff, man. I had like a stage four pressure wound. I had a nerve injury that affected the entire right side of my body. My right arm was limp for almost 11 months. Yeah. Crazy. Like my whole life, professionally, personally, mentally, spiritually, I just got frickin thrown on its head, bro. Yeah. It was wild. OK, so I know that's a lot to unpack. No, no, no. Ethan. So I've interviewed John Maxwell, Andy Stanley, professional athletes, a gal from Destiny's Child. I mean, like I, I am pumped and I don't say this lightly to connect with you. Like I just met with a person in my church and I told them just the CliffsNotes version of just of of who I've started following in you. You're inspiring me. And I'm not just me, so many others. And I've I've randomly started praying for a guy that I have no clue who he is except through his Instagram, just because I see you putting in the hard work and I see and I see you inspiring others. And I also see you, you know, sometimes I cringe when people bring the faith element into things and I'm like, oh, this is not. I'm very methodical on how I do it. You do it beautifully. Because like just to can I give you a rundown of that real quick. So the thing is, I've had words over me about being like a prophet, being a pastor, being a teacher. I'm not interested in any of that. I don't like the actual religious part of Christianity. I despise it. Yeah. Because I think religion not I'm not going to go off on this. I'm just going to leave you with this statement and I'm just going to let it fly and I'm going to let people think about it what they will. But I think religion is the number one thing holding back this country from revival. Whoa. Moving on. That's I know that's the I'm just going to leave it. We're going to think of it what they want. But so I've always been very strongly. I have a very strong foundation of my faith. It's very important to me. But when I it's very interesting, man, when I was creating gaming content just for to give you guys an idea of demographics, right? Yeah. 90 percent of my viewers were 18 to 24 and 93 percent of my viewers were male. Well, now that I'm doing what I'm doing now, I have been recognized by children. I've been recognized by teenagers. I've been recognized by middle aged people and I've been recognized by old people. I literally have like anywhere from including including Chris Pratt, Chris Pratt. Yeah. Yeah. So like I have people in the in the entertainment industry, which is where I want to end up. I have people in industries that I would never want to be a part of. I've got people young, people old, literally everybody. The

content that I'm doing right now and the way I'm going about it is in a way that it can be helpful or at the very least inspirational to literally anybody. Yeah. Anybody that has any sort of change they want to make in their life, it doesn't have to be, oh, they're super fat. Yeah. Right. So I feel and I feel and I feel that like just to encourage you, Ethan, like I feel that like that's what's so cool is you for you. It's a weight loss journey, but for it's way more than that. But for me, I you've mentioned that, too, but it's so cool for me. I can have it be this goal in my life or this change in my life. And what I what I love about what you just even hinted at there, it's much more than losing weight for you. It's not about losing. That's literally step one for me. Yeah. So good. So good. So so tying back the faith into it then. Right. I am creating content that can be viewed and enjoyed by so many people like I know I don't like toot my own horn, brother, but I've had over 300 million views in the past four months. I started making these videos in May. It is currently September. So I started making these videos three months and two and a half weeks ago. OK, OK, so so let's let's stop there. So. What, just on your health journey, and I know that's much more than weight, what was, you shared about COVID, what was the point of, and I'm trying to tease out what's helpful even for other people, what was the breaking point for you of, I've got to make change? Well, just for a background, I literally lost and gained back a hundred pounds three times over the course of three years between the hospital and this year. Wow. So I got down to 550, gained it all back, got back down to 550, gained it all back, got back down to 550, gained it all back. Come to this January, eight months ago, I was 624 pounds. And this is a pretty deep quote, and I say it on every single podcast I go on, a lot of people, including myself, who have a big change that they need to make in their life, have convinced themselves that they want to make the change without actually making the decision to do so. Explain that. Because obviously I hadn't flipped the switch, like I had convinced myself that I wanted to do it and I did it and I lost a hundred pounds and then something bad happened and

I didn't have the mental strength and I didn't have that decision made in a way that I didn't allow myself to backslide. Yeah. Three times. Yeah. I gained back the hundred pounds three times because I allowed something that hurt me mentally or emotionally or physically to just let me go back to my old ways and lose all the progress that I had made. Okay. So Ethan, for I'm, I'm, I'm wanting to make a deep change in my life and it's a Mount Everest, uh, you know, what would you, what would you tell me of how, what would you tell me to do? You have to figure out why you want to make it. And that why has to be powerful enough for you to actually make the decision and flip the switch and not just convince yourself that you have. So for you, if you could put your why into a sentence, what would that be for you? Oh, because in January I realized that if I fail this journey, I'm not just failing myself. I'm also failing my future wife and kids. Whoa. That was it. Yeah. That was literally just a thought that came to my mind. And as soon as that thought came to my mind, the switch flipped and I was done. Okay. So just for reference, I was 624 pounds when I made that realization. It is eight months later and I'm right around 495. Unreal. Unreal. How about 130 pounds so far this year?

Okay. So I got my why, two other practical things to make, to make a change that you, you would say like, and when I, when I say... Consistency and self-discipline. Okay. Break down the, break down the consistency part. Like what is that? What does that look like? Well, the, the, one of the things that's helped me enormously is, and this is more so for the weight specifically, right? And I think it can be applied to some other things, but taking the weekly average instead of focusing so much on the day-to-day, right? Because that was the biggest mistake I made with those daily weigh-ins, bro. Because with this prog, with this journey, it's particularly mine, you have to zoom out quite a ways to see the difference. Yeah. So focusing on the day-to-day, even calorie counting, as dumb as it sounds, right? If I have a, like a 3000 calorie day, oh my God, I ate too much. If I eat less the next day, I can very easily get that weekly average down to where it needs to be. It's good. So the consistency is huge and the self-discipline is probably even more important. Self-discipline is probably more important than the consistency, the motivation, whatever combined. I know. What do you, so I got low self-discipline. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want it enough if you have low self-discipline. It's good.

That's what it boils down to. You have to have a why that's strong enough for you to want it so badly that you are allow yourself to develop that self-discipline and you are, have the mental capacity to stop yourself from sliding back into the old ways. Away from, so away from those two things, what, what else get practical? What else has been helpful? Like is it, uh, the accountability of your audience? Is it like, yeah. What else has been helpful? Like, has there been things that have helped, helped reinforce stuff? No. I mean, I think probably my friends and stuff. Right. But like the accountability thing is neither here nor there because at the end of the day you can, it's, it sounds so weird for me to say this because I don't do this, but it's not hard to just show people what you want them to see, right? So the audience, like I really love and appreciate my audience and I am just in such an unbelievably less position to be where I'm at. Yeah. But the accountability factor, it's there because they'll see what you weigh and stuff. Yep. But it's not hard. They don't see everything, right? Yes. Like I share a lot. I share, like I said, 95% of my life is on the internet for literally anyone to see. Yep. That's just what it is. But, um, if someone wanted to, it'd be pretty easy to just show only the good parts and then completely disregard the accountability factor from audiences. Yeah, that's, that's good. I even, even mentioned your friends is like, I like your actual friends. Um, yeah, I have a very, I have a very, very, very small inner circle. So I always have, do they, uh, just to kind of, again, I'm trying to ask to get helpful. Do they touch base with you? Do they say or do anything? Oh yeah, dude.

I'm with my best friend Danny almost every day. I'm getting to the point where I'm considering paying him to quit his job. Yeah. Just so he can be here more. Yeah. Cause he's already here four plus days a week, like going to the gym and stuff. So I'm like, I'm getting to the point where I'm just like, Hey, here's what you're making now. I'll pay it to you. Stop going to work and just come over. Oh man. Where, where, like what state and city, if you don't mind, where are you? I'm in a very small town in West Michigan. I've never had a desire to live in West Michigan. No, I haven't either, but I don't enjoy it here. I enjoy the community here, but the there's, I there's nothing about Michigan that I actually care about. You don't know this, but we're already a tight friends. And the, the thought of getting paid to hang with you and go to the gym with you, it's maybe worth quitting my job here at the church. I actually, well, that's the thing, man. Like my Danny is a very talented and a very competent welder and he enjoys it, but he works in a small town for a small shop that doesn't pay him anywhere near what he's worth, but he enjoys it and he enjoys the people he works with. So he's kind of like, okay with it. So I like, we've been telling him for the last decade, dude, you're being undervalued. You're being undervalued. You're being undervalued. Start selling that stuff online. He doesn't care. He's, he's like, he enjoys what he does. It's good. But he, I'm at the point now where I'm, I'm getting to that point where I'm starting to consider, Hey,

maybe I'll just match what he's making and just pay him to be here. Because I deal with a lot of the mental and physical stuff and I have people that I can call, but having someone here. Yeah. Would be like another level of consistency. That's good. I, I, I, I, I, what I, what I hear you're saying for the everyday person is just the importance of having that person to go to the gym with, like, I'm going there. They're going to show up. We're like the days that I really don't want to go. Like I think that's, honestly, I lost my first hundred pounds this year without him being there so much. Yeah. That was all purely like before I started making these videos, that was all literally just intermittent fasting and calorie counting. That's good. I was still sitting on my butt playing video games 50 hours a week. Yeah. And I lost a hundred pounds in five months. Crazy. Ethan, things that you would say again, I'm trying to get transferable things. Uh, not the first word I want to say is, uh, stupid things that you've done that have been defeating or is there been anything that's been defeating in this journey that would be transferable? Like, just don't do this, this, and this, like, that might just be like, has there been things that kind of almost like, uh, so my, my friend, John Acuff, by the way, if you haven't read Johnny stuff, he has a book called all it takes as a goal. I've been doing it the last three years of my life. It's been transformational in so many different areas. But he, he talks about, uh, he has a book that he refers to. Oftentimes we have an upper limit problem where we, where we self-sabotage when we hit something. Cause we like,

we just don't believe we did. I'm there a hundred percent. The self-sabotaging thing. I'm probably one of the most self-destructive people you've ever met. Oh, I mean that in, for me, it was in a totally different area, but I would hit that upper limit and I would self-sabotage. I don't deserve this bump a bar. And that's where I'm at with calories, bro. If you look at my track stuff, like if I have a day where I feel like shit and I end up at like three K yeah. When I was supposed to be at around like 24, 2,500. Right. And I'll, I'll look at that and then I'll just go, well, I've already screwed myself and then I'll eat something else. Are you, are you a reader? Nope. Dude, I have stacks of books that I'm supposed to read that I just can't get myself to. Are you, are you an audio book person? Maybe? Nope. Son of a gun. I need to, I need to, man. So John gave me a, He, he, uh, again, I, I'm going to try to connect you and John, cause the two of you, he's, he's awesome, but he, so the book is called the giant leap. It's a, it's a, it's a small thin book, but it talks about hitting that upper limit problem. And like, I feel like I've just in the area that I've been wrestling, I'm just overcoming it for the first time in my life. And it's, and it's been there my entire life. And I'm just, and it's like, oh my gosh, this is what it feels like to not self sabotage. So, so good. Okay. Gosh, I feel like we, on the day to day, what is, how has faith played into the day to day part? Not kind of the overall, but like, like how, what does that look like for you, Ethan on the day? It's not good, bro. Yeah, it's not good. I'm a very like, I am so bad at prioritizing the things that I should be prioritizing.

Like I even got to the point where I like, I bought a new journal and I bought a new Bible and I want to take the time to like read it more and journal and stuff. And I just haven't taken that time. Yeah. It's disgusting, man. Well, like I've, I've struggled with that. Like my, my faith is incredibly strong. Like you can put a gun to my head and question me about my faith and I wouldn't falter. But I really like with the time management thing and like just the, I don't know if it's the anxiety, I don't know if it's the stress. I don't, I don't know what it is, but I literally just struggled getting myself to take time out of my day to force myself into that, reading the Bible and praying. And that's not something you should have to force yourself to do. Yeah. That's something you should want to do. And I'm just bad at it, man. Yeah. Well, Ethan, just to share for two seconds there, what I would say is instead of seeing it as a disgusting thing or maybe even and this might be off with you, a shameful thing of like I should be better and I should feel this way and whatever. Yeah. My, my prayer for you is instead of seeing it that way, my, my hope is that you wouldn't feel an ounce of the disgusting part. You would just feel so deeply loved by God. And so there wouldn't be shame connected to it. There would just be a father who's just like, man, I love Ethan. And anytime he does talk with me, I'm just so overjoyed to talk to that fella because man, when I made him, uh, he's like, he's a keeper like, uh, that when I made him, man, I almost thank God. It was the day I was able to rest after it cause he was a man. He was a, he was a good one. Like I, I, I pray that you would,

this is what I tell people all the time that I sit with. You would just know that he is so excited. Anytime that you reach out and connect with him. And so like any moment that you feel that that should, or like, Oh, you, you fall short in another area. Ethan, I, my hope would be like, you would feel the total opposite. You would just feel him like, no, I'm so glad that you're telling me about it. And you're talking to me, even about feeling shameful. Like I'm so glad that you're bringing that to me, Ethan. And like, maybe even instead of seeing this set apart time, which I do think is beneficial. I have it every single morning. This, this morning right now, I'm going through the book of Genesis. I believe I'm in chapter 28 as we speak. I think that's really beneficial. And I literally sat outside a coffee shop in downtown Sioux Falls and just stared at the landscape and was just telling God how awesome and rad he is. So I think that's important, but, but maybe even throughout the day, just, uh, I always say, if you're, if you're good at worrying or stressing, you'll make, you'll be, you'll be fantastic at praying because all you need to do is any time, like, God, I like, uh, or like, um, I'm worried. Uh, uh, I don't have any, I'm missing this goal, whatever. Instead of doing that, that's stressing and worrying. All you need to do is add Jesus or Lord at the front of it. And to start, it turns into a prayer. Lord, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm struggling with my goal, my calorie count. I'm over 3000 a day. Lord, gosh, I'm feeling, I'm feeling like I don't have any self-discipline right now. God father, like I'm feeling like, and then,

so maybe in addition to the Adam Jesus or father at the beginning, and after you say whatever you're feeling, maybe just add. So, so what do you think about that, Lord? And, um, and so that, that, that would just be my encouragement. Cause like I, on this journey, every time I see one of your videos, Ethan, all I can think of is how well pleased God is with you. And not even, not because you're doing the video or you had success that day or whatever, but like just a delightful human being that you are. And so, and I've, that's. That's another thing about like the faith thing too, is like, I always try to give him the glory in it. Even without, um, quote unquote, and this is the, this is the best way to describe it. Even without shoving like Jesus or scripture down people's throats. You've been great at not doing that. Because that is what deters people. So to be able to, for someone to be able to look at what's been happening in my life, right. And see where I've come both on social media and in my journey to the best version of myself that I'm on. And then for me to publicly attribute that to him without shoving Christianity down people's throats, maybe some people will connect the dots. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I have, I have no doubt that has already happened and will continue to happen because you displayed in such a, a beautiful winsome way of, Hey, this is what's helping me. This is what my journey looks like good, bad, and otherwise, instead of you being this perfect, polished,

super Christian that has a, has the right answer for everybody. Like I just see you. Yeah. People always commentate comment on my vocabulary. And it's like, yeah, you should go back to 2019 and see the type of stuff that I was saying while I was streaming. Yeah. It's just so much better than it used to be. And it's obviously one of the many, many, many, many things that I have to work on. It's good. That's good. Before we go any further in today's episode, there's some awesome partners we'd like to thank to make life between Sundays possible. Adam, who's our partners for today? Yeah. Our first partner is generous coffee. My friend Ben Higgins, you might know him from the bachelor is who started generous. Uh, they are amazing, amazing company. Uh, they, so they sell coffee beans that are incredible. My wife and I drink generous coffee all the time. We also serve it at the church here to thousands of people, uh, every single week. But listen to this a hundred percent of their profits, go to support nonprofits all around the world. It really makes no sense. Even Ben has told me, he's like, this is not a great business model, but it's like, it's a calling for him. And so if you are wanting to drink amazing coffee while making a difference while drinking coffee, go to generous coffee.com. Specifically if you buy in bulk, if you're a business or church, I can not more highly recommend doing so. If you do tell Ben say, Hey, Adam sent me go do that. So generous coffee. Our second partner is Vernity Mitsubishi. Vernity motor cars is a an employee owned faith-based company that strives to

deliver dreams and transform lives and all that they do. And I cannot say enough this last week, my wife's Honda CRV got a screw in her tire and everything was covered. She texted Jared to ask the details. And he's like, just bring it in anytime. I mean, just remarkable service. If you're looking for an outlander like I drive or a CRV like she drives, where are you looking for an Acura, Ford, Honda, you name the make of vehicle that are going to have it no matter where you live, they'll ship it to you. Go visit vernity.com. Okay. So on this journey, Ethan, uh, biggest surprises so far. Um, and has there been anything that you've learned about yourself and or the Lord on, on just, just on this, this last part of the journey that you've been on since kind of making the, the, Hey, I'm going for it. Anything, any surprises or things you've learned about yourself? The social media stuff was crazy, man. Cause I, I had some prior experience with that space, right? Like with the streaming and stuff, you know, what was your Instagram at the start of this? This had like 2000 or something. I don't know. It was like, it was my, it was my personal Instagram account. You can scroll down. If you can scroll past the 500 things I've posted in the last four months, you can scroll down and see like the original dozen or couple dozen posts that were there from the last 10 years before I started this. Is that, is that, is that a good content that everybody should go back in? It's just random photos. Mostly a lot of photos of my old dog. Uh, like one of the first photos I ever posted myself at E3, like 2017, 2018. Okay. So what's, but what's, and so the social media has been a surprise. Yeah. Cause it's like, I went into the social media thing, right? I had,

I have, I had a plan. I'm scrolling back as we speak. Continue. You're going to have to go for a minute. Um, so like I, I had this plan, right? Like I've always wanted to own my own media company, have my own show, yada, yada, yada. I've always felt at home behind a camera. And I think that's very apparent in my videos. Right. So I had this plan of okay, if I'm gonna put myself through the physical aspect of this and do the fitness stuff and start walking and go to the gym, I might as well record it because if I, because I should have this journey documented. And I went into it with the mindset of okay, it shouldn't matter how many views any of this gets right now because once I post that before and after of a 6'5, 660 pound guy, the internet's gonna go crazy. Yeah. Right? Like that before and after is my ticket to the exposure and the following that I need to do what I want to do professionally. Yep. But lo and behold, one weekend I was at like freaking 10 million views and like 17,000 new followers. And as soon as that first weekend, I was like, oh crap, this is happening. And I had to lock in, you know? And I had the prior experience on camera and the prior experience in that industry to understand how to take that momentum and just run with it. Yeah. Like run. Like it's crazy, man. That Facebook page didn't even exist before May. TikTok had 100,000. Now it has well over 300, you know? I think at this point, if not close to it, I've gained nearly a million new followers across platforms in the last four months. So I only usually try to encourage. I'm going to give one critique just of your Instagram. Yeah. Can we have more of Lizzie? Because Lizzie showed up back. Lizzie has passed away, my friend. No. There's a new one though.

No. So dude, yeah. Lizzie's death was when I gained back one of the times that I gained back 100 pounds. Because she was my best friend from the age of literally since I was 10. Oh my gosh. I am sorry. So in November of 23, she literally ate a mushroom and died within 24 hours. In the same part of our yard that I had been taking her out in for literally 13 to 14 years. Yeah, man. Just out of nowhere. Yeah, I'm sorry. We just said goodbye to our mini schnauzer and our whole family went through. It honestly was probably for my kids, one of the hardest things that they've walked through. My kids and my wife. No, it was one of the hardest things I've ever been through. Just really quick. You have a new dog though? Yep. One year later, we got Mabel. She's the same breed. So we need to see more. But, oh, she's in some of the videos. So it's funny because she is the same breed as Lizzie, but she's smaller. And Lizzie was a black Sheeshan and Mabel is like a tan, like a literally light, like almost blonde. How about that? And their personalities are also like complete opposite. Okay, so you're bragging on your dog. I'll brag on mine. His name is Senator. And he's an English setter.

And this is where I'm proud of. God, keep me humble. He's the best looking dog in the United States. Okay. That's awesome. Okay. Other things. What breed did you say he was? He's an English setter. I don't think I've ever heard of that. I vicariously live through him because he gets all the compliments. And when people say like, beautiful dog, what I just do just for my own, I attribute it to me. I'm like, thank you. They're like, Senator gives me a look. Like, no, I think they were talking about me. And the person just gives me a dirty look. Like I'm an old man. Anything else that's been surprising about that? You've learned about yourself, even like, is there been anything that you've like learned about you or the, again, the Lord as well. But has there been anything that you're just like, this is, this is something new. I'm kind of surprised at how much I hated myself. Well, like you got to realize, man, and this is really what the core of this journey is about. I hated myself, my body specifically, because people, when I say I hate myself, I don't hate who I am. I've always been very happy with who I am. The way I speak, my personality, my beliefs. I love that stuff. That's like who I am. I've always been very secure in that aspect, but I've always hated my body.

Like to the point where I hated myself so much as a teenager, I literally didn't even think it was worth taking care of myself. So for a decade, I had horrible hygiene. I didn't take care of myself at all. And obviously I bloomed up to 600 plus pounds because I literally couldn't care less whether I lived or died because I cared about my body that little. What's changed? Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, this journey is not just losing the weight. It's also dealing with the negative repercussions and fixing all of these issues and reframing how I view myself and reframing how I take care of myself and I'm learning so much because it is just infinitely more than just losing the weight. Yeah. Like honestly, I don't talk about this much at all. I'm literally just as, if not more, insecure about my teeth than I am my weight. Whoa. And I don't talk about it because I don't want to hear comments about it. Yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah. So, because between drinking coffee and not brushing my teeth as often as I should have, my teeth are disgusting, dude. Yeah. And that's just a big insecurity that I've always had.

So like, that's just another one of those little things like that there's just so much more than just getting the scale down that I have to do to correct all these issues and heal from that decade. Yeah. You said something recently. You said like, you're like people, correct me on this. People were trying to tell you like, just be happy with where you are and whatever. Oh yeah. And you're like, dude, no, I don't want to be here. It's not. That's one of my biggest pet peeves about this entire thing. Explain that. Well, Ethan, because. It's so annoying, dude. Well, because that's a little bit different than kind of what our world says. Our world is like, no, be happy where you are. And yet we should, so to clarify, as Christians, we should be content in all situations, like kind of a holy contentment. Yeah, see, I, listen, man, I might not be a good Christian because I disagree with that. I disagree with the contentment. I think if you are, I think that contentment is easily, easily leads to complacency. So good.

Well, and just to split, I actually, Ethan, I probably, like contentment, like as far as like, what that means is I'm at peace with God and I'm at peace with who I am today. And then I have breath in my lungs. I think. Yeah, that I can agree with. So that is contentment. But what contentment isn't, is I'm just going to stay right where I am. And I'm like, I'm miserable, but I'm not going to change anything. No. Yeah. And I think our. This is why I don't discuss body positivity very often. Cause that's, it's a slippery slope. The whole thing is a slippery slope. Well. Cause I have these people that are like, I made a video, right? I weigh 500 pounds, regardless of how much effort I put in today. I could run a marathon. I could be the world's most active and the best fricking version of myself on the planet today. And it would have absolutely zero impact on how I would wake up and feel tomorrow. Whoa. There is nothing I can do in any given day.

Even if I had superpowers that would allow me to change the fact that I have to wake up tomorrow and deal with all the negative repercussions of being a 500 pound man. So I don't appreciate what I understand. Some of these people mean well, but they're like, oh, Ethan, you don't have to feel that way. True. Why do you think I'm trying to lose the weight? So I don't have to wake up and feel like that, but don't sit there and gaslight me into, oh, well, if you just reframe it or start some antidepressants, you don't have to wake up feeling bad. I'm 500 pounds. It makes sense that I wake up feeling like crap, but I'm not going to be able to not feel like that until I get the weight off. That's where I kind of get into like this really toxic, like don't patronize me mindset. Like, you don't, like, unless you've been this size, you don't understand the, just how disgusting and how miserable it is. You know? Oh, Ethan. Sorry, I know that was like a little heated. No. Like that's where my mind's at with that stuff, bro. Well, and I think, again, we're on the exact same page.

Again, I think a biblical view of contentment, you and I are on the same page, is like, nope, I'm right with my maker and I am grateful for the breath in my lungs today. That's, I would say that's contentment. And I don't need to buy a bunch of crap to make myself happy and I don't need a whatever. Yep, so there's that. But no, I don't want to stay in this place. I think that's, and I actually think that's the gospel. Like that's him redeeming all of humanity, our physical bodies. No, for another person, I'm addicted to drugs. I don't want to stay here. This is not God's best for my life. And I think that holy contentment, like we talked about with that, but I'm not, it's like he loves me right where I am, but he loves me enough to not let me stay there. Yeah, and I struggle with the contentment and the complacency sometimes, man, because I'm starting to make more money than I ever have now. With obviously with the views I have coming in and stuff and finally being monetized on Facebook. But I was talking about this with another creator yesterday. I'm not going to allow myself to become complacent with what I'm making just because it's like a good number. Yeah. Right? Like I'm not going to allow.

I'll myself to stop that burning that I have to grow this into something much bigger and much better. Even though like, Oh, like as a Christian or whatever, like you, we should be content making this much money. I understand that. I could live pretty comfortably with what I'm making now and I could stop putting in more effort and I could just keep doing what I'm doing. But that doesn't change the fact that like, I, I want to build that media empire someday. I want to provide and make sure that my wife and kids have nothing to worry about financially ever in their entire lives. When I get to the point of getting married and starting a family, like there's these goals that are above and beyond what would be like considered living comfortably that I attained to reach. So I struggle with that sometimes of like, Oh, you should be content like with this. And I am, I'm very proud of where I've gotten. I'm very happy with what I'm currently doing, but that I don't want to allow that to stop myself from wanting to go further because I know that I'm capable of going way further. That's so good. And only thing I would add into that. And it's in, only thing I would add to that is, uh, the motive of it. If the motive is just more money as a Jesus follower, God would be like, Oh, that's not a very good motive. But if you're like my friend, Jim, who it's, he's like, no, I want to make more money so I can help more people. I want to make more money. So yeah, so I can, yeah, I, I'm able to, I want to do what I'm doing right now on blast. Yes, there it is. There it is. Production company, big media productions, like do what I'm doing right now and put a media presence behind it so hard that people can't ignore it. Ethan, we're going everywhere. Last question on tough days. And you, you, you, we started out by you saying that the number's not changing. Uh,

when, what do you do to, to wake up the next day and pursue your goal on the tough days, the scale is not moving. It hasn't moved in seven years, let's say. Yeah. What, what, and again, I'm trying to apply it to my life and others. What gets you out of bed and gets you back going again? Well, there's a couple of things, right? Like I have a really hard time focusing on the positive, which is stupid because I have so much positive right in front of me. Like I understand that the, the incredibly, unbelievably blessed position that God has put me in. Also, I always have to just take a look at where I was, right? That's the biggest. It's just zooming out and taking a look at where I was when I started before I started, whatever, even a few months ago, right? Like just zooming out and looking at where you were can help a lot when you're not feeling it right now. It's good. Ethan, if you're all right, I'm going to, do you care if I pray? I usually don't. I usually don't pray at the end of an episode, but for whatever reason, and before I do, just thanks again for, for being you. I mean that just thanks for your encouraging a Yahoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Every time I see your, your videos, no joke. Yeah. And I, I appreciate them. And cause like at the end of the day, that's what hurts so bad about not making the progress and seeing those comments. It's because when I started this, yes, I did want to grow, right? Like I'm not going to hide that. I'm not going to lie about it. I do want to grow on social media. I want to do media for a living. But the reason, a big reason why I started documenting this journey and I started showing everything, not just the high points, is because I knew it would help people. It's good.

Showing the lows and the highs helps a lot more people than the people who share their journeys and only share the high points. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's it. Let's, let, let's pray, Lord. I'm just so thankful for this, this time and that you allowed me the opportunity to connect with Ethan face to face. Man, he's just been such an encouraging spirit to me. And I just have no doubt that he has encouraged thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people to do the same thing. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands. I first just want to pray for him just as a man made in your image that any ounce of disgust or shame that he feels of not praying enough or whatever, Lord, that you would just overwhelm him in those moments of just like, gosh, he's just so loved. And you just get so excited when he reaches out to you and it would be that is what would propel him to talk more with you, to get more in your word, whatever else, Lord, no shame. It would just be total. It's your kindness that draws us to you, which is what's so awesome. I pray protection over Ethan from himself and his own thoughts. I pray protection spiritually wise, which I don't talk much about spiritual warfare and yet it's, it's so evident. And you would the, the evil and what we want, Nothing more than for Ethan to fail, for him to believe lies, for him to get discouraged. And so I pray protection over him. I pray your hand over him. I pray, Lord, that you would grow his influence and that he wouldn't just use it for himself, but he'd continue to use it for others in every way that he discontinued to use it for others.

And I pray that in him and through him, Lord, he would be blown away by the numerous people who began to make drastic changes in their lives in so many different ways, changes towards goals, changes towards transforming into the person that you've created them to be. And so, Lord, we just love you and we thank you. We pray all these things in your name, amen. Well, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of Life Between Sundays. Wherever you're at, your car, on a walk, at work, we're so grateful that you joined us for the last 45 minutes and yeah, just thankful to be here. Yeah, Ethan, thanks so much for everything. It's been fun to stay in contact with you. I didn't take it lightly that you'd spend the time with us. Thanks to our partners, Generous Coffee and Vern Idy Motorcars, this would not happen without these two amazing, amazing businesses. So go support both of them. And last but not least, thanks to all of you who listen in. One last thing though, we got a newsletter. We do have a newsletter, it's great. My mom just texted me last week. She's like, this girl just told me she gets an email every time a episode comes out. She's like, how do I do that? No way. Yeah, she did.

I was like, oh. Adamweber.com slash the crew. So go sign up, it's usually one email a week. Yeah, it's nothing crazy. It's not like you're gonna get. Blasted. Yeah. So go sign up, love you guys. Adamweber.com slash the crew. Awesome. Have a good week. You too. Bye. Bye.