What’s up everybody, and welcome to the fit to fat to fit experience podcast. I’m your host, drew Manning, and I’m your cohost Lynn. Manny, thank you guys so much for joining us on another awesome episode of this podcast. We’re so glad you guys join us each and every week. We hope you enjoyed the content that we put out there. On today’s episode we get to sit down and talk with Dan Partland, who is the executive producer of my TV show fit to fat to fit, which is airing on a sunny January 19th at ten nine central. So set your DVRs. It’s going to be an awesome show. It’s going to be an Austin show, so make sure and check it out. And it’s so cool to sit down with the executive producer of the show to talk about the behind the scenes stuff. So at Dan Partland, just a little bit about him.
He’s been in the TV industry for years and years. He’s done a ton of documentaries. A couple of the shows that he’s done are the sixties confessions intervention, which is a big one, 150 episodes with that TV show alone, relapsed driving force, so many other shows and documentaries. He’s, he’s very good at what he does and I’m so glad that they picked him to be the executive producer, producer of this show because he did a great job in my opinion, of really portraying what I learned from my journey and plugging it in to the TV show and putting the trainers the same thing so that it wasn’t gimmicky, it wasn’t, um, reality TV ish, if that’s even a word, but a really great job of kind of like a documentary style. A journey of what these trainers,
yeah, we talk a little bit about that in the episode we talk about reality TV and you know, I kind of talk a little bit about how I’ve always had a hard time with reality TV. I’ve never really enjoyed it as much because of the falsehoods in there. He kind of talks about the balance of a course. Some things are set up or packaged in a certain way, but if you’re able to keep the core of the core message authentic and genuine, the core process, that’s really how you’re able to convey the best message and find the most inspiration and motivation through the show. Um, so we talked a little bit about that and like drew said, he goes through, you know, the TV show, what was the best moments, what were the struggles, you know, what did, what did they learn? Did it inspire some of them to get healthier and lose weight? You’ll find out in today’s episode,
well, the TV show airing next Tuesday. We’re changing up the format of the podcast just a little bit. We’re switching to a Wednesday instead of a Tuesday, each new episode will be released because over the next 10 weeks of the next 10 episodes of the TV show, what we want to do is have the trainer and possibly the client on from that episode that aired and then have them on the very next day. So Tuesday, January 19th for example, the first episode will air January 20th will be a new podcast episode released with that trainer, that client that we’re just on the night before. So you’re going to really get to know these trainers and clients on an intimate level. So tune in for that over the next 10 weeks. And I’ll probably be sprinkling in some extra episodes with other amazing guests in between. So there will be some weeks where there’s two per week or just one per week, but that’s kind the new format over the next 10 weeks with the TV show happening so soon. First before we in, we want to
talk about our sponsor of today’s episode and that is dollar workout club.com yup. And you’ll see in the show notes, just go ahead and click on the show notes. You’ll see the direct link, but dollar workout club.com is an online fitness platform where you get five new workout videos. It shows it at the beginner, intermediate, and advanced level. You can stream it from your phone or your tablet or to your smart TV, the full video that you can follow right along with them. It has five new healthy recipe videos and five new motivation videos every week. And it’s all just one book.
Yup. It was created by Lynn, Natalie Hodson and myself. So we, us three are the trainers on each of the workouts and motivational videos and the workouts can be done at any fitness level, beginner, intermediate or advanced. And all the workouts are only eight to maybe 15 minutes long max because we believe in working out smarter, not longer. And at the end of the day, it’s just $1 a week. No contracts, no longterm contracts, no cancellation fees, no, uh, gotchas or gimmicks like that. It’s so simple to use. Check it out. Dollar workout club.com and we’d love to see you join the dollar workout club family. All right, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s episode with Dan Partland. All right. What’s up, Dan Partland, welcome to the fit to fat to fit experience podcast. How you doing today?
Great. Thanks for having me, drew. It’s good to be here.
Yeah. Thanks so much for joining us. Super excited to have you on finally, uh, because the, the TV show fit to fat to fit. We’ll be airing next Tuesday, a week from today. And I wanted to bring you on for a long time, but I know that with holidays you were busy and I was busy and, you know, trying to finish up the show. So I’m glad that we finally got this started. Uh, so it really quick, can you just give a little bit of background of like how long have you been in the TV industry and, and how did you get started as a producer? I
got a, I don’t know, I’ve always been interested in, uh, film and television. And when I studied a bit in college and really fell in love with a nonfiction filmmaking with documentary film making, which I didn’t, which didn’t have a very big presence, uh, at the time, you know, I mean, you would, most people’s, uh, connotation of a documentary were nature shows, you know, there were those natures. She, I’d say I’m interested in documentary and people would say, Oh, I love those shows you see on Saturday afternoon. You know, it’s like a PBS kind of, uh, um, wildlife, wildlife shows were on a lot. But I think, you know, it was apparent to me at the time that documentary was only going to grow and come into its own. And I think, I think that is really been born out. I think it’s taken different shapes and some in some sentences, you know, it, it’s taken a direction of, um, both maturing as a, as a, a sort of, um, entertainment journalistic, um, space as in one of the big feature docs. Um, they’re out there and then also in the form of reality TV, which is a whole new animal that nobody could have predicted back then.
Yeah. And it’s, and it seems like you’ve done the documentaries, you’ve mentioned that that’s kind of like your passion, right? But it seems like you can kind of bring that into the reality TV space with some of the shows you’ve done, like intervention, relapse, um, some of these other docu-series right. Where you can kind of bring that world of documentaries into a reality TV show. Is that kind of what you think, like your forte is?
Well, absolutely. I mean, I think, I think that the, you know, there’s a question in any, um, in any reality show, any nonfiction show is they all have certain false conceits in them. Um, and there’s a question in each about what is the essential real thing or true thing that you’re trying to follow that you’re trying to document. So, you know, the example I give on that, it’s like, um, know it’s a dated example I guess, but in dog, the bounty Hunter for instance, you know, they do a lot of different stuff on that shelf. And I think most of it viewer doesn’t really care if this is precisely real or not real. But if the viewer felt like the actual grab the actual, um, bounty hunting moment where, you know, dog and his team, um, you know, get the, uh, the scofflaw at the bail jumper, um, if they thought that was fake, there’d be no point left in watching the show.
So, you know, I think in every, even in, in a reality show that that does have, where you do see the, the false set up is that we’ve brought people together and live in this house. There’s still something, um, really essential in each of them or in the good ones. They recognize what’s essential and what has to be protected as the real thing. The shows that I tend to be interested in doing, um, are ones that have very small, um, degree of false concede and that are her way over on the documentary end of the spectrum there. And fit to fat to fit is a very good example of that. Of course, there is a structure that’s set up that is not authentically what these people are doing on their own. They’re plugging into a structure that we gave them the really, once we’re inside that structure, everything that they do, um, can be played for real because it’s all interesting and it’s more interesting, um, when the hand of the filmmakers is the lightest. When you, when you sense the authenticity of what’s being captured in front of the lens.
Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that you mentioned that because that has always been a real struggle of mine for reality TV. The truth is, is I’ve never been a huge reality television viewer for that reason, because a lot of the shows to me, like you’re talking about, they have this degree of falsehood or deceit or a play-making that I’m like, that’s not real. But like you mentioned, as long as like the core of, of the show or the core of the purpose is genuine and authentic than it can catch my attention. And I know that was a concern of mine when fit defective it started, is making sure that we really captured the genuine moments of both client and trainer as they go through the journey. So I love that you mentioned that, and I know we’re going to talk a lot more, pretty much the rest of it about the TV, our TV show, of course in general. But before we get into that, just cause I was curious, what is like the best or most fun you’ve had on any project you’ve ever worked on? Like what’s, what’s been your favorite?
Uh, well, um, look, there’s no, there’s no funnest or best project. When I, um, when I was getting into all of this, all I knew was that I wanted to be a filmmaker and I didn’t know if it was going to be in scripted or in nonfiction stuff. And as I got into it and I, I made some both scripted and, and unscripted films, what I found was that, um, at the time anyway, that fiction films are a lot of fun to watch, but they’re not always that much fun to make. And that documentaries at the time anyway, a lot of them were, they weren’t always that much fun to watch, but they sh they were always a lot of fun to make. And that’s really what drew me to it, is that any different project that you’re plugging into for, for the nonfiction filmmaker, um, you’re, the filmmaker is gonna have a great experience.
It’s their job to, um, to be able to share that experience or portray that experience in a way that lets the audience into it. But for me, it every, what’s great about this, um, this business and this line of work is that every six, six months or two years or whenever, you know, as each project turns over with every project, um, I get to plug into a whole new world and get to go in a very in depth and kind of behind the scenes way into that world, which, you know, if anybody remembers the first time they get with backstage at the theater, I mean, that’s what it feels like. Um, every day on every new project I did projects in hospitals and police stations or you know, with uh, drag car drag, uh, drag racing and, um, political campaigns. And you know, in each one of these, you take some time out from who you are in your regular life and you get to go in depth usually with somebody who’s fairly expert, um, in some world that you’ve maybe seen before, but you didn’t know a lot about before when you really get included as an insider, you’re kind of the ultimate insider, um, when you’re working in this field.
So I, I love all of them. And I was no exception on that.
Yeah. So you, so speaking of fit to fat to fit, you got to kind of tell us and be honest with us. Like what was your first thoughts when they’re like, okay, we need you to create a show where people get fat and then they get fit again. What red? Like has you heard about this concept before of my journey or what were your initial thoughts when it was pitched? Well, you know,
the very first thought, to be honest with you, and this is totally un-fun and unsexy for your show, but the first thought, um, for me on something like that is, is it going to be safe in that?
Yeah,
I want to w it was obvious that what would be interesting and dramatic would be the real effects on, um, on the trainers and what would make it lasting and important would be the effects on the clients. Uh, but the, the, my first concern was, um, could it be safe? And honestly, once, once that was answered and I, that was answered with a good degree of certainty because we had had a number of medical experts look at it and um, and put a process in place that we were confident would, would keep everyone safe through the process. Um, the next question for me is always it’s just ha, how do you, you know, how do you elevate the content? And, and like you were saying, um, about the, the pitfalls and a lot of reality TV. Yeah. My first thought is how do you keep it from not becoming, uh, a silly, in an authentic kind of gimmick where that feels on TV. Like, um, producers put somebody up, uh, you know, something awful to see the spectacle of it. And, um, but honestly, you know, that that wasn’t a challenge. We always knew, um, we knew that that if the show went in that direction there, we would have corrupted that sort of essential core thing we were talking about before that made it worth watching. So we always knew we were going to protect him. We were going to honestly portray whatever it was that happened to, um, the subjects to show.
Yeah. And I feel like, you know, you’re talking about the safety thing. That was obviously a concern when we first pitched this with Renegade. I think that’s why most people initially were kind of turned off to it or it didn’t pick it up cause they were like, that sounds awesome. But at the same time, okay that’s a little bit crazy. You know, how safe is that? I mean,
mom, I love it. I love his response cause I’m like, that’s exactly what both our moms did. They’re like, that doesn’t sound right.
I remember. Yeah, I remember when I was thinking about doing this, my mom was like, the only person that was not in favor. And Lynn’s mom too, she’s like, I don’t think you should do it. But everybody else was like, you should totally do this. It would be awesome. But I feel like that was a concern and I’m, I do want people to know, you know, and I’m glad that you spoke to that is that there was medical attention. This wasn’t just like, okay, let’s just run with it and see what happens. You know, there was,
the fact is though there’s always risks. I mean, you had risks, you had points where the doctors told you to stop. I mean, there’s always going to be risks but you know, manageable risks. And so I’m glad. Yeah, of course they put, they put things into place to make sure it could be as safe as possible, but you know, you still never know. So for you then, Dan, what was the most challenging thing of this project, if you had to pick something that you thought was like the most challenging?
Well, there are a lot of challenges. I mean the, um, uh, there were a lot of challenges and there were a lot of advantages. The challenges were, um, and this is pretty common if you’re going in a very documentary direction. I mean, the challenge is how, how reliable is, is this drama going to be? I mean, you know, that’s, that’s kind of the pitfall of reality TV is, and, and documentary is if you can’t, if, if you can’t find a way to make sure that the drama of what’s unfolding is really showing up vividly on screen, it feels too small. It feels unimportant. If you don’t find the right style and the tone to convey all of that. Um, then, you know, then what is it? And that’s, I think that’s where a lot of shows fail is they, they, they then sort of move into plan B, which is how to, how to pump it up.
And in the course of trying to pump it up and amp up the, uh, the drama, they ended up, you know, creating some false hoods or they ended up stepping on that core, that core authenticity that we felt like it was important to, um, preserve. So that was, you know, we had no idea how this stuff was going to go down. We didn’t know. We didn’t know if it would be easy for people or hard for people to gain the weight. We didn’t know if people could lose weight or how, or people of what size, how many, how many pounds could they really gain, how many pounds could they really lose? Um, so, you know, those were, those were the things that were hard. We didn’t even know exactly what to give them as a target weight. Um, we really just, we, we went on your experience and I think we computed that your experience was you gained 38% of your body weight over the course of six months.
So we only ended up with four to five months. Um, but we gave that as the target. Um, assuming there was no, there was no, um, problem with getting encouraging people to just go for it. As my, I didn’t think anyone, I didn’t think anyone could do as well as you. I think as it turned out, a couple did almost as well as you. Um, Chanel and Adonis Alexander, they all, they all really went at it with a lot of Gusto and with a lot of, um, well, you know, each of them is, is different. But I think Donna’s went after it with a lot of Gusto. I think Alexandra treadmill, uh, Alexander went on it with a lot of science and trim Elwin on it with a lot of discipline. Um, and you know, that’s sort of what each of them are about as the episodes show.
But um, but the show had a lot of things that were, uh, you know, that were really strong that were, were going for it. That made it an inappropriate thing to um, keep as authentic as possible. When was the time frame? That’s a real luxury in this kind of television to be able to shoot something over such a, such a vast window of time. I mean, to make a one hour episode out of eight months of material really gives you a lot of license because you know, the, it’s hard to, to count on something Promatic enough happening to someone in a, in a six day shoot, which is what a lot of a lot of shows are sort of modeled on or even in, you know, sporadically over two weeks or, or sporadically over two months. Um, but with, you know, if you want it to be profound, starting with an eight month or nine month timeframe, um, that’s enough time for people to really go through things and really end up with new insights and their new perspectives are ultimately what is going to make the show satisfying or not. And I think in the case of fit two fat two fit day, you know, pretty much everybody involved really went on an Epic journey in the timeframe we were with them.
Yeah. And that’s kind of what my hope was going into this is like, okay, I know what I learned from my fit to fat to fit experience and that was a better understanding and some empathy. Um, and that my hope was that the trainers would come out of this as well. Uh, but at the same time you can’t force it on them. But after seeing some of the episodes and, you know, obviously working with the trainers, I could definitely tell which ones gained some empathy. And I think you did a great job of that. Dan and I, and I know my opinion is biased, but I think you did an awesome job of, of showing that on the episodes of how this wasn’t just a physical journey, but it’s so much more of a mental and emotional one, especially for the trainers. Um, cause that’s what I learned and what I took away from my experience and plugging that into, you know, this format where they have eight months of this journey and it’s, it’s uh, cut down to a one hour episode. It’s hard to show all of those changes. Um, what do you think, what do you think is going to be the biggest negative thing that people are gonna see about the show and what you think people might, um, uh, look at it as, okay. You know, um, one of the biggest problems that that people might see with a shoe.
I think people who, who hear about the show, um, I think, uh, [inaudible] will, you know, just be skeptical or maybe even write it off because they’ll feel like, Oh, it’s such, it’s so false. There’s such a gimmick. Uh, there’s such a gimmick at it. Um, but I don’t think that people who watch the show will feel that way. I don’t think, I don’t, I think when you see it on its feet and you see that the trainers have entered into it in good faith and knowing what they’re getting into and with, with some, um, some, uh, heartfelt goals, um, both in terms of their mission to reach people. Um, and also in a lot of cases, a, um, some personal discovery that they, that they, um, sincerely are looking for. And, and I would say that’s like a really important thing, you know, if you ask me what’s surprising or what surprised me along the way, the first most surprising thing when as I got into it was discovering that, um, that even I, you know, the show, the show begins from a place of looking at what biases people carry around and whether there are unconscious biases that we all have about, um, overweight people.
And of course there are. But the first most fascinating thing as I got into it was I’ve discovered what unconscious biases I had developed about the super fit about really, you know, that they’re obsessed with their appearance, that they’re vain, that they, you know, like that they, that, you know, I think there’s a sort of like an, we found this as we were interviewing, um, clients, but there was a sort of unconscious assumption that you could, you could get at if you really probe for it, that people kind of felt that most trainers, um, you know, they had this, they, they sort of found a way to get paid for the thing that they already love doing. It’s an excuse for them to spend more time in the gym. And that’s what they love and they want to look great and that’s, you know, but, and that’s what drives them.
But what we found really quite quickly, um, is that, uh, the trainers that we were talking to, it wasn’t about vanity. It wasn’t about themselves. They were real missionaries. They, they were looking to proselytize in a way that I think sometimes seems like a sales pitch when it comes from a trainer because you think they’re looking for business when they’re telling you, you know, how, how much better your life could be. But what we found was how sincere that mission was because it really, in every case in all 10 fitness was such an important thing to them. It did such great things to their lives that they just genuinely desperately wanted to share that with everybody and have as many people experience that as they could. And that I think the depth and sincerity that mission was, was surprising and exciting.
Wow. I love, man. I love that you mentioned that because that’s always something that I’ve thought of too. Of course, I’ve seen the prejudice against those that are overweight and I hate the stereotypes that we all sometimes have. And like you said, a lot of times I think that comes at an unconscious level. Um, maybe we’ve been programmed in society or how we grew up or things that we heard or grew up with. Um, but it’s on the flip side, like you said with the trainers. And what’s interesting is as you point out, you know, a lot of people that listen to this podcast know, like, people laugh that I, that I’m a trainer because I’m not obsessed with the gym. I don’t live in the gym. I would be the last person you think, Oh, she’s a trainer because she wants to spend more time in the gym.
Um, and similar to what you found with those trainers, for me it was more like realizing that as I lived a healthier lifestyle, my life shifted for the good. Um, I became happier with myself, happier with my self-love, which has nothing to do with size. Um, but it did kind of, um, grow from living a healthier lifestyle and wanting to share that with everyone around me and wanting everyone to experience, you know, a better life and a happier life. And it wasn’t about size, but it was about health. So I’m glad that you captured that. You know, kind of speaking along those lines, did anyone in your production crew, whether it was you or anyone else that you work with, I know you have probably a decent sized production team where any of them affected by the show for good. Did any of them get inspired to maybe one live a healthier lifestyle from filming this?
The shorter answer answers that we were all affected by it. I think, you know, we were surrounded by this footage and thinking about this content all day long and see, um, seeing the impacts of diet and lifestyle on the, on the lives of people who we were coming intimately familiar with. Um, but there is the one, the one person, a lot of people on this staff lost weight, including me, but, but Oh, nominal amounts. Wait for most of us. But most of us didn’t have a lot to live. Ha, have a lot to lose. But the, you know, in the case, we, we definitely had, uh, people who lost upwards of 25 pounds. And then in the case of one of our, our story producers, um, he lost close to 90 pounds. Um,
Whoa. That’s awesome.
Awesome truth. I think it was, it was for tutus in his case because he, we started the show in about, um, you know, about a year ago, January of 2015 and he had kind of decided in the run up to the holidays of 2014 that he was going to make big changes in his life. So by the time he started on the show, but he had already, he’d already started, it, probably started in February. He’s probably already a month in to, you know, a real, uh, healthy, healthy regime in a weight loss regimen. But, uh, but yeah, obviously being immersed in it at work all day long, uh, was, uh, I think the, the fire. Yeah.
Yeah. And that’s really cool because I actually got to meet all of them and I got to see his before and after photo. And I’m still trying to get him to share it with people because I’m like, dude, you need to share this. People will be inspired by it. But he’s kinda hesitant. But I think that’s so cool that people in the office and behind the scenes were actually impacted by this. Because I mean that’s my hope. And, and kind of going back to what you were talking about, the gimmick thing, I’ve already had people reach out to me saying, you know, the, I mean it’s like, you know, the 1% of people out there are being negative about it, but 99% I love the idea of the show. And they, they’re just looking at the commercial and saying, this is a gimmick. You know, you’re, you’re commercializing something or you’re shaming people who are obese. But if they actually take a look at the show and actually watch a whole episode, I think they’re going to see the opposite of that. And so
making, um, intervention, I did a 150 plus episodes intervention, something like that. Um, and you know, there, there was a lot of that too of, you know, if sometimes, you know, I would be stopped at a, uh, you know, at a social event or a party and somebody would really want to, you know, tell me all the different things that I wasn’t being sensitive to that were really wrong about what we were doing. And I used to really engage that conversation and try to, um, you know, show people that a lot of thought and a lot of care went into how it was, how it was being done and the reasons that I thought it was, you know, not only appropriate, but really exciting, groundbreaking, revolutionary and really, really helpful to people. Um, and then over time, after being in a bunch of a bunch of these sort of debates with random strangers, I realized the first question I need to ask when they come up to me is, have you seen the show?
I know that’s so true. Was that it was never from anyone who had actually seen it. They had only really heard about it. And there was something in the description and maybe the description was accurate or maybe it wasn’t, but there was something in the description, um, that made them, uh, believe that it was going to be purely salacious or titillating as you know about, like I don’t make shows that make the subjects of them sort of pop on, on the stage like that for the show to have heart, the filmmaking team needs to have a, you know, a, a caring relationship with its subjects and to do their best to present them, you know, fairly and three-dimensionally. Um, so that you can really feel for them. And I, that ends up being better storytelling and it ends up, um, you know, if you go into something with the, with the right intentions and you’re thoughtful of how to do it, you can figure out how, how to handle almost any situation appropriately. Yeah, that’s a great idea.
Well, and I think what’s important to realize, and I’ve realized this, you know, as the years have gone on and being in social media and the larger that the following for fit to fat to fit gets is you will never appease everybody. You’re always going to offend somebody. And the fact is is unless you are literally doing nothing, you’re always offending somebody. You’re, you know, and I kind of had to realize that, like you said, um, you know, whether it’s because they didn’t really understand or grasp the concept you’re trying to convey or just because it’s a sensitive subject, talk to anybody about politics or religion or yes, like their looks or weight loss, no matter what, any type of sensitive or intimate subject like that, you’re always going to get people that can be offended. And what I’ve realized is, you know, you just, as you’re making a difference, as you’re trying to inspire or motivate or make a change in the world, you needed to stand up and try to motivate change, you know, by through your passion and through love and people might get offended.
And that’s how it goes. You know, you’re never going to appease everybody, and of course the show probably will offend some people, but for the most part, I think those that watch will be inspired and motivated from, from seeing these people in the transformations. From the short, I haven’t watched a full episode, but I’ve been able to, you know, see a few short clips that haven’t been released yet since the show does an air and even for me, and I was worried it’d be a little more gimmicky or, or kind of inauthentic. It really inspired me
and that’s the thing I got with my, with my journey is that if people actually read my blogs or saw my my vlogs or S or saw why I was doing what I did and gay and understood the whole purpose of it, then they were like, Oh, okay. That totally changed my perception of what you’re doing. I thought you were doing it to rub it in people’s faces and say, look, it’s so easy. And I think that’s the same people that are saying the same thing about the shows that were doing it to make fun of, or shame people. But that’s not it at all. So watch the show everybody and you will be pleasantly surprised and inspired and motivated, I promise. Um, okay, last question, Dan, unless you wanted to say something really quick.
Well, yeah, I, we’ll jump in on that. I think, um, yeah, that the obviously, um, uh, care, there’s all kinds of things behind the scenes that go into, uh, that go into it that you don’t see. And again, uh, because this is an out, we don’t have any reaction on it yet, but on intervention, if people, you know, were, were upset or incense, they frequently were, we’re blogging or posting about all kinds of, you know, or assumptions they made about how it was produced. Um, and you know, those things, I, of course there’s, uh, there’s, I’m sure there are ways to produce anything that I would consider inappropriate or you know, disrespectful or something like that. Um, but for the, for the most part entering into with good intentions and with sort of full disclosure, I mean everybody who was involved and in what they were doing, it was getting into, we talked about what safety things were in place and everybody had their own reasons for wanting to participate, most of which are, are fully, um, portrayed in the show.
So, yeah, I think, you know, look, your book, um, you, you were talking before that we did, I just wanted to circle back to this before we wrap up, but you talked about, we did a good job of, of showing me that it isn’t just physical changes, emotional and psychological and you know, that’s, that’s what’s profound about the book. I mean, I obviously went to school and your book read the book and I found it. I found it deeply profound. I’ve found it to be. Um, I started, I even though I felt like I was pretty knowledgeable on the subject, um, I still fell the insights that you shared to be illuminating in the sense that they really showed how some seemingly small things about diet and lifestyle can really invade every nook and cranny of your personality and really informs who you are. It’s not just about physically how you feel when you’re walking down the street or what it feels like to put on a pair of socks, but your sense of yourself as a capable, competent person who can accomplish the tests ahead of them.
Who can, who’s ready to face the world and who doesn’t feel, um, doesn’t feel dragged down either by some secret shame or by some physical discomfort or by the barest moment of personal embarrassment of not, um, not being, not keeping promises to yourself for lack of a better way of putting it. It’s a simple, it’s a simple premise, but people forget it all the time, which is if you want good self esteem, you need to do esteemable things. And the more you do esteemable things, the more your esteem grows. And there there’s a way that, that, um, works hand in hand with being fit. Because of course, if it were easy, everyone would everyone be fit and everyone wants to be.
And so there’s something, you know, so primal and basic about that, you start to feel if you’re heavy person, I don’t care if it’s only a few pounds where it’s a lot of pounds. If you’re chronically that this amount overweight, you’ve tried to lose it. You’ve tried to get in shape before. Absolutely. Everyone, you tried a million times and you failed a million times. If you haven’t, if you haven’t gotten to your goal, and if some part of you big or small, depending on how big those that gap was, may be between the goal and the reality feels, uh, feels a constant insult and a sense of failure and embarrassment, frustration at how, you know, it’s like you almost feel like, what’s wrong with me? It’s such a basic primal thing. Food, exercise. I can’t, why can I not regulate myself in the, in the right way? And, and, um, and really, you know, it’s hard making change is hard.
And there, the way that culture is set up and the way that food system is set up and you know, it’s, there’s a lot of, um, you feel like you’re swimming upstream a lot to try to do it. The sense of accomplishment is it is transformational life changing. And I think you get to see that in the course of, of these episodes. In a lot of cases, you see some really profound change where you look at the person at the end, you, you almost think in case of JJ and Ray or you know, Tashia a lot of them get to the end of the episode and you’re like, wow, it’s like the least of the chain. Just the physical transformation. This is like a different person. Their presence, their sense of themselves, their outlook on life is so different. And so she felt like, you know, we felt like that was the most important thing to try to share because when we started the process, we felt like the trainer and the clients, they almost feel like different species.
We’re pre-interviewing people on the phone trying to get a sense of what they’re all about. And they’re like different species that trainers by their nature, they just, they, they were so light, they had so much of a sense of being, of, of can do whatever we put in front of them. Okay, we can figure out how to do that, accomplish that. And the clients, no matter how capable they were in other areas of their life, a lot of them, they just, they had a different rhythm of life. They had a different sense of um, ha, wow, that sounds like a lot of work. Can we really do all of that? And we, it just, uh, and you know, it’s, it’s fascinating to think about it and I don’t want to portray other stereotypes because we certainly had, um, some very big people who are very capable of competence and, and outgoing and others in their life. But you could feel the way, um, it, it just weighed down there every one of them. And who wouldn’t want to share, um, the a message or a bit of inspiration and it might help them get over that.
Yeah, man, thank you so much for sharing that. And uh, it definitely rings true in it. It’s good to see other people that have the understanding. And thanks for talking about my book as well. A really quick, we want to finish up with some really quick questions, Dan that are just kind of our lightning round questions. They’re super easy. They’re kind of fun. We do at the end of all of our podcasts, but really quick, um, I just want to say thank you again for coming on and I’m going to, yeah. And we have Lynn asked some of these questions and then we’ll wrap up.
Begin the lightening.
Are you ready? All right, cool. So answer as quickly as possible. The first thing that comes to your mind. These have nothing to do with anything, so yeah, well they kind of do, but okay. Funniest person to work with on the show.
Funniest person to work on the show. Oh God. Like in front of the camera. Um, I always got a real great kick out of Carrie Cox. Uh, she was going to salt Lake city stories. Um, you know, she had the ability to laugh at herself and that was always really a refreshing. She could believe in what she believes in. She really believes in it strongly. But, um, she also had the sort of ease and comfort to go back on it and, and have a laugh at her own expense. And I always really admire that.
I love people that can laugh at themselves. I have to make fun of myself all the time.
Okay. So how, you, we kind of talked about this a little bit, but having seen the show, Dan, would you ever put yourself through what the clients have to go through? Would you ever do fit to fat to fit?
Did you ever get fat on purpose? Lenders
have to go? Oh,
no. You know, I wouldn’t because as, as, um, you know, on the spectrum, I feel, you know, I’m much more client than I am trainer. I feel like I, you know, I’m not, um, I could lose 10, 20 pounds, 10, 15 pounds anyway, um, just very heavy and out of shape at one point in my life. And it was a struggle to get in shape. It was a really, really hard year and I just made a promise myself on this is so hard, I’m never going back. And, uh, and I’m going to stick by that. Awesome. Nope, appreciate that Marcy. Okay. Okay. So you saw a lot of these trainers eat a lot of crazy things. Um, but you were there for some of their, you know, food challenges and things like that. Was there one point in time where you saw these trainers eating something that just call to you and you’re like, I want that. Even though it looked gross as they were stuff in their face. Was there one food that kind of called out to you and you’re like, I have to have that constantly constant.
I don’t know if this is like a new product from a chain or something like that, but it comes up in three different episodes. Um, at some kind of pizza. It’s called double bacon chicken ranch and
Oh, chicken ranch.
You seem to be loving it as they’re scarfing it down. And uh, I got to give it a try at some point.
That sounds so good. It’s funny cause I literally just yesterday sent my friend a meme that said, you can’t make everybody happy. You’re not pizza. I was like, amen. Amen. All right. Craziest idea for a TV show
that you’ve ever [inaudible]. Maybe an idea that you have
probably this, um,
[inaudible]
say it to ourselves all the time as we’re working on it. Sometimes we’re editing the episodes in the Bay and we would just say, God, this, we’re making a crazy show this.
Yes,
I believe we did this. Can you believe that? All of us sort of together put our minds together and, and uh, jumped into with all the Gusto we did and tried to figure out how to make it a great show. Um, I, you know, I love what it became, but man, it was, is a crazy thing to engage in professionally.
I love it. I love it.
Okay, last question, last question, and hopefully maybe you have one, maybe you don’t, but do you have an embarrassing moment as a producer,
a moment where you were seeing moment that you were embarrassed in your whole career,
where to begin on that?
The first one that pops up, the first one that pops up.
Yeah. If you have a good one.
No filtering. That was really stunning day in 1995 when I was producing a scripted film in the script, said that the final shot of the film, there would be a shot of central park in the summertime and there would be, you know, 40 50 cows grazing on it. And this was through some mistake that the main character had made. And he had accidentally had these cows delivered to an apartment and they needed to find a place for him and, and then they were going to be, now today we would probably digitally put the cows in central park somehow. But in 1995 the way you have was farmers in upstate New York and they drove their cows and the cow hauler down into Manhattan and they set them in central park and they, cows get a little ornery when they’re like cooped up in the back of a trailer for awhile. So when the first we had a lot of animal Wranglers and everything and the first trailer opened and there was an old farmer who was there to wrangle his cattle and the door open in the first cow out of the door just started bolting across central park. I was embarrassed isn’t the only thing I was, I was a lot of things. Embarrassed was one of them. But all of a sudden I had this thought, people we have not thought this through. Well
you did figure it out.
Uh, and neither, no cattle nor humans were harmed. But uh, it wa it was a unruly adventure to say the least.
It’s crazy the things you do for films, movies, TV, it’s crazy the stuff you have to go through that nobody knows about. You know, it’s a separate world. You girls, you guys live in your own separate world that not a lot of people know about Dan. But um, thank you so much again for coming on. We can’t wait for fifth. Had to fit a season one to air on January 19th at ten nine central on, on ane. And we hope there’ll be many more seasons and we get to work with you again in the future.
I hope so too. I hope everyone checks it out and thanks for the question.
Thanks Dan. Talk to you later.
All right. Thank you guys so much for listening to today’s episode. I really hope you enjoyed today’s content with Dan Partland. I really do hope that you do check out the TBI show fit fat to fit on A&E airing January 19th, 2016 at ten nine central. Check your local listings, set your DVR, tell your friends and family about it. Ah, let’s make this show a success. And I really think you guys are gonna love, uh, this show and what it’s about and how motivating and inspiring it really is.
Yeah, we want to have people from the show that are the trainers and the clients that are in the episodes on the podcast. If you have any specific comments or questions that you want us to go over, especially as you watch the episodes, make sure to leave it in the comment section below you guys. We always check those. We want to make sure that this podcast is for you, that we go over content that you want and that we will always respond back
and does stay in the know. Please follow us on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. My handle is at fit two fat two fit with the number two. The TV show is actually fit T O fat T O fit but my, my handle on all my social media is fit number two fat number two fit and my website fit to fat to fit.com. You can sign up for the newsletter there as well to stay in the know of that’s going on
this next year. 2016 is going to be a big year. Yeah and all of my handles are the number to fit at home. So you can find me on Instagram or Facebook. I have a little bit of a Pinterest that I rarely use or you can find me on my website. The number two fit@home.com. I also have a newsletter sign up on there. Um, my site is dedicated specifically for women cause I’m a woman’s fitness specialist. So check it out. Thanks again everybody for your love and support and we will see you guys next week.
[inaudible].
