Fat, Sick, and Spiritually Dead: A Weight Loss & Spiritual Journey w/ Matthew Wyatt

Transcript

welcome to the Shameless podcast where I help Christian men kill shame stand strong and live on Mission I'm your host Ken play and I'm bringing you real stories practical insights and biblical truths that equip you to break free from your sin shame and live a life of purpose let's step out of the Shadows together and Into the Light of Christ another episode and today I have a really special guest because we've been friends now for over 10 years he may not call me a friend but we we'll see after this podcast episode but I'm so excited to have Matthew white here today uh Matthew we are going to be talking about the title of the podcast is fat sick and spiritually dead but we're going to talk about your your weight journey and then your lust journey and how you've overcome both of those things so I'm excited you are a Serial entrepreneur and right now you're living overseas with your family and we work together at a university so dude welcome to the podcast years crazy thank you so much for having me Ken it's really cool to be here yeah it's um it's kind of wild like we um so I know like always in in this story that you want to like share something about yourself and I feel like it's more interesting if you share something that you've just never shared before with anyone or anything right um and so I think it's important that you know that um while I promise to tell the truth this whole time I have not always told the truth I had a friend who he's one of those friends where like if you say something and smile they'll just sort of go along with it and uh we were hanging out uh with a group of friends and one guy was like I've heard every story you guys have I was like well you haven't heard this one and I made up this crazy elaborate story uh about us taking his car and going on this crazy joy ride and then getting pulled over and lying to the cops and saying no we're on our way to go work at this hospital and then going to the hospital and this the cops trying to prove us wrong and um it just got bigger and bigger right is this crazy story and people were so convinced that the story was true that they started asking me to tell it like at like parties and like I told it at his wedding and I told it at another friend's wedding and uh sometimes i' switch the characters and people never noticed um and finally recently I got a very angry call from my buddy's wife who was like I just found out that that story wasn't true I've believed that story for seven years and it wasn't true and like don't you think he would have told you that like you dated for a while but um so that's that's the seriousness with which I take storytelling and my sense of humor but that's awesome dude well for those of you who are listening and may know Matthew you know he has a great sense of humor he used to be a comedian he would still call himself a comedian so we're going to have a lot of jokes that we probably throw in a lot of maybe dark humor throughout very serious only serious yeah super serious the whole time Matthew dude I know you have been on an amazing Health Journey the last couple years and when I first met you you know you were overweight or obese I I guess what would be the right they use the term morbidly obese because if you add the word morbid that somehow makes people feel better I don't it's like yeah yeah it was yeah very encouraging right yeah just throw the shame on top of contributing to my fatness right like yeah was perfect okay so you were morbidly obese but man over the last several years you have changed how much weight I weighed in uh like when we you actually knew me pretty close to my heavy heaviest and my heaviest I weighed in just under 300 15b and so when I I was I was a fair amount lighter when I got serious about like making this transformation and everything I had lost weight for bad reasons because I was sick from being overweight and different and even at that I was still over 300 lbs um so I lost uh in that time I lost a little over 142 pounds in uh 11 months so it was a a dramatic dramatic change so yes my humor is still morbid but my weight is not so it's it's a good change for sure and um yeah and it's like I mean kind of like to the you know to the title of the episode right I I wasn't just fat I was sick I had s sleep apnea um I had fatty liver disease um I already have uh degenerative disc in my back uh which just hereditary but throw on to that you know being being literally twice the weight that you should be and that was of course always a problem and it was yeah it was miserable like I I couldn't you know you can't fly on a plane without getting you know an extension for your seat belt you can't uh really play with your kids I mean it was just and and the I think the worst is you look in the mirror you just don't you don't like what you see like you don't like yourself and you you live under this kind of quiet shame and you cope you know and that's it's how it's why some of the fattest people you know are some of the funniest people you know because it's a it's a coping mechanism right it's a way of getting away from the the whatever they're feeling bad about yeah okay so I'm ugly but I'm funny it's it's fine it's it's great um you don't have to be ugly to be funny like it's not an either or thing apparently but uh yeah so that was that was where I came from and I'd always been big like my whole like as a as a kid I was big you know first I was like this great I'll play football and then everyone got tall and I didn't get tall so then I was just big and there was really nothing to do with it from there you know um and I when I was little and this plays into kind of our bigger conversation too when I was little I always assumed that as I got older one day I would just deal with it one day something would change and I would just magically um you know like it would just change and that didn't just happened on its own like it didn't that day came and went like it never happened um yeah which was frustrating I got past when I I thought by the time I was an adult I'd be thin and healthy or I thought that you know maybe by the time I settled down i' I'd get thin and healthy or like I just I wanted it but I wished for it right like I didn't I didn't decide to do it I didn't take action meaningful action to do it um I just wished for it you know and that's doesn't work I mean just be great I wish wish work my whole life I just need that wish granted I'm set but no how how did you how did you handle the like every day to day you know deep down inside you had this tension of like you wishing for it to go away but like you didn't like yourself and you were coping with like humor you're coping with a lot of things like that but like how did you handle the yeah well and that's I mean that kind of cuts to the quick that cuts to the heart of it I did what most people do I found distractions I found ways to focus on anything but dealing with myself confronting difficulty with life confronting cu cu they were deep ER frustrations and issues unforgiveness I had towards myself unforgiveness I had towards others um and rather than putting in the work of dealing with those things I would eat or I would masturbate I would look at porn I would uh go and you know play video and I'm not I'm not anti- video game but I'm anti anything that you're using as a like distraction to do instead of like today the one that's easiest to fall on is like my phone right like I can I can use my phone as a tool or I can just get so lost in my phone that my phone's my world and I'm doing this instead of being present at the table with my wife and kids or doing it instead of being in the conversation with my friends and we find these little distractions and we use those to self-medicate because the truth is even though I lived with the consequences of being morbidly obese every single day I never thought about it because thinking about it hurt so I resisted that I I found distractions um and the problem with distractions is not only do they fail to make the pain go away but some of those distractions are bad for you and then you feel bad about those things so then you need to be distracted from those things so it becomes this vicious cycle where it's like oh I tried to stop doing this or I tried to stop doing that and I failed well now I feel worse about myself and so it becomes this self-destructive just cycle um and then I remember there'd be times like I would get so frustrated that I would I would almost it was almost like when I was a young man it was almost like I'd go into a self-destruct mode I just would reach a point like I just don't I don't give an f i whatever I'm just gonna go and those were the most dangerous times for me to be alone or around other people because I would go and make stupid choices and um and it was so on this side of it I can see it now what I didn't see at the time was that it was very self-serving um I didn't I didn't care about anything else I didn't care about anyone else I think when you're in that moment whether you're eating to self-medicate or uh mastbating to self-medicate or looking at porn um Heck if sometimes you just been watching like whatever it is whatever this thing it becomes this Idol and it gets your focus it gets your devotion um and you're not you know you're loving that you're not loving the things that God wants you to love and the irony of that is that you are one of the things God wants you to love right so you're working against his love for you you're working against him you're working it's this whole like it's the you're not going to fight your battle alone you're going to pick someone to fight the battle with you you're either going to pick God or you're going to pick Satan and so it's either you and Satan versus Satan let's see who wins or you and God versus Satan let's see who wins right you never fight it alone uh and so that's yeah that was what made it worse and worse and how I went from oh I'll never be over you know 250 pounds oh I'll never be over 300 pounds or oh I'll never be over you keep making these little promises to yourself and then you keep breaking them and then it's hopeless and so then you do you well but I can be good at this and I'm just GNA let that go and even and you get it for me I I can see you I for me personally I got into this state of self- delusion where I think I didn't want to admit that it was as bad as it was I can literally look at pictures of myself from then I look at a picture of myself from you 2008 2009 and I'm just like that's what I looked like like cuz I didn't think I looked like that I was that disconnected I knew I was heavy but I thought I looked like I did when I graduated high school when I graduated high school I was you know 250 pounds I was big for a high schooler it's crazy thing I was bigger than I am today quite a bit but at the time yeah yeah so that's what I thought fat Matthew looked like right and you just don't think of it as doing anything wrong like not taking care of myself self not being a good Steward of this gift um and then that all the self-medicating stuff because it does serve a purpose right it stops the pain and so you just when you're in it you think about it you feel bad about it um and then when you're not doing it you compartmentalize it like oh this isn't a part of my life right now so it's fine um yep God hates my sin so do I it's fine you know we're on the same team yeah and and what's fascinating about all that is that like as I listen to it how you were in a place where the distractions you talk about that vicious cycle you needed a deeper andely bigger distraction right because like the first one the level one didn't work after a while so you needed something on and and that was fascinating as how you said it like you were in this delusional phase of Life how did you all of a sudden just like one day wake up and be like I need to change this is I wish I could say that I just had this incredible moment where I was like that's it enough is enough I'm drawing a Line in the Sand um on this day October 26th of 20 like I did that aund times where I would say I would promise myself this was it I'm done I'm going to change this or this is it I'm done I'm going to change that and I hit this more with because it's funny because gluttony is a sin but it's not one we talk about so I didn't feel much guilt on that front but of course having uh I mean when you use pornography to masturbate you have an orgasm and it's not a satisfying orgasm it's not a holy orgasm it's the oh bleep what did I do orgasm which isn't what it's supposed to be right like God created this to be this wonderful thing that is this you know consummation of this this incredible relationship uh that he's anointed and instead it's you running away from your problems and when you stop running they're still right there uh and so it's it's not satisfying right so I would love say that that that I planted that flag and that was it but every time I planted that flag it didn't work it it constantly didn't work and then I got more upset with myself cuz then I failed and I have to scribble out the date and whatever I wrote it on or whether I put it on my wall or told you know my my accountability friends or whatever thing I was trying but it actually took it was weird because it it actually took two things had to go sort of right at the same time on the fitness front it was actually my best friend Shane who you who you know you've met Shane because he he was you know as well yeah yeah and he we work together for a little bit so he went on a fitness journey first and this was the guy who I mean he was one of the bigger guys I knew and he was someone who like if I was frustrated like I would sit and eat a crap ton of ice cream and he could keep up with me you know like it's great life choices and I watch him radically change I mean radically change reverse his diabetes go from uh a very pear-shaped physique to like he took this one picture of himself where I was like dude you look like a freaking superhero like it was cool and what that created for me was belief because suddenly there was evidence and I think this is something we're desperate for in all of this um because we've as the church we're starting to address this I in these things there's always this requirement where you have to badmouth the church we forget that the church is uh a Christ bride and be literally us so whatever effort we're doing is what the church is doing right you're like no the church is talking about this yeah hi hi welcome to church yeah we are but we've not always done a good job we talk about the negative we talk about the problem uh we don't have a lot of people talking about how not is it not okay to look at porn or to have an addiction to porn and porn assisted masturbation and all this stuff but you don't have to do it you can actually be free success is actually possible yeah and so seeing him change uh I just I this might actually be possible and at the same time I had reached that point and is what You' kind of alluded to earlier where everything that I was doing on the sexual sin side of my life was one-upping and so I had gone from just the casually looking at pictures to the going in online messaging boards and it reached the point now where I found myself sending like messages to the same person and that for me was a red flag because I'm like I'm about to cheat on my wife if I don't stop this I actually went to Shane and told him I'm having a hard time with this and he's like well obviously you have to freaking stop and uh and I I just told myself I was like all right I'm just not gonna message this person anymore it's G to be fine that's it I drew a line done and a week later I messaged that person and I got scared and it's funny because it would be really easy to be like oh it was really Brave you stepped up and said hey this is a problem I need help no I've watched enough people in Christian service in Christian leadership and in uh uh in businesses who stand out and say hey I'm a follower of Jesus much to enough of them hide their sin because of their pride and go down hard we've all seen it and I was like man if this keeps going this direction that that's going to be me I am going to end up there and if I don't suddenly take this way more seriously than I am I am going to lose everything hurt a lot of people do more to hurt The credibility of the gospel than I've ever done for the glory of God which is literally the reason I exist I and so I took a very some actually accused me of overreacting and it was only out of the belief that I couldn't afford to underreact and there was no way to really know where the line was um so I brought it to uh my wife I brought it to um the family and Ministries leadership at my church I brought it to leadership where I was working at the time because I was serving in a Christian organization at the time and I joined joined a men's group uh at my church uh where we were talking about these things and so it almost coincidentally happened that I started focusing on my health and fitness and Purity at the same time which I know like the grace of God in the craziest way because what I didn't know then and of course I very much get now is how deeply connected these things really are and and that yeah like I said I had no idea right so it wasn't that I suddenly figured it out or thankfully it wasn't that I like went and had an affair and you know was losing everything and had to hit rock bottom um but I reached a point where it became clear that I wasn't that magic day wasn't going to happen I wasn't just suddenly going to be grown up enough that I didn't deal with lust anymore I wasn't just suddenly going to be like you know that thing that as a young man I thought would go away when my libido comb down or when I got married thing that we get wrong in that is we think that our need that we're trying to meet is sex we think it's just this biological desire and that's not what we're trying to meet right the need we really have to meet is healing and redeem like this pain these things that we've been running from right things that can only be dealt with obviously in part ship with Jesus Christ with the holy spirit it's going through it forgiving people whove genuinely hurt us whether they deserve it or not because that's not what forgiveness is about right forgiving ourselves and recognizing that our sin is bad but we are not at creation God did not say you know it's very good and then like oh but it's going to sin badly and not be worth it wipe it all from the earth I mean he came close with the flood but he spared us right so to just throw Humanity out with sin is to pass a harsher judgment than the one God himself is passing right and so it was crazy that and I'm so thankful really that I ended up trying to confront these two things together and if you'd asked me to plan it that way at the time I actually would have thought it was a bad idea because I would have thought that I was overextending myself trying to dramatically change the these two what in my delusional mind was completely separate issues right like why would I try to you know like I'm not going to go learn a language and go fix my car at the same time like why would I try to do you know they're just not related things but self-discipline taking care of our bodies caring about ourselves as people and how we then interact with everyone else How We Do with ourselves spiritually physically inside and out that there's no Duality there's no like we try to compartmentalized absolutely don't work the compartment you know what it is you know those crappy box shelves that you get from Ikea that have the squares right you think you're putting all these things in this but there's no back there's no back so it all just gets pushed through it all ends up on a pile behind the stupid shelf that's that's life yeah absolutely on the top of the baseboard like it's just so annoying and you don't deal with it it's going to start on fire so hoay for you yeah exactly so Matthew as you think about this I I have an observation and I think this is maybe what you're talking about right when you think about scripture like in Romans 1 it talks about like almost leaving you to a depraved mind like I'm going to let you be in this delusion that you were just like I'm going to keep falling but then God in his grace and mercy you kind of have like a a Paul experience where he started to rip the scales out and you started to see how deeply these things were in integrated and How Deeply like you have all these sins that have been committed to you and sins that you've committed and all this hurt and pain and now these scales are open and you're like that's a lot of stuff I got to deal with so how did you start to overcome that again I was fortunate in in the the fitness program that I did one of so I have uh my coach uh this SC Nam car o Quinn brilliant woman loves the Lord show out she she had a similar fitness journey where she used to be morbidly obese lost a ton of weight has kept it off for years and she's actually since devoted herself to like that's the work she does she helps other people transform their lives as well and uh so she had launched a a YouTube show actually to help support it uh called the biggest transformation and Shane had been on it uh season one um because they knew each other they' worked together years ago uh he actually worked for her once upon a time and um so I was in season two and what's interesting was that in that we had a time where we literally made a list of all the like mean things or bad things that people had said or done to us about our weight and then we went through and actually like out while like we forgave these people and it was clear there's a lot of unforgiveness that I haven't dealt with in my life um and at the same time uh being in that guys group it kept coming out like I'm watching and I I felt really spoiled almost guilty because so many of the guys that were in that group were in that group because their marriages had fallen apart they had gone too far too long the very thing that I was afraid of was their story and so as they're sharing their things as they're talking about that I'm just like yeah short of me repenting and forgiving those who ain't short of me forgiving those who've harmed me and repenting and asking for forgiveness of what I've done he'll absolutely let me he loves me too much to not let me hit bottom this will this will get worse and if I don't start trading my body better I'm going to pay for it with my health or my life and if I don't start treating my heart my I don't like my physical heart I mean like my spiritual like my heart because when you when you're Yeah well yeah abs and for you was both actually right my resting heart rate this is funny now and at the time I laughed about it and the fact that I laughed about it then is actually sad when I was at my least heavy I or least heavy my least healthy I bought a Fitbit thinking you know it's some novelty I'm neurode Divergent as the day is long so I know that if I can inject novelty into something I can use that for motivation and so I was like I bought a Fitbit and I was sitting and this is when I was working at the University I'm doing you know doing I I'm sitting there and the watch buzzes um great job four hours of exercise and I look and sure enough my heart rate my resting heart rate was so stinking high that it thought I was exercising and and I would joking like so I knew I had to do something right away so I stopped wearing a Fitbit and like it's funny now and it was funny then but it was also really sad because it was true that's what I actually did I turned off that feature I didn't even put in the work of taking off the stupid watch I turned off the feature and that was it that was my transformative response to like because I didn't want to deal with it and then I went back to work I did my work I went home I hid look at porn and then because I hated myself I was less kind to the other people that I also love right because so much of our ability and our capacity to love comes out of our understanding of God's love for us and US learning to love ourselves through understanding How He Loves Us and then were able to better love others and so the lousy thing was here's this woman who God has given me whom I love so much and I wasn't nice to her like I couldn't just be a decent person and be kind and so yeah it was it was ugly right I don't know if I actually answered your question I sort of storyed off a bit because how you yeah God will let you go far enough to the bad um and that was and it scary CU you watch some friends who would then they'd go through on similar Journeys but then they would choose to turn their backs on God or they would choose to like you know one way to deal with the pain is to pretend that the things you're doing to deal with the pain are good and okay and endorse them and you know it's this whole we're gonna lean into sexual sin and it's that difference between guilt and shame right and people get into the semantics and they play with the words back and forth whatever right but it's like that bad feeling call it whatever you want that you have when you sit right it's similar to when you touch uh something that's too hot like the stove or the grill and it burns right you're supposed to feel that pain but you're only supposed to feel that pain so that you take your hand off this the heat right you're supposed to feel that pain so you can change direction and stop hurting yourself you're not supposed to sit there hold your hand on the grill like man the grill is so hot I can't believe I'm touching the grill what is wrong with me they do and some people throw their whole body into do and and the thing that I'm I'm most flabbergast and grateful for is I look at like my friends who' fallen into this I'm no smarter than them I'm no like I I'm not I'm but for but for God but for Grace Ka like I I don't I I don't know I almost am like I don't know why got spared when others didn't it's like to that extreme right but I will say this if God puts in front of someone the reality of this the opportunity to choose they can choose right it's a beautiful thing and that's where I found myself with a community that was able to support me in both decisions even when I didn't feel like making those decisions um because on the fitness journey and on the rep repentance Journey it sucks that that's a journey repent literally means turn and go the other way it should be a oneandone but for both of them there were definitely times when I didn't want like like my desire was contrary to my greater desire right there's the you know the greater desire I want to be someone who doesn't stand I want to be someone who takes care of myself but in the moment in frustration you know you you've won this neural pathway you know this familiar Road and you're just like I'm just I'm going to go back to that I'm it's the dog returning to their vom right like yeah but yeah so yeah so so Matthew as you think about that you had a lot of abolutely the journey was slow right where for you of like slowly turn and I think that's for a lot of us especially when there's like addiction inv or a lot of coping mechanisms it took a while speak to those who might be in that phase right now where they're just like I'm actually dealing with a lot of shame I know I'm overweight I know I'm struggling with porn and I'm kind of in that delusion how would you speak to them to kind of wake up a little bit so that they can start that journey of that's a great question um I would start by and that I would not start inspirational I would start by saying plainly this is not going to fix itself and you will at some point pay for this there will be a consequence it will come you will have to either turn it around or live with the break that comes from it but the good news is that you can and many have before you you the enemy wants to isolate you make you think that you can't do it your problem is somehow special your sin is somehow special you know we're at the culture where we're all so freaking special the good news is you're not special like you there is nothing that you are facing that God doesn't understand there is nothing that you are facing that your other brothers in Christ haven't faced there is nothing before you that is unique to you and cannot be overcome and on the other side of this is the identity that Christ made for you and has for you and that is you as his pure and spotless Bride dude that's so good just to think about the complete transformation of like I love how you're talking about like let's face reality this is where you're at like let's not live in delusion but at the same the God's is not just like I forgive you he's also like made you completely new you're the bride of Christ you are a child of God you are a royal priesthood right like all those things are true and they only come yeah let's be clear you get out of the delusion God really lies reality and comes to God like come to God like the the enemy will get us into this weird spot where we actually think that God likes us because he has to like us well he made us he made all crazy he's he's obligated no he genuinely likes you and like wrapping your head around that is a big deal because ultimately like it is it it can be slow it can be a grind but there there's a moment and I wish and I don't have a date for it because whenever I tried to put dates on them it didn't work because those dates are when the date asked the question when did I stop doing this when did I stop doing that when did I stop being a fat guy that just eats all the things when did I stop looking at porn when did I stop uh you know using masturbation as an escape when did I stop like all this stuff no no no no we step into an identity and we let that identity who who does God say you are and who do you say you are I reached the point where I just I don't do that anymore like that became my line that became my like I don't do that anymore that's not who God made me and God and that's not as that becomes your identity like even now it's funny because in the last as you mentioned I'm living abroad now um and as I've moved here I'm still figuring out routines and everything the food is different uh exercise is different I don't have my little home gym and all my weights and all that um and it's challenging because as you live and walk out that identity the things you say about yourself you prove to yourself it becomes this social proof to yourself that it's true right I'm a person who works out I'm a person who makes choices that are healthy when I eat that doesn't mean that I never eat unhealthy things but I don't eat to harm my body I don't eat to if I eat something if I eat ice cream I eat it because it tastes good and I like ice cream not because it's going to make me stop feeling something and there's no context in which looking get porn can be a healthy thing right and I find well what do I do well I sleep at night or at least try to when I have a feeling or a concern or something I give voice to it I don't try to convince my wife that I'm some perfect person that she already knows I'm not um I don't try to be better looking than I am and there's Freedom that comes in that right like I I'm a person whom God loves who doesn't look at porn so I don't look at porn because that's not who I am that's not what I do and when you step into identity in any of these things that's when you really experience freedom because then to do these things just goes against who you are and the enem is going to attack your identity regardless so it doesn't yeah like either side of it like it's like all the time yeah you you know you do too much you do too little all the yeah you can't no you just you step into who God says you are and you just you put that on and you walk in that yeah and I found that that's a daily thing that I always have to do and sometimes Moment by moment after a meeting I'm like I wanted to drop kick that person but not who I am so uh you know like just a reminder Matthew go I was going to say as we wrap up here there are people who are going to listen to this and there are guys who are like I know I want to get there I know I want to be where you're at I know I'm struggling but I I need that support system I don't have that support system what's maybe the best way to reach out to you maybe just to get some encouragement and kind of guide you to something or what's a good program that you know that they could join definely slew of programs out there um and different things as far as reaching out to me goes uh any social media channel is fine they're all kind of the same they all vent into the same thing shoot me a message I'm always happy to talk if you're in the United States I'm in a very different time zone so I will respond when I can you're probably messaging me while I sleep um but yeah real Matthew Wyatt or Matthew Wyatt on any socials probably me looks like this but with slightly better hair because it's very very photoshopped um but uh beyond that as far as like really stepping out I would look at whether or not your church has like a pure desire group those are quite good you've got to look at kind of your own do your own check as far as what you're comfortable with the some of the groups can be very um this is Who We Are and this is who we'll always be and that can be good for a season but discouraging long term um beyond that it's it's really finding other like Godly men Godly brothers that you can walk alongside you've already taken a great first step in that even just in the fact that you're you're watching this and you've gotten this far in this um because it means that you're taking it seriously um you're investing some time here I know and spoilers whatever but I know there's Whispers of a possible community that could exist in this space that would be a great resource and there are you know if you go again I like pure desire uh as a Ministry they do all things I don't I don't love absolutely everything about their approach but I love their heart they've seen a lot of men free which is a beautiful thing um and there are groups on there there's I who does the the uh courage is it called courageous I'm trying remember the name of the program yeah I feel like they they used to be called courageous I'm trying to remember they did yeah and there's a whole goes with it that can be done as a small group or whatever and it's it's a little heavy-handed but it's and there's truth in it and it's done by men who love God and are walking in Freedom and you can't argue with the fruit I like them a lot uh just because I know people they've helped um biggest thing is is keep it keep it in front of you be intentional um yeah it doesn't have to be your life the freedom is your life Jesus is your and that's the thing is that eventually you you're able to actually take your eyes off all this and put them on Jesus and that's the real deal right like that's the real thing like you get all these little Ministries and programs that are yeah so obsessed with what they're doing that they're not it feels like they're not looking at Jesus look at Jesus yeah 100% that's one of the things I'm always trying to tell guys when I've helped them overcome pornography is like hey obviously there's this current situation but like the ultimate goal is that you are looking to Jesus seeing how he made you seeing how he loves you and out of the Overflow of that you go live out your god-given purpose right and if you're doing that man it God's going to do those things and like you said there might be a membership or something like we'll see what happens but those are the things things that we are shooting for and doing it in such a way that it's Shameless where you can walk in a place where there's freedom and and joy and I get it and you and I both get it we've been there we've been through the struggle and I love how you first started this at the beginning and I'll wrap up this conversation is like you're like not a lot of people are talking about and this is why I I started the podcast because I was like I want to get people like you who are like here's my story because there's a lot of people who are overweight and obese like especially in America it's a big deal right so imagine what could happen if people hear your story and be like I love it what you said what Shane did he brought you belief he gave you belief like it is possible and for those of you who are listening I want you to know it's 100% possible for you to see the healing and the transformation both in your weight journey and in your your lust Journey right like both of those can happen and that's what we're both excited for Matthew in the last 20 seconds what would be one thing that you just want to want people to walk away with don't do this alone but do do it you are worth doing this dude so good Matthew thank you so much man for being on the podcast and uh thank you for what you're doing overseas I know that that's going to be a huge work you know I'm praying for you my family's praying for you and I look forward to the next time we get to hang out all right gentlemen for those of you who are listening thank you for being watching this podcast remember every single time I tell you this the reason for this podcast is to kill shame stand strong and be on Mission we'll be back next week hope you guys have a great day and God bless thanks for joining us today have you found this episode helpful make sure to subscribe and leave a review remember killing shame isn't just about breaking free from the past it's about walking boldly into the future God has for you