YouSaid · the spoken record

Melissa Urban

lines on the record: 79
first: 2024-04-01
most recent: 2024-04-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Know, I was already eating a pretty whole foods based diet in that I was doing, you know, a lot of turkey and a lot of chicken and a lot of vegetables and salads. But what it entailed me getting rid of were the breads and maybe some rice, definitely oatmeal. I was eating a lot of oatmeal, so I ditched all of those grains and started eating more veggies and fruit. I got rid of most added sugar in this first go around, so I wasn't particularly pedantic about it. I switched to my iced coffee's black, which I did not enjoy, but I suffered through.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. And yes, it was highly controversial. I'm not sure was particularly science-backed in terms of, you know, the health benefits of eating more like our Paleolithic ancestors. But some of the information he presented in his findings, like the idea that there may be compounds in certain foods to which you are sensitive, but not aware that you're sensitive, we're very interesting.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So he had been doing some research into the impact of dietary choices on inflammation in the body. And at this time, Paleo was all the rage Dr. Lauren Cordain was kind of the godfather of Paleo, and he had written several papers on the impact of legumes and their potentially inflammatory impact on folks who are sensitive. And if you are sensitive, it could be provoking an immune response, an inflammatory response that can manifest in a number of different ways throughout the body.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So he did. He had this chronic shoulder tendonitis. He and I both shared that actually. I also had this recurring shoulder pain that I would go see him for actual physical therapy for. And of course we modulated our workouts. But even with modulating his workouts and resting and doing all of the PT things that he knew he needed to do, he still struggled to find relief with the shoulder tendonitis.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I mean, it was every night I would get home from work and I would write my blog post for the next day. And then on the weekends, occasionally I would travel for certifications or I would train my clients or I would be working on blog posts for the next week. So it really did turn into a part-time kind of hustle.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, well, I did it in such a way that I didn't have to do any of that because I knew that that was outside of my capability. I have this full-time job that was really important. What I did was I approached my local powerlifting gym and I said to them, hey, I want to open a CrossFit affiliate, but I'm only going to train people on the weekends and maybe one night a week, can I use your space for that and just give you a small amount of money? And they literally said to me, oh, you can do that for free. Don't worry about it. Just bring your clients in. You know, occasionally maybe mention us, give us like a shout out. So I opened a part-time CrossFit affiliate with maybe 10 or 12 clients.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you know what? This is wild. But CrossFit called me and said, you're doing so much for the community. Have you ever thought about opening your own CrossFit gym? And I was like, yeah, I would love to.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I started my blog, my training blog, which was called Urban Gets Diesel. I make no apologies for that. But I started my blog as a way of. Just sharing more about the way I thought about workouts and the way I thought about training and the blog started amassing quite a few readers that became pretty popular. I had a lot of comments. I had, and it was fun, and it was just something I was doing for free on the side, nights and weekends. But the more I wrote, the more deeply invested I got in the CrossFit community too. I started writing for the CrossFit Journal and I started traveling for CrossFit Kettlebell certifications. So I became very closely entwined with the community through the blog.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“CrossFit in 2006 was very hardcore. You had to be willing to punish yourself and really hurt. If you want to do some of these workouts that are so short but so brutal, you have to be comfortable with discomfort. And at that point in my own healing journey, I was really into self-punishment. I was really into working my body really hard. And so that language really spoke to me, but CrossFit is really where I discovered that I was athletic and I was coordinated and I could be fit and I loved that about myself.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, so he was interested in kettlebells. He was interested in CrossFit. He was a physical therapist and also an athletic trainer. He taught me how to deadlift. He taught me how to do. A lot of the CrossFit moves, and when a CrossFit gym did open in New Hampshire, I started going there to train too. So I became very invested in CrossFit and the CrossFit community.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, it's a fantastic tool for all kinds of things. They're one of the things where people ask me if I'm building out a home gym. What are just a few pieces of equipment I should have a kettlebell is definitely on that list. So I got into kettlebells and then CrossFit was now becoming this really big thing. And of course, we didn't have a CrossFit gym in New Hampshire back then, but I became aware of CrossFit exercises, CrossFit used kettlebells quite a bit. And this was right around the time that I met my whole 30 co-founder.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did. I was really into kettlebells. This was before kettlebells were a big thing, and nobody taught kettlebells in New Hampshire. Nobody even knew what they were, but I was managing an office in San Diego at this time. And my sister lived in San Diego, and she was training kettlebells with a woman in San Diego. So I would go learn kettlebells with her. Nobody back home knew what I was talking about. And I found an RKC certified kettlebell instructor in Maine. And I used to drive two hours on Saturdays for private lessons with him because I was really into it.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and that was the fun thing about this group is that one of the women ran really fast. So she would run ahead and then run back and catch up with us and then run ahead again. Some people ran really slow. I was a very slow runner. So sometimes one of the women would hang back and we'd just chat the whole time. I loved it, and it turns out I was pretty good at it despite never having run before. And then, you know, on the off days when I wasn't running, I would do some machines and hit some weights. And that led me to doing a few triathlons. I did a few sprint level triathlons where I swam and biked and ran. And that all felt pretty good.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I got out of rehab and I knew that something had to be different. And so I thought to myself, well, what would a healthy person with healthy habits do if I were healthy, if I didn't just come out of rehab if I wasn't, you know, still craving heroin, like what would I be doing? And the first thing that came to mind was you would go to the gym before work. Because only healthy people are at the gym at 5 a.m. And so having never set foot in a gym before in my life at this point, I found a gold's gym that was pretty close to my office. And I started going five mornings a week. And then I met a group of women at the gym. And they would run every morning. And one of them said, one day, do you want to come running for us? I had never run in my life a month ago. I was snorting heroin. And I said, yes, I would love to. And so I started running. And I think those women probably did more for my recovery than just about anything.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had to call my mom from rehab to say, hey, mom, I'm in rehab for a drug addiction. And again, my mom had no experience with drugs or alcohol. Nobody used drugs in my family. Nobody drank to excess. This was just not something she had experience with. So I had to call her from rehab and she was supportive in the best way that she could, you know, not really knowing how to navigate this either.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was living with a boyfriend at the time who, in the beginning, knew that I used drugs but did not realize the extent because, again, I hid that from him and I was highly functional. But the last six months of our relationship, it was pretty obvious that I was seriously addicted and unable to control my use and my behavior at home started to become very erratic. And there was just one night where he said to me, I can't do this anymore. I can't watch you do this to yourself anymore. So if you want to go to rehab, I will call right now. I will find you a bed. I will drive you and I'll be there for you. And if you can't do that tonight, I'm leaving. I can't do this. And I just, I had a moment of clarity. And I said to him in that moment before I could lose my nerve, I will go. And he called and he found me a bed in the first rehab facility. He called.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I tried very hard not to think about my life. If I were to think about my life, Quickly became overwhelming. I knew that I was in so much trouble. I knew that my drug use had become uncontrollable. I tried to stop once or twice and absolutely could not. And I knew that underneath all of this was this trauma that I had refused to address. And if I stopped using drugs, I would have to look at that. So I tried really hard not to think.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Again, I was mostly functional for the next six to nine months, but my parents started. And so eventually when they caught on that things maybe weren't okay, I moved back to New Hampshire. I just bounced around from location to location for a few years. The second anyone started to wonder what was maybe wrong with me.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I went to the registrar's office and I made up some story about my parents getting divorced, which they were actually. And I mentioned that I was just really struggling with my schoolwork and I would like to withdraw from my classes. And so I was able to withdraw. I think I got one F, but the rest of them were withdraws. And, you know, people in New Hampshire were really starting to catch on that I was not okay. My sister, for one, she was at school with me my junior year and she knew that my drug use had spiraled into uncontrollable territory. So I left. I bounced and I went down to Virginia to live with my dad. He moved down there after his divorce. He had remarried at this point. And I went down there to live with them. And I met another drug dealer very quickly and I started dating him very quickly. And he had more access to heroin than the last drug dealer. So I got into that very quickly. And I found a job and I was able to maintain that job most”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And yeah, I did drop out. By my junior year in college, I was dating a drug dealer who gave me access to anything I could possibly want. And I dove into harder and harder drugs. And so halfway through my junior year, I realized I was failing all my classes. I still have nightmares to this day guy of like not showing up for my botany class and feeling like, what am I going to do about this?”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was highly functional, as you might imagine, from someone who was a straight A student and very type A and very dedicated and very committed. For the first two years of school, I went to all my classes and also drank and used as many drugs as I possibly could at the same time. And I managed to keep the wheels on that bus for about two years, which is pretty remarkable. But of course, it devolved. And when it devolved, it devolved very quickly.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was looking for a way out of my body. I wanted to just not be here. I wasn't suicidal. I just didn't want to exist with the thoughts and the feelings that were inside my body. So I tried a lot of different things. I tried drinking. I didn't really love it. It didn't work the way I needed it to. I dabbled with controlling my eating. That definitely did not stick. It was like never anything I was interested in. And then I found drugs. I smoked my first joint the summer between my senior and freshman year of college. And I thought, this is it. This is the thing that is going to take me so far outside of myself the way I've been looking for. And I dove in so hard and so fast from that point on.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, about a year after I couldn't hold it in anymore. And I absolutely broke and I shared what happened with my parents. They didn't know how to handle it. You know, I don't know any parent that would feel comfortable handling something like this, but it was kind of decided that we would just not talk about it because bringing this up would destroy the family. So as a family, we decided that we just would not talk about it. And that was kind of another record scratch, I think, and how. Rest of my life would go”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My parents would go away for a night and I would throw a party, and the police would come. This was never something that happened before. I started drinking and nobody really asked me if I was okay or what was wrong. And that was very indicative of the culture of my family that the way they responded when something was wrong was that they just didn't look at it or talk about it. That was their coping strategy. So when somebody got cancer, they just didn't talk about it. When somebody was sick, when somebody got divorced, that was just the way my family handled things. So it was just a really difficult time, I think, for all of us not knowing what to do and what was wrong and me not knowing how to even share it.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It did, and I'm very comfortable talking about it at this point. I've shared this story publicly a number of times, but it was the first really important, pivotal moment in my life. And I describe it like a record scratch. Pre-16 years old, everything that we've just talked about, I was a good kid. I got straight A's. I followed the rules. I had a good relationship with my family. And then at 16, I was sexually abused by someone in my family, someone I really loved and someone I trusted. From that point on, everything was different. I was different. My relationship with my family was different. What I thought about myself was different, my behavior, my grades. I mean, it was night and day. I became a different person after this experience. I began acting out.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, exactly. And I was very close. I was close with my aunts. I was close with my cousins and uncles and my aunt Di would pick me up for a special McDonald's run after school one day and we'd blast the radio and go get happy meals. And yeah, I have a lot of really fond memories of that.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. I mean, still to this day, I would describe myself as a rule follower. I was the oldest of two. I was the smart one. My sister was the fun, cute one that everybody liked. I was far more introverted. I preferred books to people. I was kind of socially awkward. But I was a good kid. I rarely got in trouble. I got straight A's in school. I had one best friend in the neighborhood that I spent a lot of time with. But if I didn't see my friends for a week at a time, I was perfectly happy just to sit at home alone with my book in my room.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it was never a question, and I never really questioned it either. You know, by the time I was 16 and had a part-time job and was able to drive, my sister and I would call it going to the Church of the Golden Arches because we would tell my mom we were going to church and we would go sit in McDonald's and have some fries. And we would slide into the back row of church right before communion so we could go. We could take communion.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Did this big road trip that lasted about six weeks through the entire US, and when we were in San Diego for the seminar because my sister lived there, my mom and her husband flew out for it. And during a break, my mom came up and she was like, people paid you to be here. And I said, yes, mom. This is what we've been doing. People are paying us to talk about this. And that was the moment where she said, I think this is like a thing that you have. And I'm like, well, I sure hope so. Because I just quit my job.”
2024-04-01 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Whole30: Melissa Urban · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT