Tag: Brain Tumor

Alive

Hi! My name is Josh Perry, and I’m a pro BMX athlete living with 4 brain tumors and coaching people to make life changing choices in their lives to optimize their brain and enhance their life.

BMX is what’s me feel most alive. It’s not only shown me the world, kept me out of trouble, taught me valuable life lessons, and gave me amazing experiences and relationships, it saved my life in March of 2010.

That is the beginning of my journey with a braintumor that lead to me living with 4 today. It’s also what put me on the path to holistic health. It doesn’t stop me, it fuels me.

I’m thankful for brands like Kevita Drinks and their mission to provide health beverages that taste great and make you feel amazing and ALIVE. 🙏🏼💚

Comment or DM me to connect and share stories. ☺️✌️

-JoshP.

No Pain, No Gain?

Pushing your body and mind is very important to building resilience and strength. That said, too often as a society do we push our bodies and mind too high, too frequently, and unnecessarily.

Stress is a very important human biological response important for survival and strength. But, in personal and business life, we have introduced too many false stressors in our days like “I have to get this done”, “what will they think of me”, “I don’t want to fail”, “I’m going to be late”, etc. which is a made up stress yet still has the detrimental affects of stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol).

As athletes, we are told to train harder, train through the pain, no pain no gain, etc. I ignorantly fell into this category for many years. Because of an immense passion to educate myself with an open mind, I’ve come to realize there are so many things we can do with our diet, fitness, mindset, and lifestyle choices to reduces the activity in the parts of the brain that trigger stress hormones.

Over the last few years, I have built and continue to work on building up an aerobic heart rate base for optimized oxygen intake and fat oxidation, which reduces excess free-radical damage, inflammation, and oxidative stress. I’ve worked hard to build up, and continue to build, strength, mobility, technique, explosiveness, and recovery while focusing 💯 on my nutrition and mindset to eliminate excess stress to my brain and body. Finally, I allow myself to rest when my body tells me it needs it. I’d rather have fewer days at 💯 than more days less than my full potential.

Rather than not training, like the old me, or training too frequently when not feeling 💯, I train hard 3 days a week, go all out 1 day a week, have 2 active recovery/aerobic and gymnastic ring days, and take a full day off when need be, while riding 4-5 days a week.

The benefits and improvements I’ve seen with my energy, body composition, strength on and off my bike, mindset, recovery, digestion, and mental focus were in fathomable at the beginning but now I’m a believer. 💚✌️

-Josh P.

Neurotransmitters Start in the Gut

This is why what you eat is so important, especially if you experience any kind of symptom with anxiety, depression, ADD/ADHD, anger, lack of “will power”, brain fog, etc. It starts in the gut then the brian goes to work setting off other chain reactions in the body. Thanks, Dr Mark Hyman and Dr David Perlmutter, for all you do.

It Must Be Nice

“For all the times when I was down, well now I’m on my way. For everybody that was doubting, well not I’m on my way. For the ones who ain’t believing, well now I’m on my way. For the ones who question everything, well now I’m on my way.” -@rowlan

It must be nice was a common phrase I used and that I hear all the time. I said this until I stopped making excuses for the lack within my life, took my life into my control, and held myself accountable for the reality in which I lived in on a daily basis.

People don’t just have things pop into their reality out of thin air. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes. I’ve seen success manifest in my BMX career when I put in the work that followed a belief that it was possible. I’ve learned many things from BMX and one was that anything you set your mind to, believe wholeheartedly in, and take action towards without giving up is possible.

It’s only a dream until it happens to you.The difference between those who make dreams their reality and those who say “it must be nice” is taking action, an underlying belief it’s possible, and pushing through when times get tough.

I’ve been there when times were tough many times over my lifetime. Sometimes I gave up and other times I pushed through. Either way, it’s all just a learning opportunity. I call it collecting data.

Shit happens and you can either fall victim to the times you fell or you can be a survivor and push through with the new information at hand.

I choose to push through, no matter how terrible a time may be, and find a way to make my dreams a reality-because, why not?

I know I’ll be better for it coming out and that greatness is on the other side of any hardship in life.

Are you a victim or a survivor?

-Josh P.

Guild Mortgage Leadership Summit

What an honor to coach the EVP of the county’s top private mortgage company, Guild Mortgage, and his fellow staff and family leading to their annual leadership summit in San Diego, CA. The successes and experiences they have shared with me from us working together is priceless. It’s what I am most passionate about in life and being able to combine my childhood dream of being a pro bmx athlete is even better.

This was one special event for me to be able to perform in front of my family along with the top 700+ earners within Guild Mortgage, especially after coaching Barry (EVP, on the left in this photo) and the others leading up to the event. Greg Woodruff (pictured on the right) was an amazing production manager with Gary Musick Productions and put on an event that topped what I had imagined. Oh, and Greg is enrolled in my Be The Change YOU Want To See health coaching program now too as well as a good friend and collaborative partner of mine.

Barry, Greg, and the whole attendance have such amazing personalities and welcomed Jackie and myself with loving open arms full of support for what we believe in and how to help us all succeed in health and happiness. I am grateful for moments like these and for Jill Transki of All Wheel Sports to have me apart of the performance, which led to an amazing opportunity to share my passion for brian health and optimization. 🙌🏼💚❤️💯

📸 @jciake

-JoshP.

Manifest

“When I’m old I’ma spend my days, layin’ with my girl on the beach in the shade.

Have every single thing I can name.

Thank god everyday I don’t sleep in the rain.

Blessed with some success so I’ma try my best to.

Live my life right, when I see God he’ll be impressed ’cause.

I’ve been on my grind, thinking I’ll be fine if I take my time.

Working so hard I might break my spine.

So all yall goin’ see this face of mine.

There’s different ways to shine.

I’ma find my own, know when I disappear.

I’ma find my way back home ’cause…

I don’t think they know it yet, but I do, I do.” – Mac Miller 🙌🏼💯

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📸 @jciake

Brainy BMX – Providing Support & Inspiration

I believe in providing everyone with support in times of need. Even the strongest walks of life can’t do everything on their own.

From brain tumor patients to brain injury and disorder patients, I am raising funds for direct patient funding/care. Not research or awareness, although I believe those have their place. But funding for the people that need the help now and can’t wait for a scientific intervention and are already plenty aware of what’s going on. They need help with home expenses, treatment options and funding, healthy food, lifestyle choices that they can implement, and just someone to resonate with and not feel alone.

Being in the shoes of brain tumor and brian injury patients, I know this all too well. I’m grateful to be alive and thriving even with 4 brain tumors. I’ve combined my passion for bmx, nutrition, fitness, mindset practices, and supporting those to live as healthy and happy as possible into a touring live event around the world with the mission to inspire change and raise support for those in their biggest time of need.

Click this Link to learn more and see how you can help my mission along with The Athlete Recovery Fund. 💚✌️

-Josh P.

Athletic Lab

Working with @coachmatthunter at @athleticlab has been game changing (13 months). Matt is not your ordinary coach, he was super interested in my sport as well as knew that a strength and conditioning program for any other sport wouldn’t fit my needs. He started with a traditional evaluation of my goals, history, sport, injury past, etc., then came to the park to watch and record all aspects of my riding to really analyze what he needed to know in order to write my specific programming.

Matt trains and competes in his sport while coaching other athletes full-time. As a fellow elite athlete, he understands the demands of sport and how specific each sport is in regards to an individualized approach.

This understanding and analytical athletic mindset has manifested in great results from the programming and testing we’ve done together. We both are into data and seeing what’s working and what’s not. We use @trainwithpush bands and @polarglobal heart monitors to track our progress and monitor our goals and progression.

As a professional athlete going on 12 years, you’d think this would all be common practice for me. Contrary to that belief, BMX is just now breaking through the shell of conditioning to think of itself as not a sport. It was very common to be mocked, judged, and/or made fun of for training and eating well within the bmx community. Now as our sport as been accepted into the @olympics and the @usacycling has a BMX team, this old mindset is shifting.

I’m excited to see what changes come from within the sport of BMX as the years go on but I do know I’m stoked to have found this new passion for fitness over the last few years and will continue to learn, work, and share it with others. 💪🏽💚✌️

-Josh P.

Add Fat & Eliminate Sugars

“The benefits of introducing higher levels of fat into your diet are going to be erased and even made worse, if you don’t at the same time cut sugars and carbs. The higher fiber carbs not withstanding.” Dr David Perlmutter, Neurologist

That being said, fat is so crucial for brain health. The beneficial fat, not damaged, refined, hydrogenated, fried, industrial, high/pro-inflammatory vegetable oils. Things like avocados, avocado oil, coconut oil, grassfed butter, nuts, olives and olive oil, full-fat coconut products with no sugar, raw 100% cacao, and grass-fed ghee.

Here is a salad with pasture raised chicken, avocado, olives, mixed veggies, some spices, and @primalkitchenfoods avocado oil based dressing all on a bed of red and green leaf lettuce. All organic and no added sugars.

Great meal to feel light but full before or after an exercise or sport. Healthy brain fats, clean quality protein, and minimal carbohydrates with plenty of nutrient dense, fiber-rich veggies. 💚✌️

Chiropractic Care

Being an athlete brings along a lot of physical and mental stress. Especially being a bmx freestyle athlete. As a BMX rider, we are conditioned to get up and try again when we fall down. And, we are really good at that despite any pain we’re under.

We’ve also been conditioned to think training wasn’t “cool” or a necessary effort for what we do and that you’re a “jock” if you do train.

Over the years dealing with many injuries as well as life or death health situations, I’ve learned the importance of the mind and body connection as a way to combat injuries and speed the recovery process when injuries do set in, as well prevent disease to some degree.

The biggest two motivations for me were tearing my ACL and being diagnosed with multiple brain tumors over the last 8 years. I still live with 4 tumors in my skull today but I’m healthier and stronger than ever, both on and off my bike.

Not only have I learned to consume health promoting foods, ditch harmful food-like products and toxins that destroy our brains, and get serious about training for my sport and overall health benefits, I’ve learned to utilize treatments like chiropractic work.

When collaborating with any medical or health professional, I first and foremost look at what they represent and if they walk their talk. Dr. Matt (@919spine) is a great example of walking his talk and I’m proud to be one of his athletes. 💪🏽💚✌️

-Josh P.