I am honored to share this conversation between Dave Asprey (founder of Bulletproof COffee) and I on this episode of the Bulletproof Radio Podcast!
“Why you should listen –
Professional BMX athlete Josh Perry was just hitting his career stride when he was diagnosed with the first of three brain tumors at just 21 years old. But even after suffering through brain surgery and recovery, his spirit stayed strong, his resilience stayed intact, and he came out on the other side of his health odyssey with more fire and gratitude than ever before. Josh joins Dave to discuss how BMX saved his life, how he harnessed the power of holistic nutrition and new technologies like Gamma Knife radiosurgery to fight cancer, how to be your own best health advocate, and how he’s sharing his story of survival to advocate for brain health awareness. It’s an inspiring and cool story of triumph you won’t want to miss!
Being diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor is not something anyone wants to hear, let alone a 21-year-old young adult living his dream. But, in March of 2010, I experienced this first hand after a new trick attempt had gone wrong.
Let me back up a little bit and fill you in some of my past childhood before people make assumptions about my life, one way or another.
People look into my life from an outside perspective and are quick to judge. They think, “He is so lucky to ride a bike for a living and not work” or “he’s from Cape Cod and has it easy,” etc. They don’t see the past years growing up abused by a bi-polar drug using drunk, being put down by step family members (my blood family was more supportive than I could have asked), and teachers telling me I am not going to make it. They don’t see the struggle of coming from a low-income family that struggled to make ends meet and lived pay check-to-pay check, leaving me with a bike re-welded three times and always breaking parts. They don’t see the start of being set up for failure from a deep-rooted subconscious belief, passed down from generation to generation, that you had to work for others and hardly get by while working your ass off.
Let me make something clear, in the most positive way possible, what I do is indeed “work. Maybe not what most consider work, because I love what I do and wouldn’t have it any other way, but it indeed takes hard work, effort, and long ass days. But that is what it takes to make a dream a reality. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.
My family taught me the value of hard “work” at a young age so I could afford bike parts via working at gas stations, landscaping full-time, department store jobs, etc. That work ethic shaped my personality and perspective on life that had helped me get to where I am now by channeling the work ethic and energy into my dream and not stopping even when I wanted to give up. I thought, “F*%$, I can work my ass for these people and help make their dreams possible, why not take a risk on my dream and see how it goes? I can always get a job if it doesn’t work.”
I see this now, but back then, I didn’t consciously know what my subconscious was saying and how it was leading me towards success. I was just so set on taking action towards my dream that I didn’t even know my subconscious belief of hard work combined with my desire to live out my dreams, was what would lead me to become friends with my idols. I would later find myself on the same ramps as I saw on tv, competing against them all around the world, and being an inspiration to many with all my struggles and success in life.
As for school, I did decent in classes with B’s and C’s, the occasional D. Mostly because I was so focused on riding that I wouldn’t study much after completing my homework. I would just go ride. My mom had two rules when it came to school: 100% effort in class and completed homework before riding. But it was difficult to give 100% when my mind was so set on a dream that was outside of academics and when teachers would put my dream down and say “you are not gonna make it and need to focus on class.”
I remember this one “CAD” project I had in my landscape design class and how much negativity was in this woman’s life who taught the class. I don’t judge because that is where she was in her life and I can respect that, but at the time I was furious and full of hatred towards her. But, the project was to design your dream house landscape. I did so, very well as I love landscape design. I also nicely designed dirt jumps in the back that had grass grown all over them nicely, except the riding surfaces, as well as a sick backyard ramp.
All designed beautifully into the landscape and house set-up. She was so spiteful she failed me until I took all the BMX related design out. I wish more than anything I wasn’t conditioned from my abusive step-father to have had a voice at that moment and call her out and go to the principle about this situation. I now say what I believe is right, no matter who I may offend or piss off. I’d rather be true to myself and stand up for what I think is right, rather than have no voice. There is too much of that going on in the world, and I am changing that with myself. I am a big believer in being the change I want to see in the world. We can only control our actions and may as well utilize or free will to do so, or don’t complain about things that don’t go your way.
Another brief story with this woman, she sent me and best friend to the principles office for being giggly in “theory” class first thing in the morning. She suspected us of being on drugs rather than just goofy teenagers full of energy and laughter. I never touched, nor saw a drug in my life at the time and made that a priority because my goal was to be a pro and my perspective was I could not drink or mess with drugs if I wanted that to be the outcome I desired.
When I was 17, I made the decision to drop out of high school to pursue BMX, which is a story of its own. Long story short, I entered a video contest on VitalBMX.com sponsored by Haro Bikes offering ten spots to be flown out to Greenville, NC (I dreamed of going here to train with Dave Mirra) and ride with the pros and compete for a sponsored spot. I made a 36 hr bus ride out there a few weeks prior with my best friend, Brandon, to check it out. Met some of the dudes and rode the facility where we would be competing.
I was picked as one of the ten riders around the world and was flown out to compete a few weeks later. I didn’t win the top spot, but my riding style and skill, my personality, and my sketchy bike awarded me an amateur spot on the team. This would lead me to move to Greenville shortly after and sleep on my friend’s couch who was going to college in the same town, later leading me to pay utilities to sleep on a blow-up mattress in his large living room walk-in closet. Haha, that was such a great time, and I can’t believe it when I think back to what I did to make my dream a reality.
All around the same time, it’s a bit fuzzy being ten years ago; I was offered a month straight of arena motocross/BMX shows touring from Western Canada to Eastern Canada in the dead of winter. That is an entire story of its own, too. From almost dying on the snow/ice covered roads on a cliff, being 18 and getting into clubs, legally, and drinking tons of beer at our own sponsored parties, dancing with girls and my friends holding beers in both hands and in our back pockets, to smoking weed for the first time thinking “I am going to die on this trip”, while some meat-head stubborn dude thought he was invisible to the harsh driving elements and “I may as well try it before I leave this world,” to riding in front of thousands of people for the first time while learning tricks in the actual show, due to the energy and hype of the crowd.
I made a lot of wild and bad choices on that trip but, hey, I was young, living my rock star life dream, and we all start somewhere. I am confident anyone that I come across today knows I am not about that life anymore and live a healthy and holistic lifestyle. It’s also lead to an awesome story I can share as I get older and I had an amazing experience with some of my best friends still today. What’s a life worth living if you’re not feeling, experiencing, failing, and succeeding?
This trip also allowed me to acquire like five grand in a single month, which led me to stay in Greenville and to extend my visit. This is when I moved onto my buddies couch and then, later on, his walk-in living room closet. I laugh just thinking and typing that out. Safe to say I was doing what it took at such an early age. But, at this time I was still enrolled into school as a junior in high-school, my mom and I both forgetting. I was enrolled in a technical high school that allowed me to work for two weeks and attend academics for two weeks.
My school set-up allowed me to make money and fund my travels for national contests. I also remember not making a damn penny off my placings as one of the top athletes in the world and taking my paycheck and putting it right back into my travels/hotels for the next contest. Contests seem to have got worse and worse that now, unsponsored (which is a whole story of its own of why I think the industry is so s*** right now and I, a top ten ranked athlete, can’t get to the contests this year), I am not able to compete due to the cost of travel and prize money not making logical sense to attend.
I remember getting a call from my mom explaining how a letter int he mail said I was expelled and she forgot I had school. She was so used to me traveling and was excited to see me living it up, that we both forgot about it. Particularly because of the two weeks of work program I was in and then cutting to compete and travel to Greenville. Spoiler alert, two years after living in Greenville I decided to finish high school and surprise my mom with the new. She cried and said, “I am so proud of you and never thought you would finish.”
So, at the age of 17, I made the move to Greenville, NC in pursuit of this childhood dream of mine to ride BMX professionally, which went against everything an American society stands for and is full of risks on larger levels than most can fathom. I was living as a professional athlete, in a walk-in closet, who would ride, train, and compete with and against my heroes, like Dave Mirra, in X-Games and other various contests around the world when I fell from 10 feet in the air and hit my head one-day training.
Little did I know on this day, my life would change forever. That crash would lead to a life-saving MRI that revealed a mass taking up a good portion of the left side of my brain. It was a complete shock, but at the same time made sense due to the symptoms I was experiencing that were previously ignored by doctors, like migraines so bad I would throw up and I was going blind due to the tumor pushing on my optic nerve.
Requests for MRIs were denied and instead I was continuously instructed to take pain meds when I got a headache or a migraine. It was just something I was told I would have to live with as a normal part of my regular day-to-day life. If it weren’t for that crash and MRI, I would not be here today. Another thing that shocked my parents and I was the neurologist I would later see telling me that my smoking marijuana stopped the tumor from growing any quicker or spreading, and kept me from having seizures while flipping and spinning 15 feet in the air on my bike. He was confused as to how that wasn’t the case for me until we got to the part about drugs. I don’t consider the plant to be a drug, and I can write so much about this one topic, but it led me to research the plant and its therapeutic effects further. I am not very public about it, until now I suppose, and I don’t promote it due to the ignorance surrounding it, especially with children. I have learned there are harmful methods of consumption and then there are healthy methods of consumption.
When I was first diagnosed, I thought my life was over. I walked out of the office, stunned, as nurses tried to stop me and the doctor tried to share more and stop me as well. I didn’t hear anything. I just wanted out. I tried to call my mom and couldn’t speak for like ten minutes. It was almost as if my conscious was no longer within me for a moment. She knew instantly something was wrong and then it finally came out. She, being a cancer survivor herself, understood my emotions and was there for me more than a mother typically could.
I felt scared, lost, and sorry for myself for a week or so. I then began to worry more about not riding any longer, and that became my main focus once again in my life. I put all my energy into visualizing myself riding one day again and took all the support from friends, family, and people around the world to change my energy into determination like I did to become professional. There became a point my mindset went from fear to “this is just what I have to do and fear no longer serves me,” after the doctor explaining it was surgery or wait until my death. My situation was so bad that he rescheduled other patients of his to get me in as soon as possible.
I believe it was this mindset and the support of others, as well as knowing people like Lance Armstrong went through it and came out on top, so then I could too, that allowed me to overcome this and return better than ever. Not just on my bike, but off my bike too!
I had an immense desire to live and to ride. I made that happen and didn’t give up. I have learned now that if I gave into the disease and gave up mentally, my body and subconscious mind would agree and I may not have made it. A four-hour surgery led to six hours due to the tumor taking up space around the main artery in my brain and pushing onto my optic nerve. If I didn’t want a stroke, death, parlayed, etc. , which I had to sign waivers agreeing to the risk of all of those from the surgery, the doc had to be very precise and slow. He told me all about the surgery six years later when we met again, so crazy how good his memory is!
Since then, as well as being re-diagnosed in 2012 with two new tumors and in 2017 with two additional tumors, I have become very passionate about the importance of holistic health and nutrition, fostering a positive mindset, not giving up when times get tough and supporting others. I enrolled in an online nutrition program called the “Institute for Integrative Nutrition,” where I learned more about nutrition and how to share the message with others.
I have learned that many of my regular eating and lifestyle habits back then were just fueling the disease. It is now my mission to share with others the significance of the power to choose what we put into our bodies and the importance of the subconscious thoughts we have, our right to medical imaging, and the treatment options out there that are not as well-known as they should be. Had I not been denied MRI’s for a year or more, the possibility of not having my skull cut open and having Gamma Knife would have been greater.
My heart has always been in BMX as it’s served me in so many ways. BMX has shown me the world and all the places I learned about in school, took something negative like a crash and saved my life, taught me life skills at a young age, and provided me with an income I could live off of 13 hours away from home at the age of 17. BMX has taught me so much about myself, healthy life/business choices, and what matters most in life.
That is why I have started my foundation “The Josh Perry Foundation,” in partnership with the Athlete Recovery Fund. It’s my way to share all the beautiful things I have learned about life and health through BMX, and my experiences, as my way of giving back support to those in need as well as my sport, who needs it. We will spread our message with non-profit BMX stunt shows for hospitals around the world to support those in need with brain tumors, injuries, and other disorders through BMX, education, and entertainment.
I am grateful and fortunate to be alive and healthier than ever today, and I want to share my passions to help support those in need. Gary Vaynerchuk puts it perfectly “It’s 400,000,000,000 to 1 that we are a living human being”, stressing the importance of gratitude and hard work to make your dreams a reality. I live my life like this to the best of ability while also sharing it with everyone I come in contact with.
Do what you love, live in gratitude, always stay positive when times get tough and don’t be afraid to take a risk. You never know what you may learn and whom you may inspire.
I have been indirectly conditioned to deal with my feelings at a level most can’t comprehend. Health issues, relationships, accidents in life, etc. come and go, but to do what I do, I have to be focused 100% of the time. BMX riders face the fact that we may get seriously injured on a daily basis doing what we do or even die. It’s an accepted fact in our sport that you may fall from 10 to 20 feet in the air to the ground and is almost inevitable if you have been riding long enough. This sounds crazy but it does happen, and we bounce right back up (most of the time). I love what I do and the feeling it provides. I’d rather feel pain from time to time doing what I love than be numb with something I don’t love. I am an all or nothing type of person when it comes to what I do in my life.
The amount of emotions that run through our bodies at once in a short split 2-second period in the air is insane. Now that I think about it, my ADHD/ADD, or whatever you want to call it, is what allows my brain to focus on multiple things happening on top of a 25-pound bike, 12-18 feet in the air while flipping, spinning and jumping off the bike. There are times you start to think of a trick to try for the first time or even attempt to learn in the foam pit when fear starts to kicks in. Then you go back and forth between what could happen, what you want to happen, and the consequences of what happens if the trick goes wrong. Then adrenaline and anxiety build up, and, if you’re not careful, doubt washes over you. Then you have these intense nerves that kick in at a contest from the combination of judging yourself too hard and comparing your riding to others, as you struggle not to psych yourself out.
As a BMX athlete, we learn to assess whether or not these feelings are real. Are they coming from the “unknown” of the trick and experience, from someone else’s experience, or are they made up from our past experiences? A top pro rider, no matter what their style of riding may be, is good at blocking these feelings and thoughts. Maybe not blocking them out as much as acknowledging them, and deciding whether or not they serve a purpose in our current life and if we will allow them to take over our success. I can look back on a lot of instances where I fell, and it was because I was thinking, “what if this goes wrong and I do this” or “what will happen if I fall”? More than likely if your thinking of the negatives rather than thinking about what you need to do, and how it will feel and look, you’re going to fall or attract the unwanted negativity.
There is a quote I saw once that read “worrying is like praying for something negative that hasn’t happened yet.” I have learned to apply this mentality to my life and not live in fear. I believe this so much that I even got a tattoo that reads, “fear is just a thought, thoughts can be changed.” I have had relationships go south because one or both of us were living in fear of what the other may think, do, or feel. It’s possible that we were so fearful of a potentially negative experience that we lived in a manner that eventually manifested negativity into our relationship.
I do my best to share with others that anyone can do anything they feel they are capable of deep down inside of them, and that they can absolutely accomplish their dreams that even they doubt are possible. You just have to believe, visualize, and take action. You also have to completely embrace your dream into your life and not listen to others if they spread negative energy towards you or your goals. I have done this very well when it comes to BMX riding, but I’ve never been 100% good at it, and never will be because I am always learning how to improve myself and I am only human. I have learned to adopt this into my riding and my personal life even further since my diagnosis and surgery for three separate brain tumor diagnosis while living with four tumors in my skull today. I have learned to listen to my gut feeling, which all of us should learn to do more. We have complex brains that take intuition, analyze it and discredit it, resulting in changing our thoughts to disagree with our gut.
I feel that many people are afraid of their goals and dreams because they are afraid to accept that they can have positivity in their life while achieving success. I feel a lot of American’s are conditioned to believe they cannot have a happy life, a healthy life, success, their dream job or life partner, etc. They live in fear to take a risk and go for it. What I do as a BMX athlete involves taking calculated risks every single day. There is a part of our brain we have learned to manipulate, allowing us to hold onto the feeling of exhilaration you get from landing a trick while suppressing the fear and danger of trying the trick. An excellent quote by Dave Mirra that I love is, “I’d risk the fall to know how it feels to fly,” and Jim Carrey “You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on what you love.” Both are so true and hold so much meaning to my life and me. If more people were willing to risk the fall, they would understand the true happiness of accomplishing something that no one else thought was possible.
I am a firm believer that our thoughts manifest into our reality, whether they’re “good” or “bad.” Energy and the universe don’t interpret the difference; they just provide us with what we focus our energy on. I grew up constantly thinking, dreaming, daydreaming and talking about BMX. Wanting to become a pro rider one day consumed me. I put everything I had behind this thought into action because it was what I wanted most in life. I took risks on tricks, traveling around the country as an amateur rider, and then moving from MA to NC at the age of 17 to pursue this dream of mine. Luckily for me, my parents were behind me completely and without hesitation, which makes it much easier to move 13 hours away from your home and family and take a risk that doesn’t conform to what society says is a “normal” American life. Between the mental and physical acts of working towards a goal, I achieved success as a top BMX pro athlete and became friends with my idols I grew up watching on TV.
Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Or rather, it transforms from one form to another. Everything in life is energy. If you can learn to shift your energy from negative to positive, then you will see significant benefits in your life. This practice along with a holistic diet has helped me grow in ways I never saw coming. I believe a clean, macro balanced, high-fat, healthy diet allows your body to do its job without added stress and toxins slowing it down. You begin to feel, think, act, and live clearer and with positive energy full of love. Love for yourself, your life, your passions, your goals, your family and friends, strangers, animals, etc. Learning all of this and making these changes has helped me become the best version of myself as a human being and a pro-BMX athlete while accepting positive energy into my life.
It’s not always easy, though. Brain surgery and Gamma Knife radiosurgery were not the only obstacles I have had to overcome. Two and a half months after my first brain surgery, a fall during a contest in the UK resulted in my arm being operated on to remove bone chips and fragments in my elbow. Then another year or so later I fell while competing in Ocean City, MD at the Dew Action Sports Tour resulting in the worst concussion I have ever had. My heart stopped beating for 30 seconds, I had a black eye, and I woke up in the ambulance throwing up. Then in November of 2015, I went in for ACL/meniscus reconstructive surgery to repair an injury from 2013. Despite all of this, I still ride today, and I ride harder than ever.
When you set a goal, and you love something as much as I love BMX, you do whatever it takes to make it happen. Failure is a part of life, and when you can accept that fact, you can learn not to dwell on past failures and instead strive for greatness. “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
-Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.”
You cannot have success without failure just as you cannot have up without down, hot without cold, or good without bad. It’s just how life is. We define what “good” is, so we indirectly and directly define what is bad. Otherwise good wouldn’t be a real thing. Just as I have had to accept death is a part of a human experience in life, we must accept failure is a part of the road to success. It’s our perspective on “failures” that can either turn into a learning experience or put us into a “victim” perceptive and thus set our reality as just that.
My point with all of this is that if you truly believe in something and a dream to be someone or do something special one day, don’t let anything stop you. When life gets tough, shift that energy into fuel and stay positive. Don’t stop pushing because when times feel as if it’ll never get better and you want to give up, that’s when you’re closest to reaching your goal. Live and eat as healthy as you can so you can form positive thoughts and have the mental and physical strength to push forward. Don’t be afraid of failure or to take a risk doing something you love, and put that positive energy out into the universe and accept it in return.
I am honored to have been picked for the member of the month for the sports performance gym I train at in Cary, NC, Atheltic Lab. I have been attending for the last 9 months in order to strengthen my mind, body, and my riding.
Training isn’t a very common practice for the sport of BMX freestyle and is fairly new to me in the last 2 years after suffering an ACL tear. It’s becoming more well-known of its importance and benefits, though, and I think we will start to see new levels of athleticism in the sport of BMX.
Here is an interview I responded to for the athletic website:
“For the month of June, we’ve selected Josh Perry as our member of the month. Josh has been an inspirational member of our community for the past year. Josh is one of our many professional athletes but his story goes beyond high-level sport. Check out his story and read about our previous members of the month here.”
Name: Josh Perry
Age: 28
What city were you born in? Cape Cod, Massachusetts
What do you do when you’re not working out at Athletic Lab (occupation, hobbies, etc)? I ride BMX bikes professionally, enjoy hiking and playing golf. I am starting a non-profit geared towards financially supporting brain tumor, brain injury, and other brain disorder patients through BMX, entertainment, and education, in the process of writing a book sharing my story of overcoming brain tumors, BMX, etc., and am working on a longer-term goal of creating an online webinar based nutrition coaching program.
What’s your favorite exercise? Least favorite? Honestly, I love everything I am doing in The Lab as it’s all so new to me. If I had to pick one exercise that is my favorite, I would say either the K-Box or any ring workout due to the difficulty of strength you put into the workouts and have to counterbalance back. Least favorite would have to be the assault bikes. Haha, they always kick my butt, but it’s so worth it.
What do you feel has been your greatest accomplishment since you started training at Athletic Lab? My greatest accomplishment would have to be getting my arms to bend more on power cleans. Sounds funny but when I started, it was such a mission to get them to bend enough to raise my elbows up in the air. I love getting into the Olympic weightlifting exercises because it’s so new and a skill I can practice.
What motivates you? My goal to protect my health and prevent injuries in my sport is what motivates me. I want to perform the best I can on my bike while also being as healthy and fit as possible. I also want to be a positive role model to the kids in my sport, as well and children and adults elsewhere. I believe in leading by example and do my best to walk my talk.
How long have you been riding? How long have you been a professional? I have been on a bike since I was about 3 or 4 years old. I started riding BMX freestyle at the age of 13 where I wandered into a park with it. I have been fortunate enough to make a living off riding my bike for about 11 years now.
What started you on learning more about health, nutrition, and fitness? I fell one day in 2010, from about 10 feet, attempting a new trick for the first time. I over rotated the spin and hit my head off the ground, which led to an MRI to make sure there was so no TBI (traumatic brain injury). I never imaged the news they would give me resulting in a brain tumor 8cm long by 2 cm wide and 2 cm deep, taking up a good portion of the left side of my brain. This was a turning point in my life to seek out what I could be doing differently with my lifestyle choices to prevent it from coming back and becoming resilient as possible to other health issues.
What are your goals? (fitness related or otherwise?) My goals within the fitness world are to protect my knee after having ACL surgery in November of 2015, stay as strong as possible so tricks become easier, I don’t get fatigued as easy, and to prevent injuries as best as I can, and I also want to lower my heart rate while still riding as hard as I do in order to recover quicker in between tricks and runs.
I’m alive because of my BMX bike. The pain pills doctors kept feeding me almost killed me. A crash, leading to an MRI, saved my life and revealed a brain tumor taking up almost half my brain. I was then rushed to Duke for surgery to remove the meningioma brain tumor. My neurosurgeon said I had kept taking, or avoiding pain pills because they make me sick, rather than treating the underlying cause (brain tumor), I would not have woken up one day.
It’s crazy how it literally took a crash for them to scan my brain and see I wasn’t making shit up. They kept saying “no, you don’t need a scan. Headaches are just something people live with and it’s very common.I am going to prescribe you pain pills.” Then society acts like there is this huge opioid epidemic. True, but it’s created from doctors hiding behind their ego rather than helping patients. Goes without saying but not all doctors. Voicing this concern has led me to doctors that believe what I believe and truly care to take the extra step to help their patients.
Although I did not attend the UCI x Fise BMX Freestyle World Series this year, I was interviewed for the FISE UP magazine regarding my take on nutrition. This is what I shared…
Hi, my name is Josh Perry, and I am a professional BMX athlete how has been riding BMX freestyle for about 15 years. I took a risk and left high school to move to Greenville, NC “Proton USA” to train its Dave Mirra and other pro riders in pursuit of making my dream a reality. I won my first contest in 2009 at the “JomoPro” contest, beating one of my idols, Daniel Dhers, as well as winning the best trick contest by landing the first ever doubt truck drive to tail whip. I also rode X-Games as an invited athlete that year and continued on Dew Tour for my third of 7 years on the tour.
When I was freshly 21, I fell on my first attempt at a flair whip on the ramp and hit my head, which resulted in an MRI to detect any traumatic brain injuries (TBI). The scan revealed an 8cm long by 2cm wide by 2cm deep brain tumor taking up the majority of the left portion of my brain, while pushing onto my optic nerve leading me to becoming blind. Long story short, I had it removed, was re-diagnosed two years later, had Gamma Knife Radiosurgery treatments to shrink them, and was recently re-diagnosed with two additional tumors.
This is what led me to seek out information on holistic health and nutrition, and fitness, to combat the tumor growths, strength my immune system, and stay fit to protect in injuries. This all was later revealed to be so much more than that for being confident and strong, both mentally and physically, on my bike. It improved my body composition, my energy, my digestion, my recovery, my immune system, my mood, my strength on and off my bike, and, what I find more important, it strengthened my mental stability. Other riders I have seen take to this path today are riders like Nick Bruce, Logan Martin, Vince Byron, Brandon Loupos, and then the legend, which is who initially inspired me to get on this path, Dave Mirra.
The first step of transitioning your diet is making a decision for yourself to improve and set a goal. My goal was to protect my brain, my body, and to be healthier in general. A goal and meaning fun reason behind that goal will ensure motivation and ability to stay on track. Besides that, ditch the so-called “cool” energy drinks, sugary drinks, candies, sugary snacks, fast-food, processed foods (most things in a bag, box, or some kind of wrapping), and aim for WHOLE FOODS. Whole foods, if you don’t know you can do a simple Google search, basically anything to the closest origin. Examples: fresh meats, eggs and seafood, fresh fruits, fresh veggies, fresh nuts, and fresh grains. Keep it simple and use spices and “clean” sauces and dressing for flavor. More importantly, it’s not a race or destination. The journey is the destination. Take things slow and adopt one change at a time. For me, this was aiming for WHOLE FOODS, followed by eliminating the sugary junk foods, and then going “Organic”, gluten-free, and ketogenic style diet, which is using quality fats as my primary source of fuel rather than carbohydrates. It does wonder, research it or reach out to me and I can explain.
The Don’ts:
– Sugary drinks and food
– Gluten-containing foods
– Juice, even though it seems weird, it’s nothing more than sugary water with some nutritional value. Eat whole fruits
– Processed and fast-food. Basically, anything that just needs to be unwrapped and heated up or of course, drive-through restaurants.
– Dairy, factory farmed meats, and farmed fish
– Judging others, including yourself. We all start somewhere, don’t forget that!
– Giving in to fear!
The DO’s
– Practice Gratitude! ☺ A grateful and positive perspective on life and towards others will just attract more of it in your life and assist in all your desires, needs, and wants. I have put this into practice more and more lately, and the results and benefits are almost comical.
– WHOLE FOOD’s
– Water, water water!
– Low-Carbohydrate foods. This doesn’t mean, no carbs. Just aim for “complex carbs,” which are sweet potato, whole grain rice, quinoa, oats, pumpkin, yams, and carrots as an example
– Quality coffee and if possible, organic. (NO SUGAR ADDED)
– Vegetables! Can’t get enough of them
– Grass-fed meats and butter.
– Healthy quality fats like coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, avocados, raw unsweetened cacao
– Fiber
Bonus:
Supplementing with quality, raw, organic, woke food vitamins and minerals can be a great tool because most soil is depleted of nutrients today, which results in vegetables being lower in nutrition than ever before. Even organic farming doesn’t yield the nutrition it used to due to lack of crop cycling and producing food at such a drastic rate compared to before with the population growth and food demand. Just watch out for synthetic, cheap vitamins and minerals, which are more detrimental to your health than not taking supplants at all. Get a good probiotic for the gut health!
For those of you who have no idea who I am, I am a Pro BMX athlete who moved away from home on Cape Cod, MA at 17 years old to train with pro’s like Dave Mirra in Greenville, NC. About two years later I rode X-Games for the first time after winning my first pro contest.
Less than a year later I fell and hit my head, and an MRI revealed a large brain tumor that was taking up a major portion of my brain. I didn’t know where to turn, but Athlete Recovery Fund stepped up to the plate and provided the financial assistance and direction that ultimately saved my life! Despite all odds, I recovered to become 10th overall in the 2016 UCI BMX Freestyle World Cup standings, not even a year out of ACL reconstructive surgery.
It is estimated that about 700,000 people are currently living with a primary brain or central nervous system tumor diagnosis in the US alone. Nearly 79,000 new cases of primary brain tumors are expected to be diagnosed this year, almost 5,000 being adolescents (0-19) years old and 17,000 people will lose their battle with a primary malignant and central nervous system brain tumor. An estimated 1.7 million people sustain a TBI annually, 52,000 die, 275,000 are hospitalized, and 1.365 million, nearly 80%, are treated and released from an emergency department.
Along the way, I’ve become very passionate about holistic health and nutrition and enrolled myself in a nutrition program to earn a certification as a Holistic Health coach on a path to better my health, life, and others in the world. I want to combine all of my passions into one live BMX event that will directly and financially help brain tumor and brain injury patients around the world. Being a brain tumor and brain injury patient myself, I know the mental, physical and financial toll it takes on you. I want to use my experiences and abilities to lessen that for others as much as I can.
I come from a family with no money, and I have been supporting myself since I was 17 by living my dream from riding my bike. I do whatever I can to give back now, and these global events will allow me to give back even more and on a much greater scale than what I can currently do on my own.
I want to create a global touring BMX event that will positively impact the lives of people around the world. To do this, I need funding. The problem is, I don’t have that kind of funding. So, how can I make this happen? Then I thought, wait a minute. “Josh, you’re a man of the people. Let’s start a fundraising campaign!”
The goal of this fundraising campaign is to raise funds to start and operate for a whole year so that way all the events we book, the merchandise we sell, and donations we acquire hereafter will be used to donate percentages of the proceeds to direct financial patient care. We are more than a BMX stunt show, we are a BMX stunt show offering free clinics for people to try BMX out after the show, live music performances, professional athletic trainers on site to provide demonstration therapies and techniques, and are backed by some of the biggest health facility, organizations, and corporations in the world.
I truthfully think the only thing standing in the way of me getting from point A to point B, is proper funding. Point B being inspiring, educating, entertaining, and supporting people around the world. I want to create and cultivate something large enough so that I no longer need financial support to operate events, and the organization is overbooked and giving 100’s of thousands of dollars away each year to directly support patients and get them the care they need.
This project is so important and means the world to me. If you guys help us out, I know I can inspire hope to those in need and completely change the lives of many around the world.
I can do this, but I can’t do it without you. Together, we can have an amazing time and leave a positive impact on our world.
Thank you for your time. I appreciate each and every one of you. See you soon!  -Josh Perry
You can help Josh achieve his dream of giving back and support his cause to bring awareness and assistance to those who suffer from tumors, cancers, and injuries of the brain by donating today!
“A lot of people think it’s a dream to work in a field that you believe in and that you’re passionate about. It’s not a dream, it’s just something available to the people who insist it should be that way.”
Just because the majority of society says to do “this or “that”, doesn’t mean that’s what you and I are meant to do. Follow your heart, do what you love, and love what you do. Why would you settle for doing something that takes up the majority of your day but doesn’t fulfill you, leave you happy every single day, challenge you and doesn’t fill you full of love and gratitude?
Saying you can’t make money doing something you love and are passionate about is an excuse, and I used to think that. Luckily for you and I, we can change our thoughts and create the lives we think, believe and feel are possible. Think it’s easy to do what I do as a career?
It is but then it isn’t. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication, on and off the bike, no doubt but it’s also easy in the fact that it’s just what I have to do in order to provide for myself doing what I’m 100% set on doing in my life.
Our mind is our biggest tool that manifests our thoughts into reality, which can limit us or help us thrive. Assess negative thoughts and sort out if you want to give them power or not. YOU control your thoughts and life. You choose to be enslaved or free by the thoughts you create.
Subconscious vs. Conscious Beliefs
95% of our personalities and day-to-day actions/thoughts come from our subconscious. Only 5% of what we do, think, and fell are conscious.
That being said, when a negative thought or emotion arises, determine where it’s originating from. Even if you can’t narrow down to exactly when and where, you can narrow down if it’s coming from you in your current being, an experience in the past, an experience in the future that’s yet to happen (anxiety), or if it’s coming from someone other than you. Once you can pinpoint where it’s coming from, you can delete it out of your subconscious and move forward with a new belief.
Fear is probably the most prevalent thought and emotion in today’s society. Fear comes from all kinds of sources, internally and externally. The good news is that we can re-wire our brains to think, believe, and feel differently. Google “Neuroplasticity”, which is the growth of new neurons and new neurological pathways/connections. If you have strong subconscious beliefs, which are primarily set into our brains from the age of birth to 7, it will take the time to recognize them and change them. But it is so possible and it’s what’s helped me so much in my life this last year.
The crazy thing about changing your thoughts to change the hardwiring of your brain, and what you manifest into your life (health, happiness, disease, stress, obtaining goals, relationships, achieving dreams, etc.), is that we are now able to see this take place at the atomic level.
Dr. Joe Dispenza had an 8-week workshop I’m enrolled in and the things he’s teaching are truly life changing. I’d suggest everyone watch his TedTalks for a quick glimpse into this subconscious and conscious science and how to improve your life. You won’t regret it! 💚✌️
Being diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor is not something anyone wants to hear, let alone a 21-year-old young adult living his dream. But, in March of 2010, I experienced this first hand after a new trick attempt had gone wrong.
Three years earlier, at the age of 17, I made the move to Greenville, NC in pursuit of this childhood dream of mine to ride BMX professionally. I was living as a professional athlete who would ride, train, and compete with and against my heroes, like Dave Mirra, in X-Games and other various contests around the world when I fell and hit my head one-day training.
Little did I know on that day my life would change forever. That crash would lead to a lifesaving MRI that revealed the mass taking up the left side of my brain. It was a complete shock, but at the same time made sense due to the symptoms I was experiencing that were previously ignored by doctors. Requests for MRIs were denied and instead I was continuously instructed to take pain meds when I got a headache or a migraine. It was just something I was told I would have to live with as a normal part of my regular day-to-day life. If it weren’t for that crash and MRI, I would not be here today.
Since then, as well as being re-diagnosed in 2012 with two new tumors and in 2017 with two additional tumors, I have become very passionate about the importance of holistic health and nutrition, fostering a positive mindset, not giving up when times get tough and supporting others. I have learned that many of my typical eating and lifestyle habits back then were just fueling the disease. It is now my mission to share with others the significance of the power to choose what we put into our bodies and the importance of the thoughts we have, our right to medical imaging, and the treatment options out there that are not as well-known as they should be.
My heart has always been in BMX as it’s served me in so many ways. From showing me the world and all the places I learned about in school, to something negative like a crash saving my life. BMX has taught me so much about myself, healthy life choices, and what really matters in life. That is why I have partnered with ARF in an effort to share all the wonderful things I have learned about life and health through BMX and my experiences. We will spread our message with non-profit BMX stunt shows for hospitals around the world to support those in need with brain tumors, injuries, and other disorders through BMX, education, and entertainment.
I am grateful and fortunate to be alive and healthier than ever today, and I want to share my passions to help support those in need. ARF was there for me in a time of need, and we are partnering together to provide that same support for others and share the importance of a healthy lifestyle, medical imaging, and treatment options for brain disorders. We will be sharing more about the project soon so stay tuned.
Until then, do what you love, always stay positive, and don’t be afraid to take a risk. You never know what you may learn and who you may inspire.
