foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] good evening everybody Welcome along it is Inspire and be inspired our weekly motivational conversations occasional life hacks uh my name is Andy Ward if you happen upon this for the first time I’m sure we’re all friends here together and uh tonight we’re talking to a friend that we all know and love uh Mr Dean Jacobs the topic of the conversation is what heart attack uh with a huge question mark and we’re going to be looking into um the symptoms and the cause and effect of uh what happened to him a few years ago in there you know the deal by now I invite everybody to leave a comment say hello ask any questions whenever there’s a break in the conversation I will address your um I will address your questions I will also put any uh comments to Dean and we will uh discuss them I’m just getting my attention taken from me because Bobby was saying she couldn’t hear me but now she can so maybe you were on pause or something um oh the opening window you can’t hear anything that’s just to get your attention playing some nice Christmas music in the background so uh good evening Bobby good evening pugs uh good evening anyone else passing through good evening Natasha who I know uh is in the wing somewhere we’re going to bring her actually you she’s waving but we can’t see you yet because I haven’t uh opened the screen yet so let me do this and and change here we go no no we’re there so Tasha’s run away just as we went live no she’s back hello hello how are ya very good very good Mr and Mrs Jacobs um thank you Dean for giving me your time uh you know the deal you’ve seen you’ve seen one or two of these conversations that we’ve done by now it’s uh our opportunity to share a story to uh Revel in the uh incredible um achievements that many of the people that we know and love uh do attain and uh throw some experience and uh took a little bit of lessons in people’s way so I think we’re gonna we’re gonna achieve that tonight aren’t we yeah I expect so definitely most definitely quite an extraordinary story and it’s a long story as well so bear with me okay so let me um set the scene for if there’s any uh friends and fans of the videos who may not be uh familiar with Houdini’s uh Dean and I have known each other now for over 10 years or so uh paths was across when he first came to the vocal booth Weekender uh DJ promoter um graphic designer extraordinaire we’re not going to delve too much into his history um but that those are the basics would you say that’s correct Dean yeah that’s pretty much it uh I don’t do much else the graphic design is actually it’s a bit more important than it probably seems at first because my my um my issues are exasperated by the fact that I sit still all day drawing so a very sedentary uh job right I’m glad you said it because I can’t uh Mrs Ward joins us and says good evening as does Andrea hi Andrea I hope you’re feeling a little better this evening um okay so let’s begin by discussing your your General Health and your activities um going out partying clubbing fairly fairly fit would you say into your biking and stuff like that paint us the picture of um the last 10 years of your lifestyle so before before all the issues or current yeah yeah no let’s go about 10 years 10 years to paint the picture of were you quite healthy 10 years ago uh not as healthy as I could have been I mean I grew up playing all all sorts of sports so uh cycling Judo football uh and at some point I was doing probably five types of for a week um so I was pretty fit very active rarely in the house I’m not a gamer so I wasn’t sitting still doing that um but yeah as I got older Die game partying and whatnot and you know partying leads to you doing a lot less in the week because you’re probably in bits so uh yeah then I suppose I wasn’t as active in the last 20 years as I was as a kid but I always had the potential um I’d go to the gym every now and anybody who’s kind of a wasn’t something that I focused on very much um and then the graphic design thing my job for the past 20 years has literally been sitting behind a desk from anywhere between seven and 15 hours a day uh Monday to Friday at first with um uh a company that I part owned and then eventually my own company that I started uh when we moved back from Manchester so yeah uh that’s pretty much the extent of my activities and and my job okay um so the less active you got did you put on a lot of weight or not really did you always regulate your weight hey but I was always I was aware I it’s not like I would have ballooned it at some point I’m sure I’m pretty sure there’s a little off switch in my head that says you’ve gone too far and then cut it back so I never went par I think my big my heaviest was probably about 16 Stone which on a small frame I’m not tall I’m five seven uh on that on that kind of frame although I’m quite thick um yeah I was carrying too much away definitely um which was 100 adding to my issue that I already have which is a genetic issue okay so do you wanna do you want to tell us about that and when you found out about that we found uh we found out about that as children so uh one thing I always say is that when I was at school I was always had a hundred percent as um attendance record apart from half a day about half a day once a year my dad would take us to Central London to get blood tests because we had as far as the no high cholesterol as we called it back then uh since found out probably quite a few years years later when I was aware so this is like when I was six seven eight years old uh we were aware of it my father’s got it he’s passed it on to my me and my sister my brother the fluky little got away with it um and has never really had a problem with it so me and my sister have got the same thing but her being female means it’s not quite as bad cut uh back then as it was for me as a male okay um so so shed some light on what it is and what it what it causes all right it’s called family hypercholesteremia which basically means genetic hyper cholesterol levels uh so there’s something somewhere in my body and it was is causing me not to break down cholesterol so where a normal person would have uh an average level of about five for example um a super fit person would have or a very well healthy looking after person that looks after themselves I have like a four or a three um so mine so the lower the cholesterol the better it is the better okay yeah because basically the higher your your lipids as they’re known if they’re floating around in the Bloods that they leach into your uh arteries they calls what’s called plaque and they narrow the arteries to the heart so obviously it prevents blood flow to the heart eventually so um with me I think my levels are around seven or eight as a child so um we found out about it as a young age as I said my dad had it and my dad suffered um a heart attack at 45 which funnily enough is exactly the same age that I had mine so it’s one of these things that it’s almost it didn’t matter what I did it was always going to get me at some point uh but I’ve since found that um that’s without drugs uh that is I’ve since that found out it is controllable with drugs uh exercise uh health diet all these things can be all bundled together to keep your cholesterol low which prevents the arteries clogging up obviously but you weren’t really paying attention to this in your early years no it’s a strange one because we were kind of experimental there was only one um guy in the country a guy called Dr Brook who was the leader in it um but he he kind of experimented with certain things with us so they would give us um different formulas to try and sort out a couple of them raised our cholesterol That’s how little they knew about FH okay which is feminine hyperglycemia sure it’s FH for short so yeah the the LHS knew very little about it they now know a lot more thankfully through research uh but at that time we were kind of experimented on and it didn’t work so as I got a bit older and realized that they were actually making a bit of a mess of it a bit of a hash of it I kind of lost all confidence in enhs with trying to control it uh and I discovered going out and I discovered girls and I discovered food and I was earning money all these things basically meant that I shied away from controlling it at all right unfortunately okay well that would make that would make a lot of sense uh yeah like a hell of a lot of sense um okay so let’s get to the the I actually just read in the comments Andrea says uh it’s also controllable with a Pharisees for those non-responsive to drugs um a Pharisees atherosis I’m not sure if how if I’ve pronounced that correct thank you Andrea for the input um okay so um let’s go to the beginnings of the uh uh you know everything that happens you know the beginning of the end so I was always I’m pretty sure I was always aware that at some point so it will catch up with me um I have these little things around my eyes which are kind of an early warning system I can’t remember what they’re called and it’s one of those words which I’ll never remember so I’m sure Andrea probably knows what they’re called but they’re they’re around your eyes and they’re kind of an early warning system and my dad had them they look they look like white um hard milk spots yeah that kind of yellowy fat deposits basically and they sort of appear around your eyes and obviously the worst the worst hater in the worst I get um uh so I saw them appearing when I was living in Manchester do you remember me telling you yeah and I was like um these are those things that my dad had so therefore in my mind I was like I’m going down the same route as my dad it’s still at this point I wasn’t on statins I wasn’t being I am listening sorry zanfe lesma faster ones yeah okay yeah I can’t say it yeah and you’ll never remember that ever it’s hard enough to say it hard enough to remember so yeah when um I noticed them I was probably my worst in terms of weight and uh partying smoking uh drinking eating shh rubbish food um all those things uh I was still I was doing and I had nothing construct to control it so it was just a matter of time uh to be brutally honest but that said my dad was extremely healthy he was extremely active he was doing Judo right up to the point where he had his heart attack so and he was careful with with his food you know the older generation they’re just a little bit better with their food than we are probably um and he still had his heart attack at 45 and that’s this exact age I had mine so even though I in my mind I wasn’t controlling it but even if I was I’ve got a feeling it I probably would have I’ve already done the damage and I was was going to have a heart attack so yeah seven years after these things appeared uh I was sitting at home with my dad who this is another part of the story as well I was looking after my dad with Tash we moved in to look after him because he had dementia which was caused from his weakened heart so his heart was weak because of the high cholesterol the fact he had a heart attack they never um gave him a bypass they just put in a stent so therefore his body his heart was always fighting to try and get blood around his body So eventually he got vascular dementia so um me and Tashua moved in with him and was looking after him uh and it was getting I was sitting there one day I think it was just before our wedding and I was like I’m gonna lose a little bit of weight for our wedding uh so I started doing loads of walks and I was all right I was losing weight I was doing well and then one morning I went out and uh about five miles into the walk uh I’ve just felt a bit dodgy around my chest I was like okay make a mental note of that go and see the doctors so I went home I was sat in my desk doing some work with my dad in the room and I just suddenly started feeling like I had indigestion and I don’t get indigestion so I don’t actually know what indigestion feels like um so in this case I was like uh I just go to bed and sleep it off which I did that which was absolutely fine woke woke up a couple of hours later good as gold no problems uh so the next three months I’m still doing my walks so we’re just gonna just put a time just put a time frame on this for anyone that hasn’t read the read the description we’re talking about 2016. 16 26 the I’m looking up there because we’ve got a poster with our um wedding date on and I always work back from that so uh not that I don’t know our wedding date were you doing confirmed it was 2016. yeah it was it’s around my it was that that incident was March 2016 somewhere like that I know it was definitely cold so anyway ignored it three months later did the same thing did a big big walk 10 miles I think it was still trying to lose weight for the wedding um got home sat down all of a sudden I got the the indigestion thing again and then sweat and then my arm was on fire my neck was on fire I was like this is a bit more serious I still didn’t know what was happening um but I had to stay calm because my dad was sitting next to me and that’s a good dementia if if you have a big issue and something big happens it usually gives them a little um CIA in their brain and they get a little bit worse so I had to be completely calm so I went into the other room found the ambulance they were outside the door about three minutes later which is incredible um they came in I explained about my dad then I explained about me they sat me down had me hook me up to an ECG and everything um and then you could just see the tension in the room changed a little bit and I said uh right uh come with us we’re just gonna stick you in the ambulance so I was like all right cool we’re gonna say the ambulance and then it started happening again it was coming in big waves where uh chest pains uh neck pain sweats just feeling obviously very rough um so they put a I think it was a beta blocker under my tongue or something like that somebody that opens the arteries and still didn’t know what was going on with me um then they took me to Watford General um went into what for General as I went through the door they met me at the door and I had another one and they basically said take him to harefield we can’t deal with him so I was like okay so I went back into the ambulance went to harefield uh rushed me through the back door as a hair fell straight into theater and they put a stent through here basically they they put me on the on the gurney um there’s gonna be a small prick in your arm which they did and then I could feel it going up my arm and then uh they put it in and I could see it on the screen actually I don’t know if I’m supposed to be watching it but I watched it and as I put it in just everything everything went and I felt great like that so as they’re Wheeling me out I still didn’t know 100 what it was I mean I think it back it was obvious but I just didn’t want to think that that’s what was going on they said yeah you’ve had a couple of art attacks we’ve just put a stent into your uh one of the most the 99 blocked artery they say but we have found another one which is 100 blocks which we can’t do anything with so am I um asking a a totally unnecessary question do most people know what a stent is or should we explain what a stent is I can yeah I’ll explain so it’s a small tube of it’s like metal and fabric so if you can imagine just a small like uh cuff and they put it it’s flat and they put it in through the artery and then they blow it up and it goes like that and pushes all uh it pushes the artery out where the blockage is but they need a tiny Gap to get it in in the first place so if your artery is 100 blocked which one of mine was they can’t do anything with it my the the one that they got it through was only 99 blocked so there was enough of a gap I mean the guy must have been really working hard that day to get it in the Gap they put it put it through that little Gap and then puff it out and it just starts blood flow again so that’s still in there that hasn’t moved that’s fine uh so that alter is as good as As Good As it could be um so yeah just the deposit um dissolve over time because there’s a deposit inside the arteries or do the arteries corrode yeah so the plaque that blocks the arteries stays there but um so the the the stent put just pushes on that as well okay so it stays there but you can get rid of it um which um I’ve read about and I’ve looked into and I hope it’s true I I mean I think it’s been proven that you can reverse it so you can get rid of the plaque that’s there on on the on the less blocked arteries okay anyway so so yeah as they’re waiting me out they said you we put a stent in the other one’s 100 blocks can’t do anything with it you’re gonna have to come back from bypass and then I was like oh my God so that’s what’s going on uh yeah so uh went up on sort of wards for a couple of days just being observed uh and then I was out was it two or three days later yeah um and then I think there’s a picture of me on um Instagram with the Tash took where I was walking again five days later obviously with a bit of a mission in mind which is to sort myself out but the the Mad thing is is it happened exactly the heart attack happened exactly a month before my wedding which was in Mauritius so officially if it had been a day less than a month I wouldn’t have been able to go so obviously that was my my wedding was jeopardized completely not that that’s a big thing but it is a big thing because at the time we didn’t have loads of money and we put all our money into getting married in Mauritius so um thankfully it was exactly a month before which meant uh I could fly thankfully so yeah I went off had my wedding which was incredible I didn’t well no my wedding you were just there to our wedding our wedding yeah um well it was your wedding you organized it all yeah I was a bit ill um so yeah um when got married um came back was continuing to look after my dad obviously Tash was um taking over for me because uh just looking after him as well just to help me out um and then I got a date through for I can’t even remember the date of it about three weeks after we got back from our wedding was it as soon as that three or four weeks yeah so yeah so I got a date to go back in for the bypass to brought the second artery out which was 100 blocked so yeah that was everything that was the yeah that was the situation that was the heart attack [Music] and the immediate aftermath and then yeah then uh um the bypass that was an experience and a half okay before we get before we get to that let me just uh say good evening to Siobhan hi to Stacy Bobby is sharing um words about her own um symptoms that she had talking about pins and needles as well and also um feeling like she was experiencing indigestion uh your friend Matt Matt Copley or Copley I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing that correct he says a very proud of Dean and he’s thinking towards being the best that he can after what he’s been through we were at his stagger in Bristol we noticed the fatty deposits around his eyes and he was talking about it we’re so glad we still have Dean around plenty of cycling next year in the New Forest God bless Matt cup he says yeah but it’s it’s quite mad to think that what happened to me I was at home and relaxed like literally weeks before I was on my stag do in Bristol we did um Gorge scrambling which is like climbing up riverbeds in the middle of nowhere um yeah through caves and all sorts like if it had happened there I don’t think you’d be talking to me now to be honest so yeah there’s there’s there’s so many things that so many times where it could have happened where but I think thank goodness uh it happened when it happened because I could deal with it and there is a little bit of guilt in my not guilt but the fact that I see so many people having heart issues and not surviving and it really brings it home how uh desperate my situation could have been if I wasn’t at home um do you know I mean every time I mean and I’ve been seeing it a lot over the last couple of years obviously you look out for it more and get into the age that we are that you see people having heart attacks and not surviving and every day I do think about that in the back of my head that uh I was lucky it sounds like I was unlucky but I think obviously you were lucky well um a very good friend of mine who I’ve known pretty much all my life uh Vicky says she’s so pleased that you chose a bypass um she wishes her husband Neil had gone down that route but unfortunately he didn’t and we’ll never know if the operation would have made a difference uh Neil someone I grew up with who had lost a few years ago unfortunately thanks for passing through Vic um Jane Harrington um also saying that uh you are amazing Dawn O’Connor uh say she tells all her patients about you as does Andrea she says she often mentions you to the hair feel the f h staff um okay guys thank you for the comments keep on coming Dean we’ll read them um during or after the conversation but I’m conscious of just letting him continue to tell the story so we got up to the bypass yeah yeah um uh talking about um referring to your friend that said about not having a bypass my my dad wasn’t offered the bypass and I think this is another thing where why I’m so insistent on sorting my health out and making sure this doesn’t happen again because I truly believe that if he had his bypass he wouldn’t have got vascular dementia and I don’t want to go I don’t want to put Tash through that what we had to go through I don’t want to have to go through that so and obviously I probably will be unaware of it because I won’t know what the hell is going on anyway but um I think that’s a really important thing is thinking about your family and how looking after someone that has these it’s not preventable but doing everything you can to make yours make your family not have to look after you in later years when you could possibly stay healthy and go down a different route so yeah I’ve always got that in the back of my head as well I I don’t want to go down that vascular dementia route um yeah sorry no that’s true yeah so yeah so next um yeah preparing for the bypass it was never in question um I’ve all accept for their little mess up with learning about FH in the early years I’ve always trusted the NHS explicitly my mum worked for the NHS um and I I’ve never questioned anything that they suggest um uh not that I was in hospital with that much I’m blessed to not have have ended up in hospital too much before this um whole thing but anyway so when they said they said you you you’re gonna need a bypass I didn’t think twice about it that’s like of course when and it was almost something to look forward to as far as I was concerned because it was the beginning of me getting back to normality and uh yeah not having to worry about it anymore um so yeah uh I got it I can’t remember the dates I’m not very good with dates to be honest uh but it was only 2017. was it not when you’ve got your bypass no we got married 16 it was about October when it was near my birthday yeah so I think it was late yeah late September 2016. uh I went in I got shaved from head to bottom uh and [Laughter] funny story about that there was a um a nurse that came in and offered to do it for me okay I feel like I’ve got a bit of a shout out I’ve got some indigestion okay and get shaped as the indigestion only if you’re having a bypass Andy oh yeah you’ve got to put some effort in so yeah um I don’t much I didn’t know anything about it at the time I wasn’t particularly nervous um it’s quite funny I I watched a YouTube of of the operation after I had the operation if I had watched it before wow give me give me a 60-second um rundown of what they do in a heart bypass um so yeah so they cut you from here I’ve got a score from here to here okay so I can’t see down to your down to your belly button more or less uh-huh yeah uh so they cut you from later there then they snap your sternum and the thing is they don’t cut it neatly They smash it because it needs to knit back in when they put it back together again then they in effect then they they um put you on like a curved surface on your back on the curved surface and they push down and then you open then they uh cut the the the next there’s like a bag on top yeah it’s like a bag on top of the heart and yeah bring the heart out but um obviously you’re being put on a heart lung machine so all my blood is outside of my body in effect so it’s going around and around the round pumping around in the machine um and yeah what they normally do is take a vein out of your leg so you nearly always get a massive um scar on your leg like this where they took it out but the the surgeon that did me it was the last one he did in this country before he got bought by a private um Hospital in America and I was a lot his last patient and he has this method where he just he takes um veins from your chest that Supply your the blood in your chest and redirect it around your heart and because he did that I haven’t got the other scar okay so up in how amazing is that the guy’s a genius an absolute genius I’ve got to meet him and he’s got this Aura around him I was just like fanboying all over him he’s like incredible guy uh and yeah thankfully I’ve got to I got to I was his last patient he literally left a day after never come back to this country so yeah the NX NHS unfortunately lost him to uh private medical place in America which is a shame um yeah so yeah um did the bypass stitched me back up um I’ve got loads of wires going around my ribs to hold everything together and then I wake up a couple of times in the ICU off my tits like off your tips like you’ve never been off your tits it was it was so surreal um I actually spoke I was seeing all sorts of crap I thought my body was made out of cats I thought it was a house at one point being sold as a flat it all sounds mental because it is mental um I sent I found out obviously is the morphine but also the um I spoke to the anesthetist and I said it was it the anesthetic that made me mental for the next two days after I wake up and he goes no what it is is when your blood is outside your body in a heart lung machine because it’s spinning rather than pumping which is what your heart does your the blood cells are confused and spinning still so that’s why you’re so off kilter and everything feels wrong and it’s literally because the blood was outside my body which is nuts in itself I thought that was a there that was a great conversation I had with him so yeah I was on the ward for five days listening to vocal booth um podcasts funny enough fish go deep especially was it fish lady yeah yeah that was incredible without set by the way that got me through a lot um yeah it was a uh there were so many people on the ward that um were in there with preventable stuff so smokers um Drinkers and a lot of them were in such a state and this is another another thing going back to thinking about your loved ones um so one guy that I met in there he was a an ex-rock star guitarist so he had cool hair as they all have um and he was just telling me about how cool his life he used to be and then he’s laying there with emphysema on a on a table being fed Biscuits by his wife that was crying our eyes out and it’s like you’ve you’ve gone from that to that like was it worth your family having to go through what they’re going through now because you were like that back then right it was quite what eye opener seeing the state of some people so yeah look after yourself so that I was just about to say that was one of the the key reasons why you wanted to get home and uh share some words of it’s never too late to to make lifestyle choices and changes right absolutely yeah you can completely turn turn yourself around if you just put in a bit of effort um well yeah uh let me just continue to sorry to interrupt you I just want to say hi I did see SAR uh passing through earlier so good evening also Janet May is passing through sending someone of your way uh and Donna kind of continues to uh comment and um hoping you’re feeling better as well Dawn uh thank you all for being here again uh and as I say I did forget to say at the beginning anybody watching the recording please do feel free to leave comments for Dean because he will read them and it was quite what I oh there you go uh sorry he’s just checking the stream so he can read all the comments that’s okay I know how it works and possibly reply to it as well yeah all good well let um let’s focus so we don’t lose a train of thought so um after the after the bypass how long was it what’s the kind of oh and I forgot to say hi to djp who also shares the same scar as you as you will be more than nowhere different issue yeah uh Pat bedou comes in and says Hi um so what’s the recovery time or were there any complicated immediate complications or not no I mean the only thing that was complicated was obviously going back to my dad who had dementia and Tash having to be at work it had me not being able to move an inch um obviously my chest needed to to to heal up um so yeah for the first it’s three weeks maybe I was pretty incapacitated but I still had to get up and about and help my dad cook him dinners things like that um it’s you realize how heavy a co uh um uh I can’t always when your chest has been cutting off it’s it’s a heavy it’s a heavy object anyway so yeah I I and I believe that because I had to go back and do that and be active almost immediately I think it was a really good I wouldn’t recommend it but it put me in a in a state where I’m recovering I can recover and also don’t sit back and do nothing um I I saw a lot of people in the rehab department at harefield who they’ve almost given up looking after themselves after a heart attack and bypass because there they’ve become a victim so they’re sitting there thinking right I’ve I’ve this is like a victim card I can get people to do [ __ ] for me I can not do this that I cannot do that I don’t have to do this don’t have to do that because I’ve had a heart attack and you you get that a lot with people who have had horrible illnesses and you tell them what you’ve had and that like everyone’s like oh that’s so sad that’s so bad it’s like as far as I’m concerned it’s one of the like it’s a very positive thing that’s happened to me in the long run obviously it was painful and it was hard and scary in points but it’s completely changed the way my Outlook and the way I uh view myself and my body and what I’m capable of so in that sense it’s one of the best things that’s happened to me which sounds nuts but I truly believe it it is um especially where it’s taken me since uh but getting back to it so recovery time is supposed to be three months um I think it was I can’t remember exactly how long it was when I started going back to rehab rehab was amazing as well at harefield as soon as I went there the first thing that we started doing was lifting little weights and getting on a little treadmill and picking things up and moving about and there’s about 20 of us doing these little uh exercises and we were doing things that we didn’t think we were capable of um or we shouldn’t do and then pushing it a bit further and a bit further and a bit further and um without that um I don’t think I would have been so quick to uh recover basically so yeah another amazing thing about harefield and the rehab and how important it is to to bounce back from major trauma um definitely so Dawn is saying that harefield is the center of excellence in cardiology yeah wonderful okay okay so um 20 2017 uh when would you say that you were back to your your former South tell us about the the road the road to the new Dean well thankfully I never went back to my fault myself because then my former self was a smoking drinking late night partying um I mean I still do still did it for a bit but it wasn’t like it was before so I’m definitely not the same person um but yeah three months later um yeah I was out walking straight away again uh as far as I could and then my sister said to me do you fancy doing a London to Brighton bike ride and I just said yes straight away without thinking about it thinking yeah I’m gonna have to train so I enjoy training um didn’t have a bike I borrowed my nephews uh trained for about three weeks to do that hated Hills hated cycling it was too hard uh done London de Brighton loved every single second of it and that was it oh yeah um yeah that was yeah Tasha’s just reminded me that I was raising money for the British Heart Foundation which is obviously a a big motivator in all of this is to kind of um oh yeah just remember something when I was in rehab I said to the lady that was there that was running the department what am I capable of um and she said there’s some guy I think he was an ex-rugby player had exactly the same thing as me uh went through the same process as me and ran two marathons in a week so just hearing something like that was sort of yeah that’s that’s possible so there’s no real limit to what I can do uh which again goes back to some people will hear that and probably won’t take that on board and then just yeah be evicting from it so uh yeah I’ve got where was I you were talking about the London to Brighton yeah so yeah I did London to Brighton really enjoyed it it was tough there’s a there’s a Hill Called ditchland Beacon right in the middle of it which is like a 12 minute climb um thousands of people on the road so it’s really hard to like get a run up and go up it I end up walking up it um just for lack of fitness and talent um and then I decided must decided at that point when I got to the top of it I’m never walking up a hill again uh and then just started training went and bought a bike um and yeah did the londons up Brighton again and then signed up for London to Paris um started cycling probably three days a week still didn’t like Hills started shifting a bit of weight and and during this time as well you completely changed your diet didn’t you you yeah I was really started to get into your Macros and um around the same time I was about to say I am so there’s a girl called Fleur Bromfield she’s a VBA as well she’s been before she lives in Canada currently but she’s um she’s a PT and also a bit of a dietitian so I’m one of these people that needs to know exactly why things work to do it so if someone just says do this I’ll go why and then I’ll dig deeper into it and find out exactly what the reason why I should be doing this and then make a decision whether I should do it so she was suggesting for me to go vegan um and I was like well why tell me why and she wrote a 12-page report on veganism um diet uh FH recovering from heart attacks etc etc etc and just laid it out for me completely and it was incredible along with um a training program and a food program for the for like three months I think it was so I thought yep that all makes sense um and just went headlong into it become vegan for about three months like weight training as well as doing uh cardio and yeah I shifted I went from 96 kilos bound to 76 kilos in about six months I think it was um and I felt incredible and yeah I think that was the basis of everything that’s happened since then to be honest and your uh your chiseled jawline decided to make an appearance I think it’s the photo of you is it the first review in the um Weekend Warriors book where you’ve got you look really really quite really well really healthy that’s the ants the ants and a bit of lighting and things yeah um yeah it’s really weird when I get into something I’ll get deep into something whether it’s music trainers cycling dieting weight training whatever if I get into it I get into it and I’ll go headlong into it but the way I the way I can explain it is um so I put loads of effort in at the beginning so this six months of proper effort bought my uh my with my weight window and my health window down to here when it was up here and now I hover sort of between here and here but I never go up here yeah so it’s it’s getting that jump to move move you back to like losing 20 kilos or 20 pounds or whatever if you can move if you can jump back and then hover here then if you put another bigger big effort in you can get back here and then back in so I mean so you once said to me there’s no Finish Line and that really stuck with me and I keep them I say it to you all the time that is one of the things that’s always stuck in my head and with me because I’m trying to avoid the um dementia issue by having a weak heart from not training and just putting on weight and not caring um yeah there is no Finish Line I have to continue to do it especially because I sit here for six seven eight ten fifteen hours a day I need to go and do something else along with the drugs and the diet and like I’ve got all these tools to help me be uh to help me not get dementia that that’s the the long shot that’s the the goal yeah yeah I think that’s probably one of the main I think that’s the big one that is I don’t want to end up where my dad ended up um because it’s horrific for him us and the family it was it was horrendous and I just don’t want to go that way so I’m building up all these tools to be able to um yeah not go there basically so all of these achievements uh the positive mindset definitely helps we’re getting um a lot of people commenting thank you hi Dan hi uh Jeremy Mr braithwaite’s here he says yes Dean my cycling Guru um so uh let’s let’s get down to some more of the achievements that uh you’ve done since those bike rides um and let’s throw I mean we’re doing fine for time but uh are there any major parts past there or do we start focusing on big plans that you’ve got for the future because I know there was something that you wanted to drop on me you were quite excited to tell me about yeah there’s um so obviously my main goal is to well I wanted what I want to do is raise enough money to which means that I haven’t affected the Health Service too much by having a heart attack and having to be operated on it costs them a lot of money so I’m doing my best to raise money to cover that like I’m trying to raise that footprint that’s very that’s very conscientious of you indeed extremely uh so um yeah initially it was London to Brighton then it was London to Paris uh to be frank London’s of Paris I wish I could have turned a bike and come back again it was incredible so yeah after that um I decided to go a bit bigger so that was 300 miles and then I decided to do Lands End of Jonah Groats um which is it was a thousand miles in the end because we went a bit of a weird route so um yeah my my goals have got bigger and bigger and bigger but as far as I’m concerned it’s the training to get there that’s that’s the Crux of the matter it’s not the that 10 day period as hard as it was the training to get to the point where I enjoyed it was hard so yeah I was covering like 12 000 miles a year something like that um up to that point so since I got back from Alexander John the greats and how incredible he was I loved it so much I was looking for the next thing to do um initially I was going to do an Iron Man which is uh 2.4 mile swim uh 120 mile 112 mile bike ride and then a marathon at the end all one after the other um so I started running to see how I’d could get on with that and I’m sure running I can’t run my knees because of the Judo as a kid my knees are smashed so unfortunately it’s one thing that I’ve had a Target on and had to say no you can’t do that because every time I run somewhere the thought of getting on a bike all right sorry every time I get off a bike the thought of having to run is like I don’t think I can do it and I did try I promise I did try and I think I yeah so I had to say no to it so for the last six months I’ve been what can I do next what can I do next what’s feasible I’ve got a really big goal like in sort of five years in the future but um I think I need a step to get to that first so the idea was uh to cycle from home which is Kings Langley which is just North of London it’s a vocal booth so what do you think definitely you can bring can you bring some speakers overview as well so I’ve often thought what’s the um what is the actual kilometers on that it’s I think it’s something like 1500 miles so kilometers what’s that three thousand just over 3 000 miles 32 3200 miles something like that Nine Lives it’s 1500 miles but it’s I think it’s 2 200 160 oh [ __ ] it I’ve lost no two two thousand six one mile one mile one mile is 2.2 kilometers last night it’s 1.6 okay sorry yeah what am I oh I think I’m talking I’m thinking I’m I think I’m kilos and pants yeah that’s what you’re doing yeah definitely okay yeah so it’s about 2 600 kilometers um I I’m yet to work out a route but it basically goes down all the way through France and then flips over to Spain and it’ll come down the east coast of Spain to Alicante so I think it would take like two weeks to do it a hundred miles a day I think and I think it’s possible I don’t know if it was possible but yeah that’s I want to do that um next not next year the year after so I’m going to need some training and also put some things in place to do it because uh the idea is attached to uh have like a camper van or something with one of our mates and then they go from place to place and then I cycle so they’re not actually following me yeah a cycle to him each day basically so then I don’t have to worry about hotels and well we could we could we could coordinate I mean you’ve just told me um I had no idea of this we could quite easily between all of our community coordinate um stops along the way for you um I’m sure we’ve got people along the route that we could um coordinate to make it happen and if not we we can all chip in and fund it and make it happen for you anyway so that’s a given you know yeah the way I was thinking it was just to do uh because obviously it’s going to be a charity thing um the idea of cycling to a 500 people party it sounds [ __ ] brilliant to me I I mean how cool would that be yeah imagine imagine the uh the the welcome yeah the welcome that you’ll get when you’ll get there you’ll be amazing yeah that’s gonna be screaming at you say get them [ __ ] dirty trainers off yeah you’re definitely gonna put some kind of schedule on it aren’t you I stay there stay there wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait that’s amazing that is absolutely amazing yes I I think I’m gonna set up a GoFundMe page because um we haven’t got loads of money to spend we need to think about how we’re gonna fund the um the the camper van and work out the logistics of that unless somebody wants a lend us one for two weeks and then drive it back but well Jeffrey Jeff Jeff and Jules Jeff and Jules have got a caravan that they can they can tow for you I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to to uh sort it out I guarantee mate you’ve put it out there now it’s gonna happen there are too many of us to not make it happen yeah and obviously um yeah and do a whole charity thing around it and raise as much money for the British Heart Foundation again or and or any Charities you guys would be willing to um or want me to add to it let’s make it a big thing uh see how much money we can raise for charity because it’s uh yeah I think it’s quite a big deal and it could be a bit of a life-defining thing for me as well and I’m excited for it but I need to put in a good Year’s worth of training before I even consider it so yeah that’s amazing thank you for considering um to include the VB family in part of this and you know together we can make this happen so uh you know whenever uh you get a firm idea a firm plan about it it’s gonna so so when you say about that because it’s it’s as as a non-cyclist myself um it’s hard for me to kind of um put into perspective just how large a task that is um yeah I think with the the mountains in France and and and Spain uh it’s gonna be hard I mean it’s gonna be at least 100 miles a day so I’m gonna be on the bike at least seven hours a day and not going slow going hard I’ll be on my own um which motivation is difficult um the the pain on my body is going to be quite hard I mean I’ve done 10 10 days in a row and I wasn’t broken at the end of it but um there were certain areas of my anatomy which were absolutely smeared so well POG wash had said earlier your ass must have looked like Shredded Wheat [Laughter] yeah so yeah it’s going to be punishing um in terms of trying to I don’t know it’s like I suppose there’s a marathon a day for 14 days I think that’s the only way I can put it if you add in the amount of climbing I’ll be doing to get down there um and the Heat yeah I think you can say it’s a marathon there’s eight so going back to what the lady said to me in rehab that some guy did two marathons in a week I’m gonna do 14 back to back so have that right well we I can already uh you know just sitting here listening to you I already can imagine the the hype surrounding it and the excitement and as you say the uh when you arrive the um everything and also the guys at the Blue Line do a lot of work with cycling teams so I did it yeah yeah yeah they have a lot of um I think it’s National cycling Camp so now you’ve put it out there you’ll be you’ll be amazed at um what the universe does provide for you honestly yeah you know that’s the one um and that was another one of the things I was going to say actually is putting things out there social people have got a big issue with social media especially nowadays with all the negativity but without social media and putting goals out to the public and out to people and out to the universities you say if the fact that I tell people I’m going to do something before I do it means I have to do it and I’m really accountability accountability 100 and yeah so yeah get it going from hatching an idea actually putting it out there um sometimes for example the Iron Man I didn’t put out there because I really wasn’t sure about it and then it turns out I don’t think I could have done it so I’m glad I didn’t put it out there but this I know I’m capable of just with training so my body will definitely hold up to it it’s just a case of yeah making it happen and doing the logistics um but yeah I’m a 100 believe that putting stuff out there is really important for you to hit your goals 100 most definitely well a lot of people are coming up in the comments already uh pug say if you’ve got to get a tour a Tour de France VB style Jersey made you had actually you had actually already um been a a designer yourself you you you went out there and you did some fundraising and you had a jersey made remind me which one of the the rides that was for that was Lands End to John a great so yeah I sold I think 10 logos to put on my back uh things like 100 pound of pop so that was yeah I raised six grand in total for um British Heart Foundation for that ride alone and a lot of that money came from uh VBS um so yeah it’s good to have a community that I can tap into like that that are they totally understand it and because I’m one of them uh they want to support me so yeah 100 um yeah I I’d love to design a nice little um Jersey for it or a couple wonderful because they’re gonna they’re gonna go pretty sway um on that like Lands End jono Groats my timeline my memory is shut was it just before or just out of lockdown it was after lockdown because it got canceled I was originally gonna do it in 2020 2020 um I think it was July August no it was September October wasn’t it yeah it was our wedding anniversary that was away oh yeah just being reminded of yourself wedding anniversary I’ll let you forget that yeah August 2021 27th of August 2021 I think I was that four days into it yeah I went and got canceled because I already had the train tickets to go down to Land’s End I went down there anyway and just did a South Coast did 600k on my own with uh well I did half of it with mate and then he went to Manchester and I went along to Matt who was in the chat earlier I went to see those guys along the South Coast so yeah amazing so where where are you at clearly you must you must feel a million dollars to even contemplate pushing yourself to those limits are you happy with where you’re at have have you ever felt that you’ve taken the foot off the gas a little bit and you ever Take Your Eye Off the price so to speak or are you quite dedicated now yeah it’s it’s again it’s that thing where you move your expectations backwards by doing the things that make you better so um so for example um I was 96 kilos when I first started and then I was hovering around 76 and then about like my natural weight at the moment was about 80 kilos so recently I had a massive job which I was sitting here 15 hours a day for three months absolutely working my fingers to the Bone because I had a nine to five contracts but I also had my other contracts I had to do for other other clients so I had to do them before and after the nine to five thing so yeah I because I was sitting still for so long I wasn’t getting time to train um I wasn’t getting time to go out on a bike um I was Comfort eating uh so yeah the wheels fell off a little bit for three months but uh instead of hovering around 80 I was hovering around 85 but that’s still not 96. it’s not like it I blew it all so my natural weight had come down to a point where even when I was bad for three or four months I still didn’t go completely the wrong way um and now I’m in the middle of sorting that out as we speak so the thing is you’re so far that you’re so far all of these with the bike and travel analogies you’re so far down the road now you understand what needs to be done you understand the uh the risks of if you if you if you don’t continue and you don’t have that discipline so I think it’s fair to say you’re never ever gonna go fully into remission for whatever better word are you no I don’t think I am um there’s definitely an alarm Bell goes off as soon as I see a very slight change in my in my body uh alarm Bells go off but I just don’t let it happen I think the diet especially where it used to be dark meat meat probably every day um alcohol um snacks so many snacks and not thinking about my my uh diet now because I did that vegan bit and it worked so well my um mine changed as well as my taste change so I enjoy a crunchy salad as much as I would enjoy a burger in fact Burgers make me feel horrible now um I do have them still because I can afford to but I earn my if I really have a hankering for for something like that which you will do every now and then um I earn it by getting on a bike you allow yourself well it is it is definitely all about balance isn’t it life is all about balance um you know it’s one of those things yeah absolutely so yeah I definitely feel I’ve look I’ve I’ve just taught myself not to be unhealthy anymore um and yeah your taste changes you may not I used to hate vegetables and now I do enjoy them although I’m not eating loads at the moment for some reason I don’t know why um but I will start doing that again I think again I’m it’s a bit of a hangover from the last four months where I was working so hard that everything fell out the window a bit well as long as as long as it starts the the the thought process and the recognition um for you to you know the alarm bells are ringing and then it’s it’s only a good thing yeah and also it’s only taken like three weeks to correct something that has slipped for over three months um I noticed that about a year ago I think after lands ends with Jonah gross I think I ate a horse uh put on a a little not loads away a couple of kilos I then corrected it in three months flat just because I knew I was going that way um so yeah it’s definitely a switch in the brain you’ve changed the way your diet works you enjoy different foods and you just end up moving towards a better healthier lifestyle basically just by consistent consistent you talk about that um if we start to wrap things up there because as I did say before you know it we’re going to have been talking for an hour and 10 minutes and that’s exactly where we’re at um one of the main things most of the people watching this with us now are fully um familiar with yourself and your story there will be one or two people checking out the recording on the YouTube what’s the takeaway from this um for you that you wanted to drive home to people about you know taking taking care of themselves and and being aware of signs um yeah before I get to that uh it’s actually just reminded me that one of the biggest even though I’ve got all these miles in my legs and I’ve done these big achievements the biggest achievement is that when I was talking earlier about my cholesterol levels so obviously genetics are against me my sedentary life’s um career is against me uh etc etc which means my cholesterol level is generally high when I had my heart attack it was at 10. so um even with a month two types of drug exitrol and statins statins is the maximum level exitrol is like a is a super Statin so even with those two things I could only get it down to seven so with my training my diet the exercise um sleeping well all those sort of things I’ve actually I’ve had a blood test uh three weeks ago and I got my results back and it’s currently at 2.8 now it yeah I mean you’re refining you’re defying modern medicine I’m defying genetics which is pretty pretty special um and I’ve I’ve uh mentioned this earlier I I read somewhere that if your levels are below four which is normal you reverse the plaque so if there is still plaque inside my arteries it’s being washed away over time I’m not sure how long that would take but that can only be a good thing even if it’s a tiny amount the fact of the matter is it’s not getting worse so therefore in effect I shouldn’t have any heart issues anymore based as long as I continue this lifestyle which is that’s the that’s the takeaway I think is that you can control genetics if I can control genetics by being healthy with exercise uh healthy lifestyle diet a bit of focus caring thinking about other people and not wanting to put not wanting them to go through having to look after you when you’re ill um yeah you can defy genetics if you really want to oh yeah I think let’s give that’s just literally giving me goosebumps it’s beautiful it’s beautiful to hear it really is um you know the whole point of these conversations are to hear inspiring stories from people that we relate to you know you see interviews on the TV or the time you read uh you see documentaries you hear podcasts but when it’s someone so close to you that that can share these stories and it it can only inspire people out there it can only make it you can only finally flick that switch and make someone say you know what I’ve been [ __ ] about for way too long you know big octane I I’m gonna do it so this Dean’s message I’m sure has hit home to one or two people tonight and thank you to Tash for reminding him about the uh cholesterol because everyone’s loving that most important bit well it’s it’s all important um any anything else that we we want to uh touch on before we start wrapping up and leave everyone to their Tuesday to Wednesday Wednesday evening I don’t know why I think it’s Tuesday all day um yeah um no I’m not really I’m I’m pretty normal I’m not special I’m not um overly um blessed with healthy fit genetics I haven’t got shoulders like you Andy I I have to work for everything that uh that helps my life helps my body um so if I can do it and I I know it’s a bit of a thesaver say it say it if I can do it anyone could do it honestly yeah you really can um yeah if you can get enough Tools in your Armory for example uh making yourself motivated setting goals having a schedule which I found out recently is so important like if motivation fails and it fails all of us I think how many times do you go to the gym Andy and you’re not motivated or you haven’t gone to the gym because you because you’re not feeling motivated I mean it happens right if you’ve got it’s very rare but it does happen yeah if you’ve got a schedule in place if going to the gym or going for a walk or walking to the shop rather than driving to the shop um if that’s in your schedule then you just do it it becomes you it becomes a part of your life it’s same as eating your dinner at a certain time going to work at a certain time I’m gonna go to the gym at a certain time just make it your schedule and then that should defy lack of motivation um so yeah then what the more tools you’ve got knowing what’s good for you realizing that you know what’s good for you and all of us do there’s so many people are like I I don’t know I don’t know why I’m not losing weight I don’t know why I’m I’m not healthy I don’t know why I’m wheezing when I go upstairs you know exactly why so do something about it um so yeah the more tools you’ve got in your Armory the more likely you’re gonna get to where you want to be in terms of health and fitness such wise words such wise words and you’ve set me up perfectly for my outro so I’ll say thank you uh during the course of that conversation as well uh pug said that we should also give an honorary mention to Tash who’s also been through her own dramas and at some point I have got Tash uh pigeonholes to come on and have a conversation like this would you do that sash I don’t think so I don’t know we’ll see okay okay well we we I won’t uh I’ll talk on our behalf if you want there you go there you go cool yeah um yeah her her story is is very similar um if you put the two of us together you would say that we’re completely differently motivated but the the the power that she showed during that time was pretty incredible but let me stop let me stop you there because that story is gonna get told in its own right at another time so uh Dean I’m gonna say thank you you will see all of the comments um literally over a hundred comments of people replying to telling you how much they love you and um when the time’s right we will start discussing plans and uh putting some meat on the bones of the uh 2024 uh London to Alicante bike ride 25 are we saying 25 or 24. 24 24 24 there you go not next not next year the year after um again if anyone wants to ask me anything um feel free just send me a little PM slide into my PMS I’m happy to answer and I have answered plenty of uh questions about heart health and and stuff and also discovered a few people that have had a similar thing to me who are now being treated so yeah don’t be afraid ask beautiful all right well listen I’m gonna press this button and it will unceremoniously kick you immediately out of the meeting so thank you very much mate it’s been beautiful it really has it’s been thanks for having me Andy I appreciate it it’s been heartwarming Yay see you later dude thank you see you later okay so in goes and I’m here what’s happened to my screen ah back am I working is my mic on yes it is um wow just reading through all of the comments everyone is thanking Dean and Tash uh very very inspiring indeed Laura thank you for passing through uh Joe Hill I saw you I don’t know if I said hi to Neil earlier thank you Neil for watching and commenting throughout uh Jeremy as well now I’ll repeat what I say at the end of every um live stream this list um here in the top left hand corner doesn’t really do justice to the amount of likes and comments that we do get because I broadcast on my own profile because I broadcast also on the Inspire and be inspired page only the uh likes and shares on the official page get reflected here um so these are just a few of the likes and shares we’ve had over the last few weeks but as as we know there’s been hundreds tonight so thank you all uh Dean was talking there about um you know having a schedule having a plan and that falls perfectly neatly I didn’t uh I didn’t preempt him on this uh my talk is going to be next Monday because of the way that the football Falls next week on Monday evening at 7 00 PM I’m going to be talking to Mark Wilkinson again pretty much everyone is fully aware of my uh admiration and respect from Arkansas I wanted to bring him on for a one of uh the final streams of the uh and the topic is fail to plan plan to fail um it’s time to reflect on the last 12 months and prepare for the uh ahead and uh Mark alongside his best-selling book is also an extremely uh amazing life coach and he is going to be sharing some uh real true Pearls of Wisdom so I cannot recommend enough that you come and join me next Monday on the screen you can see my YouTube subscribers are creeping ever closer to that 1 000 subscribers I think it’s closer to 990 now if I’m totally honest so um if you aren’t subscribed on YouTube if you head on over to youtube.com forward slash DJ Andy wards that would mean a lot to me okay guys all the access crew your names are proudly being displayed on the screen here uh between my access crew and the VB family we are going to definitely make Dean’s dreams a reality for 2024. thank you all for passing through thank you all for your comments guys um I’m out of here have a great rest of the week take care foreign [Music]