[00:00:00] Ashton Tate: Food is fuel, most of the time, and then food is fun. Sometimes I get to enjoy and I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m not cheating on anything. I think that’s just a harmful mindset to teach kids is that you’re cheating and it’s bad.

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[00:00:16] Gretchen Roe: Good afternoon, everyone. This is Gretchen Roe. It’s my pleasure to welcome you to this episode of The Demme Learning Show. I am so delighted today to talk about physical and emotional fitness with Ashton Tate. I’ve been looking forward to this for a couple of months now. Tell us about you.

[00:00:35] Ashton: Thanks for having me on. My name is Ashton Tate. I live in Franklin, Tennessee, just a little bit south of Nashville, and married to an amazing wife, Kelsey. She’s a nurse. She’s about to graduate with her nurse practitioner, and so she’s amazing. We’ve been married for a little over six years, and so she’s great.

I’ve been in health and health education since about 2015. We work with kids, families, and teachers all over the United States to help kids build a solid foundation in their health while they’re young, to understand how to take care of their body so that they can do whatever they’re called to do in life.

[00:01:30] Gretchen: Now, the name of your business is Glory to Glory Fitness. How long have you been doing this?

[00:01:36] Ashton: 2015, realistically, is when we started the business. I can share some of my story, too, of just how it came about. When it comes to health, I think a lot of times in our culture right now, you got a lot of health influencers and meatheads and all these people trying to tell you what to do and these extreme crazy people that you’re like, man, you’ve probably always just been nuts like that,

My story is a little different. When I was in high school, I was actually about 300 pounds and really struggled personally with health for years and was addicted to food, really bad acid reflux, pre-diabetic, all that stuff. It wasn’t because I didn’t move. I played a lot of the sports. I did football. I did wrestling, but nobody really taught me how to take care of my body. I didn’t have great examples.

I went to public school personally. Obviously, with families here that are homeschooling, they already got a leg up on what I had, but as far as being able to really tailor something to their kids. I just struggled with that for years and was just tired of being that person. I was tired of being the “fat kid” in high school. I didn’t have very good self-esteem. I was made fun of a lot.

My senior year, I really just started being tired of that and started seeing like, “Wow,” like, “I want to use my body in the way that it was designed. I want to partner with it.” Just like a car has an owner’s manual, our body is designed in a specific way to function in a specific way. I just wanted to learn more about that. I ended up losing about a hundred or so pounds by my senior year.

[00:03:28] Gretchen: Tell me a little bit about what prompted that change for you, because really that’s a very mature thought process for a 17, 18-year-old.

[00:03:38] Ashton: Yes, it wasn’t that at first. It was a process. I’ll give you one guess. What does a high school-aged boy want to lose weight for? What would you say?

[00:03:50] Gretchen: I was going to say it must be a young lady.

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[00:03:55] Ashton: That was the first– It took me a while. I wasn’t always just this like, “Oh, I’m so wise.” It took a little while. At first, I was like, “Man, I don’t want to be that guy because I want to impress this girl.” That was the first like initial– I was tired of not being looked at all by girls because I was just at the bottom of the popularity, which again, all that’s looking back, it’s all so dumb now anyway.

As far as what I was thinking and all that stuff, I’m like, none of that’s true. As soon as you graduate high school, like all that goes away [chuckles]. You’re all on a level playing field. That was the first initial reason. Then as I started to take care of myself and I started seeing how like, wow, like my self-confidence was going up and I started feeling better, I started looking better, I started like, wow, like this is how I could feel, I started, growing.

I started getting and getting with leaders at my local church. I started really pressing in and not just getting healthier physically, but mentally, emotionally, spiritually. All those things really came. It was just a big season of growth and it came out of that first, okay, like maybe I didn’t start quite for the perfectly right reason, but I eventually just developed and started seeing like, wow, okay, here’s how I need to take care of my body. Here’s how I need to think about it. Here’s how the long-term is going to look. Just stuff like that.

[00:05:24] Gretchen: I think it’s interesting that you’re, you were thinking long-term even at that age, because a lot of kids it’s here, it’s now, and we don’t develop a long-term vision for what the future is going to be like until we’ve been adults for a while.

[00:05:38] Ashton: It was definitely a process and it came– You see so many yo-yo and ups and downs and gain and lose and whatever the health journey, everybody’s a little bit different, and so it’s everybody’s journey, there’s these ups and downs and these diets. All I knew is that I really didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to live my life and be up and down and not consistent. It’s so hard to do in this culture that promotes that.

I started seeing that. I was like, “Okay, like here’s who I want to be. Here’s who I don’t want to be, that person who does that. I want to really have self-control over how I’m eating and how I’m sleeping and how I’m moving and do those hard things to take care of myself so that I can reap the benefits.” Again, it was a process. It wasn’t initially just, wow, you’re so wise.

[00:06:33] Gretchen: I like the fact that you said sleeping because, as a parent of six, probably the hardest message that I had to instill in my own kids is to understand how vital sleep was for their health. My kids are all relatively healthy, but, trying to tell a teenager you need more sleep than your toddler sibling, that’s a hard story to press and make it stick.

[00:06:59] Ashton: Yes, totally. It’s holistic. A lot of times people think of health as I just need to go kill myself at the gym and just run myself into the ground. Then I need to eat, chicken breast and broccoli. It’s this diet and this– Health is so much more about it– Especially when we’re teaching our kids this stuff, we have to have a really holistic, solid approach because especially for young girls, that’s such a crucial age to be teaching and learning and all the stuff they see on social media about nutrition, body image. It’s so overwhelming to them.

You have a generation that is just- it’s gotten very anxious and struggled with a lot of health. It’s a lot of what our culture is thrown at them. I think just being able to have simple frameworks to teach them, being able to have something that they can apply and understand and actually think rightly about it versus just doing the things.

[00:08:00] Gretchen: Awesome. Tell us, then, how you managed to take this personal journey and make it a professional journey.

[00:08:07] Ashton: I graduated high school and like I said, people started asking me for help and they saw that change in me. Not only did they see the change in me short term, they were like, “Wow, you’ve been doing this for a year, two years. This isn’t just a short-term get fit for a wedding or looking good for a girl type of thing.” They were like, “Wow, you’re a different person.” People started asking me for help and I started helping people.

At the time, I lived with my parents. Right after high school, I went to college. I threw some rusted old dumbbells and barbells in my parents’ garage and was like, “Yes, come over and work out.” At first, it wasn’t a business. I just wanted to help people. Then more and more people started, and got some counsel on it, and ended up getting certified as a personal trainer, and then ended up getting a full four-year degree in health.

[00:08:57] Gretchen: In college, did you think that was what you were going to major in? Did you have a vision even as an 18-year-old?

[00:09:07] Ashton: No, I wanted to be a SWAT officer. I wanted to bust down doors and just beat down bad guys. I’m still sometimes I’m like, “Maybe I should do that. Maybe that would be fun.” No, I just went into college with just a general ed, degree. I didn’t know if I was going to do like business administration type of thing or what I was going to do, but I had gotten certified, by that point once I got into college and I was like, “Oh, this would be a side thing to make some extra money and I can have some flexible work and I don’t have to like work a nine to five, or like a hourly job type of thing.”

Then it just kept growing and growing and I was like, “Man, I can make a really good business out of this and we’re helping a lot of people. I ended up having a really nice gym that I built out of my parents’ garage. It was fancy for a garage gym. When I graduated from college and stuff, I ended up moving out and we had our own- a little studio gym and training and group classes, and just, yes, help helped a lot of people just make health really simple and apply it to their lives after that. I was mostly just word of mouth.

[00:10:17] Gretchen: All right. Then that brings us to where you are today. For our audience who’s attending live, and then the folks who are going to see this or listen to the podcast, what do you bring to the table for them so that they’ll understand what Glory to Glory Fitness will do for them?

[00:10:32] Ashton: With our adult clients, we had that business. It’s still the same, technically the same company, but we did that until about 2020. It wasn’t great for gyms in particular where it’s people sweating [laughs]. Yes, we had to go online and we just kept hearing over and over and over and over again from our adult clients, “Man, I wish somebody would have taught me and made it this simple when I was young.”

I wouldn’t have had to be 50 or 60 or 40 or however old they were and lived and built– It’s so hard when you have a lifetime worth of habits and a lifetime worth of living to totally rewire and redo all of that. You didn’t get there overnight. You’re not going to get there in a month, and people want the quick fix.

I was like, “Man, what are we going to do to fix these trends in America? What are we going to do?” I read a statistic on the CDC’s website that said that by the year 2030– I read this in 2020, 2021. It said that by the year 2030, that 86.3% of adults will either be overweight or obese on a BMI scale. I was just like, “Man. What?” It doesn’t even register. Then that’s five years from now. I was like, “Man, how do we fix that?”

I believe the way to fix the health of our nation is to equip and empower the next generation. I think if we can help our kids and teens, if we can help them to build a foundation when they’re young so that each generation gets a little bit better and a little bit better.

What’s happened now in our schools is nobody cares about health and PE anymore. It’s a throwaway class. They take one little semester in their whole career, and no colleges care about it. It’s this underfunded, under-cared-about elective. That’s like one of the most important things that they’ll ever learn. I believe the way to change the health of our nation is the next generation.

We put together, we took those same principles that we had helped hundreds of adults with. We took those and we created– One of my really good friends, he writes a lot of curriculum. I was like, “Hey, I got all of our stuff. We know what we’re doing at works.

Can you help me script this and make it into something that would help kids?” We put it into an online platform.

We work with homeschool families to help them cover health and PE. We also work with schools all over the nation. Teachers use it in their health and PE classes as well. It’s a platform that teaches everything. It just makes health really simple. We break it down into four main areas. One is functional fitness. It’s all about movement, how the body’s made there and how to have a good routine of movement in every season.

Number two is nutrition. We go into depth on nutrition and hydration, electrolytes, macronutrients, sugar consumption. everything. as far as that to teach kids how to eat properly. Then we go into rest and recovery is the third pillar. That’s where we talk about sleep, stress management, stretching, posture, all sorts of holistic ways to make sure that we have preventative routines around resting and recovering.

Then the last pillar- so it’s F O R M, but the M of the method is multiplied maintenance. How do we take the other three pillars, fitness, nutrition, and rest and recovery, and how do we maintain those over a lifetime, to have lasting change, by setting the right goals, surrounding ourselves with the right community.

We talk about social media consumption. We talk about, emotional health, social health. We do cover sex ed if parents want to cover that. We cover everything there to just help make health really simple in that framework for students and then teach them how to do each of those, areas. It’s awesome.

[00:14:26] Gretchen: You’re providing a valuable service because sometimes as parents, we might know what the right answers are, but we’re not always the prophet in our children’s land. Being able to come alongside a parent and echo the sentiments of what it looks like to eat healthy, to exercise enough. We’re in the middle age, man. We all want to be on these things and I’m trying to get off of these things and out into the world. Sometimes that’s a hard message for kids to hear.

If I were a parent wanting to create a healthy journey for my children, what’s the most valuable thing that I should take away from our conversation?

[00:15:09] Ashton: I think keeping it simple. A lot of the time when we’re teaching about health, it’s so much information and not application. As much as I think it’s important for kids to learn about their body and how it’s made and all that stuff, it’s important, it’s, you can give them a 300-page book and have them go through it all and test and check off all the boxes but then if they do nothing with it, it’s in one year and out the other year. It was centralized around that class and it doesn’t have any impact on them.

I think that the more simple, like F-O-R-M, not what I just explained, it’s like, so like crazy simple, okay, I know I need to move. I know I need to eat right. I know I need it. It’s if you have a simple routine in each of those areas, you’re going to be set up really well. Then you can go deeper into those and see what you can tweak and do better in. I think just giving and making it really simple and fun for kids is really key.

We have parents all the time that what you just said, “Oh man, I’ve been trying to get my kids to eat their broccoli for years. They watch one lesson from your curriculum and they’re like, “Hey, can we make the–” It’s just having someone to back parents up to make it simple for students and for kids so that they get excited about it is just keep it simple.

[00:16:28] Gretchen: One of the things that I often hear from homeschool parents is that they have kids who eat a very limited diet. I’ll use one of my own grandchildren as an example. He loves everything to do with anything that has a nitrate in it, so pepperoni, ham, salami, those kinds of things, but trying to get him to eat a variety of foods, it’s been very difficult. I’ve had a couple of guests over the years who’ve said that they’ve been able to create opportunities with picky eaters by getting them involved in the cooking process. How do you get them to have a vision for if you felt better, your life would be easier?

[00:17:18] Ashton: There’s two principles that come to mind in our curriculum. One is called food as fuel and food is fun. We talk about for, just like a car needs gas to go, our bodies need fuel. That’s what food is. It’s fuel that our body breaks down to help our bodies run basically.

One of the most basic principles that we teach is most of the time, food should be used as fuel. We need to eat the things that are going to provide our body with the proper amount of calories, the proper amount of nutrition, macronutrients, micronutrients, all those things. Most of the time food is fuel.

Also, some of the time, it’s okay to have food as fun. Some of the time it’s, when you’re celebrating or when you’re- Thanksgiving or Christmas or birthdays, it’s okay to have pepperoni. It’s okay to have that sometimes, but we need to look at those foods as more of a treat or more of a food as fun. I love ice cream more than anything, but I don’t eat ice cream every single night because I would feel horrible all the time. It’s most of the time, fuel, but then some of the time, we can use it as fun.

I feel like that’s a good way of looking at it where instead of talking about it from, “Hey, it’s a cheat meal,” or, “You’re cheating on something,” or all that. It’s like, no, like food is fuel most of the time. Then food is fun. Sometimes I get to enjoy and have, and I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m not cheating on anything. I think that’s just a harmful mindset to teach kids is that you’re cheating and it’s bad and the foods are bad.

It’s like, well, food is a food. Doesn’t have moral value. Now you being addicted to that food, not be able to control yourself isn’t helpful, but it’s just these guidelines that we’re, that we’re trying to teach. That’s number one, I’d say is helping them understand, hey, it’s okay. Those foods that I’m trying to tell you to not eat all the time, but not necessarily bad.

They may not be good for your body like in a lot, large amounts, but sometimes we can enjoy those. Yes, that’s great. Most of the time, we need to be eating these foods to fuel and make sure that you’re feeling good and things like that. That would be the first principle that I would say, as far as nutrition that came to mind.

The second one is the principle of what you feed on you hunger for. It’s imbalance. it’s not that you can’t ever have nerves or that you’re just like it, but it’s the principle of food is fuel. Most is good most of the time food has fun sometimes with nerds or whatever, ice cream or whatever. Also understanding the things that you put into your body.

It’s in every aspect of life. The relationships that you engage in are the ones that you’re going to hunger for the most. The media that you watch, if you watch TV more, or social media, those are the things that you’re going to hunger for, whatever you take in. With food, if you eat a ton of not-good-for-you food and you go to fast food all the time and you have sweets all the time, all that stuff, those are the foods that you’re going to hunger for because what you feed on, you hunger for.

Also, in a good way, if you eat the good quality foods as fuel, like we talked about, if you eat those and you’re consistent with those– I don’t always feel like eating a salad. I would much rather have some of these other things sometimes. The more I feed on things that are whole and that are going to nourish my body, the more I hunger for them to where I don’t want to just run through McDonald’s all the time. I want to be nourished.

I think helping kids understand, hey, you may not want to eat this right now, but the more that you feed on it and the more you give your body it, the more you’re going to want to eat it. I think it doesn’t have to be this– They’re never going to want to necessarily eat that, but bringing them into the cooking process, flavoring it in ways that they like it, and having fun with it, and helping them to have it consistently is going to help them to hunger for it and value it more and more.

[00:21:22] Gretchen: Actually, I can’t believe we were at the top of the hour. This hour has gone fast. I’ve really been looking forward to it. In our show notes, I will include the link for parents to be able to find your materials and to be able to connect with you individually. I also want to link back to a couple of episodes that we have done.

I had the privilege of interviewing our CEO here at Demme Learning, Ethan Demme, and he talks about how walking 20 minutes a day with his kids has changed their attitudes as a family and it has been an amazing experience. I’ll make sure that I include that as well because your messages parallel each other so beautifully that I think that that will be a terrific parallel. In these last couple of minutes, what are the closing words you’d like families to take away and remember?

[00:22:11] Ashton: I’m just really thankful to partner with amazing families. I just want to leave with encouragement because it’s hard. Kids don’t always listen to what you have to say. There’s so much that you have to teach and it’s busy. I just want to leave with a word of encouragement, like you’re doing the right things. Me and my team and our curriculum is here to back you up, to help you impact your kids and make your life easier. I would just leave you with keep it simple. Keep it, keep it, keep it simple. That is what I would leave you with.

[00:22:47] Gretchen: Wonderful. I want to thank you for joining me today. I’m so glad that we found each other. This was a terrific investment of time. I will be recommending this conversation to families throughout our conference season this year because I think you have a message that parents really need to hear. To have someone come alongside you to say the same things you might say as a parent, but without a parent’s voice is sometimes really helpful.

Thank you so much, Ashton. I really appreciate the time we got to spend together today. One more time, tell us the website so we can find it.

[00:23:21] Ashton: Yes, formeducation.org, F-O-R-M-education.org

[00:23:27] Gretchen: Of course, we’ll include that in the show notes as well. Thanks so much for joining me today. To our audience, thank you for inviting us into your living room. It has been a terrific day to spend time with you all. Take care. Thanks so much for joining us. Bye-bye.

[00:23:42] Announcer: Thanks again for joining us. We’re glad to be a part of your educational community. You can help us grow our community even more by rating, reviewing, and subscribing to the show wherever you may be hearing this. Don’t forget that you can access the show notes and watch a recording at demeelearning.com/show or on our YouTube channel. We’ll see you again next time. Until then, keep building strong foundations for lifelong learning.

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