How Fitness Saved A Life | Bulletproof Radio [LISTEN]

In this episode of Bulletproof Radio my guest shares an inspiring life story about addiction, adversity and resilience.

How Fitness Saved A Life

Doug Bopst is an award-winning personal trainer, author, speaker and host of the Adversity Advantage podcast. His journey traverses a difficult childhood, an addiction spiral and time in jail.He credits a judge, a cell mate, and unexpectedly finding faith with 12 years of sobriety and his ability to help others change and reclaim their own lives.

His transformation started with fitness in jail to help him recover from drug addiction. Exercise changed his body, his state of mind and his ability to continuously show up for himself.

“I was finally able to get comfortable being uncomfortable,” Doug says. “I was finally able to face my fears and face my emotions, really, head on, and learn to channel a lot of that pain into something good.”

Post-jail time, he found new ways to manage his emotions. Where before he would have used drugs to respond to negative thoughts and feelings, he began relying on exercise, which built up his self-confidence.

“When I was working out, it wasn't necessarily as much to get in shape as it was for me to relearn how to deal with my emotions in a way that was conducive to who I wanted to become,” Doug says.

Doug also shares how his self-support system developed over time, and the importance of a fully healthy lifestyle, not just a good fitness routine. For him, feeling good isn’t just about exercise, but a network of family, faith, therapy, meditation and eating right.

He encourages the people that he trains to find their own version of a full, healthy life. No one thing can be a solution, but instead, it’s all a part of the journey of self-forgiveness, healing and finding the things that feel good for you.

“A lot of this stuff that I've been doing is simply to help people, give people hope, whether that's somebody who's struggling with addiction, whether that's a parent, whether that's somebody who's just struggling to feel better about themselves,” Doug says. “That's my main mission right now.”

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