01: Act One

Andrew decides to hike over 200 miles through the Sierra Nevada Mountains as a catalyst for better health. Looking at his career for inspiration, Andrew finds an unlikely revelation by thinking of his life as a story.

Trail Weight is produced and written by Andrew Steven. Our Story Producer is Monte Montepare. Executive produced by Jeff Umbro and The Podglomerate.

To learn more about Jamie Flam and Dynasty Typewriter, visit dynastytyewriter.com.

Check out Monte Montepare's Moth performances at themoth.org/storytellers/monte-montepare, and if you're looking for a guide service in Alaska, visit kennicottguides.com.

Transcript

Note: Transcripts have been generated with automated software and may contain errors.

Andrew: This is a podcast about a year of my life, starting at the end of 2018 when I tricked myself into losing weight by telling everyone I was going to backpack over 200 miles through the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the heart of California. I had never been backpacking in my life—though I had been camping most of it. And also, for most of my life, I struggled with my relationship between diet and exercise. I weighed almost 400 pounds and needed a change. 

[Nature SFX]

Andrew: Yes, in this podcast, there will be tales of breathless heights and pine-soaked air, granite monoliths and flowing rivers. But that’s only part of the story. 

And, before we get there, allow me this digression…

Human life is a lot like a movie. I know what you’re thinking: no, it’s not. Movies are nothing like real life. They’re condensed and constructed, heightened, unrealistic, and packaged into a convenient little story. Life is definitely not convenient. 

But when you start to look closer, most of our lives follow the same sort of three-act structures as movies and stories. First, we’re born, immediately arriving in an unfamiliar situation where our only purpose seems to be exploring our surroundings and figuring out where we sit in the world. Next, we struggle and endeavor and drudge our way through. We grow, and we change, and we learn, and we grow tired. Towards the end, we slow down; we reflect. We didn't know what we were doing, but we went ahead anyway. And yet here we are, looking back, realizing perhaps it wasn’t about what we did, but that we did. Life, like a movie, is all about change and growth. That’s why we care and invest in these characters’ stories, because it mirrors the transformations we have in our lives. We feel what Luke Skywalker feels when Darth Vader tells him, “I am your father,” because we’ve all experienced our own—less intergalactic—family issues. Change is unavoidable and uncomfortable but is necessary for growth. A story is only possible, and life is only meaningful because of change and growth.

This story I’m about to tell you isn't any different. This story is true and about something that happened that changed my life forever. It’s a story about a long walk, a difficult journey, and transformation. 

[Theme music]

Andrew: This is “Trail Weight,” a podcast about hiking outdoors and the lessons learned along the way. 

I should probably start by telling you a little bit about who I am. My name is Andrew Steven, and I like to say, “I make good things with good people.” Usually, it's in the form of some sort of show or podcast or live-event, sometimes in front of quote-unquote “camera,” and sometimes I work behind the scenes. Chances are this is our first time meeting, but there's a small chance you may have heard me on another podcast; that’s sort of my job. When I'm not working on one of these shows, I can often be found hiking or camping (though not as often as I’d like), so making a show about a hike seemed inevitable.

Take what you will from that introduction, but I'm hoping these descriptions will help you know a little about who I am and help you see where I was at the beginning of this story.

[Phone Ring]

Andrew: I decided to call my friend Jamie Flam to see how he might describe me to a stranger or introduce me to someone for the first time. He runs a theater called Dynasty Typewriter at The Hayworth, and we're friends, and we've worked together, so our relationship has an interesting dynamic, and he might see me differently than other people.

Andrew: [Fades in] Uh, how you might describe me to a stranger? How would you introduce me to someone who's maybe meeting me for the first time [laughs], to put you on the spot?

Jamie Flam: Okay. I would say that I'm struck by your-- your vision and perception of the world around you, and you’re able to see things through a lens of storytelling. And so you always have this creative enthusiasm, and everything that is occurring around you as this opportunity to be weaved into a story that you can tell others. Boom. Take it. [Laughs]

Andrew: [Laughs] [Fades out]

Andrew: Jamie's just the best; I mean, he's an amazing creative artist in his own right, but there was one more question I wanted to know about how people saw me.

Andrew: [Fades in] Would you-- would you describe me as like a-- an athlete or a sports type person?

Jamie Flam: I would say, “whatever the opposite is of that.” [Laughs]

Andrew: [Laughs]

Andrew: That’s another thing you should probably know about me. I've been “big” most of my life. I remember being called “fat” for the first time in Jr. High. I stopped taking my shirt off to go swimming. Growing up in Southern California, I was invited to many beach parties, so I looked for any excuse not to go or arrive later, once the swimming had stopped and the bonfire and s’mores started. My mom taught WeightWatchers, and my dad played football in the Cotton Bowl. My brothers followed in form, and sports were an essential part of their lives. I just wanted to draw and make things out of lego… and eat. And my family didn’t know what to do with that. I grew to a height of 6-foot something pretty early, and for most of my teens, I felt “big”, but I don’t remember how much of that was about my height or my weight. My parents were concerned throughout Jr. High and High School, and I’d try different diet plans and organized sports to little effect. Eventually, it transitioned from my parent’s concern to my own, and I tried and failed a dozen other things. 

For High School me, it was mostly an aesthetic motivation; I was a young adult who was experiencing shame for the first time and thought looking a certain way would fix that.

Fast-forward to 2018, I had just turned 32 and I reached the highest weight my scale had ever seen, just a few pounds shy of 400.

Andrew: I broke down today. Um, and after dinner, I went and drove through McDonald's. [Fades out]

Andrew: My health was in decline, and I needed to make a significant change. I didn’t just need a new diet; I needed help. So I told someone…

Rocky: All right, oh, you're recording

Andrew: Yeah. Um, who are you? What's your name?

Rocky: Hi, I'm Rocky Strobel.

Andrew: And who are you to me? 

Rocky: I am your girlfriend. [Fades out]

Andrew: Rocky and I had been together for five years at this point, and we met in the forest. No, really, it’s true, and we’ll get more into that story later. Still, we were living in Los Angeles, both pursuing careers in the entertainment industry, each with our own specific goals, but similar enough that we could relate to each other’s struggles and triumphs.

Andrew: [Fades in] I should say. It's the morning. So if we sound tired, that's why.

Rocky: Right.

Andrew: Um, so you don't know why I am recording.

Rocky: I have no idea, and I'm nervous. [Laughs]

Andrew: I told you about this podcast idea, but I didn't tell you the details.

Rocky: No.

Andrew: Um, so--

Rocky: Is this a breakup? [Laughs] 

Andrew: No. [Laughs]

Rocky: Oh my god, what is this? 

Andrew: So one year from now-- 

Rocky: [Laughs]

Andrew: What? [Laughs]

Rocky: [Laughs] One year from now, what?

Andrew: Um, I'm going to hike the John Muir Trail.

Rocky: What?

Andrew: I'm going to spend the whole year getting in shape and getting ready for it.

Rocky: Am I going to go with you?

Andrew: Do you want to come?

Rocky: Yes. [Laughs]

Andrew: [Laughs] That’s what I was going to ask.

Rocky: Wait, what? 

Andrew: Yeah, so I'm going to chronicle the whole, the whole journey of getting in shape, talking with experts to-- to teach me how to do it and then actually recording… [Fades out]

Andrew: A quick note about this hike: We get into the history of the trail and the problematic aspects of its namesake in future episodes, but from here on, we’re no longer choosing to use that trail’s full name. We will occasionally use its initials, JMT, but more commonly, we’ll refer to it simply as the “hike” or the “trail.”

Today, this trail spans 211 miles between Mount Whitney and Yosemite, stretching through some of the most beautiful scenery in all of the United States. Most of the route takes place above 10,000 feet of elevation. The trail takes you past thousands of ice-blue lakes, smooth granite cliffs, 5,000 foot deep canyons carved by glacier and river, and into solitude—at times, days away from the nearest road. For most, their thru-hike lasts just under a month, and this trek, we decided, would be our first ever backpacking adventure. 

Like Cheryl Strayed or Jack London, we had our “call of the wild,” but unlike those two, we weren’t running from something; at least we didn’t think we were. We were instead creating our very own adventure.

Rocky: Oh my gosh, that's so-- that's so cool.

Andrew: I mean, hopefully. Maybe no one will ever hear this [laughs], and we'll never do it. [Laughs]

Rocky: Nobody will ever hear it. That's nice, though. So if you just fall back on your word, you can just erase your word.

Andrew: Yeah.

Rocky: No one will know. [Laughs] [Fades out]

Andrew: There's this concept in fiction and storytelling called an “inciting incident.” It's the part of a story when the protagonist is forced into the action; it’s the place where they can't turn back because they've somehow committed—on purpose or by some other force—to move the story forward. If you’re playing poker, they call it being pot committed; when a player has already invested so much money, it doesn't make sense to fold their cards. While this is a useful storytelling device, it can also be a way to trick yourself into doing something you've struggled to accomplish. Just imagine a scene where a character faces a seemingly insurmountable obstacle in front of them. Maybe a fence or a wall that goes on forever in all directions, and it seems just too tall to climb over. Does our protagonist give up? No. They throw their hat over the fence. Now they're committed. If you want to get your hat back, you have to find a way over. 

Monte Montepare: When you say that, it just reminds me of a-- Sometimes you'll throw boots across the river first. And it's like, we're crossing the river now. That's where my boots are. [Laughs]

Andrew: This is my friend Monte Montepare. 

Andrew: How do you want to be known? Are you a writer/comedian?

Monte Montepare: Oh man, that's like-- That’s like the crux question of my life, Andrew. 

Andrew: [Laughs]

Monte Montepare: I like storyteller/comedian or comedian/storyteller.

Andrew: Okay.

Monte Montepare: I think at this point I feel pretty good owning.

Andrew: I wanted to get Monte’s take on a few things; for one, he’s a fantastic storyteller.

Andrew: Like I know-- like what are your-- You’ve done stuff with The Moth,

Monte Montepare: Yeah, I've been-- I've told stories at The Moth StorySLAMSs and uh, won a Moth GrandSLAM, and then got to tour around the country telling a couple stories for The Moth Mainstage. 

Andrew: And he’s also spent a lot of time in the outdoors.

Monte Montepare: I grew up in Breckenridge, Colorado, which is a ski town. And my parents moved here in the 70s to live in the mountains. And their-- like all of our family vacations were going camping and going to national parks, and that was the norm.

Skiing was actually this thing you had to do two days a week growing up. And I was like, "I don't want to go skiing every weekend."

Andrew: What do you mean you had to?

Monte Montepare: It was like, Saturday and Sunday in Breckenridge, you were just on the ski team. Like, that's what everybody did. To the point where I was like, "I'm cold, can I not go skiing on Saturday?" [Laughs]

So, I had in my mind all these Jack Kerouac books, “Desolation Angels” and “Dharma Bums,” and-- and it did, even at the time, feel like this sort of romantic, Jack London idea to move into the truck and drive to Alaska. I wanted an adventure. Uh, and we did-- we moved into my truck. Like we built out the back of my truck and me and my best friend moved into it. 

One thing led to another; I lived there for ten years, ended up buying a guide service, getting married, getting divorced. I lived a whole life in McCarthy, Alaska, between 20 and 30. 

Andrew: As someone who's, you know, embarking on this project to tell my story, um, is there like a piece of advice may be that, uh, is like a good guiding principle when telling a story that you found to be true? 

Monte Montepare: Yeah, I think-- Well, the thing that comes to mind specifically about stories about outdoor adventures, which a lot of my stories do end up being about these outdoor-- a wild thing that happened in the outdoors-- and there's the action of those stories, a lot of time is-- you know, you tried to climb a mountain, some scary things happened. You either did, or you didn't climb the mountain, and then you came back down. 

Andrew: Yeah, like the literal things that are happening.

Monte Montepare: And a lot of times, that's where adventure stories will stop, you know. Or when people are casually exchanging stories, it's usually the external stuff. And then what I've found is challenging and then also really what's rewarding and brings people in, is when you can marry it with the emotional journey that was happening behind the scenes. 

Andrew: Thanks to Monte, I saw that focusing solely on the quote-unquote “story,” I might be missing out on more profound truths. Using the inciting incident as a lifehack might help motivate me into getting in better shape, but I needed to remember that this was only the first part of the story, and there was still much more to come.

[BREAK]

Andrew: This wasn't the first time I had tried something like this. It was about five years earlier when I started looking at my health (or lack of it) and attempting to make a lasting change. Which led me to spend a considerable amount of time and money tracking every mile I walked, every meal I ate, and every time (almost daily) that I stepped on my scale. 

The plethora of fitness trackers and apps all promised the path to better health, and I tried them all with varying degrees of success. Maybe it was the infamously prescribed 10,000 steps, but I started walking everywhere as much as I could. I was 27 years old, and I had just moved to Seattle, without a job or a place to live, and without a real plan for either. Eventually, luckily, I found both, but running out of gas was a regular occurrence, and money was still tight. So walking was a fitness solution as well as a financial solution. 

First, I walked within a few miles of where I lived, but eventually, the radius grew, and I started to wonder, how far can I walk today? Sidenote: this is also a great way to explore a new city. It's incredible how much more you can discover when you slow down, ignore your GPS, and get lost in your town.

I ended up losing about 60 pounds that year—which I know is a lot for most people—and I got in the best shape I'd ever been in for as long as I could remember. But life happens. You lose a job, you move back to your hometown, you break a habit, and before you know it, you're back to where you started, and the scale keeps showing you a bigger and bigger number. I didn't even know the scale could go up that high. I replaced the batteries multiple times because I thought for sure it was giving me an inaccurate reading. Really? Still the same number? Is the LED screen somehow getting brighter? Like it's taunting me, laughing at me. No? It's just one of my insecurities. Okay...

But this is how I found myself five years later, a few months after turning 32, heavier than I'd ever been before. But this time would be different, I told myself. I'd put my inciting incident into place. I threw my hat over the fence.

Rocky: [Fades in] Anyways, going to hike the trail.

Andrew: You going to do with me?

Rocky: I want to, yeah.

Andrew: You gonna get in shape too?

Rocky: Yeah.

Andrew: You're already-- you're mostly there.

Rocky: I mean, yeah, I could probably get stronger. I'll do some pushups. That's-- check-in with me-- uh, I'll do-- I'll do five pushups a day and then work my way towards ten.

Andrew: I don't think she's gonna do that.

Rocky: I have-- the longest I've done that was like a week, and man, my arms sore… [Laughs] [Fades out]

Andrew: Rocky ran cross-country in high school, and while she hadn’t raced since then, I was convinced she could pick up and run a marathon if she had to. (Why someone would suddenly have to run a marathon is another question, but if that hypothetical scenario were to happen, she could do it). Me on the other hand, I got out of breath just thinking about a marathon. The difference between our levels of fitness was less about the fact that I was three-times her size; it was that when we’d go on a day hike, something we both loved to do, I felt like I was slowing Rocky down. I was tired of feeling that way. 

When I was in High School, I wanted to lose weight to look a certain way. This time around, I wanted to feel healthy. Yes, of course, I still was motivated by looks, I still have an ego (I am making a podcast about all this), but I wanted to stop making decisions based on what I thought I could or couldn’t do. I wanted to know if it was even possible, if I could even do it.

I didn’t want to fail. I had to try something. So, continuing with my literary lifehack, I started telling friends and family about my plan to train for a year in preparation for this hike. 

This wasn’t the first big trip they had heard me talk about. A couple of years before, Rocky and I drove from Los Angeles to Glacier National Park and camped the whole way there. My parents loved hearing our plans, wishing they too could one day do their version of this trip. We even talked about maybe meeting up for one leg of the journey, but my mom got sick that year while we were planning. Her long treatment schedule and chemotherapy were the same month as our trip, but she loved seeing the photos and hearing our stories, especially during this time.

When we told my parents about our new big adventure, they were excited for us, even though it was another trip they couldn’t join us on. Rocky’s dad wanted to hike out to one of our backcountry campsites and bring us fresh food. My dad thought about meeting us in Yosemite and hiking the last day together, but my mom had recently been diagnosed again, and we didn’t know what her treatment plan would look like.

My family was excited to hear about my progress, and my plan was working. I continued to tell anyone who would listen that “in one year, I would take a month off and hike through the Sierra Nevada Mountains.”

Dopetown 3000: [Fades in] Give it up for a man with two first names, Andrew Steven.

Andrew: Here I am as a guest on a podcast doing just that.

Andrew: [Fades in] Last year in July, I decided that I was gonna hike through the Sierra Nevadas. [Fades out]

Andrew: I started keeping notes about my journey, and since I make podcasts, I began recording memos into my phone with the thought that maybe this could turn into some sort of show—you know, the podcast you're listening to right now.

I also pitched the show to some producers and companies who were interested in helping fund the trip. If I didn't go through with it, I'd have more than just friends and family upset with me. I'd break critical professional relationships I'd spent years developing. Listen, generally, I'm not a big fan of shame, but let me tell you, sort of forcing my hand genuinely helped me stay motivated.

Dopetown 3000: [Fades in] The good thing about our podcast is we stay on point. Yeah. That's the great thing about our podcast. We stay on the trail. We don't follow-- I'm just going to leave it there. You're so right. That's the way to get back into this. [Fades out]

Andrew: By the way, this podcast is called “Dopetown 3000.” On the show, they invite guests to share a story, which they then turn into an improvised rap. Here's a small taste of the song my story inspired.

Dopetown 3000: [Fades in] Hiking shoes one and then other / packing light snacks in what would be called an ergonomic backpack / because I'm going to be out there for weeks / So man, I'm just getting on the internet, what do they speak? / What do they recommend? Come through like a blur / I the ghost of John Muir / I come through, I'm so tall, I'm so weird / and I'm an old, old man and I have a long beard. [Fades out]

Andrew: Seeing this journey as an unfolding story was continuing to inspire me. I got a gym membership. And then I started walking to the gym. I bought a Blender Bottle. I never thought I’d be someone who owned a Blender Bottle. Was I the type of character who owns a Blender Bottle? Apparently. I was watching the story unfold in real-time. What lay around the corner? I needed to learn more about story structure so I could know what happens next.

Dan Harmon: [Fades in] There's a lot of screenwriting books and TV writing books, but they all kind of like-- they all kind of go back to Joseph Campbell in one way or another.

Andrew: This is Dan Harmon.

Dan Harmon: My name is Dan Harmon.

 Andrew: He’s the writer and creator of the show “Community” and co-creator of “Rick and Morty,” and involved with many other movies and TV shows you probably know. And Joseph Campbell is-- well, if you’ve ever studied story or literature, Joseph Campbell popularised “the hero's journey,” the structure that a lot of stories follow, from “The Odyssey” to “Star Wars” to almost everything you’ve ever read or watched.

Dan Harmon: [Fades in] Joseph Campbell's “Hero With a Thousand Faces” -- it wasn't a screenwriting book. It was just a book about a guy who grew up a boy scout and a Catholic who was really passionate about these Native American stories who started noticing similarities between parables about Christ and, like, these Native American folk tales... [Fades out]

Andrew: And as you can hear, Dan Harmon also knows a lot about storytelling—just google his name.

Dan Harmon: [Fades in] ...and scroll past the Chevy Chase stuff, and... [Fades out]

Andrew: Some of the top results have to do with his distillation of Joseph Cambel’s theories, which he calls the “story circle.”

Dan Harmon: [Fades in] ...no, go ahead, click on that too.

I, I-- I became obsessed with the Joseph Campbell stuff, and his book is-- “The Hero With a Thousand Faces,” it's very dense, it's very academic, uh, pros, you know? And so I just sort of became, just to help myself, I just started, like, codifying the-- what Campbell was saying, like-- And I'm also just obsessed with like simplicity. Like, I think everything has to be kind of symmetrical and simple if it's actually true.

In the most basic terms that I can think of. When is something just information, and when does that become, um, a story? What does that mean, a story? And, uh, as far as I was able to boil it down, it's, you know, “something that you relate to” is almost too fine a point to put on it-- but something that you-- you are a character, if you will, um, you know-- has, uh, an incompletion of some kind, like a problem or a, or a wish or a, you know, there's something wrong, um, something off-balance. And therefore, that thing is thrust into new circumstances that it, uh, has to adapt to.

Andrew: And this something off-balance is what leads right into a character’s inciting incident.

Dan Harmon: A story could be you're sitting in your car, you know, and you go and get ice cream and come back. It's not a good story. I don't think, like, I don't think I'd go see it. But if you just say I'm eating ice cream, that's not a story. Like if I'm on the phone with you, but if you say I was just eating ice cream and I left my keys in the place, so I had to go back and I, I looked all over and I found-- I found him in the last place I looked, and now I came back here. So anyways, I'll be right over at that meeting. That's a story.

Andrew: I think for most of my life, I’ve just been eating ice cream. And, well, maybe in my case, this is literal, but metaphorically I’ve been eating ice cream too.

For what it’s worth, throwing your hat over a fence isn’t a very good story either.

I had incited my incident—what Joseph Cambell literally labeled "the call to adventure." In a story, maybe you wake up with a new perspective, or you’ve lost everything, and you have to get it all back. In my case, perhaps too many people heard you say you wanted to do something, and the guilt of not living up to your goal is too intense. Whatever the reason is, the rules of the story say you can't go back. You know too much. Everything is different now. Everything has changed.

The thing is, when you talk about hiking, you are actually talking about change. Not change you necessarily notice at the moment, but change you see when you look backward or when you consult a watch or a map. The change that happens when you hike, like the change that occurs during life, takes time. It's slow and incremental and only noticeable when you take a moment to reflect, to look back, and consider everything that's different now.

Andrew: Today is December 22nd. It's Saturday, and um-- and I'm walking from my apartment in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, all the way to the Santa Monica Pier. Which is about 15 miles. And I'm just over-- let's see how far I've gone. I've done 8.2 miles so far, and I'm starting to get a little tired.

Andrew: Hiking is essentially walking, and walking is not very exciting. It’s obviously much slower than running, and hiking is walking on dirt and over mountains, which can make it even slower than a stroll on the sidewalk to the corner coffee shop.

So to grow and become a better hiker, it requires a lot of checking in with yourself—and I do mean yourself, not anyone else—because who wants to hear about the slow, small, marginal signs of progress in walking? You know, that thing most of us do every day. Most people who walk, walk out of necessity, not sport. (Then again, there is that whole speed walking thing, which is just weird.)

We don't talk about hiking or walking the same way we talk about baseball or football or most other sports. As far as I know, people aren't making multi-million dollar shoe deals and selling sports drinks because of their ability to walk long distances. Even runners have marathons and the Olympics. Plus, it's been my experience that the incremental gains found by hiking far are so remarkably tiny that a highlight is walking a few seconds faster or a few feet further. And progress can feel so insignificant when compared to the other mainstream athletics. Kids aren't pretending to be [insert famous walker here]. They're pretending to be LeBron James, and if you need proof, I couldn't even think of a famous walker to use in this analogy.

Andrew: It is Wednesday, October 3rd, 2018, and I am in the car driving to the gym. I've lost about 30 pounds.

Andrew: It's November 28th, must keep going.

Andrew: Today is February 21st, 2019, and I weighed in at 342-point-something pounds. Which is kind of a big deal because it's the lowest weight I've been in at least five years.

Andrew: To become a better walker, you have to check in with yourself frequently. Yes, hiking clubs and other groups of like-minded people share tips and tricks and encourage one another, but I found my journal and my voice memo app were where I spent most of my post-walk time. The fitness apps and trackers, the self-reflection, and the podcast check-ins all added up to create a weird shame-spiral I didn’t see coming. 

I grew up in an evangelical Christian household, and I was somehow trained to misinterpret the sort of self-evaluation—I now call self-help or self-love—as selfishness. I was never sat down and taught this directly by a teacher or a family member, but it was there. Even today, I can kind of wrap my head around the balancing act between being too self-involved to achieve self-improvement… but I even hesitate to say that because, well, old habits die hard, and it’s still something with which I’m wrestling. 

For what it’s worth, I first thought about the similarities (and differences) between life and stories when I was younger and more involved with the evangelical world. I read Don Miller’s book, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years,” and while he’s moved on to other work, at the time, he was a bit of an outlier in the evangelical world. I’m not sure how he would have identified himself, but I remember this book specifically was sometimes sold with a disclaimer at certain Christian book stores because he talked about drinking wine… That wasn’t the point of the book, he had written a popular memoir about his life that was being turned into a movie, and he saw how some of the same principles that applied to screenwriting also applied to his life. 

I’ve revisited Don’s book a few times and I always walk away learning something. I think my evangelical upbringing is a lot like that too. It affects me in a lot of ways, sometimes positively, and, like this situation, sometimes unhealthily. But it is part of my life and it is part of my story and I try to learn from it what I can.

And this was only one part of the shame-tornado. I was out of shape, working in an industry that famously doesn’t judge you on your physical appearance. I had tried and failed many times before to lose weight. And now, moving forward with more momentum than I’d seemingly ever had before, I felt like I might be using unhealthy methods to get healthy, and that somehow any lack of progress was because of a lack of will-power, while at the same time, if I wanted it too badly, that was also bad.

Everything was leading me to a story we've all heard before: a guy at a crossroads in his life decides to make a series of changes, eventually transforming into a new, better-improved self…

But that wouldn't be the whole story. This is a story of transformation, just a different type.

[BREAK]

Andrew: Spending time in nature wasn’t just necessary for my physical training; it was also working on my mental and emotional health at the same time.

Monte Montepare: Not to get too hippy-dippy with you, but, for me, living things in the outdoors has put lessons into my body.

Andrew: Here’s Monte again.

Monte Montepare: Like, it really-- you feel them. You feel these things. And the metaphors of a cloudy sky, or a stormy day, or a cold river, have this meaning in your body that is really deep. And I think you do really have those feelings of like this-- this tingly-- this is where I'm supposed to be, I am walking in my path right now... You feel those lessons when you're presented with the situations and you're like, I know what this feels like from that mountain.

Andrew: I felt more ready than I’d ever felt before. Looking at my life and circumstances through the lens and construct of a story was my secret to success.

Andrew: As someone who is creative, who is a storyteller, who-- who has like this eye for, like, what makes a good story, do you ever find yourself making decisions based on what would make a good story?

Monte Montepare: Man, I feel like I've been thinking about this more after I took writing stories seriously. It's not a question that I used to ask, like, is this going to be a better story? I will find that sometimes being like, well, usually the more interesting choice in life a lot of times is the better story. And you can kind of feel that instinct of like, am I going to do the same thing I always do or am I going to open it up to the potential of something else happening? I don't think it's a really driving force in my decision-making. I think I probably was prone to that to begin with now that I think about it, that thing of like [laughs] what's around the corner. 

I think the thing is, is-- looking back sometimes I do realize, or even when you're living it-- when things seem to be playing out like theater or like a movie or like a script, and I think that it does go both ways that life does work like theater sometimes. That's why theater feels like life, you know? There is a reason that those things mirror each other. And then I do think that we're constantly—especially if you are somebody that's trying to look for stories—we're constantly to like place those pieces while we're living them, you know? Oh, how does this fit in? We're always kind of trying to tell, like, what the story of that moment is. So I think actually what I've-- what I've been trying to do more is, not tell or guess what the story is when I feel that feeling of like, oh, I'm in a story right now. That, a lot of times, especially with personal stories, you don't know what the story is until you have a little bit of distance from it. But you still have that awareness of like, this is a scene. [Laughs] [Fades Out]

Andrew: Of course, I knew where I was in the story. This whole “inciting incident” was sort-of my thing. It was an easy way to push the story forward. Only this isn’t a story about getting in shape; it’s a story about change. It’s a story about transformation. It’s a story about loss.

My mom’s cancer got worse, and everything got more complicated. I didn’t know this story would contain hospital beds and wheelchairs. I naively didn’t realize the story would continue past this moment. I couldn’t control what would happen next. My mom went from one hospice to the next, eventually coming back home. Her condition worsened, and we grappled with acceptance. And after a regular, hard day, I woke up to a voicemail from my Dad.

Before he said anything, I knew from the silent crackle and hiss of the voicemail pause that my mom had passed away.

[Teaser]

[Credits]