My guest Gary Knight believes that you must walk the walk not just talk the talk, so when his football career ended due to injury he embarked on a journey to become not just a great footy coach, but someone who now coaches others to live the fullest, happiest and healthiest life they can. Gary explains how his research and his own health scares in middle age have given him a genuine passion to help others find a way to overcome their less healthy habits and become the best version of themselves, no matter what their age or background.
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My guest Gary Knight believes that you must walk the walk not just talk the talk, so when his football career ended due to injury he embarked on a journey to become not just a great footy coach, but someone who now coaches others to live the fullest, happiest and healthiest life they can. Gary explains how his research and his own health scares in middle age have given him a genuine passion to help others find a way to overcome their less healthy habits and become the best version of themselves, no matter what their age or background.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, InTune, Deezer and many other podcast players.
Follow The What's for Dinner Show
Instagram @the_whats_for_dinner_show
Facebook @whatsfordinnershow
Hello, and welcome to the What's for Dinner Show. My name is Lynne and my aim along with my guests is to explore how our food experiences have influenced our lives as well as our waistlines. After his football career ended due to a serious injury, my guest, Gary Knight, embarked on a journey of personal development that embraced all aspects of his attitude to life and his well being. Now, he combines a career in sport with being a strategic life coach who focuses on supporting others to find a happier, healthier lifestyle. Welcome to the show, Gary. Before we started this interview, I asked you to tell me a little bit about your hobbies and interests. I mean, I was sort of amazed and also loved the fact that you listed personal development as a hobby, I think that's quite an inspiring thing to do. Perhaps you could sort of tell me a bit about why you think it's important that we spend time on ourselves in the same way that we might spend time on, you know, golf for crochet, or fishing.
Gary Knight:Once I'd had a bad injury at football in my football career, I had to go into coaching because I was told I would never play again and had to have the leg reconstructed. So for me, that was a bit of a wake up call. And so I started to look at mentors, people that were doing what I wanted to do. And so I really started to focus. And focus is a really good word, I really started to focus on personal development, honing and polishing my craft when it comes to coaching. So instead of just focusing on football coaching, I wanted to look at people that were in the life coaching industry, or in business coaching, and things like that, and just trying to glean from all those different types of characters, what helped them be the best version of themselves and just studied that really. I became really intentional about bringing that into my life. And once I did, that, it's amazing how the universe or whatever you want to call it, creates a better life for yourself in inverted commas, when actually it's just you taking time to focus on you. And I felt that was a good way to spend my time.
Lynne O'Halloran:Is it something to do with, you know, the whole thing of how you react to things?
Gary Knight:Yes, exactly that because obviously, you know, we grow up, and we're all different, we're all unique, but sometimes, you know, groups of people can be labeled, and maybe I came from one of those groups of people, I came from a council house background, I came from a home, that unfortunately, it was domestic abuse, I got stabbed when I was younger, trying to help other people on the council estate. The influence of the people around you and the influence of the environment can sometimes lay your life before you. I was one of the top scorers in the southwest, scoring goals for fun, quite an angry little footballer. There's not me, really. But on the pitch is where all my aggression, pent up energy and stuff from my childhood came out and frustrations came out and you channeled it into your sport. Unless you wake up and say to yourself, you know what, I don't really want to go down that path, I think there's something better for me, I think there's something better inside me. And it was just about trying to find the answers to that and find myself I guess a little bit the real me, and then show the world the best version of me. So if I'm going to be a coach, if I'm not practicing it, I can't be a coach or an effective coach in my view.
Lynne O'Halloran:And it's interesting that you sort of started from the perspective of being a football coach, which, you know, sometimes can be very much focused or at least a very narrow focus on, you know, winning, on technical skill, but actually, you know, to be a success in any field of life, it takes more than just that narrow focus, doesn't it? What do you do on a sort of day to day basis to
Gary Knight:Yeah. For me, even when I was football coaching, you know, the the boys or the girls that shone out with their skill sets quite glaringly, in front of you, was great to see. However, it was the boy or the girl that was in the corner of work on your own personal development, We're all human beings. So we we fall off the the pitch working away at their skill. They weren't quite as good as the others. They didn't have that natural talent. But I would always take somebody that has a little bit of skill but has a fantastic attitude and wants to learn over somebody that has all this skill under the sun and maybe has ego on their shoulder, doesn't have a great attitude. I would always try and help both, but that one that is really showing you, I want to learn it's me, they would really come to the forefront of my thinking. And it's the same when I work with other people, a coach hasn't got the answers. A coach has got some really good questions.They can show you the route map, but you have to be the one to implement it. wagon from time to time and life gets ahold of you from time to time. But intentionally, and that's a key word. And I use that word a lot! I always endeavor to wake up with gratitude. Because if I've woken up, I might as well be grateful. Because if I haven't, I haven't got a problem. Anyway, that's the first step. I always have my eyes open. Thank you, thank you, I'm here, I have the opportunity to do good, I have the opportunity to be a nice person, those sorts of things. Practically, I have my goals that I would set at the end of each month, what do I need to do this month? How can I do it? Who do I need to speak to? Those sorts of things. I'm always reading a book, not just specifically personal development books, Simon Sinak or Tony Robbins...
Lynne O'Halloran:Somebody introduced me to Tony Robbins and I think it had a huge impact on the way I looked at myself and my life. I mean, he probably gets a lot of sort of bad press for one reason or another, you know, being a sort of fairly loud kind of American sort of character. I did one of his short free courses over a period of five days. And it really made a difference.
Gary Knight:on the planet that know nothing of him. But his principles and his strategies go way back to Milton Erickson, in the US who came up with human needs psychology, so I loved that so much that I enrolled, and went and studied in Santa Barbara in America at the Robbins Madana's Institute and qualified, my life coaching qualification is certified with those guys. So I spent three years studying that and putting that into practice. And it is fascinating that when you stop and look at yourself and start to analyze your belief mechanisms, and where do these thoughts come from and then you get a bit of a light bulb moment. It's amazing what you can go on and do I mean, the power is within you've just got to unleashe it sometimes and he does get a bad press because he's out there. He's American and all of those sorts of things but it's what he does and you can't not like what he does. I'm looking into right now the possibly training to be a Kinesiology just because I've been to see one and I'm feeling the benefits of what that person has done for me in terms of discovering a virus that I've been carrying.
Lynne O'Halloran:I don't know if you've been to see Andrew Pitman? In Taunton? Is that what he's called?
Gary Knight:Jonathan.
Lynne O'Halloran:Yeah Jonathan Pittman. Yeah, I saw him and it was I mean, like, just incredible. And my husband goes to him regularly, and swears by what he does. And I've been once and again, I was amazed at what he does. How does that work?
Gary Knight:Yeah, yeah, I mean, going to see Jonathan was eye opening, because I had pericarditis when I was 40. So that attacks the lining of the heart. It's a viral infection. But the doctors never told me what virus it was, it was just six months rest, and I literally couldn't move. And all those sorts of things. Jonathan did the investigation and found its Epstein Barr Virus, which is a really nasty little thing. The muscle testing and how he knows what's going on in there, I have no idea. But I'm gonna look into it.
Lynne O'Halloran:The other thing that I'm interested in, because I know you've said you've got some digestive issues, and I think you're allergic to dairy? So I mean, how does what you eat on a day to day basis sort of fit in with your philosophy of personal development? Is that something that you take seriously?
Gary Knight:Very seriously. And again, it's when your eyes are open to to things. Being open is really important, I think, because we can become closed of. With me, it was discovered I had a little bit of a scare around cancer. So I had some investigations inside. And it turns out that I've got pre-cancerous stuff and something called diverticulitis
Lynne O'Halloran:Isn't that sometimes brought on by a lack of fiber in the diet?
Gary Knight:They can say it's a lack of fiber. Yeah. Which I didn't quite understand when they told me I had that because I have quite a good healthy, I thought fibrous diet. But as it turns out, your cells need to absorb the fiber by breaking it down so when you eat something it needs to to that, but if it's got seeds, it can't break it down so its seeded things I've got to be careful with because I was having seeded bread, but actually, I should stay away from bread and stay away from seeds. So it was things like that. So you get your fiber from plant sources rather than what we traditionally know as those sorts of things. A meal now is veggie loaded. Lots of color rainbows, colors. beetroots. Even, even if we're having hot food, I'll have beetroot in there. And the dairy certainly flares that up. So I stopped taking milk and went to lactose free, I still have milk in my drink. I have a cup of tea and a cup of coffee, but I cut right back on those sorts of things.
Lynne O'Halloran:So when did you find out that you were allergic to dairy products?
Gary Knight:Well, nobody's actually told me I'm allergic. However, I just bloated so much if I would have milk on my cereal, milk in my teas and coffees and things like that. And I just thought I'm going to cut that out and see what happens. And it was the same with bread. And even if it was wholemeal bread, really good quality bread, I would just bloat so it's bread and dairy they are the two things that would cause me to bloat up and then other problems would emerge. And since then, that it's all gone since I cut that out of my diet. And all that aggravation, obviously, in my gut has gone away. And just taking more care in the types of foods I'm eating, we've always been really good in preparing our own food pretty much. I suppose coming from a sporting background, it's always been reasonably healthy food. If I'm really on it and have a Sunday I'll prepare four days meals, and portioon them up. So it looks like you've got takeaway food, but we've made the food. So we've all got something to grab. But having a structured work life balance now, we share the cooking, but we always cook our meals from home and with fresh food, real food not processed. We've come away as much as possible from processed foods.
Lynne O'Halloran:I think cooking and preparing meals using color is an excellent way of just going about it really, I think if you can have different colors on on the plate and just focus on that. You're halfway there really, if not more than halfway.
Gary Knight:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Because people get caught up in that being healthy is boring. You can't eat what you want. But actually, if you make something with color and put flavor into it as well, it's a wonderful meal.
Lynne O'Halloran:So where did you learn to cook?
Gary Knight:Self taught. I don't cook anything flamboyant, I mean, but I will just make it up as I go along and hope it tastes nice. And if it does, then I'll do it again. And then that process repeats itself with different types of foods.
Lynne O'Halloran:So you're someone who can just open the fridge door and go, Okay, well, I'll just put that and that together and put a bit of this on it?
Gary Knight:Yeah, it's definitely resourcing what we've got in the house, especially if we haven't been for a shop, but we need to eat so I'll see what we've got. And I'll come up with something. We tend to now go and shop fresh foods every three days. So we've got lots of salad, lots of vegetables and things that we can cook with. We don't have a lot of meat, but we'll eat chicken, we'll eat turkey. Occasionally we'll make ourselves a little lasagna. Or very occasionally we'll go out for a meal and there might be a burger on the menu just as a treat. The Greyhound does a lovely one, a little plug for those guys, but yeah, so we always try to make sure that we have got the food that we need to prepare a meal and also having healthier snacks about as well. When you get in that little bit of a carb coma or sugar dip. You don't reach for the sugary stuff and the biscuits and all those sorts of things. I'm not saying don't have them but don't have too much of them.
Lynne O'Halloran:So what's your sort of go to healthy snack at the moment?
Gary Knight:So for me it would be just some humous and a cracker some like that. A handful of crackers and some humous dip and just have that because the cracker when you put it into your mouth, it starts out as a carbohydrate but turns into sugar as it dissolves. So you're getting that sort of sugary hit to your body, but it is a carbohydrate when it's going in and obviously humus is chickpeas so it's fairly healthy, there's a bit of fat in it obviously, but good fat.
Lynne O'Halloran:Do you not find that you could eat 20 of those and so it becomes slightly less healthy?
Gary Knight:You can fall into that trap but then there's needs to be a bit of self discipline! Not too much fruit because obviously the natural sugars are in there. You should always be going more vegetable if you can. And then if I'm having a cup of tea I'll have a biscuit.
Lynne O'Halloran:So what was what is your favorite sort of main meal to cook if you were, you know perhaps, if you're cooking at home on a Friday evening or something, something nice to eat,
Unknown:I would probably do a chicken breast dice it down, pop it in with some onions, garlic, loadit out with courgettes, peppers, mushrooms and just a stir fry dressing on that and maybe some coriander rice. Coriander is really good to get into your diet if you're not having it because it with the environmental stuff that's going on around us, it breaks down heavy metals. So even if you've been for an x ray, for two weeks, try and eat coriander, because that will break down the heavy metals that has been absorbed into your body. You know, the old phrase that you hear bandied around, we are what we eat, and our cells rely on what we're putting in to function properly as a structure. So it's fascinating. Yeah, gut health is so important, what's going on in our gut, it has such an influence on everything else that goes on in the body.
Lynne O'Halloran:Yeah, I mean, it's certainly a huge topic nowadays isn't it. It seems to be something that's really coming to the fore, both in terms of your sort of physical health and your mental health, it all begins in the gut. So it's kind of incredible, really, that it wasn't something that was sort of front and center before. Because obviously, you know, that's where it's all going, isn't it?
Gary Knight:That's right, yeah. And it's amazing how thin some of the structures in the gut are. And if they get damaged by the wrong types of food, things that should be staying in the gut are leaking into other areas of our structure and our body. And that's where damages can happen from an auto immune perspective, because it means that our immune system is almost destroying itself to try and repair what's going on there. Because that structure has been broken down by the wrong types of foods.
Lynne O'Halloran:Yes, I mean, I often think our relationship with food is very much to do with what we weigh, you know, and it sort of stops there almost. And it seems to be the only driver is in terms of, you know, what our physical weight is and what we look like, rather than all these other elements, which food plays an important role in so I think people need to, or we all need to, understand more about the multitude of effects that food have on us, not just on our on our waistlines as it were.
Gary Knight:But if we knew all of this from a younger age, maybe we wouldn't be so caught up in that societal thing about what we look like, and what we weigh and those sorts of things. Yeah, each body is different as well.
Lynne O'Halloran:Yeah, absolutely. Your body shape and how your body responds to food. It's a very individual thing, isn't it? Yeah, there's no sort of one size fits all really. Were you were packed lunch boy or a school dinner boy? Yes, that's something that you don't sort of see nowadays is i,
Gary Knight:We would go home. We walked home to mum if she was home but bless mum she was doing three jobs to try and look after us. She had a lot on her plate. I can remember foods like Shipphams paste, horrible crab paste, and a main meals would have been liver and bacon and things like that. Treats would have been going up to grandma and granddads, my granddad's stew with dumplings. I can almost taste it as I say it now. That was just such a wonderful treat. Ham egg and chips was a favorite because that's what granddad did for me before we went to football. And we would fight, just another memories jumped in there, we would fight over the cream off the top of the milk bottle in the mornings on the cornflakes, you had to take it in turns for that. having to kind of shake the milk bottle with your thumb on the tin foil so it didn't go all over the place! Was Sunday dinner, something that was important? Only for us, yeah, so the five of us, we would have it when mum could afford it. You know we didn't have a Sunday roast like it's available now. It was a treat to have a Sunday roast.
Lynne O'Halloran:So do you remember helping your mum in the kitchen at all to get things ready?
Unknown:Yeah, I can remember doing that. Bless her she would do the washing too late in the night as well and I'd stand in
the kitchen:Is anything I can do? So yeah, I was probably that little lad that just wanted to help his mom out.
Lynne O'Halloran:So did she let you use the chopping knife?
Gary Knight:No! I doubt she would let me use it now!
Lynne O'Halloran:So you played football professionally then, who was that for?
Gary Knight:I didn't quite make it as a pro. So I had my trials at Bristol City and was there for a very little while but I was an angry little kid, uncoachable probably so it didn't last very long and I came back. And so I played for Taunton, semi pro. So I got paid to play football and had a job as well. So it was good, it was good. And then I played for a team called Priorswood, which at the time, were probably the best senior club around which was just below Taunton. At 27 ! got a really bad knee injury. So that was the end of the football.
Lynne O'Halloran:And so was nutrition and diet something
Gary Knight:Not in the slightest I mean, I always say that was addressed when you were playing football, by the clubs or was it just not really something that will take to boys now that are involved in the game or looking to get involved in the game, if I'd had the opportunities that you have got in terms of the knowledge and the understanding of the body and the food, the drinks and hydration, I probably may have had a chance of making it because that might have been the extra 1%. The game has moved on. I mean, all sport in general has moved on, you know. So I'm talking 40 years ago now. The teams relied on you being naturally fit. And we did a lot of what I call doggy running, we were running all day at the training sessions. Now it's much more structured.
Lynne O'Halloran:And so you were burning off the excess calories from maybe a less than healthy diet that you might have had anyway, so it wasn't really an issue. So again, we're back to it being about the size that you are really, you know, you're not getting chubby as a player or whatever, then no one's really questioning what you're actually putting in.
Gary Knight:Right. Yeah.
Lynne O'Halloran:So when you work with young people now, I mean, do you think that they have a different approach and a different level of understanding about nutrition?
Gary Knight:Yes, yeah, and especially as they get, the higher they go up in the game, and even youngsters have a better understanding. But again, at the end of the day, it all boils down to the ones that pay the shopping bill, at the end of the day, what they can actually provide,
Lynne O'Halloran:I think it's becoming more and more recognized that it doesn't have to be an expensive process to eat healthy.
Gary Knight:Absolutely. And that's a very important statement, I think, the information and the education needs to go out there and get out there much better than it has done. That's the biggest thing people need to understand, it's not actually too much trouble to cook a meal from scratch, it's not that expensive. It just needs a bit of effort. And that's what we've come away from with the way our society is set up. It's fast paced, isn't it, we have to be doing this, we have to be doing that, sometimes you haven't even got time to consume your food because you've got to do something.
Lynne O'Halloran:Yeah, that is true. But then I think there's also a case for saying that, you know, there's so much that we can cook for ourselves, that is really super quick, quicker than driving down to the supermarket or walking to the local shop to buy, you know, a ready made pasty or whatever.
Gary Knight:It's a habit thing. And you know, it takes a little while to create a new habit and break an old habit and you fall into the trap of not giving it the time it needs. Certainly some of the clients I've worked with, that's been one of the drivers that's kept them on a journey that's not too good for them. So they just have to spend a bit of time on themselves and create the habit and have a go, just have a go at cooking yourself and and see oh, actually that didn't cost that much. That was actually quite good fun. And it tasted brilliant.
Lynne O'Halloran:Yeah. And probably it didn't take as long as you thought it would. It's a bit like any form of exercise, isn't it, you need to get it to the point where it is just a part of your day that you just do it and you don't even think about the fact that you could be spending that time doing something else.
Gary Knight:Exactly. I always say to people, are you prioritizing your schedule or scheduling your priorities?
Lynne O'Halloran:Just a quick chat with you about COVID, Because that's really how I got to know your your wife during COVID. She did an absolutely amazing job of supplying good fresh food to the local community. And I'm sure you must have played a part in that that process as well. I mean, how did that sort of come about?
Gary Knight:Okay, so as we all know COVID came out of nowhere, and how it affected us being locked down and the shops running out and what was the real driver right at the start
Lynne O'Halloran:What I noticed was it sort of went from I don't was in our little lane we've got some consultants and some doctors and they said that they were on late shift, went to the supermarket and couldn't get any fresh fruit and veg, it all gone. And so Rachel thought, right, okay... and fresh meat and things like that. Well, obviously from Rachel's background on the farm down in Cornwall, her brother still rears the beef and all of that sort of stuff. So she could source that and obviously our old friend has a fruit and veg business. So she literally does what Rachel does. She just started phoning and talking to people and saying, look, can you do this? And we've got a van which is my fitness van, obviously my fitness company and gyms were shut down. So I had nothing to do. And so we did that. And we put it out there more or less at cost. It just it exploded. I think most of Musgrove was coming to see us most most weeks to get their their supplies, and what was really nice was we could deliver to people that couldn't get out. We felt that we were helping and do what we could for the community out there. You know, it was rewarding. It kept us sane, kept people fed with good quality food. And it's still going now, not to the extent it know I'm saying sort of eggs and potatoes. And then it was meat was but we're still supplying people that we first met three years ago through that trauma of COVID. and fish and honey and jam and all kinds of things really. It felt as if you were really embracing the local food economy as well.
Gary Knight:It was the local food economy guys. Because obviously, James [Rachel's brother], all of his restaurants and hotels shut down that he was supplying and likewise the fruit and veg guy. And then we thought, right those guys in Cornwall, there must be people around here that are still doing the same. So we found a local honey guy, we found a local jam guy. Spelt flour when nobody could get any flour, we went to Shipton's and said, can we do this and we just sort of wanted to help as many people as we could, because that helped us stay sane and have a focus, because we needed something to be focused on to get us through. We you know, like many, many other people, our businesses were all shut down, our BnB was shut down so you know, we could get by as well.
Lynne O'Halloran:Okay, Gary, it's been lovely talking to you. And I think your philosophy and your approach is spot on, you know, and hopefully you'll inspire some more people to take a look at how they're living their lives and give themselves the time that they need to, as you said, be the best version of themselves.
Gary Knight:For sure. I mean, that's, that's what I did. And that's why I'm so passionate about championing it for other people, because I know the effect it's had on me and my health.
Lynne O'Halloran:Yeah, good.Thanks very much. Thanks for talking to me.
Gary Knight:Thanks, Lynn. It's been wonderful.
Lynne O'Halloran:Thanks for listening. Before I go. Just a little reminder, if you enjoy the show, please tell your friends. You can share an episode for your podcast player, or from my website or you can easily share one of my social media posts on Instagram or Facebook. If you do enough to share an episode I'll give you a personal shout out of the show to say thank you. What more could you ask for? Thanks in advance for helping me spread the word about my podcast. Thank you to Rick Simmonds from The Content Podcast podcast for his help and advice and thank you to www.pixelbay for the music.