Rugby League star Matt Elliot finds holism and resilience

Matthew Elliot has a science degree, played and coached at the highest level, and is a regular commentator on ABC radio but a significant health issue made him reassess everything he knew. Matthew challenges his learnings and beliefs to make a remarkable turnaround.

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Daniel Baden: 0:57

Matthew Elliott, it is a great pleasure to have you as our guest,

Matt Elliot: 1:00

Daniel, thanks for having me on. I'm really excited to have a chat to you today.

Unknown: 1:04

What a career, you have a seriously impressive resume senior professional rugby league player from 1989 to 1992. And then he got injured and turned your hand to coaching in at least four countries since 2021. Are the Rugby League has been a gift to me. And none of that I did on purpose. By the way, Daniel, never. I think I'm gonna write a book or call her life by accident. Our next one because yeah, I never really intended to do those things. But you know, I can't be anything else but massively grateful for the opportunities the games given me and the people that's introduced me to, and the Yeah, so you're forced into coaching through an injury? What was that injury at that time? I'll look back in, you know, the late 80s. And the early 90s. They came up with arthroscopic surgery on knees. Those days, they just used to snip a little bit out that started the generative process. So a 28 on my left knee had probably had maybe 10 astral escapes on it. But yeah, it was fine. But I did my right knee. And my doctor at the time, who is still a close friend of mine said, might you In 2011, he started to develop some significant aches and pains. What were the early symptoms that it rocked up in a major style? The rheumatologist the way he explained that was quite interesting. But I I changed jobs while I got changed in jobs. And at the end of two there, or during 2011. I left Penrith and I also had a relationship breakdown that, you know, kind of knock me around. And as you know, Australian males were not really good at speaking up about that sort of thing. So that your body were mainly affected all my joints, some major joints, my hips through my groin, and my hips, my shoulders, even my jaw. And like my spine it would just it's hard to explain. It wasn't like nice pain, but it was acute. Really ate like a severe ache all through your body. And it was Yeah, it wasn't very unpleasant isn't like my nicest way of explaining it. So I guess you you went through a period of seeing several doctors and rheumatologists. How long did that go on for a lot? Well, I wanted to get diagnosed first, I was really lucky. I've moved to the races in a consultancy basis almost straightaway. And we have access to the best medical people in Australia. And so I just got blood test after the blood test. And no one could really diagnose me really yeah went from being you know, they thought I had malaria to Ross River fever. But they all came now and I was Being in that sort of pain without really knowing why it must be quite difficult, it was really confusing. And again, you get to understand that the link between the physiological and the psychological. So it wasn't just the physiological pain that was being impacted in my sleep and all that sort of stuff. But it also starts, you know, thought processes that you thought you'd never ever have, you know, someone who, who'd had a treat of a life who you started having thought I completely understand, especially as it impacts with the lack of sleep. And sleep deprivation is a form of torture in itself. And it's quite hard to sleep when you're that much pain, obviously. I can get asleep, but we move when we're asleep, right? Yeah. So it wasn't like I can go to sleep. And I'd sort of try and isolate myself, but I would move a centimeter at night. And it would feel like that someone's jabbed me with a knife with a needle. And I just wake up and have to go back to sleep again. So yeah, it was really confusing. Really, really confusing. It was one of the You mentioned that you had a fairly fortuitous life and tripped over yourself with luck. And somebody puts you in the direction of an American doctor, who came up with a diagnosis, which was, you know, coined as polymyalgia, rheumatica, or PMR. Yeah, and, you know, if you look at the literature, the common symptoms are pain in the shoulders, neck, pelvis, joint stiffness, tenderness or Yeah, you know, what is the first time I've very actually, I know, I've discussed it with you, Daniel, but I've never really said it, you know, like, you know, in a forum like this, but you know, maybe I need to the doctor, who was in Australia is an American doctor, but a, obviously, because he came over here and taken a very different route. He's back in America now practicing against I need doctor call me over the telephone. I know it's pretty much common practice these days. But I was again used to seeing doctors in person and, and being a allowed connection to the highest quality medical doctors in Australia and this guy was a medical doctor. He then proceeded to describe over the telephone all my symptoms, like completely accurate, accurately, then revealed I'd had knee American term at the time, it wasn't recognized. And it was normally a condition predominantly where mature women, mature aged women, God. So it was unusual for it to be in a man. And yeah, but she said, You're right. That's exactly what How did you know that? I didn't tell her the truth. To be honest. I just said I just went down the same pathway and, and said that I'd got it through Google. So So you were taking steroids by injection. I imagine you also had some oral anti inflammatory drugs as they've been tablets, sleeping tablets, and all that make you feel like, again, I want to be clear on this. I'm grateful for them, because they gave me the space to make lucid decisions. Yes, but they bought, the longer I took the worse I felt. Even physically, you can see my body was depleted. And you know, obviously, even though I retired, I still liked training. I still like feeling good mentally and emotionally. But I was depleted by the processes I was Yeah. So I guess at this point of your your life and your condition, you were ripe for finding another solution. Was that your current state of mental health or did you just sort of trip over the next stage of your progress? Life by accident, Daniel again. I was so lucky. I was at the roosters at the time. I was there for one year I met Anthony Miller cello. Who was a yeah had been voted the world's best rugby league player. Yes. But Miss for years, predominantly nearly 14 years in because he had spinal injuries. Where, you know, we had disc replacements and every disc in his back and become dehydrated and it was Amazing. That is amazing. So I imagine just going back one step, throughout your rugby league career, there was a certain lifestyle attached to it, which would mean certain food types and probably one or two drinks, I imagine. Absolutely. Yeah. So what would a typical when you were playing and coaching, what would a typical day or week look like in terms of diet and alcohol? Let me say again, I would have considered myself to lead a healthy life. Yes. Okay. And I had an academic background to support that assumption. Yes. So there's some things that, you know, it wasn't totally unhealthy. Like, as a player and I was a uni student, I'd given alcohol a fair crack. So I probably wasn't overly drinking, but I'm probably wasn't doing it Anders either. So, you know, as a, I asked the question for our listeners, because a lot of people in society, probably coming from the same place you did, where we prescribe what a healthy diet might look like, and a few drinks here and there, weekly, you know, is probably considered okay. You know, the diet we're about to discuss, which is based on the western price principles, is probably quite a shock to a lot of people. So I Yeah, let me add to that, um, breakfast is your most important meal. Don't eat fat margerine, polyunsaturated oils, my goodness, you don't see them advertised anymore dia trends very, very good reason. So yeah, all that sort of stuff that I thought was healthy. That I was again, I was told by lecturers at university, it was healthy. What was advertised? Yeah. So I was totally conditioned it. Okay. Well, that's That's great. It's good to have that sort of background. So you were introduced by Anthony to the Western price style of diet. What did it what would what did that mean for you? What was it to you? Again, very, very confronting, first of all, and Sally Fallon what an amazing lecture as years. Yes, I've still got the lectures that I need to go back and watch them again. I try and watch them once a year was confining. First of all, because fats are good for you. You know, don't trim the fat off your meats, meats are good for you red meat is good for you. Are things like whole grains are Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, it's, again a little bit. I'm used to it, but But I take the fat off the top of it after it freezes. And I use that to cooking. And it was that the main part of the diet? Was there anything else? Yeah, again, just spray free. And, again. And seasonal. So you know via diet variation is probably the biggest tip I could give to anyone, we could get the most healthiest plate of meat. Yeah, right. I always use this analogy. Health, not health is just played on meat. But that's like a whole plate. Perfect. If you ate the same thing every day, your body would, again, the nutrient density of it is Yeah, so the all those joints and metaphor, protein glycans, and other collagen forming substances, which were obviously absorbing using our own joints. You mentioned one thing, which I think is so important. And I've heard this in so many interviews where you eat something and you get some sort of reaction, maybe you let some lectins in your tummy rumbles a beat or you get a sore tummy, or a So true. Well, if we got a rock and a shoe, right? It's our body's signaling through physical pain and take it out. And if you ignore it, your body goes, Well, that didn't work. Let's turn that pain up to agony. Well, it was the same thing. Physically, mentally and emotionally. We just need we were not taught to pay attention to the signals that our body sends us. So what he goes, Well, we gave I've just realized what you're saying why you were such a great coach, because your magnet anecdotes are spot on. I love them. Well, I also get you learn through two ways, either through awareness or suffering, you know, Sunday, put your hand on the hot plate. Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention to my mom. So I used to put my hand on the hot plate. So I'd rather be talking about this, that I do preventative. But yeah, unfortunately, that's not the case. Part of the journey was you got into a bit of fasting, and I'm not quite clear if that was long periods of fasting or intermittent fasting. What were you doing there? Fasting again, I stumbled over. Yeah, there's another shock probably about in 2014. And, you know, I read a book and I'm trying to remember what the book was called, it was a little bit unusual. So I did a three day fast and one of them was a dry fast. So you know, just drank water and then dry fast the second day and drank water, because of I was really fascinated by one the healing that goes on, Okay, so first thing I presume you're drinking water. And that's about it. Yeah, I've done it where I've, you know, we're, I think, again, pay attention. So there's times I've got to do a three day fast and one day into it. I've got a headache. I just pay attention I go when I'm not going to do it now. Yeah. Normally, I just have water in and some really good Himalayan rock salt. Because yeah, you need you need those, definitely some magnesium. And during that period that Now, that goes back to your comment earlier about autophagy, where your body starts to break down its own proteins and fats eventually. And as the food source, as you switch from glucose to to fat breakdown, you don't, you'd lose a sense of hunger, but it is important to keep hydrated at the same time. Yeah, and again, it's those cells and those that tissue that your body is eating, it's not eating the good bits. It starts with all the bad bits first, right? Let's make it really simple. So that you're self eating, basically. And you say your body goes in search, you know, this autophagy process of, well, what's the most useless stuff that you've got in your body? Let's Let's eat that. First. does take a lot of water to get that biochemical process happening. And that's why the water is so important. Absolutely. As you also went through a period of takeout meditation, this has been an amazing journey for you beach beach challenge to thinking about diet, fasting, and meditation. You're a new man, you not only meditated, he also went on a particular style of meditation Kocaeli Yeah, I can. So I was sort of meditating right from uni, because we learned about well, again. So here look, visualization is visualizing without ever moving. And you can fire every motor neuron in your body by thinking about a task that you do. So remember, the first people we saw do it was downhill ski skiers were the first people I did, you'd see him at the top of the mountain, pretending to my team to do it in 2009, which wasn't really well received by the board of directors that were paying someone to come in and teach someone to meditate in those days. Now every time does it. But it's interesting the impacts of this five minute process of that well first of all, you sleep better. There's no you can't consciously go okay, I want to get rid of this thing that's bothering me. But all look, I guess, to me, all Meditation really is about helping us all understand our place in the world challenging what we get brought up with as an ego. And if you understand your place in the world, and your interaction with different things in different situations, and you able to take the time to thought process that through, it potentially just makes life easier, as you just explained, Yeah, and again, this is not confined to me. But what I find with different types of meditations, and this is what blew me away initially, was, it wasn't during the meditation, that stuff happened. But by stopping thinking, or limiting my thoughts, we have 60 to 70,000 thoughts a day. So switching that off for five minutes. What happened afterwards, when I journal? What would come out of me, I'd You know, we had to learn to trust ourselves. We need science to trust ourselves these days. I'm guilty. I'm guilty. By the way. I'm not judging anyone. I'm not absolutely. We've been through a journey. And do you now know what you can and can't do to bring your condition back? You mentioned that earlier. If you wanted to intentionally not that you would want to bring your arthritis back? What would you do? I'd start eating the way I did. And I've done this, you know, I cycled through Cambodia. And the way that they prepare rice and their rice is a lot different than what we eat, for example, they, you know, they soak their rice, it's white rice, it's sticky. It's far healthier than what we have here. But I was there for a month and I started eating, you know, I wasn't gonna go around and say, Do Did you end up taking any supplements as well to help with the PMR I'm a big supplement taker. Because for a couple of reasons, one obviously the nutrient density of our food because the way agriculture operates at the moment, and it's changing so regenerative agriculture, hopefully works and but at the moment, Big Ag is not helping us so that they're turning soil in the dirt. So obviously, you know what your plants pulling out of the soil. What they used You know, I found the same thing myself. I've been taking various supplements myself for you know, 35 years probably. And when I stopped for a week or so I just feel so tired. Same thing so yeah, again I believe in same as eating, I believe in diet variation. So I tend to rotate supplements as well that I believe have an impact on me. But there's a few constants in that as well. Okay, so what are one or two that you'd normally take on a daily basis? Well, again, if I'm not taking my bone broth, I'll take collagen. And I think colleges getting collagen is interesting, isn't it? It's one of the few nutrients that you eat as college and you digest that collagen and your body uses collagen. You know, what I mean by that is, you know, we, we have fructose in your body turns it into goes through your liver and turns into glucose into glycogen. So, Couple of questions. We'll round it up. But you know, do you have a take home message, the most important thing about this podcast is helping other people understand what they can do to improve their health. And if they're sitting on the fence with natural medicine or dietary change, what can we do to help them is there any take home message that you have for them, I just reinforce what you and I have already discussed with people is is that everyone's an expert in what they do the places they go and the people and might become an expert in yourself. Pay attention to how you feel. Ask yourself, why do I feel this way? Because if you say I feel good, ask yourself why and keep doing it. If you don't feel so good. Ask yourself why I guarantee you 90% of Beautiful, both perfect. One last thing you you've started a an organization called the change room. Can you tell us about the change room and what it means to you? The change room is a business that basically works around the principles of this really, it's the words of high performance. High performance means human performance. If something works for an athlete, it'll work for you. Right, so athletes, and again, that's what I learned from Anthony, right. His stuff was apparently cutting edge at that time, even albeit it was 100 years old. Okay. But share, and they start to get some momentum. So their clinical support then accelerates their recovery as well. So it's really part of an integrated approach. We believe in clinical support. clinical support doesn't so much believe in what we do. that. I'm sure that's changing. Yeah, there was saying that integrative medical medicine in the States in particular. And I guess it's great that you can bring all of your experience both personal and professional, into the change room and help with change through everything you've done in your career in life. Yeah, and again, it's it's common sense rather than nonsense. So I always tell people, you already know this stuff. Someone might have explained it to them in the way that you and I have just now Daniel, but they actually know this stuff. Because it's about, again, becoming an expert in yourself. And most humans have this capacity. Look, and if people want to get in touch with you, do they just do that through the change room? Yeah, just go to the change room dot info. And, yeah, all that access to those programs and information is available to them. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. And I, I've learned something and I hope everyone learned something from you. And hopefully, we'll get you again one day. Yeah, it was great fun, Daniel