Andrew Swofford

Dr. Schniederjan (00:00):
Great to have you, Andrew.

Andrew (00:01):
Thank you.

Dr. Schniederjan (00:03):
Andrew’s a good friend of mine but also has had the journey of, of, of surgery. And what I love is just you as a person, Andrew and watching this journey’s been fun.

Andrew (00:15):
Yeah.

Dr. Schniederjan (00:17):
And. What I’m excited today is just kind of just pick your brain on, you know, why you did it and we’ll jump into all the questions and, and then your, just your journey along the way, but particularly passing on to other patients out there, how to be successful. We talked earlier, not only weight loss, but just life. And, and so first of all, just a little bit about yourself. Where’d you, where’d you grow up? Your family, all that kind of stuff.

Andrew (00:45):
Yeah. So born and raised in Lubbock, Texas. Went to Texas Tech University. It’s a Red Raider. Red Raider. Like any good Texas tech grad, I moved to Dallas for a short stint. Definitely wasn’t for me. I’m a small town boy. So came back home met my wife at church, so been married now in Lubbock. In Lubbock. She’s from Louisiana. She’s an LSU grad.

Dr. Schniederjan (01:08):
That’s right.

Andrew (01:09):
Yeah. So she was there, just finished up physical therapy school at Tech. We’ve been married eight and a half years now. We have a seven year old, five year old, and a two year old.

Dr. Schniederjan (01:20):
All boys.

Andrew (01:21):
All boys. Yeah. So it’s a, it’s a little bit of a circus at our house. It’s a fun circus, but it is, it is a circus. My my brother often tells me, you know, we carry a lot of things in our home. Peace is not one of them. Yeah.

Dr. Schniederjan (01:35):
So at least for right now.

Andrew (01:36):
At least for right now. But it’s, it’s been fun. Yeah.

Dr. Schniederjan (01:39):
I tell you, we are, so our girls are 10 at 12, and you get to that age where it’s, it’s not chaos. It’s managed.

Andrew (01:48):
It’s managed

Dr. Schniederjan (01:49):
. It’s managed, but it’s fun.

Andrew (01:50):
That’s fun. Yes, it is fun

Dr. Schniederjan (01:51):
All the events that they have, like we’re talking earlier, sports and things like that, you’ve been doing little coaching

Andrew (01:56):
Little coaching, some flag football. I didn’t think I would catch the bug. You know, I wouldn’t be the competitive. Let’s practice twice a week, dad. Like, I got into coaching so I wouldn’t have to go to practice twice a week. And I caught it. Now you, I caught, I caught the bug. I loved it. Yeah. It was so much fun.

Dr. Schniederjan (02:12):
Ah, I tell you any times we invest in our kids, it’s, it’s worth every moment.

Andrew (02:17):
Mmm-Hmmm. Yeah. Which has been great about this whole journey.

Dr. Schniederjan (02:21):
So tell me just weight struggles. When, when did that become apparent in your life? And, and just what was a day where you’re like, wow, I’m struggling here.

Andrew (02:33):
Yeah, so I think there’s lots of those moments along the way. You know, I don’t want to bag on my dad too bad. But he’s passed away so he can’t get onto me. But my mom passed away when I was five and my, so here my dad was, you know, a single father of three boys.

Dr. Schniederjan (02:50):
Chaos

Andrew (02:51):
Chaos. Yeah. Lots of things going on. My, my oldest brother was going into a senior year of high school. You know, I was going into first or second grade, you know, and you’re, and he wanted us involved in things, so we were on the go. He had started a new company. He was on the go. And so I don’t think that we, he didn’t, and we’ll get into more of this, but how foundational education is because disciplined, undisciplined a lot of people say, well, I’m just not disciplined. Well, the reality is we all make informed decisions. Right. Even if you’re undisciplined, you’re making some type, you’re making a decision based on some type of information. And my dad, and none of us had the education around food. So he cooked what he knew, he cooked what he liked.

(03:38):
And so I looked up, it, it’s funny, you know, my my stepmom made me this really cool photo album, maybe my senior year of high school, and you can flip through it. And from like birth to six or seven years old, I’m like this skinny little kid. Right. And then dad starts cooking about five and a half, six years old, and it takes about a year. But you, you turn one page in that photo album and you see a difference. Yeah. And it stayed with me through the entirety of my life. I was always the big kid, you know? And then at some point, I think anybody that’s on a weight loss journey can probably empath or understand what I say. It becomes a part of your identity. You know, I played sports. I was blessed to be pretty good at sports, even though I was big.

(04:28):
But, you know, I had to be big to play offensive line or defensive line. And I was the guy that would go to the pizza parlor and, you know, I would win the pizza eating contest. So but even, even though it as a part of your identity and, and you even play into it at times. There is that social, mental spiritual aspect that you just know something’s not right. You don’t feel good. So I again carried that with me my whole life. And I tried things, you know, there, there was a period of time where I would lose some weight and similar story to probably every single person that sits down and even contemplates this journey, tried lots of things. The Herbalife, the, the genesis pure, the all the things, you know, write ’em all down. And I don’t know what specifically clicked when I have surgery, and we can go into that later, but, you know, I tell people I had a unique opportunity in that with my line of work. I worked around bariatric metabolic physicians for nine years even before meeting y’all, I had the opportunity to, to meet with individuals for four years, you know, but I always thought of it as the easy way out, which is so sad. But I did always thought of it as the easy way out, or I had self-doubt that it wouldn’t work for me. That this is a great option. It’s not a great option for me.

Dr. Schniederjan (05:57):
I hear exactly what you are saying from every one of my patients.

Andrew (06:01):
Mm-Hmmm

Dr. Schniederjan (06:03):
That’s, that’s their probably two single things.

Andrew (06:05):
Yeah. And so then that’s when the uniqueness of my, at least my story begins, is that I get a call from you one day have the opportunity to, to work with y’all, partner with y’all. And for a year and a half every week, I got to come into your or, and, and we would talk about life and sports and politics and all the things, but ultimately you and Dr. Neecoy and Dr. Peterson at the time were extremely passionate about health and wellness.

Dr. Schniederjan (06:34):
Yeah, we were having a podcast every time.

Andrew (06:35):
Yeah, exactly. So I’m like a fly on the wall. I’m asking some questions, I’m soaking it all in. And again, you know, I think we begin to make decisions based on the information that we have and the knowledge base that we have. And so I begin to ask myself like, well, why not me? But my wife is like a health nut. We’re complete total opposites. She works out, she’s a health nut. She could eat green leafy spinach for us. Like, I remember when we were dating, this is a true story, when we were dating, I would walk into her home and she’d be taking a break from, she’s a, she’s a doer, right? So she’d be taking this break. She would have a bag of spinach, raw spinach, and she’d be eating the leafs like a chimp. I’m like, that’s not a snack. That is not a snack.

Dr. Schniederjan (07:24):
I don’t know of anyone else that would be doing that. Your wife is the saints.

Andrew (07:27):
That’s right. She’s very unique. So as I began to share this desire of weight loss with her and I, it would be interesting to hear her perspective on this, but she, when she looked at me, she saw Andrew she didn’t see overweight. She didn’t see unhealthy. She may have noticed some things because she’s, you know, my, my partner in life that maybe I didn’t have the energy that I wanted, or I didn’t sleep as well as I wanted, but she didn’t necessarily attribute that to some physical, you know, aspect. And so we, we had, but I talked her into coming up here. We had a conversation with you. It was a great conversation. She left way more informed. And I think she planted a seed with her that, hey, this is safe and it works. There’s something that happens. There’s this magic that happens potentially after surgery and it works well.

Dr. Schniederjan (08:22):
And we’re still figuring, figuring that out. I think, I think every, every day we’re learning more and more about that

Andrew (08:25):
Yeah. And I tell people all the time, you know, I, whatever, whatever switch went off in me, I, I pray that it goes off in every person. Cause I think we all do react potentially differently to the surgery, but we went home and a couple days later, she just sat down and just had a conversation with me. Like, I just, I think you can work a little harder, you know? And she goes, I just don’t see, you’re just not that overweight. You know, you’re not that big now. Almost three. I was 300 pounds. I was a big boy. So we, we put it off, ended up, I think we had a baby. So we had a, we had a, our third child and I remember going home to her house, sorry, in Louisiana for Christmas. And my in-laws gave my, my boys one of those papa shot basketball things that we set up in our playroom. And I loved it. My kids loved it. And after Christmas, I’d come home every day. We put up like a hundred shots on the papa shot, and I threw my back out.

(09:30):
And I couldn’t move for days. I just was out. And I looked at my wife, I was like, something’s gotta change. I’m tired. And I think I just got to a place where I was educated to know enough to know that the decisions I was making on a daily basis were not in my favor short term or long term. And then I needed help to achieve help beyond a book or another plan or a diet or even at that point, even more education. Like, I needed some help. And my wife looked at me, she goes, okay, I agree. And it was, you know, maybe eight weeks later I had surgery

Dr. Schniederjan (10:14):
And have, since then, just to put it this way, you’ve killed it. Yeah. I mean, you have taken this journey. And matter of fact, you motivate me when we’re talking about nutrition what you’ve been eating and things like that. Which I hope all patients run with this the way that you have. Because just to watch you, the, your life every day, your, like you said, your energy, your attitude, it’s just been a complete you’ve always had a positive attitude, but you’ve just taken it to another level.

Andrew (10:51):
Yeah. And it’s, you know, surgery taught me some things that are, I think are important specific to weight loss that I needed to know. And that is, I know that you, you’ve said this and I’ve heard it on a couple of your podcasts, that you always tell your patients the first couple weeks after surgery are rough. And by no means were mine easy. I didn’t just wake up every morning loving you. Yeah. Right. Like, oh, thank you so much for this moment that I’m in here, Dr. Schniederjan. But what it taught me was, I’d always, previous to surgery, I’d always treated hunger as an emergency. If I was hungry, that’s an emergency and it has to be dealt with well I would deal with it in the most convenient and easiest and fastest way possible. And because I had that mindset of hunger as an emergency, I would do things specifically not to be hunger, which means I would overeat, I would gorge. So my typical order at McDonald’s now would, you know, kind of blow my mind. But that was my daily routine and the sodas and the things that you subconsciously just start doing.

Dr. Schniederjan (12:07):
And for your job, you were on the road a lot. You talked about that just pulling through Chick-fil-A, wherever where it was driving, but to see your life now what you’re packing.

Andrew (12:22):
Yeah.

Dr. Schniederjan (12:23):
Preparing. Planning. What made that change?

Andrew (12:29):
Again there’s, I’ll talk about a switch. You know, I know that there’s three or four people that have witnessed my journey that have come to y’all and had surgery since, you know, I did. And I tell ’em like, I’m gonna pray that whatever sw I can, I can distinctly remember waking up in the, in the PACU area at the surgery center. And I knew in that moment, I knew that whatever my relationship with food was when I rolled into the OR had changed. And I can’t, I wish I could quantify that better. I, I can’t, so I won’t try. But I knew when I woke up that my relationship with food had changed. And, and, and so what I did is I took that change of relationship and then I coupled it with this knowledge, right. That I applaud y’all for.

(13:21):
Cuz I tell people my journey was unique. I got to see y’all weekly, a year and a half before surgery. I’ve got to see you weekly post-surgery. Right. so that’s not every patient’s journey. They don’t get to check in with you on a weekly basis post-surgery. But now there are tools, right. Your educational app, these podcasts, there’s videos where if you are still hungry for that education, those inter those personal interactions, you can make these as personal as you want. And so I knew my, my relationship with food had changed and I coupled that with the education and I began to see the things that I was putting in my body differently.

Dr. Schniederjan (14:03):
I love that. I, I, there’s two things that came up while you were talking that I was thinking about is one is this has been a journey for us. I mean, what, what Bo and I knew 10 years ago and we’re teaching is totally different than what we’re teaching now because we had learned it personally. We had to try all this stuff out. What did it really look like to eat healthy? You know, do I need to be low carb? What does what does a healthy meal really look like? How do we teach patients how to do this? How can we put it in a form like this podcast to get this information out there? Because every weekend or throughout the week I’m reading new stuff, we’re trying glucose monitors, we’re doing all kinds of stuff, seeing what works

Andrew (14:45):
Hot showers, cold showers,

Dr. Schniederjan (14:46):
Yeah. All kinds of crazy stuff and how can we pass this on And I think it’s, it’s, it’s hoping that patients engage in this journey knowing that it’s never finished. You always gotta be learning, you always gotta be taking in new podcasts and books and reading and listening to other people and their journey. And the second thing that I thought about was going back to that book that you were talking about when your dad started cooking, the more I’m starting to understand about food, I look at it this way. I, I feel like God created things in a, in a cool way. Okay. We’ve just kind of hijacked it along the way. But for example, if you’re eating whole real food, there’s so much nutritional value in it that it unlocks the good in our genetics. Okay. We always thought genetics was 90% of our destination. Now it’s 10%. The other 90% is environment. What are we putting in our body, whether it be whole food or are we putting in processed garbage? And what it does is it takes your genetics and you go two different directions and, and you saw that your, by your, your dad was doing the best he could. But probably a lot of that stuff was hamburger helper out of a box. That’s

Andrew (16:14):
Right.

Dr. Schniederjan (16:15):
And it was just taking your genetics the wrong direction. And what I’ve seen in you just as an outsider, is that relationship with food with your wife, y’all are cooking, you’re planning, you’re eating whole foods. You’re making great choices. Yes. The surgery was a cool tool, but more importantly you turned on and unleash the good genetics and all that, that your body now is getting what it needs.

Andrew (16:45):
Yeah. And it’s, it’s been fun to watch my body respond. Right. Because I’m human. You know, we, we take a family vacation and all of a sudden you look up and you’re like, can I just eat a third of the bag of the Cheeto puffs? Yes, I did. But when you, when you are clean on the front end and you’re clean on the back end, your body just responds. It can reject that, that stuff so easily. You know, and and having a partner, you know, I know you’ve talked, you talk about this a lot in that the biggest part of your journey is a, making the decision to, to get on it. But what support do you have at home? And so blessed to have a wife and extended family that have been a hundred percent supportive of, of the journey. Jumped on, jumped on board.

(17:35):
But it’s, it’s also similar to our faith life. You know, you get passionate about something, you know, all, you know, you go out and start talking about Jesus. People all of a sudden start talking to you about it and what their life. And so we’ve come in contact with people that health and wellness is a passion of theirs. And we we’re learning from them. We have neighbors that actually work with Maddie McClain that have turned us on. Now we’re, we’re, we’re drinking raw milk. Yeah. And, you know, these, these whole grains, you know, we’re getting these non gmo, non-modified heritage

Andrew (18:12):
Whole grain. She, she grinds it makes it under her own flour. Yeah. And so you can eat some bread, you can eat some muffins, you can do those type things. And it’s not something that you, it’s not a staple of my diet, but if I’m going to eat it, I’m getting a lot of nutritional value out of it as

Dr. Schniederjan (18:32):
Well. And I think that that’s something that on our, our, our journey, you know, all that stuff back in the day, the way that we grew it, the soul health, the farming practices, without putting all the herbicides and pesticides and all that, our body responded differently . And we could eat, like you said, we around here, we talk about kind of keeping the carbs down and all that kind of stuff. But I think we could tolerate carbs way better in the past if they were like this. And so it’s all about getting back to how food was grown originally. And our body loves it

Andrew (19:10):
And Yeah. And it’s okay to

Dr. Schniederjan (19:12):
Eat. It’s okay

Andrew (19:12):
To eat. You know, I think I was sharing this with you a couple weeks ago. People that know that I’ve had weight loss surgery, if they hung, like when they spend time with me, if it’s a weekend or they come to our house, or, you know, if you spend a day in my life right now it shocks people how much I eat. Now I don’t wanna tell ’em specifically about quantity, but I’ve kind of gotten back a little bit to if I’m hungry,

Dr. Schniederjan (19:37):
You

Andrew (19:37):
Eat, I eat. But I put what I put in my body is just quality. Quality. It’s so different. Yeah. You know, typical day for me is some type of cured meat that’s nitrate free cheeses, olives, you know, pickles. I, I’m, I starting to flirt with like some fermented foods, you know.

Dr. Schniederjan (20:00):
I love it. Good on gut health

Andrew (20:01):
Yeah. I want to get into the, now I’m, I’m interested in this, you know, the, the biomes and my, and my gut health and how so helpful affects our mental, you know, so important a about

Dr. Schniederjan (20:10):
That’s probably a lot of depression in America is because of our lack of gut health.

Andrew (20:14):
Healthy nuts. You know, my, my wife is still amazed that when I’m hungry at night, I just go grab a handful of pistachios or pecans. And sometimes I slip some peanuts in there, but we’ve eliminated the vegetables. Yeah. We don’t cook with it. We’re pretty mindful. We have three kids, but we’re pretty mindful of, we don’t cook very many things that come out of a box or that are processed. If we’re cooking, it’s olive oil, avocado oil but what it, what, the biggest thing I tell people is if you make those changes, then it, it’s like, it’s like you get to make these deposits in a bank and you still get to live life. Like I’ll have a hamburger every now and then. Sometimes I’ll go bunless, you know, but sometimes I’ll split the hamburger with my wife and I’ll have the hamburger. I don’t eat a whole lot of french fries, maybe four or five, but I’ll have a hamburger or we’ll take the kids to go get pizza or God love her. My wife will make Joanna Gaines chocolate chip cookies

Dr. Schniederjan (21:13):
, you’ve talked about these

Andrew (21:14):
Yes. They’re really good. But

Dr. Schniederjan (21:16):
You enjoy, you enjoy it. Yep. You don’t feel guilty. Ybut I don’t know about you. It’s one of those things. For example, on the weekend I’ll do that, and then Monday I like getting back in my routine. Well, and it’s making those good, you know, we’re cooking this, that, and,

Andrew (21:34):
And you, and you do it long enough. Like you make enough of these deposits right. Into your health bank if you will. Yeah. When you, when you make a withdrawal, it hurts

Dr. Schniederjan (21:43):
You know, it

Andrew (21:44):
You feel it. Whereas that was my norm, you know, I didn’t know how bad I felt because it was normal. Now I have a Joanna Gaines cookie and I kind of like, afterwards I’m like, my meal’s good, but I’m not having another one.

Dr. Schniederjan (22:00):
Yeah, you’re done. You’re done. You don’t have to eat three or four or five

Andrew (22:03):
No. And the dozen now sits on the counter for a week, and by the end of the week we’re throwing away half of the cookies. Cuz we don’t eat them. It’s just, it’s amazing what our bodies are designed to your point, when you unlock, unlock your body to function as it’s supposed to function. And I’m still working on that you know, pretty quickly when it’s not functioning correctly. Yeah. And you want it to get back, it’s, it’s worth it.

Dr. Schniederjan (22:28):
You just feel so much

Andrew (22:29):
Better. Yeah. It’s worth

Dr. Schniederjan (22:30):
It. So to all the families out there, I mean having young kids, I think this is the hardest part. This is what we include myself, this is what we hear from patients. You know, I’m busy, my kids are involved in sports. I don’t have time to cook. How do you get on this health journey and stay on it in the chaos of life?

Andrew (22:54):
Yeah. I think it’s I think it’s having a good partner at home. It’s, it’s, it’s making the decision together. It’s not something that, oh, my husband or Oh my wife wants to do this and I support them in doing this. No, this is something that we’re gonna do together. And knowing that who you partner with matters, and that’s not, that’s not a knock on anybody else that, that there’s phenomenal surgeons all across Texas and the country that do weight loss surgery successfully. But who you partner with matters. Because if people will pay attention and use the resources that are available through this practice it’s really easy

Andrew (23:33):
It’s not, it’s micro decisions, you know, it’s those atomic habits, which

Dr. Schniederjan (23:37):
Is a great,

Andrew (23:38):
Great book. It’s a great book. It’s, it’s making those 2% changes every day instead of trying to wake up one day and make a hundred percent change. But you can do it. And, and I think I’m not a very disciplined person when it, like people talking about, oh, you gotta get these disciplines and like, that’s never resonated with me. I’m a fly by the seat of my pants kind of guy. I don’t want to change that about myself, but surgery does allow you this, this small window and what you do with this window, it, it is kind of up to you.

Dr. Schniederjan (24:11):
I think you just hit the nail on the head.

Andrew (24:14):
And in this small window of time, if you do make some decisions, you start, it’s not discipline. You just start doing things differently. Yeah. Because you realize the the cost benefit of it. You know, I, it takes me, cuz again, I like to eat. It takes me every night about 20 minutes to prepare my lunch and my snacks for the next day. But I view that now as that’s an investment in how I’m gonna feel all day today.

Dr. Schniederjan (24:41):
Exactly. Well I want to just kind of emphasize this. I, the more we’ll learn about these surgeries, it’s actually, let me back up. We go down this journey like you did with your dad cooking , you turn on the bad genetic expression, it metabolically wrecks your health. And surgery has been shown to kind of reset all those hormones, whether it be insulin resistance, appetites, outta control because of all those processed foods, surgery resets that. But the key is, is just like you said, you’ve got a window of opportunity to radically change to a healthier lifestyle, which we love trying to help patients but ultimately it comes down to them implementing. If they do, it’s a fun, awesome journey. Now another thing I’ve learned, Andrew, is the longer patients have lived in this life, the more wreck their body is metabolically. So a lot of times that’s why we don’t get the response necessarily. For patients that have waited many, many years and been overweight for 40, 50 years sometimes we have to do the doodle switch to get a response. But the key is you’ve got that window and, and take taking advantage of it’s paramount

Andrew (26:09):
Yeah.You know, and it’s for anybody that’s sitting, if you come across this or you’ve listened to some in the past or you’ve found the website and you’re just comp, you know, hey, is this something that’s for me, it doesn’t matter if you’re 25 or 65 view this moment right now is I have found a cancer in my life. Do I want to get the cancer out when it’s stage one or do I want to get it out when it’s stage four? Both of ’em are beatable. Right. But the work and the potential outcome, your likelihood of success is a lot easier if you go ahead and take care of it when it’s stage one. So if, if, if weight loss is something you struggle with I I I just say do it because it’s, it, it creeps into every aspect of your life

Dr. Schniederjan (27:02):
In a good way

Andrew (27:03):
In a good way.

Dr. Schniederjan (27:04):
Affects your relationships, it affects your everything, your kids and how you play with them and your confidence and your spiritual walk

Andrew (27:11):
And ab Absolutely. Yeah. It’s so much fun now to go shopping. Yeah. Even though I, I keep wanting to send y’all a bill, you know, every time I’ve gotta go buy new clothes, but it’s so fun to go shopping. Whereas I used to be the guy that would walk into the department store, whatever I needed a something, pants, something and I’d find the first one in my size. Cause I just wanted to get out of the store. I hated the experience. Hated to try on clothes. Now I go in and I’m, I, I go find what I want. What what help, what do I like? What do I look good in? What, what is my style I don’t even know what a style is. What, what is my style? It’s not such a drab thing. Like the little thing is in shopping or interacting with your kids or your relationship with your wife or work. Yeah. You know, get up when you have a good night’s rest. It’s amazing what your productivity at work the next day. Look, it’s different. It affects everything.

Dr. Schniederjan (28:04):
Andrew, your energy’s contagious. I could do this for hours. This is fun. Well I want to say this, thank you for sharing your journey. It’s been fun to watch. And I just pray that this just helps some other patients along the way. Yeah. And I hope this goes viral and Andrew wants to retire off this video. That’s right

Andrew (28:24):
Hopefully. Yeah. Lots of clicks and likes and whatever goes on on social media, I’m not on it, but whatever you do, do it. Right. Yeah. Right now

Dr. Schniederjan (28:31):
What I love is I hope this isn’t the end because you got so much to give and so I hope to bring you back and even share more and that’d be great.

Andrew (28:39):
All that. Thank you Andrew.

Dr. Schniederjan (28:41):
Thanks.

Andrew (28:41):
Thank you sir.