Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 684 is a conversation with Dale Beatty, a 1st Phorm Elite Athlete and bow hunter who built his fitness life around consistency rather than gimmicks. Dale balances a full-time job with coaching and content under the name Dale Beatty Outdoors, and he walks through how he earned Elite Athlete status by first becoming a 1st Phorm Legionnaire, why most people quit their routines, and the unglamorous fundamentals, repetition, protein, sleep, that actually move the needle.
Listen now: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · YouTube · or press play in the player above.
Dale Beatty is a 1st Phorm Elite Athlete and avid bow hunter who balances a full-time job with his fitness work and content. He is active under the name Dale Beatty Outdoors on YouTube and shares a training and nutrition philosophy built on consistency rather than chasing new programs.
Dale earned the title by first becoming a 1st Phorm Legionnaire, the company's program for people who help others and lead from the front while living the brand's core values. He put his name in the hat, did the work of helping as many people as he could, and was awarded the Elite Athlete position, which he describes as a humbling honor.
Dale believes the growth happens in the boring repetition, not in reinventing the wheel. He stresses that you are not trying to find new exercises every session; you are doing the same fundamentals over and over with consistency, and he pairs that with disciplined nutrition because, as he puts it, you cannot out-train a bad diet.
Dale compares it to the New Year's gym crowd that goes hard for about two weeks and then disappears. He is candid about his own version of this, describing failing on day sixteen of a challenge and falling back into old habits. He talks about what actually keeps people consistent past that drop-off point.
Dale emphasizes high-protein, lower-fat choices like chicken and practical options such as 1st Phorm meat sticks, and he ties nutrition directly to results. His core point is that training and diet work together, and that fundamentals like proper food, hydration, and sleep determine whether someone makes progress or plateaus.
Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 684 with Dale Beatty is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and iHeartRadio. The video version is embedded at the top of this page.
What drew me to Dale is that he is not a full-time fitness celebrity. He has a real job, he is serious about bow hunting, and he does the 1st Phorm work in his free time because he genuinely believes in it. That makes his advice land differently. He is living the same time crunch most of us are, and he still figured out how to earn Elite Athlete status. I wanted to dig into how he did that and what he has learned about staying consistent when life keeps getting in the way.
Press play in the player above to hear the whole conversation.
Dale lays out the real path, and it is not what most people assume. It starts with becoming a Legionnaire, helping as many people as you can, leading from the front, and living the company's core values while they are watching. He explains how he put his name in the hat, did the work, and was awarded the position. If you have ever wondered how those titles are actually earned, this is the clearest explanation I have heard. Listen to the opening of the episode.
One of the most honest moments in this conversation is when Dale admits to failing on the sixteenth day of a challenge and sliding right back into old habits. He connects it to the New Year's gym crowd that goes hard for two weeks and vanishes. Rather than pretend he is immune, he uses his own slip-up to explain what actually keeps people going. Hear how he frames it in the player above.
Dale makes a point that runs against everything the fitness industry sells you. The growth, he says, is in the nuance and the repetition, doing the same fundamentals again and again, not constantly chasing new programs off YouTube. You are not trying to reinvent the wheel every time you walk into the gym. It is a simple idea that most people never actually practice. Listen to that section of the episode.
When the conversation turns to food, Dale keeps it refreshingly practical. He talks about leaning on high-protein, lower-fat staples like chicken and convenient options like the 1st Phorm meat sticks, and he ties it all back to the line every lifter eventually learns the hard way: you cannot out-train a bad diet. For anyone who finds nutrition overwhelming, his approach is a good place to start. Press play in the player above.
Listen to the full conversation: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · or watch in the player at the top of this page.
The thing I keep coming back to with Dale is how ordinary his blueprint is, and I mean that as a compliment. No secret program, no magic supplement stack. Just show up, do the boring work, eat with intention, and help people along the way.
That is also exactly the kind of discipline that carries over into hunting, fishing, and everything else we care about around here. Dale is proof you can hold down a job, chase your outdoor passions, and still get into the best shape of your life.
Press play in the player above, or grab Episode 684 on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Dale Beatty · Dale Beatty Outdoors · 1st Phorm · 1st Phorm Legionnaire Program · 1st Phorm Elite Athlete · Bow Hunting
The Tom Rowland Podcast brings you long-form conversations with the most accomplished anglers, hunters, conservationists, and outdoor professionals in the game. Listen to every full-length Tom Rowland Podcast interview.
Dale Beatty is a 1st Phorm Elite Athlete and bow hunter who balances a full-time job with his coaching and outdoor content under the name Dale Beatty Outdoors. He worked his way up through the 1st Phorm Legionnaire program by helping others and living the brand's core values before being awarded Elite Athlete status. His training philosophy centers on consistency, progressive repetition of the fundamentals, disciplined nutrition, and adequate recovery, and he is passionate about helping everyday people get and stay in shape without overcomplicating the process.
Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 684 with Dale Beatty, 1st Phorm Elite Athlete, discussing his 75 Hard transformation, bow hunting, sobriety, and building a homestead in Kentucky.
Dale Beatty: My name is Dale Beatty, and this is the Tom Rowland Podcast.
Tom Rowland: Dale, what's happening, man? How are we doing?
Dale Beatty: Man, I'm doing great. It's really great to meet you here. Thanks for doing this with me.
Tom Rowland: Absolutely, I'm honored to be on here. I've been following you on Instagram, man. I have an affiliation with 1st Phorm also, and that's how I came across you. You're doing all kinds of cool stuff. You've got puppies, you're shooting your bow all the time, and, of course, you had this massive transformation, which we'll talk about later. But how about the bow? Have you been shooting your bow all your life, or is this newer for you?
Dale Beatty: I got into bow hunting in 2017, I believe. I took my first buck in 2018 with the bow, and I've just been hooked ever since.
Tom Rowland: I'm getting into it myself, it's a newer thing for me. Last year I had a great opportunity to go elk hunting with my son in Montana. He'd been trying to get an elk for five years and he finally got it. I've been happy just to say, look man, this is your pursuit, I'm fine going along and carrying stuff out. So last year it was just me and him, and we packed that elk out. Man, it was tough. The elk live in really beautiful but very steep places, and they're heavier than I expected. I knew it was going to be heavy, but it was really heavy.
Dale Beatty: Right, right. That's my dream hunt, an elk hunt, either here in Kentucky or out west. We do have elk here in Kentucky, but it's super difficult to draw a tag.
Tom Rowland: What's the deal with the elk in Kentucky? Were they once native to the area and they're reintroducing them?
Dale Beatty: I believe they were reintroduced years ago. I don't think they're native to Kentucky, they're mostly over in Eastern Kentucky, in the old coal mine country out that way. Thousands of locals and residents enter the draw every year and only a select few get drawn. You can pick rifle or bow, cow or bull, whatever you want to put in for. I spend my ten dollars every year and hope and pray, and I haven't gotten drawn yet, but one of these years I will.
Tom Rowland: I hope so. Well, you can get drawn in the western states, and that's something I knew I was going to like because I love Yellowstone National Park. I actually worked in Yellowstone a long time ago, and it really set me on this course for the outdoors. I love watching those animals, I love hiking, I love glassing. One of my favorite things is to go to Yellowstone, get on a pullout, and just glass hillsides. You can see all kinds of stuff. My son said, well, that's elk hunting, that's all the things that you love. So I was like, okay, I'm going to bite the bullet. I got a real elk setup this year, a bow specifically designed for that, and I've been practicing. I'm getting better. But I wanted to talk to you about the Total Archery Challenge. You're doing that, right? Some of those 3D shoots?
Dale Beatty: Yeah, that was a super cool experience, my first one. It was in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania. The guy I actually went with, I met him on social media, Ajay is his name. He ended up winning a decked-out truck last year on their trophy shot, I think it was something like a 110-yard caribou. He nailed it and won the truck. So I got to go with him and a couple of his buddies, and Jake from 1st Phorm. Man, it was a great time. I'd never done anything like that before, and it was super cool.
Tom Rowland: For somebody who doesn't know what that is, explain the Total Archery Challenge.
Dale Beatty: It's just a group of outdoorsmen, guys and girls that love shooting their bow, and they have multiple different courses you play, kind of like golf. Two of the courses we played were 25 holes, or 25 shots, one course was only 15, but they're all scattered across a ski resort, so if you're hiking you get the scenery, you're shooting at pretty cool 3D targets, and you're taking some very difficult shots you wouldn't normally take out in the woods. So you're definitely testing your ability to shoot, and it's just a super cool experience. The camaraderie out there, making different connections, slinging arrows all day and hiking and seeing gorgeous scenery, it makes for a spectacular time.
Tom Rowland: In preparing for that, did you change your bow setup? Did you start practicing longer shots? Did you know what you were getting into?
Dale Beatty: I had no idea what I was getting myself into. We'd just moved to 40 acres here in Kentucky, so I have more room now, but before that the farthest I could shoot in my backyard was twenty, twenty-five yards. I didn't have much experience shooting beyond that, and the two whitetails I've killed have both been within 15 yards, so I wasn't taking fifty, sixty, seventy, 120-yard shots. The first hole out there was an elk target at like 55 yards and I didn't know what I was doing. I just turned my dial, put it on 55, got settled in, and let it fly. I hit the target, didn't hit the vitals, but I hit foam. So I was slowly building my confidence with each shot, taking tips and advice from the other guys, and they helped me out quite a bit, especially on those very long shots, because my bow is only set up to go out to 100 yards, and there were a couple of targets at 115 to 125. It was really cool taking those shots, and on the last day, on hole number 24, I actually 12-ringed a buffalo target from 125 yards, which was a great way to end the weekend.
Tom Rowland: You don't win a truck for that?
Dale Beatty: Unfortunately not, I'm just a pitcher.
Tom Rowland: That's pretty good though, especially with your bow only set up for 100 yards. Right now I'm practicing at 60, and 60 seems like a long way. In my driveway I just stay at twenty, thirty, forty. But then last year my son and I were hunting and saw lots of elk, and when he finally got his shot, it was at 54 yards, and that seemed so close after seeing all these other elk from farther away. My son is really good, he's in the archery league and takes it very seriously, and for him 54 yards was nice and easy. But when I'm practicing, 60 yards seems so far. I feel like I need to be very comfortable at sixty, seventy.
Dale Beatty: When you get that 50-yard shot, it's going to feel like a little chip shot for yourself.
Tom Rowland: I hope so. So now that you've come back from that one, do you plan on doing more of those?
Dale Beatty: I'd love to get out to some more. They do one in Utah, one in Michigan, and I believe next year they're going to start one in Europe as well, the Total Archery Challenge Europe. Big things on the horizon for them.
Tom Rowland: That would be cool. I know they have one in Big Sky, Montana, which is right about where my boys live, in Bozeman. That one's pretty cool because it's a real ski resort, it's serious, so I'm sure they put those targets in some really cool places.
Tom Rowland: Well, the 1st Phorm connection, they've got some amazing quality people associated with it. I had the opportunity of fishing with Mike Kunahan, do you know him?
Dale Beatty: Yeah, absolutely.
Tom Rowland: We did a show with him, and he's been down to Hawks Cay. He's just a real high-quality dude. And then Dan Bailey, I've known him for a while too. That company just seems to surround itself with good people, or at least draw good people to it. What's your experience been like meeting the people there and visiting the headquarters?
Dale Beatty: Same exact situation from the first time I went out there. You truly feel like family when you're out there, and everyone cares about you. They know there's a better version of yourself out there, just waiting for you to crack through and break through, and they're there to help you out every step of the way. Man, I love that place, it's my second home. I look forward to every opportunity to go out to headquarters, see everybody, and work out in that really cool gym they have. It's just an amazing experience every time.
Tom Rowland: One of the things I saw on your account, and one of the things you've done incredibly well, is this transformation, man. Holy cow, your transformation is amazing. I did a little research, looked at some of your other videos, and it's not only that you made this amazing transformation, but it stuck. How long has it been?
Dale Beatty: Lifestyle down, it's been a little over a year. Going on a year and a half now of this lifestyle, this new version of myself that I'm completely in love with and looking to unlock and get to that next level of what I'm truly capable of. So last year is when I started getting serious, not only about my physical health, but my mental health as well. I'm not the same individual I once was on January 4th, 2021, physically or mentally.
Tom Rowland: How long has it been since you got runner-up in the contest? Is that right?
Dale Beatty: So I got runner-up last year in the New Year's transformation challenge. There was actually one overall winner and then two runner-ups, it was the first time in company history there had been two runner-ups, myself and another guy named Buck.
Tom Rowland: So what, when I was watching one of your videos, you said it was 75 Hard that you started, but that you had tried it once before and didn't finish. Is that correct?
Dale Beatty: I tried it in 2019, and I made it thirteen or fifteen days, I think it was fifteen days. I failed on the sixteenth day and just fell back into my old ways, not going to the gym, not eating the right foods, not reading, not drinking water.
Tom Rowland: Before we go any further, a lot of people probably don't know what the 75 Hard challenge is. Can you explain it?
Dale Beatty: Oh yeah. 75 Hard is seventy-five days long, and if you fail one day, you have to start back over at the beginning. It consists of two forty-five-minute workouts a day, one indoor and one that must be outdoor. You drink a gallon of water a day, you read 10 pages of a self-development, nonfiction book, you take a progress picture every day, and you stick to a diet with no cheat meals and no alcohol for seventy-five days. In 2019, right when Andy Frisella came out with 75 Hard, I was big into drinking and I thought, you know what, I'm going to give this thing a shot. Like I said, I made it thirteen or fifteen days and fell back into my old ways. I thought, well, maybe this is for someone else, maybe I'm just not capable of doing this. Then last year, January 5th, 2021, was day one, and I didn't look back from there.
Tom Rowland: It's really interesting because to me, the most interesting thing isn't just the transformation, it's that your first attempt at this is kind of a typical experience. A lot of people try and don't make it, but then you have this other experience where you tried again and absolutely made it and continued on. So my question would be, what was the difference? Why did one happen like that and the other happen differently?
Dale Beatty: I think in 2021 I had hit rock bottom with my life. I remember actually questioning what's my purpose, why am I here. I felt like I was just going through the motions of life, and I told myself if this is it, then I don't want to carry on anymore, because this isn't what I dreamed my life would be like. I'm grateful for that old version of myself taking that first step, because I remember coming home from work, looking at myself, unhappy and unmotivated with myself even though I was happy with my marriage, and I told my wife, I've got to do 75 Hard tomorrow. I'm starting tomorrow. I set my alarm, set my clothes out, and took off from there. With 75 Hard, you're going to get some physical results and changes, but I wasn't in it for that, I was in it for the discipline, the grit, the perseverance, the self-esteem that you get. That's what I think the biggest difference was, my mind was ready then, in 2021, to actually do it. I think I needed the rest of 2019 and all of 2020 to get to that point in 2021 where it was time.
Tom Rowland: Do you think everybody has to hit rock bottom, or feel like they're at rock bottom, to be able to commit to doing something like this and sticking with it? I'm interested in your perspective, because I see so many people start things and stop, start another thing and stop, and then you did that, but you also went back to the exact same thing and had a completely different result.
Dale Beatty: It's almost kind of like Jocko's "choose your hard," Tom. Living that comfortable life is easy, or it's hard, and living that uncomfortable life is hard too. It's choosing which direction you want to go in. It's going to be hard no matter what, but if you choose the harder route, you're going to be better off in the long run. As people, we all struggle with something, we all have these burdens on us, and do I think you need to be at rock bottom to start 75 Hard? Absolutely not. But I guarantee you're probably carrying around something that 75 Hard can help with.
Tom Rowland: I love it. So on the first attempt, do you remember the day you decided you weren't going to do it and fell back into your old habits? What was it, and why do you think other people do that too? Because that's pretty similar to what happens around the first of the year when people get a gym membership, go at it hard for about two weeks, and then kind of don't anymore.
Dale Beatty: I think it's hard for a reason, and I don't think I was ready to get out of 75 Hard what you're supposed to get out of it. I believe I wanted to go back to that old life because it was much more comfortable, and I thought I had control of it. I was just seeking out that comfort again instead of living in that uncomfortable zone where you're going to grow so much more as a person. It was, hey, this is really hard, I'm super sore, getting home from work and doing these workouts late, rushing through the reading, rushing through this gallon of water, peeing a whole lot. I was giving myself every excuse in the world. Your mind is very strong, and it will talk you into believing things that aren't really true. My mind took over and said, Dale, you're done with this, go back to the comfortable lifestyle because that's what you're good at, that's what you know. So I failed and went back to normal Dale.
Tom Rowland: Do you think about that months later? Like, maybe I could have done that, or when did that start getting in your head?
Dale Beatty: I would say more so in 2020, with all the shutdowns and everything, gyms closing down due to COVID, it just didn't make sense to me anymore. That's when I started drinking pretty heavily, in 2020. You're at home all the time, nowhere else to go, nothing else to do. I think that's when it really hit me, that this isn't sustainable, this isn't who I am as a person, and I have to do something about it. No one else is coming here to save me, no one else is coming here to do it for me, I'm going to have to do it for myself.
Tom Rowland: Man, I love it. And then you did, right? You just jumped back into 75 Hard. I'm super interested in a couple of things, like what books did you read? There's a lot of reading in there, 10 pages a day for seventy-five days, that's seven hundred fifty pages, that could be a couple of books.
Dale Beatty: I think I read a total of five or six books, but the two that stuck with me the most were The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz and Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, one of my favorites.
Dale Beatty: Those two really struck me, and they're still two of my favorite books I've read since. Going back to the mindset thing, we tell ourselves that we're this or we're that, and I used to not be a reader. I don't think I read a book even in college, it just didn't interest me. But through 75 Hard I became a reader, and I really switched that mindset from "I'm not a reader" to "I am a reader." Before 75 Hard I was not a runner, now I am a runner. Those are my two favorite books from that seventy-five hard run that I took a lot from. Oh, and another one, The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson, that's a really good book as well, about turning small disciplines into habits, recognizing when you're sliding and getting back on track.
Tom Rowland: I'll put that on the list. We have a book club as part of this podcast where I put out all the books that I read, some like that and some other ones that aren't. And then, this transformation you had, where can people go to see it, what's your Instagram?
Dale Beatty: My Instagram is Mister Dale Beatty.
Tom Rowland: Mister Dale Beatty. And they can see the transformation, you lost 40 pounds.
Dale Beatty: I lost 40 pounds during 75 Hard. For the challenge itself it was more like 30 or 35 pounds, and all of 75 Hard together was 40 pounds.
Tom Rowland: Nice, dude, you turned into a freaking beast. Did you know all that was under there?
Dale Beatty: I honestly didn't know I could get abs, I didn't know that was possible. I was just so focused on getting the mental traits out of 75 Hard that I didn't notice the weight falling off as quickly as my friends did, or the scale going down. It was like day 56 or 57 when I looked in the mirror and thought, I've lost some weight here. I worked out in college so I know my way around a gym, but after graduating I stopped, and then I'd do it in spurts, get a rush to go for a couple of days and then stop again. Once you're working out indoors seven days a week, you realize there really isn't a lot more to do in the gym, it's the nuance of doing the same things over and over that's where the actual growth happens. You're not trying to reinvent the wheel, those machines work great, the treadmill works great, the stair-stepper works great, the key is just using them consistently.
Tom Rowland: What about where some people have issues, when well-meaning people in their life see these major transformations and maybe say something like, you're going to blow away, you're losing so much weight, you don't go out with us anymore because you eat weird food. Was that ever a problem for you, maybe with the first attempt?
Dale Beatty: With the second one, no, it wasn't an issue at all. I was still able to go out and have a good time, I'd just watch what I ate and not drink any alcohol. But I did find out through 75 Hard who my real friends and real relationships were, and unfortunately I had to part ways with some relationships that weren't serving me in a positive manner. I'm looking to grow every single day, and if someone's not looking to grow too, I don't know that we can do this thing together. It's all about your will and determination, are you going to stick to the commitment you made to yourself or are you going to break it, because if you're willing to break that, you're willing to do pretty much anything. So put yourself in those tough situations and see how strong you really are.
Tom Rowland: Right, and if it becomes a lifestyle, you're going to be in those tough situations all the time.
Dale Beatty: A hundred percent. It's going to be a lot tougher than just going to the bar and someone offering you a drink, or going to a birthday party and seeing a piece of cake. Life's going to hit you a lot harder than those temptations.
Tom Rowland: And so you've made it a lifestyle and continued for another year and a half. Have you kept up the reading, the gallon of water, all of it, particularly the reading?
Dale Beatty: Yeah, I still read to this day, right now I'm on Ed Mylett's Power of One More. My weekend book is Cameron Hanes' book, Endure. And I just finished one of the best books I've read so far this year, a faith-based personal development book called In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day by Mark Batterson, it's a fantastic book. And I still try to hit a gallon of water, some days I fall short, but actually today is a special day for me, Tom.
Tom Rowland: What is it?
Dale Beatty: Today is one year sober from alcohol. Haven't had a sip in a year.
Tom Rowland: Wow, man. Congratulations, that's pretty awesome. How do you feel about that?
Dale Beatty: I feel fantastic about it. I made a commitment to myself on June 30th last year, a little after the summer smash out at 1st Phorm, that I wasn't going to drink again. Today marks one year, so it feels pretty good. I'm super proud of making it one year, but looking forward to year ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five.
Tom Rowland: I stopped drinking for probably a similar reason. I don't really think I ever had a problem with it, or maybe I did, depends who you ask. I was a fishing guide in the Florida Keys, and if I had a couple beers at night, I didn't feel as good the next day, and my career was super important to me. I felt like it was doing nothing but getting in the way, so I made that decision and never looked back. I'm totally comfortable with it now, I'm much happier, healthier, and more comfortable without it than I ever was with it.
Dale Beatty: Yeah. Same thing for myself, it depends who you ask if I had a drinking problem or not, but I found myself getting drunk on a random Tuesday or Wednesday night, going into work unproductive and hungover, my team wasn't performing well, my life felt like it was in shambles, and I just didn't like that person I was. Alcohol didn't serve me. One thing that really got me was that I couldn't think of one positive experience I'd had from being drunk. But now that I'm sober, I've racked up nothing but wins since becoming sober.
Tom Rowland: That's a good way to put it, you're stacking the wins. And then if you compare actually doing that in a business sense with having this transformative experience that's so physically obvious, you went from a regular dude to entering a bodybuilding competition. It's really amazing, and honestly one of the reasons I reached out to you is because I'm doing this right now myself. I dropped 20 pounds since March 10th, and it's been awesome, I'm sleeping better, performing better in the gym, performing better at my job, everything seems to be better. So I'm looking at your transformation thinking, man, I've got to talk to this guy. You obviously have some genetics as well as a lot of hard work, because there's no way you build that kind of physique without hard work.
Dale Beatty: I can't take credit for the secret, I'll tell you and only you, Tom, the secret is just consistency. It's showing up every single day, that's all it is.
Tom Rowland: That's so funny, that was my Friday podcast. Here's my recipe for fitness. People are all worried about making sure they do it right, finding the right trainer, knowing how to do the movements before they get started so they don't hurt themselves. It's like, no man, it's consistency first. You have to develop the habit of going. So when you first start, don't worry about doing it right, don't worry about how much weight or how many reps, just be there, just go and develop that habit for a couple months to where you're not going to break it. Then it's time to start working on whether you're doing things right, finding somebody who can teach you a clean jerk or a deadlift properly, and you do that for a while until you've got the consistency nailed and you're doing the movements correctly. Then, guess what's next, you ramp up the intensity, put more weight on the bar, go faster, go harder, run further. But it doesn't matter how intensely you go or how perfectly you do the exercise, if you don't show up every day, it doesn't matter. So those are my three things: consistency, accuracy, and intensity.
Dale Beatty: That's it, exactly. It's you versus you every single day. You don't worry about the other guy, you just show up for yourself.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, and so where do you plan on going with this?
Dale Beatty: To the moon. My next goal is Elite Athlete of the Year for 1st Phorm. I won Elite Athlete earlier this year.
Tom Rowland: How do you win that, for anybody that doesn't know?
Dale Beatty: You put your name in the hat for it, and you help out as many people as you can, become a Legionnaire for 1st Phorm. That way you're able to help people through the program, and you lead from the front with your actions, live by their core values, because someone from 1st Phorm is always watching, no matter what. So you stay on top of your game and you can become an Elite Athlete. I threw my name in the hat for it a little after I became a Legionnaire, when I won runner-up in the 2021 transformation challenge, and they told me that never once had a transformation challenge winner gone on to become an Elite Athlete. I told them in an interview, I'll be your next Elite Athlete. And sure enough, I went out, did my part, and was awarded that position this year, which was humbling and an honor.
Tom Rowland: That's awesome. And so the next step would be what?
Dale Beatty: Elite Athlete of the Year. I'm not too sure what they're looking for exactly, they don't tell you. I'm just taking it as, I'm going to keep putting one foot in front of the other every single day, keep helping out as many people as I can, keep going to the gym, and try to influence or help someone take on this lifestyle and make it theirs too, because we're all capable of doing what I do, it just begins with a choice, the decision on whether you want to do it or not. I'm very grateful that I took that step to become this new version of myself and stay consistent with habits that have nothing but positive outcomes.
Tom Rowland: Awesome. What do you do for a living?
Dale Beatty: I'm a sales manager for a logistics company called Total Quality Logistics. I do that full-time and then do the 1st Phorm stuff in my free time, plus I'm big into bow hunting. Summer's taking it kind of easy, but I've got about seven or eight trail cameras running right now for the upcoming whitetail season.
Tom Rowland: A lot of people use having a job as an excuse, they can't be working out all day. So what was your schedule like going through this with a full-time job? How did you fit in the workouts?
Dale Beatty: During 75 Hard I was waking up at four in the morning and getting my indoor workout in first. I'd get home, shower, and knock out my 10 pages of reading before work. What's nice about that early workout is you're able to get your gallon of water down a lot easier because you're starting sooner, I found that if you don't have that gallon knocked out by around 6 PM you're going to be up all night. Then for my second workout, I'd take my hour lunch break at work and do my outdoor workout, we had a running track close to my office. At first I couldn't run the full forty-five minutes, so I'd run, then walk, then run, then walk, and slowly over the days I progressed to where I could run the whole forty-five minutes and get in five to six miles each time by the end of 75 Hard, which was really cool to see that progression. Time management was important during 75 Hard, but now it's more workout Monday through Friday, sometimes Saturday and Sunday too, depending on what I have going on around the farm. I take my lunch break, work out at the office, sometimes go in the morning or after work, just whenever I can get it in, but I make sure I go Monday through Friday for sure, and I love keeping the weekends more for farm stuff.
Tom Rowland: That farm comes with some responsibility. You got a tractor out there?
Dale Beatty: I don't have a tractor yet, but I've got a zero-turn mower and a side-by-side, all the fun toys.
Tom Rowland: Are you planting food plots?
Dale Beatty: I haven't been able to get food plots ready yet this season, that's going to be a next-season thing. I had to get the wife's projects going first, we've got 13 chickens out here now and three gardens going, so I had to get all that stuff set up before I'm allowed to go do my thing out in the woods. Happy wife, happy life, take care of her first, then I'll take care of me next year.
Tom Rowland: Is the plan for you and your wife to be self-sustaining out there? Did this happen before 75 Hard, has she always wanted to do that?
Dale Beatty: We'd always thought about owning a piece of land and making a sustainable life out of it, and we were blessed with the opportunity to buy this 40 acres from a buddy I actually went to school with. Everything worked out, the timing and price and everything aligned, so we just had to jump on it. We were used to living in a neighborhood, so in the beginning it was very overwhelming, but now we've gotten into a flow and we're figuring it out as we go.
Tom Rowland: What kind of stuff do you grow in the garden?
Dale Beatty: We've got silver queen corn, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, cabbage, some kale, and potatoes too. My wife's in charge of the garden and the chickens, I mostly handle the manual labor and moving things around so she can do her thing.
Tom Rowland: Are the chickens laying eggs yet?
Dale Beatty: Not yet, they'll start laying in August. Once we get those going we're going to get some meat chickens too. I actually stopped eating processed chicken a while back, we bought about half a cow and have been eating that along with some whitetail and turkey in the freezer, and my wife's granddad goes down to Florida and fishes crappie so he brings us some of that too. I went to a chicken processing plant and saw what goes on in there, so I've held off on chicken for a while.
Tom Rowland: I can understand why. Chicken's very nutritious, a lot of protein without a lot of fat, but I'm with you, the practices are hard to watch, especially when you harvest your own food and know exactly where it comes from. We catch a beautiful mahi-mahi or a snapper or a tuna that goes straight on ice, and you know exactly how long it's been there. Even when I go to the supermarket and look at fish, it doesn't look like my fish. I know it hasn't been handled as well as it should be.
Dale Beatty: Chicken plants are pretty gross and they smell terrible.
Tom Rowland: They do. Chicken's a good meat, good protein, I really cut back on it myself and started eating a lot more beef a few years back, for kind of the same reason. How big are you, what do you weigh?
Dale Beatty: Two hundred pounds.
Tom Rowland: Two hundred pounds, five-eleven? How much protein do you eat a day, 200 grams?
Dale Beatty: Two hundred grams, yeah, mostly beef and wild game. We don't eat much pork, but mostly beef, wild game, fish.
Tom Rowland: What about eggs?
Dale Beatty: Store-bought right now until the chickens start laying, I can't wait for farm-fresh eggs.
Tom Rowland: Man, when you start eating all this stuff off your own land, you're going to have another transformation, I think, it's going to be incredible. You've got yourself a nice little homestead carved out there.
Dale Beatty: Thinking about getting a cow and seeing how that goes.
Tom Rowland: Do you have it fenced already?
Dale Beatty: There's already some fence up, so I wouldn't have to do much, just fix it up a little bit and make sure it's secure. We're still talking about it, she also wants goats, I don't know how I feel about goats, but we definitely want a cow.
Tom Rowland: What about predators, do you have coyotes and stuff?
Dale Beatty: Yeah, I'm getting coyotes on the trail cam, and I was actually out here turkey hunting this past spring and had a fox run right up on me, saw him in person real pretty, didn't shoot him because that wasn't the plan that day.
Tom Rowland: Wait till they find those chickens, your wife will put a bounty on their heads, I can tell you that right now. Oh, look at the cute fox, until it eats one of the chickens, then the fox is no longer welcome.
Dale Beatty: Right.
Tom Rowland: I've never owned a piece of property like that, but I've always thought about it, I'd like to have chickens, a garden. We get a lot of fish, I usually buy half a cow, and we've got the elk from last year and a bunch of deer, we try to eat wild game and wild fish as much as possible. That's the best if you ask me.
Dale Beatty: That's the good stuff. Same here, I could eat a whole cow I think. That grass-fed burger, it's just something else, I'd never had grass-fed beef before until we bought that half a cow, and it was so good.
Tom Rowland: Wait till you get elk, you're going to love that. I like deer, but I really like elk. I can eat deer and I do love it, but if I had the choice between venison and a beefsteak, I'm probably picking the beefsteak. But the choice between a beefsteak and an elk steak is a tough one, it's really good. We made these meat sticks out of the elk, like the 1st Phorm meat sticks, oh my god they're so good, and then elk bratwurst, I could just do those all the time, they're amazing, you just throw them on the grill.
Dale Beatty: I've had elk one time and thought, okay, I definitely need to kill one of these things, I need this in my life. Hopefully we make it happen next year, we'll see.
Tom Rowland: I hope so, because when you go elk hunting you're going to go berserk, you seem like an obsessive kind of personality like myself, so when you see something like that you're going to go crazy, it's very addicting. I know you mentioned turkey hunting, and a lot of people compare turkey hunting and elk hunting, there are some real comparisons in my opinion, except the elk is a thousand pounds, so it's just a little different. Some elk hunters say there's no comparison, but there kind of is, they're both cautious, smart animals. An elk is super tough, and it has a lot of ways of knowing you're there, if a turkey could smell like a deer can, it'd be almost impossible to kill.
Dale Beatty: Almost impossible to kill.
Tom Rowland: But I do like turkey hunting, that's fun, it's just going to take a back seat to the elk pursuit, mostly for financial reasons as much as anything else once you take on this elk thing. It's expensive, so I might not be turkey hunting as much as I used to.
Dale Beatty: Don't tell my wife that, we'll just keep that between us.
Tom Rowland: Don't worry about it.
Tom Rowland: Well, listen, nice to meet you, it's been awesome to talk to you and get to know you. I want to exchange some books with you, I've got a whole book list on my website that I'll show you, but I'd like to send you some of my favorites and get some of yours. I collect finding out what someone's favorite book is. I'm reading one right now called The Tiger, a lot of people have told me it's their favorite book. It's about a guy who goes to investigate after a tiger kills someone, and he's supposed to go in and kill this tiger. It goes deep into how smart tigers are and how difficult they are to hunt, they're a really incredible animal, but it also goes deep into Russian history since that's where the story is set. It's pretty interesting, but I'm not going to put it as my favorite. I'll send that one to you first, maybe you'll think the same as I do, pretty good but not the best.
Dale Beatty: Have you read The Comfort Crisis?
Tom Rowland: Yeah, by Michael Easter, I read that one, I like it a lot. I try to read some that aren't like those too, and right now I've got Endure, Cameron Hanes' book, saved for my next long drive, I like to listen to books if I've got a long drive, like to Montana or wherever. There's also Kristin Hannah, she's an incredible writer, historical fiction, she wrote The Four Winds and The Great Alone. If you read enough self-help and personal development books and feel ready for a break but still want something interesting, her books are amazing, you learn all this stuff about history. The Great Alone is one of the better books I've ever read, along with Beneath a Scarlet Sky. And Unbroken, did you ever read Unbroken?
Dale Beatty: There's a movie, I haven't read the book.
Tom Rowland: It's amazing, Beneath a Scarlet Sky and Unbroken are both like they're in four parts, and any one of those parts would be an exceptional life that someone lived. Just about the time you think this guy is having the most incredible life, sometimes bad, sometimes good, he goes on to the next thing, and just when it seems like it couldn't possibly get worse, it gets way worse, and this guy is just so mentally strong, he just endures. That Unbroken book was great, they made a movie out of it that was two hours long, but the book is like thirteen hours to listen to, so they cut a ton out, but the movie was still pretty good.
Dale Beatty: They always say the book is better than the movie.
Tom Rowland: Well, people told me that, and I never read books growing up, I didn't want to, I'd read the minimum amount. Then later when I found fishing, that's when I became a voracious reader, because I'd read all these books about fishing, and I thought, oh my god, I'm reading books, this is crazy. Then it became a habit, like we're talking about. I never read any books as a kid and then turned out to like them later.
Dale Beatty: It's wild how much we throw reading to the side after high school, I read some stat that was staggering, how many Americans don't pick up a book after graduating. There's just so much information and knowledge out there to be had, we just have to make that decision to go seek it out, retain it, and use it, because it's going to make our lives better. If you have any suggestion at all for anyone out there, just pick up a book and start reading, seriously, and you're going to learn a lot about yourself from it.
Tom Rowland: Good suggestion. What do you think your number one gifted book would be, do you give books to people, or what would be your number one recommendation?
Dale Beatty: It would have to be In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day.
Tom Rowland: I'm going to read that one, man, I don't even know what it's about but you've told me about it twice now.
Dale Beatty: It's so good.
Tom Rowland: I'll read that and put it on the reading list. If you're listening to this and didn't realize we have a reading list, go to tomrowlandpodcast.com, there's a place where you can go to the book club and see all these books, you can even buy the books right off the website. We can come up with your suggestions too and throw those up there, you can have a little section for the ones you particularly suggest.
Dale Beatty: There we go, that'd be cool.
Tom Rowland: That'd be great, man. Well, listen, I hope that one day we get to train together, shoot our bows together, and hang out, maybe at the 1st Phorm place or somewhere else, you're a super hard-working, dedicated dude, I like to hang around people like that. It's been great talking with you and getting to know you a little bit better. Tell everybody where they can find more about you, you've got a YouTube channel, Instagram, what else?
Dale Beatty: Instagram is Mister Dale Beatty, and YouTube is Dale Beatty Outdoors. I just joined TikTok, not sure how I feel about it yet, I think I'm Mister Dale Beatty there as well, or just Dale Beatty on Facebook. So find me and let's interact.
Tom Rowland: Right on, man, Dale, awesome, thanks for spending some time with us today, I really appreciate it. I look forward to staying in touch with you, and we'll do this again.
Dale Beatty: Yeah, Tom, I appreciate it, thank you so much.
Tom Rowland: Alright buddy, thanks, see you.
Dale Beatty: Thank you, see you.
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