Driving south toward Sacramento down Highway 99, sitting in the infamously uncomfortable middle seat between two booster chairs. I would be lying if I said sitting in a 2009 white Lexus SUV was the perfect place for this interview. My best friend and Instagram fitness model, Megan Williams, asked if we could take care of an emergency errand to get her car fixed in Sacramento. She’s got a lot on her plate: raising two boys as a single parent, a full-time job, a full-time school schedule at Chico State, going to the gym four days a week, all while promoting and maintaining her Instagram fitness following is a lot of work. Who was I to say my interview had to be in a cafe like I planned? If I had to sit on some raisins and a Black Panther action figure to get my interview, so be it.
Her boyfriend, asking to be called Kush for the sake of the interview, tagged along at the last minute. I didn’t know he was an athlete as well so at the last minute, he asked if he could be apart of the interview, along with joining us for food later. “Why not?” I shrugged with indifference, “I might as well get the most out of this.”
There we were, all of us sitting in the car, blasting the AC on a 90-degree day in the middle of October. We couldn’t be more of an odd trio. Megan, fair skinned, medium length blonde hair in a bun and her blue eyes, contrasted with some black mascara on her eyelashes, casually diving the car with her left freshly manicured hand, holding Kush’s hand with her right. Kush's appearance looks so contrastive in comparison. His dark African skin looks like a rich cup of coffee, his dreads put up in a ponytail, and his black hoodie says “Sativa” in bold white lettering. They both look so relaxed together. There I was in the middle of it all.
It’s hard maintaining contact with your interview subjects with a rearview mirror. I planned an interview about what it’s like to be an Instagram fitness model; What I got was a completely different take on cannabis and the fitness industry.
***
Jazmine: Hi guys thank you so much for talking with me. So I want to start off by asking you two respectively what your guys’ background with sports and fitness is up to this point?
Megan: So I started sports in 2nd grade playing basketball with my dad and coach for about 15 years all the way through high school then after I graduated, I took some time off to have my kids, and it definitely changed my body in comparison to what I looked like before. So after my second son was born, I got really motivated to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight and the way that I looked before I had kids. So, in doing that and talking with other people who were also moms, it sparked my interest developing myself as an athlete and seeing how far I could push myself in fitness to gain the results of being a fitness model to just gain more confidence in myself.
Kush: Well, I started playing sports in little league football and played other sports like baseball and basketball all the way until I graduated high school. A year or two after I graduated, I started boxing, so I did that until I was 24, 25, 26? Besides that, I’ve always wanted to stay in shape. My mom always spoke to me about being in shape even if I’m not playing sports as a professional athlete. She warned me about health issues in my family: heart attacks, stroke, and stuff like that. I didn’t smoke until I was like 25 or so. I started growing cannabis soon after and learned how to take care of plants at the same time when I was learning to take care of myself. Right now, I feel like I can say that I’m in a good position at 34 years old. People say I look like I’m not 34. It’s a blessing from the Lord; it’s just been my walk in life.
Jazmine: I’m really curious as to how marijuana has influenced your life as an athlete. There are a lot of articles coming out recently about taking it off the list as a PED (Performance Enhancing Drug), and I want to know if you guys are using to enhance your physical and mental capabilities when you guys are performing as athletes?
Megan: For me personally, it depends on the strand. When it comes to working out. I like to smoke sativas more before because it just really helps me focus on what I’m doing in the gym and gives me like a tunnel vision almost. When I’m working out and lifting the weights, I can feel the muscle groups being isolated way more than I do when I’m sober. It just, allows me to focus more intently on form or number of reps. Sativas allow me to step outside my comfort zone and reduce some of that anxiety of trying new and experimenting with other workouts.
Kush: Well, for me, I’m a weed connoisseur. The thing about it is that I always thought it was an issue. I thought weed was a bad thing. That’s what I was told by all sports, football, basketball coaches; they told me to stay away from it. One day, I was in New York, and I was celebrating, had a few drinks that night, and I woke up, and I had a hangover. A professional boxer at the time and his friends from San Diego had some medical marijuana at the time, and they were like “Why don’t you try some of this? It’ll get rid of your headache in basically no time flat.” I laughed and thought it was a joke. I was trying to lie after a minute because once I took a hit, it was gone. I made it a point to find the truth for myself. I feel like I’ve been lied to. I did start paying attention to how it affects my body during workouts. I’m gonna go off course with this, but like you know Dragon Ball Z?
Jazmine: YES! I loved that show growing up! (everyone laughs) My nerd girl persona comes out again.
Kush: That’s great! Because you know what I’m talking about. What Goku did to get to that Super-Saiyan level. What he would do is go into a room an do regular workouts before those big fights that everyone knows. You know, sit ups, pull ups, crunches. But the room, you can turn the gravity up to way more than what humans could handle. And when I was lifting free weights, after smoking sativa or indica, it makes my body feel heavier and shortens up your workout.
Jazmine: Does the kind of strand or grade matter when it comes to using cannabis before or after working out?
Megan: I do want to make a distinction first: Medical marijuana over recreational marijuana is so much better in the quality, and it’s treated differently. It’s more potent. The quality of the weed if gonna affect the quality of your workout. If it isn’t good quality, it’s not gonna give you that emphasis you want.
Kush: The more potent the weed, basically because I grow, I’m a THC freak. The more potent the THC, because each plant grows THC differently and some strands are just stronger by nature. It’s like wine, how certain wineries are just better at growing different grapes than others, God knows why. That’s what’s gonna happen to marijuana pretty soon.
Jazmine: That’s funny you mention that I’m in a wine class right now…
Kush: That’s so cool.
Jazmine: … and we are learning what different grape varietals taste like, and it never occurred to me that cannabis is thought of the same way. Like the way you guys talk about different strands is the way I would talk about the difference between a Zinfandel grape and a Cabernet Sauvignon grape for wine. They are completely different because of their flavor profiles. If I think about this, you’d pick out a different strand to deal with mental health issues like depression or anxiety and post-workout recovery just like you’d pick different wines to pair with different dishes.
Megan: Yeah, you are right on that. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety when I was 16 and taking meds at that age could have made me suicidal. It just doesn’t make sense to give someone meds like that. When I smoke, it takes the edge off. Smoking indica allows me to have a much deeper sleep REM sleep. So when I wake up in the morning, I’ll still be sore but it won’t be nearly as bad as when I would wake up after basketball practice in high school.
Jazmine: I want to ask about your personal opinion on how you both see marijuana being projected in the Sports and Fitness World or if you have ever thought about it up to this point?
Megan: I have put a lot of thought personally into what could come. I can see a lot of areas that where it could be beneficial and enhancing recovery time to help with the recovery of athletes getting that deeper sleep and aiding in the recovery time.
Kush: I mean look at Michael Phelps, he is an avid weed smoker, and he's one of the best swimmers in the world, And it never hurt him.
Jazmine: I will take you to task on that because he got a lot of flak when they found out that he was smoking weed he lost endorsements and was questioned as to whether marijuana was a PED. If I remember correctly he got a few of his medals taken away.
Kush: Yeah he went back and won more and broke all of his old records. He basically said if y'all don't want me to talk about it and be politically correct about it then I'll just do it at home.
Megan: Medical marijuana is more than just a performance enhancer. There's something to be said about taking a holistic medication And I don't want to call it a drug because that will only add to the stigmatization of marijuana. It can help the body recover faster with deeper sleep, make workouts more intense, makes me focus, helps me take off the edge of having depression and anxiety and it allows me to destress because being an adult is hard. I smoke so I don’t take out my stress on my kids. It allows me to be a more ... a more amplified version of me.
Jazmine: Thank you guys so much for opening my eyes to this topic but now I want to ask a question looking toward the future. Do you think cannabis has a place as part of a professional athletes fitness regimen? Like, do you think fitness influencers will start recommending it has part of a fitness routine like they do with protein shakes?
Megan: That wouldn’t be a bad idea, adding CBD to protein shakes…
Kush: I think it could but we are at a point in our society where it could be fully accepted or stigmatized again. I think the cannabis industry could skyrocket if a brand like Nike, UnderArmour, Adidas, put their name behind even just a CBD oil. The name recognition could change everything.
Jazmine: Let me reframe it this question then. Would you guys as social media influencers endorse marijuana as part of a fitness regimen right now?
Megan: (Pauses for a few seconds) That’s hard. I don’t think the fitness world of Instagram is ready for that. As much I think it works, losing follows is a big deal. I think in the future, it would be something I’d be down with.
Kush: Yeah, same here. I would have to make a different profile to test out whether there would be a demographic that’d be down with it, you know? Now that we’ve had this conversation, it could be a future endeavor.
***
A few days later, I get a message from Megan in an Instagram DM chat. She says she has been thinking about our interview non-stop and that “I’m ready to pursue this when the time is right. Why not? The market is wide open now.”
Whether the idea of cannabis growing in the fitness industry is considered radical or not is really up to the individual. If there is a possibility of proper research on marijuana and its benefits on the human body coming out soon, we could be seeing products like CBD oils, protein edibles, and new varieties of cannabis strands made solely for fitness promoted on Instagram ad stories. There are chefs like Cat Cora elevating CDB and THC in cuisine so who is to say it couldn't happen in the sports world? We are at a turning point when it comes to the stigmatization of weed in the public eye. With California legalizing marijuana sales and growth, the possibilities are endless.
Megan is right: The fitness and cannabis market, along with all the new and innovative business ventures that come along with it, is wide open and waiting for the right people to advocate for it.