In Moderation
Providing health, nutrition and fitness advice in moderate amounts to help you live your best life.
Rob: Co-host of the podcast "In Moderation" and fitness enthusiast. Rob has a background in exercise science and is passionate about helping others achieve their health and fitness goals. He brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the show, providing valuable insights on topics such as calories, metabolism, and weight loss.
Liam: Co-host of the podcast "In Moderation" and new father. Liam has a background in nutrition and is dedicated to promoting a balanced and sustainable approach to health and wellness. With his witty and sarcastic style, Liam adds a unique flavor to the show, making it both informative and entertaining.
In Moderation
Unpacking Fitness Myths: Tackling Social Media Misinformation with Ben Carpenter
Fitness misinformation is rampant on social media, and who better to tackle the myths than Ben Carpenter, a seasoned influencer and personal trainer? Join us as Ben shares his journey from naive content creator to a dedicated educator, using platforms like TikTok and Instagram to reach a wider audience. He opens up about the challenge of correcting misinformation without seeming overly critical, all while staying true to his mission of educating and helping. Ben's insights into the social media landscape offer a unique look at how one can use these platforms to foster genuine learning and understanding.
Dietary beliefs have evolved dramatically over the years, and we take a reflective look at our own transformations from rigid low-carb followers to advocates of balance and flexibility. We share our stories of stress and relief as we moved away from the pitfalls of restrictive diets, embracing a more balanced approach to nutrition that prioritizes mental well-being. The conversation touches on the misleading nature of grocery store videos and the broader lifestyle shifts driven by technology and convenience, with fascinating comparisons between American and European habits.
The pressure to look a certain way in the fitness industry is intense, and Ben provides a candid glimpse into the unrealistic standards faced by influencers. We discuss the ethics of brand partnerships and the public's skepticism towards diet sodas and artificial sweeteners. Through personal anecdotes and thought-provoking examples, we explore how physical appearance often unfairly dictates perceived expertise, drawing parallels to other industries. As we look at the innovative use of AI in combating misinformation, this episode promises a thought-provoking journey through the complexities of fitness and nutrition in today's digital world.
You can find Ben
https://www.instagram.com/bdccarpenter
https://www.tiktok.com/@bdccarpenter
You can find us on social media here:
Rob Tiktok
Rob Instagram
Liam Tiktok
Liam Instagram
Welcome to episode 69 plus one Plus one, as Liam forgot 69 last time.
Speaker 2:Still mad about that. I was going to say it's a week later, but it's only been like two days. Man, this has been like the longest week ever. That's all right.
Speaker 1:How you doing, rob. It has also been the longest week ever for me, so let's just jump right into this, because I think both of us just want to get this on with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's get this on with. Yeah, I thought you were about to say we're desperate to get this over with. I was like give us your quick tips, best tips, in about five minutes. Then you know we'll have the shortest episode. No, I'm actually unlike this guy.
Speaker 3:We're just absolutely desperate.
Speaker 2:I am excited to have to do this episode because, okay, listen, we, we got ben on today. Ben carpenter, everybody knows him, we don't need to introduce you. Um, I started following you like when I like downloaded tiktok I think you're like the first or like second person I started following. I was like, oh, wow, tiktok's actually like pretty decent, like it's got it, got some cool stuff here, and then it kind of went on. I was like, oh, it's not okay, it's not all good, but like it started off real well, it started off absolutely crumbled to shit after that day like this is great man.
Speaker 2:I know it's been like because you've been doing social media for how? For how long have you been like making content, social media?
Speaker 3:I've been a personal trainer since 2006 and I started social media since 2009, like facebook and youtube, I think 2009. Like Facebook and YouTube, I think it was 2009. I remember someone nagging me to make an Instagram. Make an Instagram Like I sound like my mom. Make an Instagram saying like oh, that's the place all the cool kids are now Like one of my friends has got 70,000 followers. You should start this Instagram thing. I was like, oh, it just doesn't look like my vibe. Everyone's posting it's going to go away soon. Anyway, It'll go away soon. And then same thing with TikTok Like the peer pressure, I ended up joining there. But yeah, it's actually. Oh fuck, 16 years on social media Nearly 16 years. Too long, Too long.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of time to be doing this.
Speaker 2:I mean 2009,. That's like when YouTube didn't like YouTube start in like 2009 or something around there. You were like at the start of it.
Speaker 3:I can't, I surely can't. Surely it started before that. I'm probably sure my social media journey. I started basically like I used to log on and post something and log off. I was never a consumer, so for a long time I didn't. I didn't really have any social media friends like I was slow to follow both of you. But part of that is just I log on, post something, log off. I was not.
Speaker 2:Uh, I wasn't I wasn't used to the social side of social media of like kind of sort of the react content to other things and like the fitness world and stuff like that. So do you just like check your tags and you're like, oh, this dickhead again. All right, let me talk about that. Go on, is that what it?
Speaker 3:is Actually literally that. So, um, I like doing reaction videos because it's the equivalent of someone asking me a question in the gym. So I used to. If someone will walk up to me in the gym or or a client would say, oh hey, I saw this, this new story in this newspaper, saying like eggs are killing you or something like, is it true? And I used to just answer questions for free, obviously, in the gym when people had them, and I would happily spend five, 10, 15, however long talking to people about stuff for free and I was like, oh, if I do this on social media, it's scalable and it helps more people.
Speaker 3:And I like responding to tags because it's the same thing. It's like if, if lots of people, if 20 people, have a question about the keto diet, it means I have to make a video about the keto diet right now. Admittedly, I have like slightly changed tact a little bit because that you know there's a fine line with reaction videos. I know both of you are happy to reaction videos as well, but there is a fine line where you're responding to, a fine line between responding to misinformation and just looking for things to disagree with, and I don't want to look like I'm one of those people. I've seen people where the vibe is. I'm just desperate to find something to disagree with right and I really don't like the I want to prove I'm smarter than you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I the there are some people I'm like not going to name names, obviously like millions oh man, I was just about to ask you name all the names.
Speaker 3:That's gonna be the worst there are some people that that kind of do similar videos to me, but I'm just like everything you you do, just it feels so negative that it feels like you're trying to one up.
Speaker 3:So, uh, over time I realized that about 75 percent of the things I was tagged in were all bullshit, because of course, bullshit is what goes viral, so it's if I'm responding to a lot of bullshit it's because that's what I'm tagged in. I'm not trying to do that, but every so often someone would be like all you're doing is is responding to people's videos, and I was like I guess that is how it comes across to some people and I don't want to be perceived as that because I'm worried that some people will look at me and think he is a real fucking asshole and I'm not deep down, but I do understand why it can look like that. So I do a lot of reaction videos or response videos. It's probably more precise. So I do a lot of reaction videos or like response videos. It's probably more precise. But I try and make sure that even if I have to almost disproportionately cherry pick, I'll actually go out of my way to find things I agree with.
Speaker 2:I'm not really like this video and I'll yeah, I started doing like just reaction against, like you know, the constantly oh, fucking seed oils again for the 38th time, awesome. And eventually I was like, okay, let's do some like good videos people give in good advice. Let's do recipes all this is fun. I had to do just just other stuff, also for your own mental health, I can't. You know, I'm sure if you've been doing it for you know 38 years or whatever that like eventually you're just like fuck, this is again. I'm going over this. Okay, let me ask you, like, what are the like the most common things that you see? Like again, again you're like you. I've been doing this for this many years, I've gone over this just so many times and it just keeps coming up that you're like.
Speaker 3:I don't even want to do it again. There are some videos where I'm just I can almost go to my folder because every time I make a video on like fasted cardio, it's like here are the very small number of studies that I could actually test fasted cardio in, you know chronic real life settings. So it's like here is my fasted cardio folder and there are some where I'm just like I can't do this again or I feel bad about doing it again. How controversial is it to name names?
Speaker 2:We name all the names. We got no issues here.
Speaker 3:I had to stop responding to tags on like Eddiedie abuse videos. Oh, I, I can understand that. Uh, it was almost like where do you start and stop? It's literally just waffle. It's.
Speaker 2:It's so much waffle although waffles are obviously I still get tag paul saladino, just like constantly, just like he's saying yeah it's like.
Speaker 3:It's one of those where it's like I think there's there's enough truth where it sounds plausible to people some of the time, or quite a lot of the time, and then every so often it just strays further and further away. But when you respond to one of the ones that's really extreme, they're like yeah, but he's just saying eat real food, and it's like he's just telling people that they should just be eating, you know, just healthier and exercise more.
Speaker 2:And that's why he has a shirt off and he's yelling at a bottle of seed oils. That's why.
Speaker 3:I don't think so. Yeah, that's not the same thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like fasted cardio, he's got a spear and fruit in front of him and vegetables, and he's yelling about how a potato is killing you and you're telling me that he's just trying to make people healthier. Okay, sure, this is awesome. That's all I love social media.
Speaker 3:Um, fasted cardio was like a big one for a long time. I don't haven't seen that one quite as much recently. Keto dieting and low carb dieting has obviously been huge for a long period of time. Intermittent fasting has been huge for a while now. Now, obviously like, the newer trend is carnivore. Seed oils, food dyes is a big one.
Speaker 2:The first few you mentioned, though like I get it, because I think it's like one of these things are like fasted cardio. It's like, okay, so you don't have food in your system, you don't have like energy, you know coming in, so you're using fat. So they're like, oh, you're using fat for fuel, which, like energy, you know coming in, so you're using fat. So they're like, oh, you're using fat for fuel, which, like you know, all the same thing with like, uh, with keto, like you're gonna burn more fat for fuel if you're on keto because you're consuming more fats.
Speaker 2:It's just like these, like little sound bites you can use to say like, oh, you're gonna burn more fat during this. It's like, yeah, yeah, that's totally cool. But like, what about the rest of the day? Like you're gonna eat more, you're gonna eat later, right? No, or you're just not gonna eat ever and then you're just gonna implode into nothingness, or you're just gonna, you're gonna starve, like what's gonna happen the funny thing about that like short-term substrate utilization argument, is that I used to be a super hardcore low-carb person.
Speaker 3:I remember years and years ago when I was like 19, 20 years old I'm like 37 now I forgot my age, nearly 38, um and I remember I was like a hardcore low-carb guy for years and I used to think the same thing as like research showing that carbs raise insulin and insulin, you know, fatty acid oxidation.
Speaker 3:So therefore low-carb diets are best and they're even researchers like one of my kind of online friends more than real life friends but a guy called James Krieger. He published research where he thought low carb diets were favorable for fat loss and then, over time, it's like, actually we tested it with with um, an equal amount of protein, and we tested it again under isocaloric conditions and what we thought used to be true isn't true anymore. So obviously, like science evolves and I think sometimes people look at certainly me I'd imagine you too as well, but I will only speak for me because I don't want to project but sometimes people will look at me like he's trying to be holier than thou, shouting from his pedestal, but in reality, a lot of things that I make content on, the things that I've fallen for. They of things that I make content on. The things I've fallen for. They're things that I've believed as well. I'm often I'm often myth busting, myths that I have fallen into in the past.
Speaker 2:You have some other ones, so you used to be into, like you know, the low carb. Was there anything else you you believe in?
Speaker 1:I got into like the bcaas for a while let me get everyone, yeah, yeah let me get the list.
Speaker 3:Bcaas absolutely the. The amount of money I've spent on on supplements, including bcas, over the years would be eye-watering if I looked at it now. Um, what else was that? Low carb, definitely. Fasted cardio, definitely I was. I was huge for zooming in on things that I thought might make a tiny difference, not realizing how much stress I was causing myself, being scared of chemicals in some ways. I know that's a vague way to describe it, but you know what I mean. I actually remember years and years ago, back when I was a low-carb person organic food that was another one Very much.
Speaker 3:I remember following people who used to say things you will think that this is a modern day video when I describe it now because it's like come full circle.
Speaker 3:They used to say things like because sugar is so bad for you, if you see sugar on the ingredients list, you can't eat it, for example. And I remember going into uh, going food shopping and I remember going to pick up a chicken, like as far as put veganism as an argument to one side because I know that's controversial, but as far as things that people eat go, chicken is obviously more nutritious than most things that most people eat a lot of the time. But I remember picking it up and looking and one of the ingredients was sugar and I was like shit, I can't eat this it's. And one of the ingredients was sugar and I was like shit, I can't eat this, it's got sugar in it and it was like in hindsight it was probably a gram of sugar in, like the seasoning, in the same way that if you buy mexican seasoning packets, there's often like a little bit of sugar as a filler and a binder and yeah but why is there sugar in it?
Speaker 2:why are they adding it's? Because they're trying to make you fat with that. You know, that's what that one gram of sugar.
Speaker 3:What I was like, oh no, that's. That's really bad for you.
Speaker 3:And you know, sugar causes diabetes and sugar exactly sugar causes inflammation and sugar causes all of these things and I I wouldn't eat it. And I remember it kind of spiraled down to the point that my mental health was in the seventh layer of hell and I wouldn't socialize with friends where I was going out to restaurants. I wouldn't buy food from places. I used to have to look at a menu every time I was ordering, try and look at ingredients list if I was buying food online. But then it got to the point where I didn't even like eating food at friends houses because if they were preparing food I was like how did you cook that? Like what did you cook that and what kind of oil did you cook that?
Speaker 1:all of that stuff here's my seed oil allergy card yeah, and that's the like.
Speaker 3:like I say, we've kind of come full circle and my mental health was shit and like tangibly that I could put my finger on like what could I pinpoint? I cannot tell you a single thing about my health that was better then than it is now. So when people are like, oh you know, but you eat ultra processed food sometimes, like that's so bad for your health, I literally feel healthier now than I did then, because when I do eat those things, I don't, I don't get stressed about it, I don't freak out, I don't suddenly binge eat because I feel guilty that I've eaten one cookie or two slices of bread or whatever else is being demonized at the time. Yeah, I have like a real personal relationship to those fucking grocery store videos.
Speaker 2:like if there's anything that boils my piss, it is grocery store videos it's always in the fucking grocery store, and lately it's just like oh, let's fucking lose the shirt too, why not? You know what?
Speaker 3:The funny thing is it's on paper. I don't even mind the idea of grocery store videos. If I was in a grocery store and I was like, hey, here are some foods that I think could be more nutritious.
Speaker 2:Why didn't you swap this for this?
Speaker 3:Brilliant foods that I think could be more nutritious. Right, why didn't you swap this for this? Yeah, brilliant. Like that's the same type of thing that a dietitian might do with people like, oh, look at your diet and let's see what we can improve. Like that as a concept is is fantastic. But if you look at all of the grocery store videos on social media, it's the fact that so many of them are garbage that it's just become a running joke when I've been getting tagged in recently that I, I just, I love, I hate.
Speaker 2:No, I hate, I love both. Um, it's, they're like complaining about food, of fruits and vegetables being bigger like. I'm seeing that a lot like.
Speaker 1:They're like.
Speaker 3:These things are like gmo sorry, I'm so, I'm so sorry, miss, miss miss, you're complaining to me that that this bell pepper is too large.
Speaker 2:Is that the? Do you look at me? Do you really think americans are unhealthy right now because they're eating large bell peppers? Like where on this, let's, let's, let's, let's take a step back here.
Speaker 3:Oh shit that is the issue. I I actually think that's funny. It's like the same thing where people zoom in on one vegetable and say, like this is causing kidney stones.
Speaker 2:The one oxalates, it's got isocyanthine, whatever, even if you're like rates of X condition have gone up.
Speaker 3:Especially when you zoom in on vegetables, it's like no one fucking eats them. No one is eating vegetables. For you to look up huge observational data and be like, oh, the rate of this has been going up and that is why no one is touching broccoli.
Speaker 2:Broccoli is causing nothing when, like, three percent of people ever eat it and so this brings to the point that I definitely want to talk about. I think I'm forgetting it too, because I got this. This showed up my house yesterday, literally yesterday, or maybe the day before, I don't know. Days run together again. It's been a long, it's it's the last week, has been 18 days, but this showed up recently and I just started, like I was at the gym today for those listening what, what?
Speaker 2:liam is holding up ben's book ben's book yes the new book, the other one, I'd like the record to show you that this was not planned. Yes, I read this on the treadmill today because I will do anything to distract myself from cardio. God, I do not enjoy it like in any way at all.
Speaker 1:So anything I can do. That's what a.
Speaker 2:Nintendo Switch is for? Yeah, like I have my. I was just before this. We were with this podcast. I was playing a little bit of VR, like trying to do something just to like get to move, and I was going to clean my house. That's my fucking cardio. Like I was out just cleaning my car because I was in my house and I was like, oh, my car needs clean. I haven't had half the shit in my house, but I just switched over my car.
Speaker 2:No-transcript. What are they putting in our food? What sort of chemicals are they putting in our food that make us fat? Holy shit. Okay, first off. First off, I don't remember the exact numbers, but like the amount of food we eat at home, like a home cooked food, has gone down significantly. Right, we have a lot more fast food just available, this hyper palatable like super delicious, high in calories, you know, like cheaper food everywhere. And now our jobs requires to like what people used to like working like you know, I don't know what. What do people used to do? Coal mines or something who knows? Like, yeah, but they moved more. They moved more right, like I don't know what kind of jobs people did back then. Listen, I'm an influencer. I sit in front of a camera and I record myself. I don't know what's going on in the world.
Speaker 2:Back in the day, when you hit the age of 10, you were thrown in the mines I know right, and then um, but now you know, we so basically move less and we have access to more of these like really delicious foods and it's just like pretty obvious. Like 90 of americans don't hit their vegetable requirements close to that for fruit, like I, I'm just I'm baffled at how we can just be like, oh no, it's this, this ingredient that's making us, like it's msg, like that's what I see, like often, like what are you talking about?
Speaker 3:it's like that reminded me of one of those videos I saw recently where someone's like look at this photo of people from people in 1917. Look at this photo now, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it's like like you say what is the, what is the chemical they have put in this food? Like it, like it's one thing, and I'm like zoom the fuck out. Oh, my god, um, what, what, couldn't you what?
Speaker 2:it's like there's a forest behind them and they have a twig and they're just staring at the twig and you're like there's a look around you I'm like what?
Speaker 3:is there anything that you could zoom in on and go? You know what? That is actually super similar to how it was 50 years ago, like everything has changed. The amount of technology we use change, the amount of desk jobs we use, change like I can sit. I can sit on my ass and order food to my door on a smartphone, because I can't be bothered to walk to fucking walmart or target or whatever. Because, even like even amazon, part of the reason amazon is crushing it is because people don't want to leave their fucking homes. That's part of the reason. It's like one touch order, something comes to the house my wife a day a few hours.
Speaker 3:My wife can order soda in the morning and get it in the afternoon because where we live some of them are literally same day delivery and it's like one touch soda to the door, like didn't get that in the 1970s, or like how many tv channels we had when I was a kid. I know this sounds like I'm like a granddad when I say, oh, back in we had when I was a kid.
Speaker 2:I know this sounds like I'm like a granddad when I say oh, back in the day when I was a kid, we had to get up and turn the TV to the channel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember having one of those TVs where you had to get up and change the channel and we have four channels, four channels. Every time you wanted to change a channel, you have to get up and press a button and then go and sit back down. Nowadays it's like oh, I can't find anything on the eight bazillion channels we get on TV, so I'm going to load Netflix and if there's nothing on Netflix, I'll go to Amazon Prime. If there's nothing on Amazon Prime, I'll go to Hulu.
Speaker 1:And you know what, if you want remote, you can just pull up the app on your smartphone and still change the channel just from was going to say was that I love how people say there was an obesity spike in the 1960s and everybody seems to have forgotten that in the 1960s, suddenly, television became widely available like man.
Speaker 2:Like you, lived in the europe's right ben like you lived, didn't you live in the europe's for a while. As to that, region.
Speaker 3:there's like there's like a running joke in England or in Europe that Americans don't know geography, and I think part of that is reinforced by the fact that America is so big that Americans don't need to leave America. Like the whole of England fits into California. So to Americans, they can go on a road trip and they will spam the length of England.
Speaker 2:Oh, you don't understand To the Europeans. Like you drive six hours across New York, you are still in New York.
Speaker 3:To us it's 10 hours south coast. You can drive from the south coast of England to the north coast of Scotland in something like 10 or 12 hours. I have lived in the Europes, you've lived in Europes yes, the Europes which is it's on the con and odd.
Speaker 3:It's on the con and odd. Yeah, the funny thing is where I grew up. Right, I grew up in this tiny, tiny, tiny rural village. We had 200 houses and 600 people and there was one tiny shop, the tiniest shop, like a post office. There were no restaurants, there were no pubs, there was no fast food, there were no takeaways, because where we were was slightly outside of the area. Anyone would deliver to. So I remember growing up, and my mum would. She would go to a food shop, bring the food home, home, cook something. That was it, and that's what food was like for me. If I wanted to, if I wanted to do anything, um, social, I would go out in the street and I'd kick a ball around with friends or throw a frisbee or something like that. It was always very, very active. It wasn't about computer games and stuff when I was a kid. Then over time, computer games started creeping in, and I mean it's happening everywhere.
Speaker 2:That's not like you know, it's not just yeah but like I, but like I feel like in the Europes, like people do a lot, they do, you know, there's, there is, you know, a lot more walking and also, like I feel like portion sizes, I feel like that's something that's not left out. That's left out quite a bit, like you know. You, could you like you?
Speaker 3:look at a fast food place around here or any like even just restaurant, like you get it. You're like a 20 ounce steak, that's all I get. What do you mean? Like I need?
Speaker 3:I don't think people realize how big portions are in america unless you're traveled, because friends I know that have traveled a lot. This is it's not like a controversial thing to say, um, but american portion sizes are ridiculous. They are ridiculous and you can look at. You can look at portion sizes of things over time. It's very difficult to to measure portion sizes of every food on the market because there's you know, there's so many data points and food changes over time. But you can look at individual brand items and be like I'll look at a mcdonald's burger when it was first introduced and look at how many big Mac sizes are available now. You can do things like that.
Speaker 3:But as an example, I remember I think it was the first time I ever came to America where certainly the first time I'd gone to like this part of America, and I was in Vegas with a friend and I know Vegas isn't reflective of the rest of America but nowhere is reflective of the rest of America because it's so big and diverse and we went to this steakhouse. It wasn't like a fast food place, it wasn't like a place that's known for being gluttonous or having huge portion sizes. It just went to like a steakhouse and I ordered something and when the waiter brought it out I tried sending it back because I thought he'd. I thought I thought he'd got it wrong.
Speaker 3:This is for a family yeah, I was like oh sorry, this isn't, uh, this isn't what I ordered. And he repeated it back to me and I said, yeah, I uh, I only ordered it as a starter. And he was like this is a starter and I was like shit, the bed. I thought it was a main course because it's so big. But then if you go to you can go the other way, like if you go to places like france or spain.
Speaker 3:Typically from experience at least typically the portion sizes are tiny in comparison. So when I first came to america, portion sizes were too big, but now I've spent more time in america. When I go to other countries, portion sizes are too small. I've got used to american portion sizes. It's like it's an effect known as as portion distortion the idea that if you grow up with certain portion sizes, that just becomes normal. Because if you're used to eating a plate this big for anyone listening yes, making a shape with my hands and then and then you have to eat a plate this big for anyone listening slightly smaller, that sucks. No, no one wants to go from this to this and reduce their food intake by 20 like. That's not fun, it's. It's psychologically distressing to look at a plate and be like I know that's not as much food as I want to eat, but if that's what you grow up looking at, so you just get used to huge portion sizes and America is ridiculous. I think we can just say America is ridiculous.
Speaker 2:We don't need a citation for that. And not only that, but like you said, you can get that portion size with a few taps of your magic rectangle in your pocket, Like you just go da-da-da and then it just shows up at your house.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you one of the other things that I one that I one of the other things that I realized and again, this was like uh, wherever you go in America is obviously different to other parts of America. But one of the things I noticed when I first came here is how quickly food is um served. So it's like you can walk down a street and there seem like a lot more um, they're not all fast food restaurants quote-unquote fast food restaurants but they're things that you can get food quickly, the equivalent of like Chipotle. You can stand there and order while you're standing and you can have your food within five minutes. Compared to, it's like they're called quick serve, instead of sitting down and getting a menu and ordering and waiting for a chef to cook it and you get food 30 or 40 minutes later.
Speaker 3:So we very much become more of an instant gratification society. If you want food, places have to serve it quick, in the same way that Amazon need to deliver next day or the same day, if they can. People want food faster. They want food to be tastier, they want larger portions. Right, you want more for your money. I don't think that's. I don't think that's even like a controversial thing to say. If you're spending 10 bucks on food, it would be great if that 10 bucks was fucking delicious and you got as much for your money as possible. Yeah, so food manufacturers? I know people are like, oh, food manufacturers, they're trying to poison us. It's like food manufacturers are trying to make money because their business is so they make food that is fucking tasty isn't that the craziest thing?
Speaker 2:They're like why are they trying to make you addicted? I'm like well, they're trying to make food taste as good as possible.
Speaker 3:That's kind of how fucking economics works, like if you're baking a cake at home, you don't go. Can we make it just like a bit less tasty?
Speaker 2:Instead of sugar, let's use salt. Let's just do all salt, one cup of salt. Let's make it taste like shit.
Speaker 3:We'll make it as tasty as possible, like if my wife makes a cake, it's like a little bit more sugar, some more sprinkles or whatever. We do the same fucking thing at home, but it's so easy to go. Our manufacturers are trying to kill us or whatever. They're just trying to make money.
Speaker 2:Trying to make money just like the wellness influencers are trying to make money off their supplements that don't actually contain the active compound they say is in the said supplement. Shots fired and the supplements hold, I'm just going to be straight honest with like tiktok and like the that that you know the future of that up in the air and, like they're with it, my main source of income. I'm like, all right, let me look at some like you know companies and whatnot how much have you been offered?
Speaker 2:for I mean just for, like, I'm, just, I'm, I'm blown away with just the number of like out of every 20, but tell us exactly how much money you've been. I don't listen, every single one of them seems to be you know a few thousand dollars, just to mention a product plus you know like commission or whatever you know on on it and it's like, but it's seriously like out of 20 emails, 18 or 19 of them are like supplements.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like I'm just is there any?
Speaker 2:and then the 20th is like a mattress. I'm like, fuck it, I guess I'm selling mattresses. Like what the hell is that? What do I do here? Like with it sucks. So I don't know man, I fucking, I just I don't like, I don't want to like supplements, I'm just throwing. I've said this many times, but I don't know man, I don't really like supplements. I've said this many times, but I don't really like it out there.
Speaker 3:That's okay. That's not controversial. I don't think I'm not going to say their name, even though they've said it publicly. I'm not going to say their name because I can't remember how much of the information they blanked out, but I'm pretty sure a friend of mine got offered $10,000 a month to promote a probiotic supplement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thousand dollars a month, uh, to promote um like a probiotic supplement. Yeah, probiotics, yeah, bloom. Bloom has been shelling out like tons of money for influencers for legal reasons, I did not specify a brand that we, we that's all on liam, we re-roll, we, we roll with it.
Speaker 2:They I I mean like, and it's, it's all fine, but like I'm not spending my money on it. So even like I'm drinking this, this company was it Poppy? They sent me this and they were like, oh, we should do a partnership. I'm like I don't know. It's got like two grams of fiber and it kind of costs more than regular diet soda and it doesn't taste as good as diet soda to me.
Speaker 3:So thanks for these. It's like $ fifty a can, I think, for those at least where we are I'd rather have like just a coke zero.
Speaker 2:You know if I'm being honest and then you know I'll do a part. Are you? Are you shilling for? Big, big cola I listen, that's what I was just about to say. It's like I'll do, like I would totally be like, yeah, fucking love coke zero. If you want to pay me to say that that's totally fine, then I'm.
Speaker 3:Then I am a shill for big soda that's how I was all of that controversy a few months ago with um american beverage paying people to talk about sweeteners, aspartame, when that you didn't even get, didn't even get paid.
Speaker 2:You missed I didn't even get paid. I made videos talking about how aspartame is safe. I didn't make shit off that I think there's like.
Speaker 3:I think there's like an interesting thing there, right? So you have talked about if I'm going to say it like you, I'd say aspartame I'd say aspartamine as whatever.
Speaker 2:How do you say it aspartame?
Speaker 3:but americans say aspartame. Um, if you, if you're like I, personally think the research is not convincing enough that I should have to avoid this. Like everyone says, I will drink Coke Zero or other brands or whatever, but if they paid you, people would not trust what you say. I think it's okay for us to admit that, even if it's something that you agree with, there is a when financial biases intertwine. You do have to go. People are going to view me as less trustworthy. So if they said we will pay you to promote Coke Zero or another generic brand, would you take it or would you be like, oh no, people aren't going to trust me.
Speaker 2:For something I already drink. Yeah, I would totally. I'd be like, yes, I mean, listen, if I'm already talking about something and I like something, then yeah, sure, if you want to pay me to say, on top of that, that's totally cool. But and yeah, I know people are gonna be like, well, now I don't trust you. You trust me before, you don't trust me now, that's totally cool, whatever. Yeah, if I can roll with it, especially I think that's fair.
Speaker 3:I think that's fair, it's just that that is how social media works.
Speaker 2:Diet soda is the fucking nectar of nectar of the gods, and I will not hear otherwise that shit. That's one of the greatest inventions humans have come up with is fucking diet soda. You're telling me this delicious can of Coke that has what now like 140 calories, and all this sugar and all this stuff, and I'm drinking two a day. So then you know, on top of that, I'm drinking like 80 grams of sugar. I can reduce that to zero. I can reduce that to zero grams and I still get the taste.
Speaker 3:I remember years and years ago. So you know, whenever any of us talk about diet soda, someone is going to get really angry. And I I always, I almost always talk about it from a body weight perspective, because body weight is such a clean metric to study, it's so easy to say after eight weeks, the group consuming diet drinks lost 0.5 kilos and the people consuming sugary drinks gained one kilo. It's like super clean, it's not? Not controversial?
Speaker 1:um, it's controversial that you just used kilos. Where's my?
Speaker 3:freedom units big on the metric system here. Um, and I remember, like everyone, there is always someone who gets super angry about the fact, like, yeah, but it's going to make you gain weight because of this, because of this, like sugar is better for you, blah, blah. I don't think they realize what people in the real world are like because, as an example, I remember a guy coming up to me I shit you not, this doesn't even sound like a real conversation. There's a guy coming up to me. He's a huge bodybuilder and I'm gonna do this as close to word for word I can, because it's so many years ago that he's not going to be watching this. It's not like a personal dig. And he was like bro, I'm dieting for it, I'm going to start dieting for a show. I want to lose some body fat. I'm going to go low carb, but there are still. There are still some things I need, because I need carbs for energy. So it was like I'm going low carb, but I need carbs for energy. And I was like I feel like you pick, pick a lane that's trying to ride two donkeys with one ass.
Speaker 3:But as we were talking, he picked up a bottle of Coke and started drinking it and he said, oh, I drink one of these a day, but it wasn't a bottle of Coke Like you would normally drink liters, two liters a day, one of the family size bottles a day. And when people are like, oh, you should just have sugar, you should just have the real thing instead of sweetness, I think they're underestimating how much sugar people can drink. It's very easy to be like sugar is more natural than than sweetness, so it's better to drink sugar. It's like do you know how much sugar that guy was drinking every single day for years and years of his life? I drink one of these a day, every day, without fail.
Speaker 2:And I thought he was joking and he was not joking if you go from six cans of regular soda to six cans of diet soda. That, objectively, is just going to make it easier to lose weight, maintain your body weight, all that stuff like, and there's so I, yeah, I think there's.
Speaker 3:sorry, I might have accidentally interrupted that and I didn't know if you were at the end of your sentence or not, but that reminded me. So I think there are often some kind of conflicting research studies where people are like, oh, diet soda didn't win in this case, or it did win in this case or whatever. But part of that is because it heavily depends on how much someone is drinking otherwise. Like if you tell people to drink diet soda instead of regular soda, if they're only drinking one a day, the net difference isn't huge compared to my friend who was drinking two liters a day. If he had gone to diet drinks or water or whatever, that would obviously be a huge change.
Speaker 3:And in free living scenarios people will often, if they change what they drink, they will often change what they eat. So there's that kind of running joke that someone will go and order a Big Mac and fries and whatever, whatever, but they will order a diet drink. It isn't as clean to just say people who drink diet drinks should weigh less than people who don't drink diet drinks or whatever. But there's so much research out there that's like we found an association between diet drink consumption and higher body weights.
Speaker 2:Right, but yeah, people generally will pick lower calorie things, like diet soda, because that just makes it easier. Yeah, so listen, I'm just I'm just ending it there. Diet soda, nectar of the gods. I will never give it up. It's. It's great even if that is, even if like aspartame aspartame was something that was like harmful in some amount. I'm going down with the ship because it's fucking delicious and it's definitely better than drinking as much regular soda. So, yes, thank you very much.
Speaker 2:But I also wanted to oh, that was the other thing I want to talk about because I mean, so you do a lot of like fitness stuff. I've got a curious like, like when I was OK, so what. I remember when I was younger I would watch like like Spider-Man, like Tobey Maguire Spider-Man. I would watch like like Spider-Man, like Tobey Maguire Spider-Man, right, and like. He had a scene where he like he was shirtless and we're like, oh man, that dude's jacked, you know. And like or like early Hugh Jackman Not, not, not juiced up Hugh Jackman now allegedly, but like early Hugh Jackman in like X-Men, where he's like, oh man, he looks good. And now if, like those bodies went on, you know, social media, be like, oh, do you even train, do you do, you lift till discomfort, like I'm sure that the comments would be like ruthless, so like, have you seen that? Like I'm sure you've seen it over the years, right, like you must have kind of seen that transition I've been like.
Speaker 3:I mean, I've been going to the gym since I was, I think, 16 or 17 when I first joined, so so 20-ish years now, and it's actually one of those topics I'm supposed to make a video about in the next few days. I've got it on my pending list. But someone commented on one of my videos like a week or two ago, saying I watched an old film and someone who I thought was jacked. Then now I watch, they are not jacked and I think this is such an interesting. It's kind of like how portion changes over, how portion size sizes change over time, and then it recalibrates your expectations. I think that media, and also social media, has recalibrated people's expectations of what humans are supposed to look like, because have you seen early Batman?
Speaker 2:Which early Batman?
Speaker 3:Look for the earliest Batman and the earliest Superman images that you can find and then compare them to Henry Cavill or something like that. Even things like Zac Efron in Baywatch he wasn't supposed to be a bodybuilder. He wasn't supposed to be like an evil superhero where he is supposed to have unrealistic like you can argue that Bane should be jacked as fuck because he is supposed to be you know he's essentially on steroids.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like you can argue for that. And when there's that whole thing about Robert Pattinson as Batman, saying he doesn't want to do the whole super jacked thing, loads of people are like, yeah, but you're Batman, you need to be super jacked. Like I know you can certainly argue, when it comes to like Marvel or DC or whatever, that people should look jacked if they're superheroes. I do understand that argument, but someone like Zac Efron he was just a lifeguard.
Speaker 2:Because Baywatch, who was the help me out, the rock, and oh, do you mean originally original baywatch, who's the?
Speaker 3:what's his half hassle? Yeah like he wasn't like a jack dude, like he was compare have a look at david hasselhoff in like original baywatch to like zach efron and the rock in baywatch as the film. And the funny thing is, if you looked at david hasselhoff now you'd be like, oh, oh, my God, does he even lift? I bet he doesn't even do like a dedicated bench day man.
Speaker 2:Do you even know what a mesocycle is? What are you doing? Yeah?
Speaker 3:But I think that's in keeping with media and social media in general. I think the bodies have evolved and especially in the fitness industry, like drug use, it's obviously very hard to measure drug use because it's such a secretive thing. You can't exactly survey people and say tell me all the illegal things. If it's illegal in some countries, depending on what they take, tell me all the illegal things that you've been doing. You can get some anonymous surveys and some small scale surveys and stuff. But most guys at least would say if they're going to a big gym they would know that a decent percentage of the guys there are taking gear. And I have certainly seen it with myself where I've been lifting long enough to be comfortable in the knowledge that I am in a very small percentage of what physiques look like, just because not that many people have been lifting weights for 20 years, especially if it's their job, and have been in magazines for looking a certain way, that type of thing. So I'm comfortable enough to know that my physique is still in a very small percentage of people statistically speaking. But people will still look at me on social media and say that I'm out of shape and that blows my mind. Um, the number. I wish I had taken a screenshot every time someone hasn't has insulted my physique, because I think it would be a good demonstration of how fucked people's body um ideals are.
Speaker 3:I've had people. I've had people on social media I, I have. I started compiling them at some point. I have got over a dozen random comments from people telling me that my neck is too thin.
Speaker 3:I have I once had a guy I promise I'm not even joking, I'm sure you're not I I once had a guy this was promise, I'm not even joking, I'm sure you're not. I once had a guy this was the weirdest one. He sent me a photo of me and he had drawn an arrow to my wrist Because I was like one of those photos where I'm holding onto something like a rope, and he'd drawn an arrow to my wrist and he said your wrist is so thin that I would suggest you take this photo down because it looks it might deter people from working with you because you clearly um are not very well developed in terms of how muscular you are and like that is that's the expectation that certain people in the fitness industry will have, where it's like if you don't look a certain way, if you're not muscular enough everywhere, including your fucking wrists, you you're not a good.
Speaker 2:You're not setting a good example I've seen, I've even seen a lot of, at least a few, um, you know, natural lifters because, like that group is actually pretty small right now. It's a really natural, if it's not. Like you know the ones that claim they are natural yeah, exactly, wink, wink, the trend twins are very natural, by the way, and so like, and even them are like, they're like, yeah, no, I'm actually going enhanced because it's just like that's what I need to do to stay like relevant in the, you know, in the industry and it's it's. Yeah, it sucks. Like you see, people like jeff nipper is probably one of the more cop, like most more popular, like natural lifters, and like he gets a lot of shit for being like small.
Speaker 2:I'm like this guy, like you know the way it's just gone over the years, and like the distortion we have with social media because, of course, only like the smallest percentage of like the top, uh, you know the people who are probably taking enhancements and then also have the genetics behind them. They're the ones that are going to rise to the top of, like you know, social media. Get a following right. I think there's like.
Speaker 3:I think there's one easy example we can use when you talk about fake naturals, because it's been admitted enough to the point that it isn't even controversial to admit it or talk about it. But like the liver King as an example, yeah, yeah, imagine if he had done all of the things that he had done, but he was not on a shitload of drugs. Imagine he just had a regular guy's physique.
Speaker 2:Let's say he was like zero chance. He's like super skinny, what he?
Speaker 3:got, yeah, like doesn't, doesn't even lift in the gym. Super kind of skinny guy, or even if he had way more body fat, but if he wasn't roided out of his fucking mind if he had made all the same.
Speaker 3:If he had made all of the same videos, would he have had millions of followers? No, because you see the physique and people would be like, yeah, but he clearly knows what he's talking about because he's in shape, and that is the power of looking a certain way and the amount of trust that people will put on you based on how you look. I used to have. I know this. I used to have clients literally come up to me in the gym.
Speaker 3:Uh, this happened numerous times, but as one example, I've sat in an office on my laptop doing some work and a young guy knocked on the door. It's like a glass-fronted office in the gym I used to work at and he knocked on the door and said you have a good physique, can you train me? I want to look like you. So people will see a certain amount of muscularity and be like he knows what he's talking about, so I'm going to hire that person. So if you do take a lot of gear and you are super muscular, there are going to people that automatically assume whether they realize how dangerous this is as an assumption or not automatically assume that guy knows what he's talking about. So I want to hire that person because he looks how I want to look.
Speaker 2:But the easiest way to look how other people want to look is to take drugs oh, and how do you like I don't see a way of like combating that, Like I don't, I don't even know how you besides just trying to educate and trying to show how it has changed over the years? You know, and like what? I think a lot of guys do it because they think they're going to get women by being, you know, large, more muscular, which doesn't really does not pan out the way you think it would in my entire career, more guys have asked me if I'm gay than women have hit on me.
Speaker 3:I'm not even joking the percentage of women that have hit on me in 20 years is like I could count them on one hand, whereas the number of guys that have hit on me, um, is much, much higher.
Speaker 3:Um, but like, here's an example I think here's a parallel example, in case this is an even slightly controversial idea for some people. Let's say, you want to buy some skincare products, are you going to buy them from someone who has, let's say, flaky skin a common thing or are you going to buy them from someone who has perfect skin, right, and people go? Are you going to buy them from someone who has perfect skin, right, and people go? Well, I will buy them from the person who has perfect skin. But if the person's skin is like, okay, I need to take botox. Now, I need to get botox because then more people are going to trust that I can sell this thing. Um, that is how looking a certain way makes it easier to sell certain things. But you know, genetically some people are going to have worse skin than others. My wife is Asian for one and stereotypically they tend to have clearer skin than a lot of white people.
Speaker 1:So one of my friends, people who have different- skin is like one of my friends I remember.
Speaker 3:Uh, she was like what do you do with? What do you do with your skin? How is your skin so clear? What's your skincare routine? And my wife was like I literally wash my face with water. And my friend's like she would get spots and blemishes and dry skin and flaky skin and spends, however, many hundreds of dollars on skincare products. But the point is it's easier to sell something when you look a certain way, because there's just a natural thing in your brain where you're like I trust that person because of how they look.
Speaker 2:It's very difficult to combat that yeah, man, it really is like what I I that's that's what I like struggle with. I'm like I just I don't want to just like accept and say nothing, but like I, I genuinely am just like at a loss for like what to do, because it's so ingrained in us and it and it and it hits upon our like kind of just more like base brain, you for like what to do, because it's so ingrained in us and it and it and it and it hits upon our like kind of just more like base brain, you know, like our id, it's just right Like, as an example of this how long have you been?
Speaker 3:how long have you been doing what you're doing? You, you know that you're more intelligent than the average person when it comes to fitness information, nutrition information, like. No one here would dispute that right. Um, but like, as an example, I remember a guy in the gym. He used to come up to me and ask me for advice. He would ask me for nutrition advice, he would ask me for training advice, um, but he admitted that he was on so much gear that, in his own words, when he first injected it, he injected too much and he couldn't walk because he had miscalculated how much he was supposed to be injecting. Um, and I remember the guy. He's a lovely guy, he had only been lifting for two years and I didn't realize that when I saw him, because the guy was built like the fucking hulk, he was massive, he was so strong, he looked like he was a few weeks away from stepping on stage. He weighed. What are your weight measurements? Do you talk stone?
Speaker 2:yeah, stone I mean. Sometimes I use kelvin he, he, he, uh.
Speaker 3:He was something like two or three stone heavier than me at my height and he had been lifting for slightly under two years and he, he, just he takes a lot of drugs. But he was so much stronger than me and so much more muscular than me and he would ask me for advice. But if you saw both of us in the gym and you were like I want to build muscle, you are going to go and ask the other guy. Yeah, drugs are a proven shortcut. Unfortunately, that's not a judgment like it just can take you from a to b faster or it can take b further than you can get on your own and yeah, and now we talk about, you know, access to, like you know, social media.
Speaker 2:There's just easier to to get these things. You might not be able to buy them on amazon, but you can surely sure as hell get them shipped to your house disclaimer for anybody thinking about doing drugs.
Speaker 1:they also take your life expectancy from A to B quicker. Oh boring, Look at you coming in with all your health and mortality. One of us has to be the voice of reason here.
Speaker 2:Upsides, you're bigger Downsides Literally everything else. Literally everything else is the downside man. But, rob, what were you saying?
Speaker 1:the downside man. But, rob, what were you saying? I'm well, here's the the, the most important question that you you've gotten asked so many times and why did you steal liam's mug?
Speaker 3:oh, fucking hell, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:Yes, I totally forgot about the mug, bro. Okay, so this was funny as shit. So I see him with the mug. I'm like that's cool's cool. I got tagged on that so much, oh my gosh. And I'm like I got to get one of those. So I'm like comment to your videos. I'm like man, I got to get one of those mugs and eventually, in like one video I have the mug and you know, like I showed you your video, it was like to make my own.
Speaker 3:There was like a there was a solid couple of months where I probably got tagged more times asking about my mug. Some people like did liam steal your mug, or did you steal his mug or do you just have the same mug, or whatever, and I was like out of all the things I could talk about, I feel like this is quite low on the totem pole. And all of this started because one day I don't even know how we got on it, but you know, there's novelty mugs that just say like fuck on the front, or whatever. My wife and I on one of our date nights just went to a painting place. I was like, oh, why don't you paint me a mug and I can whatever. And then she's like, what do you want on it? And I said I don't know, fuck me sideways, something like that stuck it on and that that's how it started. So when I start, some people got unnecessarily angry about that. Oh my god, you've stolen liam's mug. I was like I definitely have not.
Speaker 2:I if, if I wanted to, I would have changed it, I would not have stolen his mouth oh, that's fantastic, oh, man that's some amazing drama between you two right there oh man, that was listen it's, it's all in, good fun, all right, it was just, it was fun, it was.
Speaker 1:It was very funny man besides, everybody that knows liam knows that he steals everything, so oh, listen, I see something I like and it's working, so why not just go listen?
Speaker 2:oh man, that's. I mean, that's like you know that's social media. And I would get people asking me about, like, oh, the mug gets me every time I do it, so then I'd bring it out for like a certain video. Whenever I see another fucking grocery store walk, I'm like I gotta get the mug for this one. I I mean, come on, it's fucking Paul Saladino again. This is how I feel.
Speaker 3:I'm just I'm waiting, I'm waiting for a certain point and then I'm just going to come after you for like a royalty percentage on your merch haul. I like that.
Speaker 2:Oh, man, so good, so good.
Speaker 1:But Liam, you had brought out his book earlier. Yes, you just came out with a new book. You should probably tell people about that.
Speaker 2:Yes, I definitely want to plug the book. So you had your first book right, and then everyone kind of complained that was like me, dumb me, not understand right, and so you had to kind of dumb it down for us.
Speaker 3:I don't sound silly. I don't really like talking about my book because it makes me think that people are like listening to this thinking. That's why he's on that podcast and I would prefer to just talk to friends on a podcast and never mention a book, and if people like me, they'll follow me anyway, rather than me talking about book. Um, but what I what I will say is all of the all of this came years ago. Uh, when I first met my wife. She said to me before we were dating, she was like so what do you do on social media? Like, what do you sell? Do you do online training? And I was like no, I just, I personally train people face-to-face. And she's like oh, do you have you got like an app? And I was like no. And she said do you sell eBooks? And I was have you got like an app? And I was like no. He said do you sell ebooks? And I was like no, I don't do anything. I literally just personal train people.
Speaker 3:She's like you don't make any money online, nothing. And I was like no, zero, literally zero pounds. And she said how long have you been on social media? And I was like well, you know 2009? And she, she couldn't, couldn't believe it and she's like at the time I probably had I don't know, know I will guess, but say 100,000 followers or something like that. And she's like you've literally never sold anything. And I said no. And she said, if you have all of these people following you, they want something from you. It's not you selling something for the sake of selling something, it's. People look at you as a trustworthy voice. You should give them something that they can trust.
Speaker 1:If they don't want to support you, they won't buy it. Right.
Speaker 3:So I started writing what was going to be an ebook and I thought you know I'll take a few months. I'll write a really good ebook. Sell it online. If people want to buy it they can, but you know it'll be there in the background and I ended up. It ended up taking three years because I turned it into a print book and self-publishing and had to learn all the lessons of shit, like how to buy ISBNs for your book and all of the stuff that people forget when it comes to self-publishing. And I wasn't really expecting it to do very well. I just thought I'll put it in the background and if people want to support me, they can. Um, and it did surprisingly well and if I had known how well it was going to do, I would have not written it in the same way, because it started out as a hundred and one hundred and forty thousand words, which is like literally two books back to back is huge.
Speaker 1:Um, and I had to hire an editor and she's like people's attention span doesn't have I was gonna say that's about uh, 99 percent longer than the average social media user's attention span yeah.
Speaker 3:So I hired an editor and had to like, streamline it and streamline it and streamline it to the point where she's like, okay, people will read it now, but it was still longer than most people's attention span. It's still more detailed than most people's attention span. So, um, that did well and, uh, a publisher ended up wanting to sign me for another book, so I wrote a second book to make it, to make it easier. It's kind of like you guys will know this, capturing people's attention on social media is difficult, really difficult, and if you make a let's say, we pick one topic that we've mentioned today, like sweeteners, if you made the most detailed, fucking incredible video about sweeteners, it's 10 minutes long, but it is crammed full of science. There are systematic reviews on top of systematic reviews and meta-analyses and control trials and history and all of that you can make the best, most detailed video on sweeteners that you can, but if it's 10 minutes long, it will not get as many views as a funny video that's 30 seconds long. Yeah, and that is the the difficult trade-off between trying to provide useful information in a way that teaches people um, and managing to make it still entertaining to read, um, and that's part of the reason I had to change my strategy slightly because, like I, I want to improve people's health.
Speaker 3:I don't actually care about fat loss as much as people think I do. It's just a common topic that everyone asks me about. So over time I've just kind of become the fat loss guy. Right, I want to improve people's health and it's very difficult to improve someone's health if they don't want to read a book. My brother said to me like he my brother is is dyslexic, um, and he said I couldn't read your first book. I'm already on, I think, chapter three and I'm really enjoying this and was like that is kind of the whole point. It's if I could get 100,000 people reading my second book, that could impact 100,000 people's lives, and it's more likely to happen than getting 5,000 people to read my first book, which has a lot more detail in it, because at the end of the day, people just want, like they want, the information that is useful for them.
Speaker 2:Tell me what to do. Tell the day. People just want, like, they want the information that is useful for them. Tell me what to do. Yes, you're citing 18 studies for this one sentence you gave that's super dope. I love that. But like also, I just need simple, uh, you know, tips on on what to do and that's what I see and like when I you know what kind of like changed, kind of, my perspective a little bit. It's a little while ago. There's a, there's an account on I mean, he does like instagram tube, on tiktok. He calls his account I don't give a fuck foods and basically you might I think I think you.
Speaker 3:I think when me and you made a video together, I think we had a conversation about this. I think you showed me one of his videos, but I've never heard of him.
Speaker 2:I've never seen the video before that just kind of changed my you know perspective because basically, yeah, he just sits there. He's like I don't give a fuck that this has, you know, aspartame, that this has this, that this has, this has food dyes, whatever. I don't care that the costco chicken is in plastic and that has microplastics or whatever I used to do. And then he names all the drugs and the crazy shit he would do, just like the absurd amount of drugs and the ways he would take them and the things he would do to take them. And I just the comments of all that were like this guy's doing more to heal my food anxiety than anyone else. And I'm like literally all he's saying is like I used to do a bunch of drugs, this is fine and people are like resonating with this. So I'm like I I just kind of think like so people just kind of need humor and to be told it's fine, and that's kind of what I've shifted a little bit too.
Speaker 3:Isn't it such an interesting perspective that someone can just say I used to do this many drugs, stop freaking out about Cheetos. It's somehow a refreshing message, because the fitness industry has gone so far in the other direction. It's funny that that has become a voice of reason, because it shouldn't be a voice.
Speaker 2:Listen, like the fucking. The people on the other side, though, are just saying wild outlandish shit and you understand, like what's that? I don't fucking know words, but like there's that thing where, like when, what the amount of energy it takes to spew bullshit?
Speaker 2:it takes 10 times more energy to Brandolini's law there you go that's a word I don't know but we need to fight fire with fire, is my thing, is what I'm thinking, because we can go. Actually, we have this study that shows what they're saying is incorrect. No one gives a shit, they're scrolling away, but you have a dude just saying, like I did a bunch of drugs, I take this, I'm fine, I eat this food, it's okay. People are like, yes, that's what I need. I think we need to fight fire with fire.
Speaker 1:So I just so we have to all go take a bunch of drugs so that we can make videos saying that we took drugs.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that's true or not. I will leave it to your discretion.
Speaker 3:I think the way you've described that is actually really important, because if someone can get 5 million views because they're standing in a grocery store saying this food is killing you, yeah, and someone like me might make a video with 100,000 views saying actually, no, it's not. Here is the research. Why? Yeah, I'm not winning that battle.
Speaker 2:No, you're losing, we are losing. Yeah, we have to admit that we're losing and we have to try things.
Speaker 3:And I think it's like. I think one of the ways to it's like. It's like fear porn where let's say, I pick up, I pick up a food and I'm like here's a food in a supermarket. If I say, look, this cake is not the healthiest thing in the world, like you know, ideally, you know, 10% or less should be added sugar in your diet. Because added sugar, blah, blah, blah, it's like, oh boring, if I go, this food is killing you. Yeah, like.
Speaker 2:Sugar. High fructose corn syrup.
Speaker 3:Right Of government chemicals. It's much easier to grab someone's attention by saying this is killing you, this is poisoning you.
Speaker 2:This is whatever than saying pharma, yeah, you know don't eat a lot of this that's why even athlean x half his videos are this is killing your gains, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's like as a famous on youtube. On youtube for doing all sorts of exercise stuff, but like, yeah, a lot of it is. I mean it's I don't know the exact word, but like you know, it's, it's just over the top, it's, it's, you's, you know it's to get the thumbnails.
Speaker 3:It was. I remember seeing a video ages ago, mr Beast, like literally the most popular social media person, like if someone knows how to make social media content, it's him, and one of the things that he said is he's like the first line has to be extreme. You have to make it extreme. Extreme is what grabs people's attention. So saying like if you had two cues, which cue do you want to join? And it's like one person is selling you healthy habits, or like sensible nutrition advice, and then the other one is like five secrets for a six pack, or this food is killing you, or whatever. You have to. Extreme is what grabs people's attention.
Speaker 3:It's the equivalent of uh, I think everyone, lots of people joke about uh, newspaper headlines. They, you know, newspapers talk garbage. There's most people think that the media aren't trustworthy. Now, um, but newspaper headlines are designed to grab people's attention and that's the same thing that social media videos are doing. They're just doing it in a way and people aren't quite realizing. That is why so many people are going down the fear-mongering route is because someone like paul saladino that goes broccoli is bullshit, what?
Speaker 2:and if you make a video saying, um actually, that's just, it's not, it's not the fact, yeah, it's not gonna have the same effect. If you make a video saying, um actually, that's just, it's not, it's not the fact, yeah, it's not gonna have the same effect, if you're like so, for a subset of people.
Speaker 3:consuming a lot of broccoli might elevate your health risk of this condition.
Speaker 2:People are watching all of that. How many more minutes of this Nine minutes I'm in? What do you?
Speaker 3:got? Did you say subset? I'm already bored. If you go, go, broccoli is killing you like. Oh my god, that is. That's what we're up against.
Speaker 2:That's the tidal wave of social media I think it's just like there was a guy who stitched uh one of like, uh, paul's aldino's videos. It was like when he was in the grocery store, shirtless, talking about seed oils, and he had like a whole video where he's just like can you imagine, do you just have the worst fucking day at work. Your boss is riding your ass and you're just fucking exhausted and you go to the store because your wife tells you you're out of chips and you go to the. You go to the chip section and you see, shirtless, tarzan here yelling about seed oils, seed oils. Could you fucking imagine how much worse your day becomes?
Speaker 2:Like it was this whole thing. It blew up and people you know like resonate more with that and I'm like that is going to do just as much, if not more, than just saying, um, actually, because I think people know like, most people know like this stuff is is nonsense. Or, if they don't know, just making fun of it. We'll, we'll get them to, to to your side. So basically, I, I just I just rapid fire now through a bunch of the nonsense videos and just make like quick joke after quick joke because like that's, that's gonna do just as much, if not more, than being like yeah, I haven't learned that lesson yet.
Speaker 3:I'm like slowly learning that lesson. I still, I still, I'm very much uh, I try and give people science because in my head I I'm not. I'm not trying to grow my account as much as possible. I've never been somebody who's like trying to go viral. I know I have a bigger following than most people like statistically speaking, but I've also been on social media since 2009. Like, that's a very long time for most people as well. I'm not trying to get the most number of followers. I'm just trying to be that person where, if someone came up to me in the gym and they're like I saw this thing I don't know if it's true Can you tell me if it's true? I'm just literally doing that still.
Speaker 2:So I think if I was trying to get to millions of followers as quickly as possible, I would definitely change my style, but at the moment I'm like I just I kind of enjoy it For me, but at the moment I'm like I just I kind of for me, like sure, like getting more followers and views it leads to more success, blah blah blah.
Speaker 3:That's all great. It's still like I know what you're saying. It's not necessarily about followers, it's about impact.
Speaker 2:I do understand the impact that you can have is just, my impact is going to be smaller if I do the um actually than if I'm just like hey, it's cool because I get so many people messaging me saying, like you know, you helped with my food anxiety just being able to laugh about it and joke about it, because of how ridiculous is I was literally worried about all these you know seed oils and MSG and everything, and just being able to like joke about it is help them. So I'm like I have it's a trade off. You know I'm trying to get like. You know I want to get a little science in behind that, but like it's it, just it doesn't reach the same not to mention your personal mental health and the enjoyment of making those videos I seriously yeah I much prefer being like stupid dumb.
Speaker 3:Haha joke, let's move on yeah, I mean like myth busting content is uh, I, I wouldn't say it's, I wouldn't say it's fun to make a lot of people like sometimes people think to make what's your funnest.
Speaker 2:Ben, what's your funnest thing to make besides your pickleball content? That's coming out soon?
Speaker 3:I, I enjoy, I love getting tagged in things that excite me, like certain video topics that excite me, so I can get tagged in in a video where someone's like uh, like there's a video from a channel called kurtzka's act where they were talking about, like, the constrained model of energy expenditure. I get excited by that. So I'm like I very rarely ever see someone making videos on this topic and they're very rarely ever good. So I'm like I want to make a video on that topic. So like that excites me. But I also know that that's the type of topic that a tiny percentage of people really care about People aren't caring for the constrained model of energy yeah, it's not high on the google searches when it comes to, like, fitness advice, um.
Speaker 3:But occasionally I'll get angry comments from people where they'll say things like you're just responding to other people's comments because you're just trying to talk down on people, or whatever, whatever, whatever. Or like you're just trying to elevate your name above other people's Like, if you honestly think that's why I'm making this content, you are looking at this so backwards, because making myth-busting content is not fun. There is not a single day that goes by where, if I didn't read my notifications on every platform, I am not being insulted by at least one person. Because if I come in and say here's an example.
Speaker 3:There was a podcast clip from huberman lab and the person who was on the podcast was was quoting a study and they got the numbers wrong. They got the numbers really wrong enough to the point where they were saying, uh, this group gained weight and the actual study that they had cited they'd cited it in the show notes just showed that wasn't the case, and I was like this is an important fact check. So I literally said this is how misinformation spreads. Here are the numbers he's claiming, here are what the actual numbers said, and in my head. That's a service, because people are like I want to know what's true. Whether you enjoy that podcast or not, that's not the point, because you can enjoy it and go oh, actually, that he had misquoted that. You know, I want to learn and I want what I consume to be accurate.
Speaker 1:I'm sure we've misquoted a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like it happens, and someone could really really love this podcast. But if I said something wrong on it and someone else corrected me, that's good, because it it teaches people that what I said was wrong and therefore you're putting better information out to the masses. But just off that video, the amount of hate and insults and stuff that I got because I was correcting someone they liked it's never ending. Every single day I will have at least one person insulting me on one social media platform and living with that for years of your life is fairly draining.
Speaker 1:So I think myth busting content.
Speaker 3:People often think that it's like, oh, you're just doing it because you want to be popular or whatever. No, there were so much easier ways to do it oh yeah, oh okay, hear me out.
Speaker 2:What about? All right, you got to keep an open mind for this one. Can we keep an open mind? Like you were just gonna try and shut me down immediately. Let's keep a little open mind at the beginning.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm worried I'll meet my microphone for like 20 seconds and I'll have to mull it over.
Speaker 2:Hear me out here. So you did a whole video on um. I forget which celebrity it was. I think there's that the lady from friends or whatever. There was like ai. It took her and she was like selling a product that she wasn't actually selling. So they used AI to make her say things she wasn't actually saying. What if we take celebrities and we do the opposite and we give good information? We just steal their likeness and we have like Hugh Jackman out there giving good, reasonable advice and because people love celebrities, so we just take that and we fight and we have them correct the false information and we have a celebrity's face. So it'll get more views.
Speaker 3:Because you've asked me to have an open mind. I'm not going to shoot it down. So here's the thing, right. I legit think that is a fine idea with an asterisk that is quite, quite clearly illegal. Done as no. No, I was going to say quite clearly, done as a joke, like if we made the ai so bad, like if you had a photo of hugh jackman, and you superimposed your mouth like south park style yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:If you made it so ridiculous, I legit think that could work I think that I've done that with bobby, except I didn't have him uh say anything smart I, I just had him do be stupid right, yeah, was it did the video go well, I can't remember.
Speaker 3:I think we, I think we need to try this we take the celebrities right.
Speaker 2:We have their mouths moves and you know, and it's, it's over the top and ridiculous and meant to be, but we have them, like you know, actually give decent information and like correct things on on online. I think that would be a very weird but successful way of combat.
Speaker 3:I feel like that might actually be worth a go. I would. I would try that once, like, for example, if uh, if I do a video on hugh jackman's physique because someone's asked me about Hugh Jackman's physique, if I replied with Hugh Jackman.
Speaker 2:Yes, and he's like actually I got this by you know, taking performance, enhancing drugs. We don't make him say that because that's so hot water, but like we actually get, we say you know, just give good advice, we just use Hugh Jackman.
Speaker 1:I am legit Like OK, I have all the tools, I have done this.
Speaker 3:I'm like I'm so going to do this. I would, I would, I would try it, as long as it was clear that we weren't genuinely trying to impersonate someone.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, you got to put all the disclaimers and stuff in there.
Speaker 3:And if it was, if it was on a topic where I feel like the person who's talking is actually the person that should be talking like if I'm making a video about hugh jackman's physique and it's hugh jackman talking like that makes sense, definitely worth doing I think this could work.
Speaker 2:I think this could work. Listen, we come up with good ideas on this podcast. Wait till you hear.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we haven't told uh ben about our alpha water I was just thinking we could get, we could make somebody sell alpha water for us oh, ben would be pretty good at that, like because everybody trusts him, so maybe we can get him to sell alpha water.
Speaker 2:So okay, so we're selling alpha water and the tagline is I ain't no beta bitch, because I ain't no beta bitch, and then it's gonna be, uh, with patented cell integration, and it's yeah, and it's, it's, it's special water hydrates you better if, if people can buy liquid death water because it's got fancy marketing, people can buy alpha water, alpha water alpha water. I'm telling you, alpha water would fucking kill it. We get, we get. We get chem thug to work on the science of it all. We get then to sell it.
Speaker 1:We got this we are gonna be making money. You can move to california, california.
Speaker 3:I can afford health care.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's a thing down there, isn't it? Oh?
Speaker 2:shit. I'll tell you this oh shit, Since quitting my job, I don't have fucking health care. We just roll in with it. That's the American way Hope for the best.
Speaker 3:One hospital appointment away from bankruptcy.
Speaker 2:Only in America where you can go. It is so you can go into debt or you can.
Speaker 3:You lose everything because of crippling medical debt I, when I moved here I'm not even joking someone said to me just as an fyi, if you get into like an accident or something, if you can, can you get an uber to hospital? And I laughed and they said oh, like I'm being serious, because an ambulance here can cost like four or five thousand dollars, oh, easily. And I still thought they were joking and they were like no, honestly, if you can get an uber to a hospital or a taxi, I've had friends jump out of ambulances as they were taking them to the hospital.
Speaker 2:I mean that can't be good for your health. It's neither is being in crippling medical debt. How are you gonna afford things? Oh shit.
Speaker 1:Well, when I learned the uh cost of having a child down there. I, that's, that's a moment. I thought you were. People were joking. I was like what, no having?
Speaker 3:a having a miscarriage is unfortunately expensive as well.
Speaker 2:One of my friends learned recently doubly painful geez man, but I'm glad we we're ending here on a, on a high note this is great.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what? I may be in the middle of nowhere and it may be snowing here, but hey, at least I can break a leg and not have to worry about paying for it. This is very true.
Speaker 2:Was there anything else, ben, that you wanted to touch on that? You know anything I'm?
Speaker 1:I'm not at all, I'm just here, here to chat yeah, I mean I think we've, I think we've covered most of the topics for the day I think, I think we we covered everything and we got to.
Speaker 2:Even though ben doesn't want to plug his book, I will plug it for him.
Speaker 3:Okay, fat loss habits, diets don't work habits, I'm like I'm like, if people listen to a podcast, I just like it was just felt like it was selling something. I was like, well, what a way to make the listener feel like shit, like oh, it was just an ad, that you know those podcasts where it's just you know, I'm like I just I would much prefer to have a really good conversation. Yeah, people like me, they'll follow me.
Speaker 1:When we started the podcast, I was listening to some of our you know, quote unquote competition. One of them was Courtney Swan. Courtney Swan, thank you, yeah, Her podcast. And it's like it opens with 10 minute of ads. Middle is 10 minute of ads. I couldn't even get through the episode because there were so many ads. We might have had another 10 minutes worth at the end and I was like, yeah, we are never going to do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we sell us alpha water.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not, just not an ad person. Give people good quality service. If they want to support you, they'll support you yeah.
Speaker 1:But fortunately our listeners know that we're not about, but that is why none of us are millionaires.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty much sounds great, but we're all poor. So listen, but we have fun. Man, like it's, you know you gotta have fun with it. I listen, I can, I listen. I could easily be like the fun-loving hobo you know that travels around with a stick and it's got like the little bag with everything they own. But like you're still happy, you know you're still jovial. I could totally be that guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah I feel like I should dub in some uh uh god damn what's his name I'm blanking on it um the guy who did whistle stop for robin hood what Are you making up words now.
Speaker 2:That's way too niche, way too niche for me. I just wanted to leave with the ending message of being a hobo ain't so bad.
Speaker 1:Roger Miller. Roger Miller.
Speaker 2:Sure Totally.
Speaker 1:Roger Miller's, his hobo song.
Speaker 3:Wow, I am blanking hard today?
Speaker 1:I have no idea.
Speaker 2:You guys don't know, I think you're just making shit up and trying to make us feel like we're dumb for not knowing. You're made up words uh, I'm out.
Speaker 1:If you guys don't know who roger miller is, I'm out well, listen, I don't know anything.
Speaker 2:You told me about that fucking brant bram stoker's law or whatever it was. I don't know. Come on, I'm just a clown on the internet that makes jokes and just moves things along. That's that's. That's what I got it works.
Speaker 1:Now what's? What's the definition for bram stoker's law?
Speaker 2:bram stoker uh, uh, don't get a steak through the heart. Uh, garlic's bad. Wait, that's the vampire thing, bram stoker's? No, am I thinking of?
Speaker 1:bram stoker is dracula, yeah dracula.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, so there's like it's a vampire thing. Okay, cool, just making sure I, I, I don't know, I don't know anything we're.
Speaker 1:We suck at making up laws, apparently good at breaking them. So where can you everyone find you, ben?
Speaker 3:probably the same platforms that you're on.
Speaker 2:Leave it that's it if they want to find me.
Speaker 3:They can. I'm friends with you on them.
Speaker 2:Just scroll social media and hope he pops up eventually. Just consume so much bullshit content that you eventually follow these videos.
Speaker 3:Pop my name in, you'll probably find it. That's fine, yeah.
Speaker 1:That works, this most humble guest we've had.
Speaker 2:Oh man.
Speaker 3:I'll take it. I'm happy with that. Oh man, I'll take it. I'm happy with that. I'm just happy to be here. I don't care, I'm not even a plug person, I'm just happy to be here leah madge go turn his.
Speaker 1:Oh, is it getting ugly? No, no, I just try to turn the light on.
Speaker 2:It's dark as shit in this room, but like moving straight up, moving from like england to america must have been weird, I don't know I thought you were saving money on electricity in there, like your room looked like London during the Blitz. Man, I mean, I feel like in Europe, in the Europes, you got England right there you can just go visit other countries just from a day travel, and then you go to the United States.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but where we are, for the sake of a two-hour drive, we can go to the desert, or we can go skiing, or we can go to Mexico. So go to like the desert, or we can go skiing or we can go to mexico.
Speaker 1:So I feel like we still have a lot of flexibility, um, in terms of we still got a menu here, we still got enough geographical locations they're just all named the same still what?
Speaker 2:I'm curious what other things you notice. Okay, so portion sizes. We eat like you know, we, we eat a lot, got that. Anything else you noticed? Just moving to America.
Speaker 3:Yeah, your grocery stores have too many people filming in them. I have to say grocery stores, but we'd say supermarkets in England the first time I came here, even small ones like Walgreens instead of Walmart. Every time I went food shopping it would take me ages, because the number of items you have on the shelf are wild. So like, as an example, okay, okay, I remember going to your frozen waffle section and I was like how do you have a frozen waffle section in england? If you want frozen waffles, you go and buy the frozen waffles, whereas in the store that I I'm in it's like oh, do you want chocolate, do you want blueberry, do you want organic, do you want gluten-free, do you want this, do you want that? And it's like a whole section Like your cereal aisle.
Speaker 2:Do you want it a dinosaur shape? Would you like smiley faces, would you like?
Speaker 3:It's like your cereal aisle. I don't think people realize how many options america has. Like you can have cereal, so do you want marshmallows in it? Do you want it chocolate filled? Do you want a chocolate protein? Do you want? Do you want it to be multi-colored, do you? Yeah, do you want it to be stuffed with protein? Like, do you want it in different shapes? Do you want, like your, the number of foods you have in, like your snack food aisle and aisles like that. It's incredible. Like there are foods that I just didn't realize existed until I came here and because they exist now they're in my psyche and I have to try them, like fruit loops, for example. I don't even know what fruit loops are, but when I see them I'm like gotta try them.
Speaker 1:They look fancy that's how they get. You need to try canadian.
Speaker 3:They are better than american ones yeah, there's the, the whole food, I think but, that's how they permeate your psychology. Well, it's not even the food they actually do taste better what the?
Speaker 1:canadian ones. The canadian ones, yeah, I'll have, it's not hard fruit loops taste fucking dreadful.
Speaker 3:I tried them and they are awful, absolutely awful, so like. Here's an easy example of this right Is my wife is Korean, her family are Korean. One of their biggest compliments when they try dessert is oh, this is nice, it's not too sweet. Because American foods are so sweet compared to where they're from that most things that they try they're like I can't eat this, it is too much, whereas I'm somewhere in the middle. So if I try a korean dessert, it's so a lot of them are so barely sweet that I didn't even realize they were desserts. I was eating a korean dessert and I thought it was savory because the sugar content was so low, whereas in america it's so sweet that they're like I just can't eat that and I'm somewhere in the middle for me.
Speaker 1:The first time I walked into a grocery store in the us, I saw a guy with a gun and I was like the fuck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, guards everywhere yeah, yeah, man, it's crazy. When I was in high school we had like we had like police and and with dogs like walking the halls at our high school, metal detectors and shit.
Speaker 1:That was a trick in high school we got to leave the campus and go get drunk. The canadian way had some uh schnapps with maple syrup that sounds.
Speaker 2:That sounds really sweet. Oh, that does not sound good. I don't like the sound of that at all, uh oh man.
Speaker 2:Well you know, everything's got to be maple syrup up here, yeah but I will say, ben, I definitely like I I appreciate your content a lot because it does more of like you do a lot more of like the deep dives and go, go into things you know like. I could definitely tell the amount of time to like look up each of those things and all the all the studies and everything that goes into it. I'm just like man that's. That's a lot of work and it is kind of impressive, just for like thank you.
Speaker 3:I once made a video like responding to some misinformation and I realized that it had taken me about 20 hours just because it, just because it like firstly, if, if a video is, let's say, three minutes long, obviously I've got to watch it and pick which bits I'm going to respond to, then go through.
Speaker 3:It's not just finding the research studies, it's going to the time of of taking the screenshots of certain snippets and highlighting it to make it easier. Because if you just say that's not true research shows, it's not true, that takes 10 seconds. But if you're like research shows that's not true, and here's a research study and here's another research study and I'm snipping this section and I'm highlighting this section, suddenly that 10 seconds turns into five minutes or whatever. And when I made a video that's like, say, five minutes long, with sometimes 15 different research papers in them, I realized it took me about 20 hours. And 20 hours even if even if 100 000 views to most people on social media is a really good video, like, most people aren't getting 100 000 views on a video but 20 hours to get 100 000 views. There are much faster ways to get 100 000 views, but debunking content is fun.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's exhausting, it's absolutely. Yes, it is, I also just remembered something.
Speaker 1:Um, for there was a quite a while there, a little bit after I discovered you, ben, where I was consciously making the effort to do topics that you weren't talking about, because I didn't want to look as like I was a copycat of you. I, so that's actually part of the reason that for a long time I about because I didn't want to look as like I was a copycat of you.
Speaker 3:I. So that's actually part of the reason that for a long time I didn't, I didn't follow people who would made similar videos, because I didn't like. I didn't like seeing someone's video and then thinking, oh, I was going to do a video on that topic because it's just you know. But then I realized that that's also in some ways being a bit silly, because I prefer to have friends, you know, be social people and have friends and just go, you know what? I don't, I'm not going to do that video.
Speaker 3:So sometimes, if one of you guys make a video on something, I might say, actually I'm not going to do it because I don't want to look like. You know, there are some people who, if you make a video on something they are going to to make a video afterwards, it's like you've, you've alerted them, you've put it on their radar, and then all of a sudden other people start doing it, and I've never wanted to be one of those people. So, uh, yeah, I try not to do the same videos that other people are doing, um, or I just try and do them faster.
Speaker 1:Do them faster. It only takes you 20 hours when it takes the other person 21 hours, yeah but because of my, because of my book.
Speaker 3:my book has now um afforded me the luxury where this is my full-time thing. So, because that is paying for my lifestyle, if I'm tagged in a video now, I can make the video now. I don't have to have a full-time job and then be like I need to get to it tomorrow because I've got a busy schedule, so it's easier. I have to have a full-time job and then be like I need to get to it tomorrow because I've got a busy schedule, so it's easier. I have, I have the privilege of getting to videos faster and start making videos faster, even if they take me longer to reply to Right, yeah, I know, I'm stuck editing podcasts.
Speaker 2:I just yeah, I have a lot of respect for that and the amount of time and everything that goes into it. I just for me, like the way I look at it, it's just like I was saying before. It's just people just want the information of, like, what works, what they need to do, and it's kind of and it is tough because everyone's different and you can't just tell them exactly every person it's going to be different the things they need to do. You know, depending every person it's it's going to be different the things they need to do. You know depending.
Speaker 2:But like, yeah, in general, like the super basic shit, like exercise, like moving your body, for pretty much everyone, like that's good. And you know, like generally eating more, mostly like whole nutritious foods, like that's, that's good. So I'm like's good. So I'm like those two things. How do I get those two things across to people as punchy and humorous and you know, just in their face, as as as possible? And that's kind of just like what I've been just mulling around for the past, I don't know, year or so. I was going to be like the past six episodes.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:Past six episodes of the podcast. You've been kind of mulling around that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm just trying to like I've been really just trying to figure out, like how to get that just like yeah, across to people. Because what is you I'm sure you know, ben like when you go on like a deep dive on like some a very specific topic that's just not going to reach as many people and it's just it's not as I already know, that right.
Speaker 3:It's just not as useful to most people.
Speaker 2:It's not useful to most people, so I'm just trying to get as much as good.
Speaker 3:I don't know whatever the fuck good is, but like helpful information for most people as possible, and then so like as an example of that, uh, when I did a a couple of nights ago, when I did a, an event at a bookshop, just like a meet and greet thing, yeah, um, my wife was doing a q a with me and she said, if there's like one habit you could get everyone doing, what would it be? Just one habit? Yeah, and I said exercise, that's all I care about. I said, throw my book in the trash. If you can get people exercising, don't even read the book. Um, I, if that's the one thing that I could get more people doing, I would do it.
Speaker 3:And as an example of um, there's like one research study, so a couple of research studies, but one of the one research study concluded that the percentage of people that did aerobic and resistance training to the point that they hit the guidelines you know like are you doing aerobic training three times a week or resistance training two, three times a week Was only 17% of adults are doing both. So it's pretty low. Most people aren't doing that much exercise. But there was another research study that estimated that if you can get American adults to exercise for 10, 20 or 30 minutes a day, it doesn't necessarily have to be vigorous, but just 10 minutes a day, you could prevent over 100,000 deaths, preventable deaths, just for the sake of 10 minutes of exercise a day. So I'm like all the other stuff. A lot of it is just noise. If you could get people doing one thing, I would love to get more people exercising.
Speaker 1:That's it, and that's something drifters never say Put nutrition to one side.
Speaker 3:Let's stop arguing about food. Diets Like eating Froot Loops occasionally is going to do fuck all for your health in terms of the long term. It's like one speed bump on a long car journey. It might seem like it makes a difference, but in the grand scheme of things it's irrelevant. But getting more people to exercise could make a huge impact on the health of society.
Speaker 2:let's just do that yeah, like I've just filmed. Like one video I got filmed today was, um, I forget her name, but she's she does a bunch of stuff. She was saying there's like a study recently showing that, um, this was for like helping people with like diabetes and helping with like glycemic control, but that doing uh, 10 body weight squats every 45 minutes um, help their uh glycemic control more than like a third, than a, like a prolonged walk, just like spreading it out a little bit here and there, so activating your muscles throughout the day, basically, is just better. So I'm just talking about that, like, literally, if you have a desk job, if you can get up and move, walk some sort of body weight squat. If, listen, if somebody, if I was in a meeting, someone's like, hey, I'm doing body weight squats for my health. I'm like I'm fucking joining you, I'm in like that's.
Speaker 1:You know if you're like that's weird. I'm gonna shit that'd be an awesome company to work for I feel like you.
Speaker 2:You got to make people more comfortable, less uncomfortable with the idea that you can just exercise randomly and it's totally fine. Be okay with being weird, right? Because I think we're just. You get stuck with the norms. You say portion sizes oh, I get used to normal portion sizes. You get stuck with the norms, like. You say portion sizes oh, I get used to normal portion sizes. The norm is I sit on my desk for eight hours and I just do my work, and then I drive home and I Uber Eats my large portion to my house and that's it. So how can you just branch outside of that?
Speaker 1:And getting people to do that is hard. It would be so hard for me to have a desk job at a company because I like to get up every so often and do a little something. But most like you said that's that's stigmatized in the workplace right, getting up and walking around.
Speaker 2:I'm saying like, yeah, if you were just like, I'm gonna go just do body weight squats. People are like what the fuck is tim doing? Holy shit, why is he so weird? Like, can we fire him? But like and that sort of thing, like I don't know, just trying to get you know, trying to get that basic idea across to people Just any movement, anything.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure this is so far the second longest podcast we've had.
Speaker 2:Oh, are we still recording? I thought we were done a while ago. Should we wrap?
Speaker 1:it up here, or should I cut it back somewhere? I thought we wrapped it up there.
Speaker 2:See, I thought we were just ending it there and now we were talking after he did his pluggables.
Speaker 1:I don't know, because it was still good talking, but yeah, you can add it if you want.
Speaker 2:I would just throw that up on the Patreon or whatever people would talk to that. I just kind of wanted to chit-chat about stuff.
Speaker 1:Whatever, we'll have a look at it when I'm editing Do you need an official wrap-up.
