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
Roundtable: The Old Folks of Social Media
What makes fitness drama so captivating, and how has social media transformed the conversation around performance-enhancing substances? In this thought-provoking episode, we dive into the psychology behind the endless "natty or not" debates that dominate fitness discourse online—what our hosts call "the Jersey Shore of fitness content."
The conversation takes an honest turn as our guests reflect on their own evolution as content creators. Both share candid admissions about periods where they created "drama content" for views rather than to genuinely help their audiences. This rare behind-the-scenes look reveals the internal struggles many creators face when algorithms reward controversy over constructive advice. As one guest powerfully puts it: "I would rather inform, educate and support 10,000 people and squeak by than entertain 100,000 and be rich."
We tackle the concerning rise of social media accounts promoting peptides and research chemicals with minimal safety considerations, using the paper-thin legal shield of claiming these substances are "not for human consumption" while explicitly demonstrating their use. This leads to a broader discussion about how fitness advice has become unnecessarily complicated, with "optimization bros" making simple concepts seem impossibly complex.
The episode concludes with a forward-looking conversation about health accessibility and why preventative measures are becoming increasingly important. Remember: "Don't let perfect get in the way of good enough" might be the most valuable fitness advice you'll ever receive.
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Welcome to In Moderation, the show where we give you a moderate dose of info sarcasm and we already know we're not approved.
Speaker 2:I think I'm going to get a fake natty accusation from Greg Doucette for the weirdest strength feat, really. Yeah, he has the hardest time believing that on grip dynameters that I'm squeezing 200. I've shown him twice now and both times he's like that's abnormal, you should get a new machine. I don't know about that.
Speaker 3:The only person I've ever had genuinely accuse me of steroids is this person called freely, the banana girl oh, oh yeah, uh doesn't know freely okay. Well, I don't know some people it's it's kind of older stuff now, but it's the only person that's ever yeah, it was, she was, I think that was. I think it was like four years ago when she made that video and but it's the only like legit, like everyone else is. Like no, no, he's probably not drunk.
Speaker 4:I'm like come on man.
Speaker 3:Let me have this. Come on, accuse me, man, right, jackies.
Speaker 1:The Natty or Nots are just the dumbest shit, but like it works man, that's you know.
Speaker 2:It's the Jersey Shore of fitness content.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the Jersey Shore of fitness content. Yeah, got the drama and everything like that. What is it about A Natty or Not that is so enticing to people? I guess like okay, so it's got the mystery People always love kind of like a good mystery and it's got a debate around it. People like to debate each other on pretty much anything, so it's kind of got this divisive thing. But like what else is it what? What else is it like why, who?
Speaker 3:cares. I think it's. I think part of it is the like the dynamic of, well, do we deserve to know, right? And then there's that argument of if someone is in, especially in the fitness space, are they required to disclose that? And and then there's, like I don't know, I think there's just like a lot of layers as to like the argument as to whether or not it's deserved to know. Um, I think that's that's a big part of it, like what interests people?
Speaker 2:um, but yeah, I mean, I don't, it's not something I really care too much about, but it definitely works, it's definitely uh when, when you're going into it and somebody has what you don't have they have a physique that you're building towards and you have struggled in any way there's, for a lot of people it's an affirmation of their suspicion, whether it's true or not. Oh, they only have that because they cheated. So I can feel better about me, I can feel better about my accomplishments or my struggles. I could do that, too, if I was on steroids. Every person who's ever said that is because they're not doing as well as they want to and they're looking for that affirmation or that confirmation that they're correct in some way. But there's also, just straight up, people love to watch other people fight. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, that's a big part of it for certain like I mean, that's why wrestling still exists yeah, it's we. You know we love a good argument about anything, but this one is just an interesting one. I I think what you said is accurate there about we.
Speaker 1:We want a lot of people want them to be on steroids, because then you say, oh well, that's why so I feel like you can dismiss you can just be like oh well, obviously, I think, if you like, took a poll like most like the people who are like less aren't as muscular as the person would say they're on steroids. And the people who are more muscular than them would probably say they're not on steroids, because it's just like what if, oh, if they're bigger than me, probably steroids. I kind of feel like that's a kind of knee-jerk reaction for a lot of not for everyone, but for a lot of people.
Speaker 2:I would say that was the bulk of the conversation until the last few years. One of the benefits of that's a very small silver lining.
Speaker 3:It's a gray lining yeah.
Speaker 2:All of this discussion is kind of a calibration and an understanding of roughly what kind of difference steroids makes and people understanding that even if you're on steroids, there are. Now people understand the nuance of. There are responders, non-responders and everyone in between. Now they're understanding to what extent, uh, genetics can play a role. You know, when you say genetics is only 10%, 10% is huge. When you're differentiating between endpoints, 10% is massive. That's the Olympia stage and the best looking guy in the gym is 10%. So like we understand way more about it and at least in this portion of the pendulum swing, we've come away from complete vilification and you must hide it and we swang all the way over into celebrating, glorify it.
Speaker 1:Do you think that's swinging a little bit back? We're accepting it more because of social media and people are going on social media saying, hey, yeah, no, this is awesome, do it?
Speaker 2:Exactly like exposure therapy Instead of like yes, I do this, I want to be accountable and I want you to have realistic expectations. They're like nah, man, even if you take in clomiphene citrate, that's just stimulating your testes, okay.
Speaker 3:That doesn't even count.
Speaker 2:The HGH is just stimulating your pituitary glands. You're still natty even though you've got uh testosterone of 12 to 1500.
Speaker 3:Yeah, dude, it's, it's crazy. There's just like I mean, I'm sure you guys have all seen it, but there's like people whose their whole social media thing is I am on steroids, yeah, yeah, that's like, that's all they, that's just their whole thing, you know, and it encourages. It's weird because at first it was like when someone was actually talking about it and they were honest about it, it was refreshing and it was like man, finally someone is coming out and being honest, right. But now it's at the point where it's like it's so common that there's like 17 year olds they're like should I take steroids? And like I have people coming up to me in the gym, you know, and like asking like, have you ever taken anything I was thinking about? Like, dude, you've been working out for a year. Dude, like why are you thinking about this already? But it's a guaranteed part.
Speaker 2:I work with teenagers and they come to me with that shit all the time it's a fine line between that, like coming out a few people.
Speaker 1:Let's take a noel diesel or whatever like a really popular fitness influencer who says like hey, I'm massive, I'm a giant boulder. Like, yes, I take uh steroids. I'm not going to tell you what I take because I don't want people replicating this. I just want to be open and honest. And people are like cool, I totally understand that and I I have a lot of respect for that. And then it slowly shifted into like every 17 year old but like how can I get a hold of x, y and z, whatever, yeah, I just came across a tiktok account who it's?
Speaker 2:it's literally nothing else. He named himself the peptides guy like and that's all he does is any and I watched him for an hour and any substance that someone brought up. He's like yeah, you should try that. Oh, yeah, you should try that, use my code. And it was all about getting people to go ahead and use his affiliate code, for I believe the company was research chems. They've popped up before. They're problematic. They're the ones who send a bunch of junk to Togi and he's killing himself.
Speaker 1:What's what? So do you know? Like, what's up with that? Like those kind of companies, do they get around the law by saying, like this isn't for human consumption or literally all they have to do, yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 2:Because, because they're not scheduled, they're, yeah, test chemicals, um, and you don't at this time. In order to have a test chemical that is not for human consumption, you don't currently need a license in order to receive them. You can get in trouble if you're administering them to people, uh, and I suppose in some states they could try and get you on self-harm if you're administering it to yourself. But outside of that, the worst that's going to happen to you is you get bounced out of a competition because you cheated using PEDs.
Speaker 1:Huh, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:And you know side effects kidney failure, heart failure Do they like just show up with like hey?
Speaker 1:this isn't for you to inject, but if you did this, is how you would go about it Like I'm just.
Speaker 2:I really did want to peptide guys Tick, tocks, Yep, you literally. He says I'm not telling you to put this in your body, but if you were to do research with this, you know, inject it into an orange this is how you would turn the powder into the proper soluble liquid Interest.
Speaker 1:That's fascinating to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Terrifying, but also sort of they don't even have to try hard.
Speaker 4:It's terrifying when people reconstitute them wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't even. That's Darwinism, that's yeah.
Speaker 1:Survival of the fittest. Is that just like? We just have the raw milk debate again where it's just kind of like, oh, gosh, oh, ooh yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, we had a kid lose a chunk of his glute recently. He was 20 years old. He'd been on for at least two years. He looked between Liam's age and my age. Whatever your actual age is, I don't know, you look young 33,.
Speaker 1:I want to say I don't remember at this point, 69. Your age I don't remember. I feel like 32. I mean, between 32, I'm like 32, 33 or 34. I'm always kind of just like I know within three years of my age.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay I thought you were like 25, so he looks. He looks at I'm 46 and he looks about 34, 35 years old. At 20 he's on so much, but he gave himself mirza in his own ass, ass because he kept pinning up at the gym.
Speaker 1:Mirza's horrible.
Speaker 2:He survived. We caught it in time. We knew what it was, we saw it and we're like you need to go to the effing hospital. He went to the hospital. They removed a chunk the size of my fist from his glute, oh wow.
Speaker 1:We need accounts dedicated to that, just like to those things happening, Just so people can see that and they're like oh, that peptides guy doesn't seem as interesting anymore. We could call it cautionary fails. We'll probably get into some issues with moderation and showy videos and all of that sort of stuff, but I feel like we'd be doing a service.
Speaker 2:Go 18 plus pay wallet for like five cents a month. Don't worry, liam.
Speaker 4:Those dings you heard just now were your texts finally getting to me. Apparently, your texts were stuck in traffic too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I texted. I was like I'm stuck in rush hour traffic. I will be there at some point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good At some point. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Man that stuck in rush hour traffic. I will be there at some point. Yeah, that's good, it's yeah. Yeah, that's man, that's fucking wild. The whole like just steroids thing to me is I get why like it's enticing, especially at a young, like young male age. You're 18, like you see all the, you know the social media and whatnot, but there's just so many downsides and like you don't see that from like the people who are promoting it on social media.
Speaker 3:It's like usually the downsides, and you don't see that from the people who are promoting it on social media. It's like usually the downsides take a while and that's the problem. That's fair.
Speaker 4:And they're so embarrassed they don't want to talk about them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And you see, like we've seen a lot of bodybuilders, Like there was a woman even who passed away, who died she was very young at the Arnold this year.
Speaker 2:At the Arnold. Yeah, she was 20.
Speaker 1:Jesus yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:And that was I don't know. I don't remember the exact reason.
Speaker 2:Dehydration from diuretics. Oh geez yeah, which she didn't even compete that weekend.
Speaker 3:She was just on diuretics and prep for something. Oh, really, I had I don't know. Okay, that's crazy. That was the crazy part. She went there as an attendee and died.
Speaker 3:And there was another one where someone passed away at one of these, um, transformation events, where it was like a bodybuilding show, but they had like the transformation division, which is like people that have lost a lot of weight and uh, yeah, it's weird, like that whole thing is weird. Like there's the transformation division, which is cool in my mind, right, people that have lost a lot of weight and uh, yeah, it's weird, like that whole thing is weird. Like there's the transformation division, which is cool in my mind, right, people that have lost a lot of weight or, you know, they've even had people in wheelchairs, people have been burned or whatever. But there are people that are doing these divisions that are also openly doing steroids and I'm like that feels wrong to me, like that just doesn't feel right, like that, just like this guy won and he's like sitting there flexing and the guy next to him is in a wheelchair and I'm like that doesn't feel right, like he beat the guy.
Speaker 3:It just I don't know. Like, yeah, you shouldn't just automatically win if you're in wheelchair. That's fair, but it just doesn't feel right to me. That just feels a little weird to me. But you know, yeah, it's interesting. So what are we talking about tonight?
Speaker 4:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I know liam liam liam hey, rob, I found my pencil, you found your pen that's well, see that now we just end it all right here we go everyone like rob got his pencil I got my pencil to let people know don't be your worst.
Speaker 2:Is that a euphemism? I'm sure you're concerned if you want to be Tonight on the show.
Speaker 4:We've got these two. I'll let them introduce themselves. I'm going to go get a drink, bro we'll talk for an hour.
Speaker 3:It'll be fine. Yeah, that's true. You want to go first. You can go first. Oh are we?
Speaker 2:actually starting. Oh yeah, I am honored to be on the same screen with my good friends Rob, my sort of kind of salty acquaintance, liam and my dear child John Cloud. Obese to Beast.
Speaker 3:Hello, I also have the honor to be sharing the screen with all of these three lovely individuals. My name is John. We're Obese to Beast. I'm walking on a walking pad.
Speaker 2:If it gets annoying, I apologize for those of you who are enjoying this on a podcast two of us have amazing hair, one of us has an amazing beard and the other guy is here well, I think my hair is pretty nice, but it's fine this episode, we basically brought the old folks out of the old folks home.
Speaker 4:I mean, between you two, you two have been on social media a combination of like 50 years now, dude.
Speaker 1:Why don't you guys just tell us. I want to hear some stories Like when you started out and like not social, how like the fitness industry was, like when you were, when you were starting.
Speaker 4:Back in my day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the back in my day it's. I mean so, like when I so for those of you I don't know you know, my name is obese to beast that's like my name on social media, and that came about in 2014 was the first time I made a page that was called obese beast, which the reason that I did that was because I was losing weight at the time. If you don't know. If you don't know, I used to be 400 pounds less, a little bit right, and at the time, instagram was not brand new, but it wasn't old yet you know.
Speaker 4:Now, it's kind of old.
Speaker 3:It was still cool, you know, and you couldn't post videos, you couldn't post stories, you know, it was literally just posts. And I felt bad that every post that I was posting at the time was weight loss stuff, and I was like you know what, let me make another page that is only weight loss and I can post as much as I want, and at the time it was very normal to post three times a day, you know, because that's all that was the. There was no stories, there was no other way to post, right? And so I was like okay, what's a name? And I was like thinking and I just came up with obesity because I thought it sounded kind of nice, it kind of didn't rhyme, but it was smooth, and I was like, okay, cool, but at that point, like there wasn't, there wasn't like a fitness thing on social media, really like the only real fitness thing there was.
Speaker 3:I don't know how many of you guys remember this. There's this thing called shreds and it's very weird because at the time, not long after I started, there started coming out stories about the stuff that Shreds people were doing, and one of the people that was really big back then is now even bigger now and it's just very weird the juxtaposition, but I don't want to, we don't have to get into that. But yeah, so, like when I started though, like it wasn't like a I'm going to be an influencer, that didn't. That moniker didn't really exist yet, and so when I started, it was truly like I just want to post and not feel bad about annoying my friends and family, so I'll just make a page and post whatever I want, and there was no algorithm that you thought of. It was just sharing your story right of, it was just sharing your story right.
Speaker 3:And it's been very interesting feeling like I kind of started from the beginning and seeing how much things have changed over the years, because things now, like I do struggle, like for sure, with staying on top of things because of how much it evolves so much now and like things are changing so rapidly and so it's. It's definitely been very interesting as being someone that's seen as, like you know, a dinosaur and OG or whatever you want to use, you know, like because I have been doing this for so long. But I am appreciative of the fact that I started when I did, because it definitely helps me and grounds me in, like I know why I started and that's why I try to continue doing what I'm doing, right? I don't know if I really answered the question there, but spot on dude.
Speaker 2:The irony is is that, um, I started technically in 2018, uh, and I've got like 15, almost 20 years on, john, but he was one of the first people that I watched. Um, I started watching because I was trying to learn about strong man. I got out of the Marine Corps and I fell in love with strong man and powerlifting and there were a few content creators that that covered that mostly powerlifting, very little on strong man. But there was Alan Thrall, you know, back in 2013, he started his channel and I followed him and I actually got to meet him at California's strongest man, an event I was helping to run and he was competing at, and he's a really good dude and, uh, you know, rubbed elbows ever since. Uh kept up with him through his many strange phases and it's like John was like the next year. I was like, oh, look at this incredible kid. You were doing CrossFit at the time, like a lot of CrossFit, and I didn't have a particularly good opinion of CrossFit, but I liked you.
Speaker 1:So I could deal with CrossFit as long as I was watching you. I think a lot of people don't have a great opinion of CrossFit.
Speaker 2:Well, a lot of that is actually the fault of NSCA that falsified the injurious rates in their study and they got sued for it. So, um, while Greg Glassman is a piece of work, and I think that the uh level of knowledge that you need to have to be a level one, uh certified trainer and open a gym is embarrassingly and shamefully low. Uh, two days, nine movements, a thousand dollars that's what it was when, um, I was looking at it. Looking at it. I hope it's improved because that is pathetic. Uh. But a lot of things rapidly changed over the years. I started off as a drama content channel because I was following a bad example, uh, an individual that john and I both know and we learned valuable lessons not even worth to mention it honestly truly I.
Speaker 2:I know how you feel I, when I'm, when I'm on here or when I'm anywhere else, I have no problem being very specific about what I'm talking about, but I respect your generally non-confrontational position and I will not put you in a bad spot. Maybe I'm just a weenie, but you know, I just don't even you're a solid, smooth dude who doesn't need the friction me, I want that smoke all day long. I'm just waiting for one of these fools to open their mouth.
Speaker 1:Well, you started as a drama channel, so I feel like you should. You still have some of that in.
Speaker 2:you right, I got a lot of fight in me, but when I realized in within the first two years that I was looking for things to have a problem with instead of addressing problems that already existed, I felt dirty and I stopped and I've never really come back to it as anything more than a hobby since I coach, I online coach, uh, I work with, uh, some amazing student athletes and I make content when I want, which that way, the pressure is never to catch up. As John was talking about his, I've never felt it and nothing bad has ever happened to me in social media. When, when Eric uh and Carrie was trying to like make negative videos about me because I had the audacity to defend AthleanX, I didn't care. When he was really really just desperately calling for attention. I didn't care when the person that I formerly worked with that John's aware of literally tried to subvert and attack my family to punish me for not making the content drama style the way that he wanted, because he considered me his protege. He's the only person on the list who's on site him and two of his moderators.
Speaker 2:I'll handle that, but that's not going to be on a channel. That's not going to be drama content. That's going to be one conversation in two fists. That's all it's going to be. That's a far cry from where I'm at now, where I'm looking at an increasingly sedentary society, which I've always acknowledged, and very simple solutions, a much more delicate economy where people don't have the funds or easy access to medical interventions, medications, etc. No-transcript political climate is going to be less and less available. So that's where my focus is now, as it's a stark turn from scouring the internet going who can I fuck with today? Oh, who can I compare to a melted candle or an unshaved scrotum or any of the other awful things? I used to say that people loved, uh and paid me money to say um, missed the cash that was, uh, that was actually how me and kevin met.
Speaker 3:He compared me to an unshaven scrotum and it was a little weird, but but you know, it's all good, it's watered under the bridge now.
Speaker 2:Then you shaved your head and everybody hated it.
Speaker 4:Did you ever get details on whose unshaven scrotum that you had?
Speaker 3:That's classified information. Oh, okay, I showed them at the time. Yeah, no, but, like in all seriousness, it's been very interesting, like seeing the shift. I guess when I talk about, like, content creation, my brain goes to YouTube because that's my main thing. That wasn't my first thing. Like I said, instagram was my first thing, but eventually I went to YouTube within a few months and I've been there ever since and that's my main source of income. That's my job. I consider myself a YouTuber. I guess I don't really like the moniker influencer. I don't think anyone's like I want to call myself an influencer. I love that term.
Speaker 2:I don't think anyone really loves it, but if you talk to gen z or gen alpha that they straight up say I want to be an influence.
Speaker 1:Okay, well then, maybe I'm just be on. I don't know, he probably has.
Speaker 3:Yeah, fuck that guy carry on, um, but like it was interesting because at the time, right when, like I was, I was coming up cause this was you know, now it's been a year 15, 16, it was a vlogs, right, that was the that was the most prevalent as far as I was concerned fitness content and it was very like aspirational kind of content where people started following those who they wanted to emulate and I I even garnered a following kind of based on that. Right, People saw the cause. Yeah, I started my channel after I had pretty much lost all my weight, because I lost my weight before social media was what it is now. I mean, it was around, but you know I'm 32 now. I was 20 when I started losing weight, so it's 12 years ago, right. Social media just wasn't what it is now.
Speaker 4:And so when I started my channel, it was like I had a messenger going hey guys, I lost 30 pounds today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it took 30 minutes to load the screen. Oh yeah, dude, that was the worst man, when you'd like want to play a game and you'd be on like nickcom and it'd take 20 minutes and then someone would call and then the screen it was like no, but that's besides the point. But yeah, so like it was like aspirational content that I think people like wanted to kind of emulate, but it wasn't overly produced content right, it was aspirational, but aspirational in a sense of like I'm just gonna like.
Speaker 3:This person kind of knows what they're talking about. They have a pretty nice physique and I I appreciate that and I so I want to emulate that. It wasn't. That person has a 14 million dollar, you know, home and they have four cars and like you know, because now if you look at vlogs, now what does well is, for the most part, is that you know there's some outliers like I think of, like sam sulik, I think is how you say sam sulik, he does old school vlogs.
Speaker 1:I was like that's immediately where my brain went to.
Speaker 3:It's like, oh, like a sam sulik type yeah, yeah, but he reminds me of how it was back in the day. Kind of right, very raw, I get was a term we would use a lot that was everybody yeah, and that's how it was right and so.
Speaker 3:But then, like, even for me, I, you know I've shifted my content quite a bit because I was doing like vlogs and then I got into crossfit, I was doing a lot of crossfit stuff, um, and then I started um, as kevin kind of came, I was riding that same wave of being a drama. I guess you could call it Like I I would say, like what I do, I've gone like like, kind of like this when it comes to that kind of content. Like there was a time in my life when I was just really sucked into it around 2020, 2021 was when one that was the best my channel ever did, but it was. It was like like Kevin was saying, it was like just searching for people to almost not make fun of, but almost kind of make fun of, right, and like it got to a point where, for me, I started to really struggle with it as well. I ended up you know, I pivoted not as much as Kevin did Like I was like all right, I'm going down this road, I'm just going to kind of you know what I mean Like just kind of switch over and like try to do a little bit better job of like, always trying to like with my content.
Speaker 3:Now, I don't know how many people watch my videos, right, but I tried to meet the people where they're at as much as I can and offer solutions instead of just you're an idiot, this is stupid. Why would you do that? It's like, hey, just you're an idiot, this is stupid. Why would you do that? It's like, hey, I get why you'd feel that way, but, like, maybe try this, maybe this would be a better option. Right, and I'm not perfect and I'm sure there's people that are like his videos aren't like that at all. He's super hateful. It is what it is like at this point, but I try my best to be to like, to be as like respectful with the platform that I have, because I do appreciate it a lot, um, and so, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at now.
Speaker 1:Do you think the drama is like the same level as it was when you started? Is it less? Is it more? Is it just different?
Speaker 3:I'd say it's just different, and a big part of that is because once people start to notice something working, there's more people that are doing it Right. And so now there's so many people that are making very similar content that it's just different. And there are people that are making similar content that are fine with going to 11 and just being like saying stuff that for me I'm like that's crazy that you would say that on camera, you know, and that you would be okay with putting that out there about another person, but they don't care, right. And so people are like well, I want to watch that, I want to watch the extreme version, and so, like I a frequent like criticism that I get on my channel is like oh, you're too nice, you're just too nice, and I'm like I'd rather that than like what?
Speaker 3:How could you say that? You know what I mean? Like that's the worst thing I've ever heard, right? So if people say I'm too nice, that's a criticism I'll take. You know I get that criticism quite a lot. Yeah, no, your content is very like, like very different, but like it reminds like the way that you speak about stuff. It's clear you disagree, but you're not like hey, you freaking idiot. Why would you do this?
Speaker 4:you know it's like well, except for the videos where he's like hey, you freaking idiot, I mean there, I mean there's, there's people that are just all the way.
Speaker 3:Sometimes, we deserve it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sometimes I don't give a shit Like it's, let's just have some fun.
Speaker 2:Liam is very measured, he. He is measured in his response. He pushes back to an extent that, uh, I am. I have never been uncomfortable with something that he attacks the idea, not the person. I think that's really important.
Speaker 1:My goal has always been like take the idea, bring it to its extreme and have people realize how stupid it is. Oh, they're saying that canned food is terrible. Yes, americans are eating too many canned vegetables. That's why we're unhealthy.
Speaker 2:Which brings me back to a reasonable spot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that people go, oh yeah, no, that is stupid. Like just to bring it to its ultimate. That's what, like, comedy is right, you know, especially, just bring it to its its most extreme conclusion. Then we all kind of laugh at it.
Speaker 2:What John does. That I really have always loved that he does better than any other commentary channel, which is essentially what he is now. Yeah, Is he remembers that the person that he's talking about is a person he speaks to, what they may be thinking, and when they push back and somebody has said something about you, you're one of the only people I've ever seen go. You know, I can see how you would think that or I can see why you'd feel that way, or maybe you're right about that. I don't see people doing that. He has a conversation.
Speaker 2:When I see people like just absolutely there's a guy named Mud Pit, Bubba, John Bravo that are talking about wannabe alpha males right now, it's the zeitgeist that's going on right now on YouTube and I can only stand so much of them because so much of their criticism of these guys who very much deserve criticism, is to make homophobic essay jokes, denigrate women by comparing these guys' worst flaws to being like women, stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And I'm just like you know what guys? You had me, you had a point and you keep losing me with this and it's why I can't you know, I can't support them or recommend them, because they're, but they wouldn't be getting the views that they are. They wouldn't be building the if they weren't doing that, because there's so many people that that appeals to and there's so many people that would never say it themselves, but they are happy to watch somebody else say it and they are happy to click like and happy to keep that energy out there, because while they may have those feelings on the inside of them, they lack the intestinal fortitude to actually express them and be held accountable for them. So there's always going to be somebody willing for money to step up and say the thing that a bunch of terrible people are thinking about somebody else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always think about that. What's the one dude? That's always just he was on the middle ground or whatever we've talked about him before. He's just like super fat phobic.
Speaker 3:He's like the fresh and fit guys. He's like we should put fat people in like concentration camps, like that sort of extreme. Yeah, it's one of those guys, the fresh and fit guys I always forget his name.
Speaker 1:I get tagged in this video, the videos a lot. I'm like I don't even know what to do with this fucking absolute just trash like it's. Clearly he's just saying the most extreme things possible.
Speaker 2:Well, to get views, and it does, it gets yeah, and it's the engagement that he's actually after, because, right, if you get the comments, even if they're negative comments and and greg doucette does this really well say just enough inflammatory crap to keep people continue to talk about you and you'll continue to profit. It doesn't matter if people hate you, because the the platforms, regardless of which platform you're on, they don't care if you're happy on the platform, they just want you on the platform. Right, and rage works better. That's rage baiting is extremely effective, which is why I came to the conclusion, I guess right around 2021.
Speaker 2:Um, it's amazing, you know, close calls with mortality, the perspective it gives you. I I came to the realization that I I would rather inform, educate and support 10 000 people, yeah, and squeak by then entertain 100 000 and and and be rich. Uh, so like, do I miss? Miss the former size of the AdSense checks? Yes, sort of. Do I sleep a hell of a lot better and have absolutely no regrets about the things that I get to say now yes, and that's a lot better bringed up.
Speaker 1:You brought up greg doucette. Uh, like I remember, like when you know, if you go back to his first videos, he didn't even like talk like he does now, for anybody listening hasn't heard greg doucette.
Speaker 1:He talks like the parrot from aladdin and like that's a voice that he does and he did it like a couple times and he's talked about this before where he's like people thought it was funny. So I do it all the time now and a lot of people hate it to fucking bits because it's a little annoying, but like it doesn't matter. So like you know that sort of stuff, I'm like you know you gotta do what you gotta do to get views.
Speaker 1:but then you can you can easily bring it too far and then go towards the like inflammatory statements and stuff. So, like you know, in my content I'll do a lot of like weird and wacky shit to like try and just get that engagement going a little bit more. But, like, as long as I'm directing the comedy at myself and not, you know, going after anybody else, I'm like, ah, it's fine, right?
Speaker 2:Right. As long as you're pointing at it like a concept or yourself, it's fine. As long as you're never punching down, it's fine.
Speaker 1:Unless it's V Sh's, unless it's v shreds, in which case there are certain people we could punch a little bit and still sleep well at night.
Speaker 3:Sleep so good kevin, was there, like ever, a like, a click moment? Was there like a, a moment where you like, where you like, remember being like I think I don't want to do this anymore or was it just kind of like, over time, it just slowly, like you, just got more and more uncomfortable?
Speaker 2:There was a specific click moment that I remember, and that was there was. There was two. The one that made me start thinking about it was when I there wasn't anything that anybody was talking about that week. That was this big thing that I could, you know, pigtail on or dog pile on top of, and I found myself looking for something to bitch about, uh, like just trying to find something to dig up, and I was like, why am I doing that? That's not what this is supposed to be about. I was supposed to be about cleaning up the bovine fecal matter in the fitness industry the bull fit, if you will. Like that's what I was supposed to be doing. I was like I'm not being real, I'm not being authentic, and it bugged me for a couple of days.
Speaker 2:Then I made a video off of something that I found while I was looking for it, and I'm not entirely sure what the video was, but it was something inconsequential that could have been just like a reasonable conversation, and I don't remember, because I took all those videos where I was attacking people that performed well, and I demonetized them, left them up for a year and a half and then I have taken them and I've, uh, unlisted them. Um, so somebody could still see if they want to hold me accountable. But like I don't want to be, I haven't profited from a single view on a single one of those videos in like four years. Then I made a video and after I posted the video I had a habit of posting them at night and then waking up in the morning.
Speaker 2:I dreaded looking at my comment section. Like that was the feeling I had inside. It was like I didn't want to see the comments and it wasn't. I wasn't like because I've never been afraid of confrontation I'm a retired Marine like I'm not worried about verbal sparring I'll crush you, I will tongue lash you. I'm not worried about physical, uh repercussions. The threats that people make I find laugh. I was worried I was going to find a bunch of people who were dogpiling on the person that I had just talked shit about and every person who said something awful. I was responsible for that and it just left this like feeling of sewage in my stomach.
Speaker 2:That makes sense I was like I don't ever want to feel like that again, and it was at that point that I stopped making that kind of content.
Speaker 3:Yeah, makes sense. I definitely that's still something that I still like struggle with, you know, because, no matter how much I try to be as open and honest and understanding, you know there are people that are watching the video that I obviously I don't. I don't know exactly what they're going through, I don't know what they're going to pick up on what I'm saying, and you know, I see comments that I'm just like man, like that makes me sad that that's what you got out of the video. You know, that's the thing that you care about here. That's the only thing that matters. Right? Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1:I think some people, though, will always look for that, and it doesn't matter what, like that's, that's what they, that's the little bit of pleasure they get out of life is trying to bring other people down to an extent.
Speaker 4:so, like what I don't know, there's not really much you do about that yeah just like the weird people that go around trolling jackbox games on twitch. I'm unfortunately unfamiliar. That's okay, jackbox is. I may as well describe for the audience if they don't know, jackbox is this game? It's just a party game, like Cards Against Humanity type things.
Speaker 3:And you can play that online with people.
Speaker 4:And lots of people stream that and there's like these kids that will just go around and they will join in your Jackbox if you're streaming and they will start putting in like disrespectful racist prompts, stuff like that it's chaos man is unfortunate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, back in the good old days we used to just take baseball bats to mailboxes and now throw rocks at windows good old-fashioned vandalism.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's gone now I miss the good old days I'm curious right renting a bunch of well, no, no, you go, you go.
Speaker 2:I was just gonna say renting a bunch of mailbox costumes, putting them over people's heads and then hitting them with baseball bats.
Speaker 3:That sounds painful, but, like I know, like me, and obviously me and Kevin have been talking a ton about like what got us into, like, but what about you guys? Right, like what made you want to make the kind of content that you guys make?
Speaker 1:see, that's, john, what thinking of others like a loser.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm just, I mean, I'm just I'm genuinely curious though, because I like it's so interesting to me as someone that's been doing it for like again, I mean I don't want to sound broken record, but when I started I wasn't thinking I'm going to make content, you know, and then like was that? And I think was that, like I feel like there's a missing link here and I want to fill it, or was it more just kind of happening. You know, I just I don't know, it's just it's interesting to me because I'm freaking old, like you guys said, I've been doing this for forever and so I'm always curious, like someone that's been like a newer into it. What got you into it, right?
Speaker 4:I like how he says he's freaking old. He's the youngest one here, I know but it's like like a year younger than me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you've been doing a lot longer than I have.
Speaker 1:That's yeah, I've only I mean what like a couple, two, three years. Wow, you've done great, yeah, in two, three years. It's fucking, it's wild look at this for those listening, I'm my my silver play button from YouTube.
Speaker 3:I have the old one.
Speaker 2:He's got the original one. They used to make them out of silver.
Speaker 3:I got that one in, like 2017,.
Speaker 1:I think I can't really see it from here. It looks like it's made out of wood.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, it's like, it's definitely looks. They look very different now.
Speaker 1:Well, I thought that was super cool. I've only been posting to YouTube for like three months, so like that's.
Speaker 2:that's great Cause I've been doing it for six years. Well, I haven't really been very consistent and I'm stuck at like 70,000 subscribers.
Speaker 1:It's all shorts now. Like you know, the shorts are really what did it like the long form? Still like working on that, but any who? Um, yeah, no, I always, just like I always had like a bunch of ideas for skits in my head for like dumb shit. I don't like that's where I started, like I always said I loved the.
Speaker 1:I grew up watching like mad TV, like that sort of shit. Okay, so I always loved those like kind of skit comedy sort of things. So I was like man, I just want like an outlet for this. I don't know I wasn't thinking about like I'm be a famous influencer. I was like I just want a place to make that and for a couple people to go. That's funny and that's really all I wanted. Uh, so I started making a bunch of skits around, mostly fitness, just like dumb gym stuff, and then occasionally like nutrition stuff and like it did fine, like it did okay.
Speaker 1:Some people thought it was funny. And then it started and then slowly started shifting just into more like nutrition. I was like, oh, people really need help, let me do this. And then over time people were like, oh, what about this? They're asking questions, what's this, what's that? And that's kind of. When I saw all the debunking stuff and people were like man, what I'm so concerned about? Eating bread because it's fine, so that's and that's. That's just kind of slowly just developed from that. I miss mad TV. Yeah, that's my, that's my team I've been.
Speaker 2:I've been thinking about Stuart ever since you said that.
Speaker 1:It's so good. Look what I can do Dude my family loves.
Speaker 4:Stuart man, oh my.
Speaker 3:God, you Americans, bobby.
Speaker 1:Lee man, bobby Lee, yeah, kids in the hall.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was going to call out kids in the hall, but I didn't know if anybody else would recognize it so good, what about?
Speaker 4:you, rob. Well, I ended up posting just as an experiment of pushing my boundaries in my social anxiety disorder and that's literally all it was, was just okay. I don't know what content to post. You know what I've been getting into fitness lately. Let's just post some sort of fitness thing, see if I can actually hit the button to post without having a heart attack and for whatever reason it hit. So people liked it and I started posting regularly until it started really taking off fast and then that's when the anxiety kicked in and I disappeared for a year.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I started out posting more in regards to weightlifting and exercising, but the more I post about that, the more I guess more. The more social media I actually looked at, the more I saw just everybody and their mother was posting workout videos and what it came down to is like the same exercises just in different, different orders, and and everybody's saying oh, this is the optimal exercise, oh, this, you have to do this to be optimal. And I, I, just I was like look, if you need exercise content, literally just search exercise and you will get five million videos that are perfectly good. Pick one, do it. And then I. But then I started getting um asked more about the nutrition stuff and that I felt was a lot more interesting to talk about due to, like, just how many people are pushing the wrong thing entirely. It's hard to push the wrong thing in exercise. It's like okay, yeah, just do something you love, do something you love yeah.
Speaker 4:Move your body.
Speaker 2:Right, you guys want to get together and make a cookbook.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you want my help on that.
Speaker 1:I'm on that page with John. I like I people feel like I'll cook. I'm like man, I fucking like put beans and rice together and I put like corn on a microwave potato and I'm like, oh, food like I don't sustenance.
Speaker 2:That's exactly the unhinged kind of shit that I'm thinking about.
Speaker 1:Maybe we go that route like I'll go all in, be like listen, I take this micro, I take this pack of ramen and here's what I do.
Speaker 3:I, I, I think that I mean, that could be actually very interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, relate with that, because it's not okay. I need to go buy all this fresh food. I need to meal prep it this way, just like one of the weird things that I do is I take steamable vegetables, I will steam them in the bag. I will pour the entire bag all three to four servings into a bowl, put a little bit of Parmesan cheese and Italian dressing on it Light Italian dressing and then I will eat that straight. And people are like oh, cool, food hack. You're getting 10 to 12, sometimes 16, depending on the veggies grams of protein. It's high in fiber. It's a quick snack that'll fill you up and it's calorically. It's like 200, almost always less than 200 calories, and for me that's like spitting in the bucket of my daily intake and you're sitting there like that's not a food hack, that's just me being lazy.
Speaker 4:I've lost rob again. Am I the only one?
Speaker 1:no, we just guess what rob says. It's fine, he's going yeah just take okay, just take an educated guess on one of those.
Speaker 2:You'll probably be right, it's fine so so we're not looking directly at the problem.
Speaker 3:I won't make eye contact with it, it's just interesting because it's usually like right, when you start talking, it'll stop, and then, if you talk for a while, it's fine, but like right, when you start, it's like nah, nah, this guy can't talk that's amazing, just like when I go to edit this, my end will be perfectly fine, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:And all the listeners will be like, hey, we heard, I'm fine you guys are just yeah, that's why I don't say anything.
Speaker 1:I just sit here and then I guess, and I'm yeah right, it's fine, that's what's cool about this, this program?
Speaker 3:because, yeah, it's all like it records your video and then it. So it's not. Yeah, I'm gonna have to actually listen.
Speaker 1:The cookbook, though, seriously like, I think, just like this, is how, like you know, you microwave a potato. This is how, like you know, you microwave a potato. This is how, like, you take these processed foods that people would usually scoff at, and then here's how you eat them and make them maybe slightly more nutritious or whatever. That's the type of cookbook I would do.
Speaker 2:I have never done a day in the eating or a day of eating or whatever it is those are called.
Speaker 3:Clearly you haven't.
Speaker 1:It is fucking unhinged, yeah I guess that's why you should do it though. Yeah, that's why like, like. Why are you what the dog food and you're like, it's high in protein I have a meal I make called dog food, and it's literally dog food.
Speaker 2:It looks like dog food. It looks like dog food in a bowl, but it is delicious and it's high in protein and it's high in micronutrients. No but this I mean.
Speaker 3:This conversation, though, is important, and this is like something that I I end up like having to talk to with my clients a lot. Right, is that you? One of my favorite things I didn't make this up, but I use it all the time, so I might as well have just stolen it and made it my own anyways is don't let perfect get in the way of good enough. Right, and, like so many people, feel like they, their diet has to be perfect. Like, oh, I should. I don't know if I should eat this or like potatoes I heard potatoes are terrible and I'm like, dude, like they're your diet. Like if you saw what I eat every day and the reason I was like I don't know about doing a recipe thing, because I literally almost eat the same thing every day Almost right, unless Amanda cooks, which is great and she makes great meals. Right, but for the most part, if I were like up until a few months ago, when I didn't live with her, I pretty much ate protein, oatmeal, some sort of sandwich or a salad for lunch, stir fry at night, and then maybe a snack snack. That was pretty much every single day.
Speaker 3:Right, and like I always say, you don't have to do that. I understand I have some stuff probably going on that makes it, so I do that right. I don't expect that. But it's like if you find something that works and it's simple and you enjoy it, you don't have to like, you don't have to be some five-star chef. I think so many people think, oh, I want to lose weight but I'm not good at cooking, that you don't have to be. You really don't have to be good at cooking. Like, if you want to improve your cooking, great, but you don't have to be at all right and like anything it shows with you know, everyone's meals that they're making right. It's like it's don't let perfect in the way of good enough. It's like something that I talk about a lot.
Speaker 2:I actually made that up. Oh, okay, yeah, and you stole it from me. Okay.
Speaker 3:I'll pay you royalties. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:No, but useful stuff, and I think that that is what we need more of. We are moving away from the OptiBros and stuff like that. We're understanding that we hyper-focused too much as a community on specific variations, etc. Too much as a community on specific variations, et cetera. When you start obsessing about well, the lat pull down doesn't bias the latissimus dorsi, it actually biases. Shut the fuck up. People have been using this to build their lats for longer than you've been alive. It works for the lats, and that was actually a video from a guy that I have now met and have a great deal of respect for, and he's cooled it off JPG Coaching. He's a great dude, but he was caught up in the optimization, bro. Now it's DNF and all of these people have their preference, but they state it as objective, inherently superior, and I think what we need more of is, like just the attitude. Guys, everything works a little bit Like the more specific it is to what you're trying to do, the better it works, but all this stuff works you know what doesn't work?
Speaker 1:nothing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't do that um, or you know, v shreds. Five secret foods that'll turn you into a fat burning machine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, beringa powder. Wait, what's that? Did harvard do a study on it?
Speaker 3:I'm super excited oh my god, dude, that stuff like the harvard, harvard scientist and like just think objectively, what does that even mean? Like does that even mean anything? No, what? Is that it's cool like what does a harvard scientist have to do about nutrition? Nothing like they're not smart. They smart people go harvard but that's the that's.
Speaker 3:That's the problem, though, man. It's like that it it does like for some people. They're smart, they smart people go harvard. But that's the. That's. That's the problem, though, man. It's like that it it does like for some people. They're like oh no, it's a doctor. It's like a doctor in what, though?
Speaker 2:right, oh, they're a chiropractor and what did the study actually say? Yeah, like they'll just say, doctors found that beetroot powder makes your dick big. Okay, so I mean, if you take enough of it, that will cause some swelling, and that's as close to the truth as it actually is. Yeah, by over circulating to the area you're gonna get swollen, not I could, I say I love super beats.
Speaker 1:Super beats is like you know, they make beet powder and the claims and the commercials kind of feel like. Snl parodies of something Like it's as powerful as eating eight beets. I'm just like I love this. This is great.
Speaker 2:We have a chiropractor in town, since John brought them up, who on his website claims through chiropractic to be able to cure substance abuse and depression, and I think that is so irresponsible. In writing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's probably some laws against that, but like, who's going to really check these days?
Speaker 2:He'll probably just claim that chiropractors is his religion. Oh my God.
Speaker 3:Because he's healing with faith. The chiropractor stuff is interesting because I feel like I mean, I I'm not super comfortable, like I've never this is weird. I've never, like, really deliberately gone to a chiropractor the only time I ever did see it Accidentally. Yeah, well, kind of so I was oh shit, where am I?
Speaker 1:No, no, this isn't the Twizzler store.
Speaker 3:Dude. Well, because I'm not confrontational. Okay, I'm not right, and I was in the wrong office.
Speaker 2:I got it.
Speaker 3:Dude. Basically I'm saying listen, listen, all right, I have a story.
Speaker 1:No, we're not listening, we're going to make up the story and you're going to tell us if it's right or wrong. But this was when.
Speaker 3:I was. I was sponsored. I guess I won't say the name of the supplement company because that's kind of rude but I was sponsored by a specific time and they had flown me out to their headquarters to, like you know, do content whatever. And I was also running it. I was doing a triathlon, that was in the area, so we were making content about it, all right.
Speaker 3:And I go into one of the, to their gym, and every week they have a chiropractor there and I was like I really don't want to. But everyone was like oh, he's here, yeah, the chiropractor. Like we are so excited, like everyone loved him. And I was like they're like you have to try. And I don't want to be like no, I will not. So I was like okay, but I told him I was like I don't want anything with my neck, nothing with my neck, please. Like like I just am not comfortable. And he was like, okay, no problem.
Speaker 3:And then you know he's doing the thing whatever, just kind of like work on my body. And then he gets to my head and he was like are you sure you don't? Like I really think you could help with blah, because you know he was like asking me questions like yeah, you know I have some blah, blah, blah, whatever, and I was just like again, I don't want to be like no, I said no. So I was just like, okay, and he did the thing. But I just remember I was just like, and then he was like how do you feel? I was like, yeah, I feel pretty good and they're like, dude, you're going to feel so much better. And then I wake up the next day I'm like I feel normal, like I think so much of it is placebo to an extent, but it's like you want cause, you want to feel better, right, you want to believe that there was something that happened For me. It was just like it was nice, you know, but like I've also had massages that were nice, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So acknowledging that chiropractic, by what evidence is available, is largely analgesic, meaning you can experience temporary relief of pain. I think if they just did that, they wouldn't have such a bad reputation for being quacks. Yeah, just did that, they wouldn't have such a bad reputation for being quacks. But claiming to be able to correct posture through alignment is. There's very little supportive data. There's even less that suggests that, unless you go to the extremes, that variations or deviations in standard posture have a significant effect on your life, outside of really sticking your head forward and the weight that that puts on your lumbar spine over time. But an adjustment's not going to fix that. Sitting with proper posture, you know, supporting your spine, building the musculature up around it, those are the things that are going to fix it. None of that happens in a chiropractic office.
Speaker 1:We had a couple of chiropractors on before and they were like actually good ones who were talking about, yeah, we try and relieve some pain and then the steps they take after that is what actually helps them in the long term.
Speaker 2:I respect those folks. There's one locally that I go see because I have five herniated discs and the only thing that makes me feel better is when a very large Samoan man turns me into a pretzel. That's it right. I'll get relief for a day or two, but then it's right back to pain management, and this has been going on for 14 years, so I know it's not going to just suddenly get better because somebody popped my neck and those whack jobs that are wrapping towels around people's necks and then just yanking as hard as they can.
Speaker 3:Or like claiming they can like cure and you said depression, but like cure cancer and cure like it's, like it's just crazy man and I.
Speaker 3:It makes you feel bad for the people that are like dude, I am a chiropractor. I've even seen some chiropractors that like they have a doctorate but they're like I don't call myself a doctor because they're like I see a massive difference between what, like the training I had versus what someone else has done and then you got dr berg, then you got dr berg, of course, oh, I love that guy I need to do, I I use.
Speaker 1:I have a series that I gotta get back to rate the grifter that I. That sounds like a great series dr berg has been like kind of on my thinking. On the next one I'm kind of thinking about like how to bring up like the scientology thing, like I kind of want to son come out.
Speaker 3:What against him, or something like that did what happened, dr berg, didn't his son come out against?
Speaker 1:him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, his son is like he's a whack job, yeah yeah, dude, I saw a couple tiktoks from him and I was like whoa, this is crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's a whole thing. And then like he's got like science, he's, he's, he's um, a scientologist and I'm like I want to deduct points from him but he never talks about that. He does a very good job keeping that on the down low. So, like very smart on his part. So maybe not, he does very well. Oh, I love his. He does the best when he's like what would happen if you took turmeric every day? And then he lists all these amazing things like it'll clear the pollution from your body and like all this bullshit, right. And then like of course, he sells turmeric like capsules for like 30 bucks or whatever it is, and I'm like those that I love that. That's as a grifter, fucking 10 out of 10, right there.
Speaker 2:Today's problem that I just invented and the solution I came up with the cost of how much money.
Speaker 1:do you have Exactly People like he sells so many supplements and like I've had people dm me like, hey, my dad or my relative or whoever buys his supplements, look at this and it's just a fucking countertop of just every supplement thousands of dollars, and I'm just like staring at it in disbelief that's the terrifying thing to me is that, even when that there is like an efficacious dose that you can take to have a statistically relevant effect, that effect is almost always less than 1%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um it 1% in changing or affecting or redirecting your life. Tmg, for instance. I've been taking TMG because it helps with energy production, but it can also there's a couple of studies out it can also positively affect your testosterone. I have been dealing with chronically low testosterone since a bad groin injury back in 2020 or 2021. I had a inguinal hernia that was four inches. My intestines would spill out under my skin and it would look like a human brain was just like sitting on top of my hip. It was, yeah, you know to this day, that's metal. I regret not taking pictures. Yeah, I regret, because I've talked about it and I haven't been able to show anybody. It's gross as hell and there's certain things I'd have to blur out because of how, where it's located no, no, no, that's not my intestine.
Speaker 3:That's the only like legit surgery I ever had was hernia. I had a hernia when I was like five, yeah, and it was like right in that area yeah, the inguinal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, way down, way down there. Um, holy crap, I'm sorry, I saw my wife in my brain. What was I talking about?
Speaker 4:the testosterone.
Speaker 2:so there is a measurable effect that tmG can have on your testosterone levels. It's about 7%. Okay, well, 7% of 300 is like 27. An increase of 27 points on your testosterone isn't going to do anything. So these people like Tom DeLauer who are talking about it, can have major effects on your testosterone.
Speaker 1:I got really into Tom DeLauer when I started like looking into nutrition, like I was like Bobby and like Tom DeLauer and it was just like I had a bunch of different supplements. I was taking specific amino acids together at the right moment, like at specific times, and like trying to like optimize.
Speaker 2:He's one of the people I made drama content about. Oh, I skewered him, but he's largely changed his ways. He still does say some, just absolutely vastly over-exaggerated, and he's much more excited about things like TMG and NAD+ and NMN than he should be. They do have an effect. I take 1,000 milligrams to 1,500 milligrams of NMN and TMG but that's because I get energy and I get endurance out of it. I am not looking at my hormone profile and saying this has a statistically necessary or not. Statistically. This has a statistically relevant difference but it does not have an impact and we spend so much money on shit that makes such a small difference in our health and, like, everything costs time, your lifespan, money or aggravation. So if you're like double dipping, you know it costs you time and money, like if it's costing you all this money, then you don't have time to do the things that would make you much more healthy, like cleaning up your sleep hygiene.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a sleep.
Speaker 2:I was just about to say, yeah, I had a glass of water with dinner. Is it as fun as fucking uh root beer? I would love a barks right now, but I'm a little dehydrated so I needed water, like I just, and that's that. That crap is largely free.
Speaker 1:Sleep hygiene, yep you will fix boring as you know it's not exciting.
Speaker 3:It's not like you make a video.
Speaker 1:You want to make a video about a new supplement, that harvard had a new study. That's what you want.
Speaker 3:That's the exciting part see harvard's old news man. I like to hear about what mit is talking about now mrt is still socially awkward.
Speaker 2:They don't talk to.
Speaker 1:I want to know what university of phoenix is up to. That's what's really on the rise. What is my local community? College talking about all right, that's what I need that we should make like just parody videos where we just like say obscure fucking like colleges and like just the ridiculous things they claim you know what?
Speaker 2:that's what we need to do in the unhinged cookbook or, uh, the imperfect cookbook, I think some to that effect. We should just like have random, obviously satirical quotes about the efficacy of a specific meal from the most.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we need to mention, like you know rats and you know and you know metabolism and just a bunch of buzzwords, and just throw it in there until it makes no sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude. Study conducted by East Rutherford Community College.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or, like you know, eating three packets of ramen a day increases your testosterone. And this is coming from you know O'Doul's, you know College of the Blind or something like that.
Speaker 2:It's just like College for professional mimes and the blind, the University of.
Speaker 1:Maine finds inserting one sprig of asparagus in either end.
Speaker 2:I live right next to you, you dick. There's at least three or four smart people there. Yeah, none of them are staff, though.
Speaker 3:And it is what it is. That's great.
Speaker 1:Well, I was just going to say that, say that like I want, especially before we go. I wanted because you guys have been doing this at least for a little while. Like what do you think is like one positive change that, uh, social media has gone over. And then like one negative change. And one thing it's like, oh, this is actually maybe a little bit better than you know it used to be, we've learned this, or whatever.
Speaker 3:And then one thing you're like ah, shit, we fucked up there I think for me, the answer is relatively easy and it's it's the same answer for both is just the the access to knowledge and information, I think is good because you know like you could find out whatever you want. But the issue with that is that there are basically what we've been talking about this whole time, right is, there are people that know that that's the case and they use it against other people, right, so they intentionally make things more difficult and they like overcomplicate stuff and they they focus on big words that might be confusing to to get people's attention and usually money. Right, I'd say that that's. Those are like it's. The access is great, but it's also bad.
Speaker 2:That is a really good one, and you stole my gimmick of the answer being both, because I was originally going to say the anti-bullying sort of functionality of algorithms and software that they use to like I. Only every once in a while I'll look at my filtered comments and I'm like, oh wow, there's some just terrible people out there. I don't even see them, that nobody in the community ends up seeing them. For a while I was just like I have the most positive community out there. It's just amazing I never see a crappy comment. And then I clicked the filtered comments.
Speaker 3:I was like oh yes, I do, oh, there's.
Speaker 2:John, see, they filter your comments because you're constantly sexually harassing me.
Speaker 2:You've resorted to DMing me the nasty things, but I will say that the negative thing there is that it took people exactly two weeks to figure out how to abuse those and through things like mass reporting, they will shut down legitimate sources of information that they just happen to disagree with. So I think there needs to be some calibration there on how those things function. There's not enough human beings who are reviewing the decisions made by an algorithm, and that's done in the pursuit of profit. But when somebody has your entire chat it's never happened to me, but I've seen it happen to people has their entire channel taken away because a group of really just terrible people disagree with the message of empathy or compassion, uh, and they don't like your political views. I've watched people have their entire platform taken away because they were mass reported and you can't appeal that to a human like I think that's a failing.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, that's fair. That's very, very fair.
Speaker 2:But the thing I love to see, I would say, is the production value and how easy it is to make really high-quality looking content, if you want to, is so much easier than ever. I don't think anybody realizes that every single one of my videos, no matter what level of production value there has been, has been filmed on my phone, edited on my phone and published from my phone. I have never had a camera.
Speaker 1:Imagine with AI like the future of that, like how it's going to advance rapidly. We're going to see that, but just on steroids.
Speaker 2:Apropos to the conversation.
Speaker 4:Well done sir, well done, we've gone full circle.
Speaker 3:Anything else that you guys got, anything you want to talk about, I mean I can always find stuff to talk about brother getting me to shut up is a problem. Yeah, basically. Yeah, I mean there's there's. The issue is I have a lot of thoughts, but I also understand that a lot of them are very half baked, so I try not to share them too much.
Speaker 2:So I I have things that I feel that I don't say I'm gonna, I'm going to attack my dear friend john oh no, um, because a lot of what holds him back is the fear of how it's going to be received, and he has.
Speaker 2:He's just shy of getting to the point in his personal development where he accepts an appropriate amount of responsibility for what he says and how it's received, because it is felt, encoded, transmitted, received, decoded and felt, and you are only responsible for three of those things. He is so careful in the way that he portrays a message because not because he's afraid in my opinion, I'm not you, not because you're so afraid that someone will disagree with you or there will be a discussion or argument about it, because you have a genuine care that you don't want someone to feel bad for something that you have said. And I'm a little different in a and I feel that it's not okay to bully or hurt people's feelings for the sake of doing so. But if a little bit of discomfort is the key that unlocks the door to their development, then it's okay. I am very comfortable saying things that make people feel uncomfortable, like calling out John's inner turmoil on a podcast that could be viewed by thousands or tens of thousands of people.
Speaker 2:He's a genuinely kind human being that has a lot of experience with shedding a lot of weight and keeping it off successfully for a decade and I would heartily. He's one of three or four people that I would 100% say to anyone. I recommend this human being, so I've got a lot of respect for him. And John, as young as he is, is actually one of the reasons that I decided to pull the trigger on making content. Of the reasons that I decided to pull the trigger on making content, um, I was like man, if, if this cherub face kid can put himself out there now.
Speaker 3:I have a mustache, so you can't see yeah, it's so thick man it's thick, I did not see it.
Speaker 2:What do you mean? You? Probably couldn't you mean you couldn't see me behind it.
Speaker 3:I thought it was pen I don't know what you guys are talking about and I'm not even crying right now, it's just hot in here and I'm sweating from my eyes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have. You've been walking on that pad for about an hour.
Speaker 3:Yeah no, but like I I mean I don't even know how to respond to that.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it. I'm sure that there's quite a bit of truth in it, but I also like part of like what I was mentioning is just like there's there's things that I have opinions on that I know I don't know enough about to say something that is worth listening to other than just guy yells at cloud. You know what I mean. Like just like the other stuff that's going on, right, because I'm in the US, right, and like everything that's going on with that, with the Department of health and how that's being ran, like I have opinions, but I also know that I I just don't have enough information to where I could really feel like I'm saying much other than just complaining. You know what I'm saying. So like that's kind of what I was like referencing with that, because I was just like, right before we started recording, I was having a conversation with Amanda, my girlfriend, and talking about some of the stuff that's going on and it's just like it's like the wild west right now and it's crazy, it's wild it is and it's.
Speaker 2:It's really disconcerting. We talked about it, I think, at the beginning. I don't know if we were um officially on air or how this works, uh, but we're entering a phase where we're going to have less access to the things that we have become dependent upon to make us healthy in an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. We're going to have to put it we're going to. Nobody's going to save us. We're going to have to put that effort on ourselves to become a little more active, not because we need to reach some aesthetic ideal, but because activity helps your heart, it helps your bone mass, it helps you become more resilient to um. Activity helps your heart, it helps your bone mass, it helps you become more resilient to disease and to sickness and to surviving those things that you can't avoid.
Speaker 2:We can mitigate so many circumstances, if not eliminate even some of them, just through being a little bit more mindful about our health and taking care of ourselves. We're going to have to take more preventative action. It's going to be necessary and it's going to be a very difficult, hard adjustment for a lot of people who have oh Zympic, hey sweet. Now we've literally got a thing I can take to help me lose weight, and while that might have been mildly controversial, it's not even going to be an option for most people as we continue to aggressively decentralize health care, push towards privatizing it. I believe that health care is a right. I think in any civilized society you are adequately judged by how you deal with your sick, your poor and your elderly and those on the fringe. And, as one of the most resource-dense nations on the planet, we could fix it right now, but we're headed in the opposite direction.
Speaker 2:And that scares the shit out of me. For my family I just got my mom and dad back on the right track, but they're very old and they were very unhealthy for a very long time, so they're still dependent on some medications just to get to like a place where they can conduct a normal, independent life. Take that away. I'll be very upset.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what I will say. I just want to recommend someone. If you're like people who like want to keep up with all of that, I cannot recommend Dr Jess. Enough Jessica, and I'm going to butch, I don't know. Her last name is Nurick. It's K-N-U-R-I-C-K.
Speaker 2:I am already following Dr Nurick she's amazing.
Speaker 1:She's really giving a lot of information of what they're doing, what they're trying to do and all of that. So I would recommend her TikTok Instagram, all that stuff. She's great for all that. She strikes me as very informed. I mean, she's a PhD in nutrition, a dietician. Normally people with that sort of stuff kind of have some idea of things and, you know, people who have no education in nutrition probably shouldn't be running things. But like, hey, that's just my weird take, excuse me.
Speaker 2:If you do your own research, you know more than those university elites that have been brainwashed. Oh exactly.
Speaker 1:Oh, fucking, I did a video, just recorded it today, like you were talking about, like I was saying, like I like to bring the humor into it, and there's like a guy just spouting about pure protein or premier protein, the drinks, and how they're terrible for you because they're filled with ingredients, and he commented yeah, it's so it's very funny.
Speaker 1:He literally didn't say a single green. He's like all this bad stuff. And in the comments he put you know, um, if you don't believe me, believe me, do your own reservations. And he just misspelled research. And I was like you know, I took him two-top for my wife and I at our local Indian place. I'll let you know how it goes. It's a great place. It's just like you have to just laugh at that stupid shit because what else do you do?
Speaker 2:I do my own reservations I make sure I have plenty of reservations. You sound stupid, oh my God. Yeah, I have never heard the phrase do your own research, uttered by someone who was passingly familiar with research. Yeah, fair.
Speaker 3:So, is that it or what?
Speaker 2:I've only been on four or five times, but there's this moment every time, I think that's the I keep cutting out every time I try to talk.
Speaker 4:So I'm just like fuck it, I know Rob gave up on that.
Speaker 3:I understand, rob. I feel bad for you man. That's so frustrating. We all feel bad for Rob feel bad for rob.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's in canada. He cuts out. Hey, hey, I found my pencil.
Speaker 3:Okay, things are looking up now was that him saying it again, or did we just get the signal repeated from the beginning of the video?
Speaker 1:it just took took an hour and a half to come back, you know we always say don't be your worst, and if you want to know the worst, it's. It's rob's situation the worst is in the room with us. Look at that and don't be that. Oh man, hey, wasn't that a great time? Listen to the podcast you were just I'm assuming you knew, or you were just listening to in moderation. So if you go ahead and hit the five star button, is that a thing?
Speaker 4:The like button. That's a thing. Yeah, the like button on YouTube.
Speaker 1:If you're on YouTube, hit the like button, not the dislike button. That's a bad button. The like button.
Speaker 4:Don't touch, don't touch, so hit all the other buttons, the share, the subscribe, you can go check out all those things.
Speaker 1:Subscribe. Go check out our Patreon. We do have a Patreon.
Speaker 4:It doesn't matter. Whatever you have, that's where you'll find all the news for this.
Speaker 1:We're super appreciative. You can find all sorts of other stuff there. We do giveaways, I think sometimes, Sometimes, yeah, absolutely so peace.
