Also media, Hello, and welcome to Better Offline.

I'm your host ed zeitron.

Now.

The other day someone suggested I shouldn't do ASMR style voices, and I'm still not sure what that means, but it does.

It mean I shouldn't be this close and like being like you're in the bathtub.

Either way, I'm never listening to a single bit of feedback I've ever received.

But today I'm in studio in New York, goddamn city, and I'm joined by the incredible freelance writer Ashwin Rodriguez, Hey dooing, Ashwn.

Good, thanks for having me.

And Paris Martineau of Consumer Reports.

Hello, Should I do mouth noises too?

Yeah?

They love that.

But you had a huge story, Paris, in the last week, last week or so it was like.

Week, yeah, like a week or two times.

A bit of a blur, honestly.

So it was a story around twenty three protein powders ready to drink shakes and properly brands, and you found that heavy metal contamination was common.

How cool?

Yeah, very common, actually, like more than two thirds of them.

Actually, this will be really important for your listeners.

Sixty nine percent of them had sixty nine percent of them had a levels of lead in one serving that are more than what our food safety experts say is safe to take in a day.

And the more you kind of dig into the specifics, I feel like, the more concerning it gets.

Some of the most contaminated powders we found were plant based ones, and overwhelmingly plant based powders instead of you know, versus like whey or dairy or like dairy based products like whey or beef based, they had just higher levels of lead.

Why is the lead getting in?

I mean, the lead is getting in from a lot of different ways, but probably the most common is like the soil that plants are grown in.

So basically like plants, when they're grown, they suck up all the nutrients around them.

But if those nutrients are also contaminants like lead from either industrial pollution or just lead being in the natural environment, it gets in there.

And who would have guessed the process of making protein powder, which is called protein concentrate or protein isolate from stuff like plants, involves concentrating and isolating things in it, and it LEDs one of those things to begin with.

It might get more concentrated and.

All these like popular brands, all these small brands.

These are popular brands.

We basically worked with a market and like analytics team and like trend reporters to figure out what are some of the best selling like protein supplements, what are the most popular brands, most popular flavors, And we kind of did a general kind of sweep of the market and tested those.

And to be clear, we didn't just test like a one off scoop of each we had.

I mean, this was like a experiment designed by our laboratory scientists over a period of months.

They went out and bought different like samples of each product, tested multiple lots, and then analyzed all the results.

Lead plains lovely, Yeah, so is, and so it was, but it's more in plant protein ones.

Yeah, so plant protein powders overwhelmingly like they had about nine like lead levels that were nine times as much as dairy based ones and twice as much as a beef based ones.

How the fuck are people not dying?

Well, the think that's the thing.

The thing about lead is it's not like a To be very clear, this is not like a you need to panic if you're eating these, you're going to getlead.

Plays That's kind of what I was getting.

Oh yeah, it's like a lead there.

If you ask like the FDA or the World Health Organization that you enter anything, there's like no known safe level of lead.

It's bad for you, uh, but it's not like immediately you're going to die bad in these sort of quantities.

These are low but concerning levels, and they're concerning because the kind of fucked up thing about lead.

I didn't really think about lead that much until I started reporting on this, obviously, But the fun thing about lead is that it like kind of lingers in your body.

So one of the ways people test for lead is like blood lead level tests, but that doesn't even give you a really full picture.

That just shows you how much lead is in your blood.

But the thing about lead is your body.

This is a gross over simplification.

Your body kind of thinks of it like calcium because they kind of look similar.

So it's like omnum nam and puts it in your bones or in your teeth, and so it hangs out in there for like the blood in your the lead in your blood kind of can come in and out of your body relatively quickly.

The lead in your bones can stay there for a period of like years or decades, and then during periods where your bone because your bones are always kind of repairing themselves, right, and when that happens, then the lead leaches out and it goes bad for you.

So the real issue with these products in particular is Consumer Reports has done a lot of like heavy metal testing and stuff, but it's we've like tested things like chocolate or tune or like things like that.

But with protein powder, people who like protein powders take them every day, well sometimes multiple times a day for periods of years, and that's kind of like a perfect storm to give yourself like low level chronic exposure to lead in a way that could in like years or decades like have measurable health effects.

And there's no regulation or testing that should have stopped this.

Is there a thing that this breaks?

Like, I mean this is we kind of have an FDA.

We kind of have an FDA.

This has been one of the most interesting things about this.

So last time I was on your podcast, I was a tech reporter the information and I've been like focusing on like tech companies doing bad shit for like years.

When I switch to Consumer Reports this summer, I'm mostly focusing on food safety still doing some tech, but it's been fascinating for me to dive into things like the FDA and realize, like the FDA historically, you know, I was always come under criticism, like every government agency for whether or not it's doing the best with the f part of FDA, food or drugs within that purview is dietary supplements, right, due to some chicanery in the nineties, are regulated kind of totally different in a way that basically boils down to the fd is like, well, we can't really do anything until it comes to market, and then when it comes to market, maybe we'll scrutinize it.

And you just did Ashwin a big piece about supplements, right, and you kind of remarked upon this to me a few times in the past.

Yeah, So my story in The Times was about how supplements to this point that I saw in the Consumer Reports story about protein is in the nineteen ninety four d SHA Act, which was yes, it basically it classified all dietary supplements to be regulated as food and not drugs, and dietary supplements can is like such a broad umbrella where you know, it makes sense to me that protein is considered a food.

You know, like a way protein or whatever.

But then there's also things that people are taking for purporting like drug like effects like ashwaganda.

Or you know, or even like melatonin.

What they call gas station heroin is a dietarian supplementary supplement.

But also that no, there's a different I believe it's kratim and something else.

But this is the stuff that some people were using to wean themselves off of opiates, and then other people who weren't on opiates.

Where really great that that classifies as something like.

Yeah, I've always been fascinated that like the gas station is at the cutting edge of pharmaceuticals for some reason.

I mean, yeah, and it's just it's.

This.

It's so interesting to me because these supplement manufacturers aren't required to prove their products are safe before they go to market.

They aren't required to prove that their products are effective, and they're supposed to comply with like good manufacturing processes.

But like, for instance, one stat that really stood out to me reporting this is like the FDA says there's twelve thousand registered dietary supplement manufacturers.

Last year, they inspected six hundred of them, and like five hundred and ten of those inspections were domestic manufacturers.

There's only ninety that were inspected abroad, and I suspect that's for a lot of the manufacturing of these products actually occurs.

Is there like a bleed over effect what they say, oh yeah, designed in America but manufactured in the global South was However, I.

Mean there's lots of misleading labeling issues, not necessarily where it's manufactured, but more so what they're allowed to say they can these things can do.

It's like structure of function claims where you can be like, because we know protein is healthy for you, or you know this compound is known to be involved in like whatever biological process they can say supports immune function, Right, we're designed to help with brain health and all these things where it's like, mechanistically it might work, but this thing has not been proven to have the effect that people think it does, So like that is a larger problem than being like this has been designed in the US, but it's actually right.

And then the way that they aren't regulating these things for any possible like positive benefit.

It's the same issue with negative where it's like unless there's either a class action lawsuit or someone proactively finding the people who are experiencing negative side effects, those aren't being reported in the same way that a pharmaceutical drug is required.

They're required to just crazy because Amazon is full of the fucking things.

Because I lifted these, then it's been a bad month for it, I guess.

But I tried various supplements and nothing changed anything, Like I was straight up just like I'll try that and nothing just completely And I just I would write down how I felt in the morning, and I'm just the same, like I fairly good attachment to the body.

But you can go on like the freak Andrew Huban read it if you want to see, just like his all the things that I under and it's like forty seven different pills.

Yeah, and how do you even.

Because the time is my question, like how do you that's like a level of rich person brain.

I can't understand.

Once you get into like the hundreds or like multiple dozens of supplements, I'm like, I can't even regularly manage to take.

Two pills a day.

I think it's like it's pseudo.

Sometimes it's like pseudo.

You feel like you're doing something scientific because there's a bunch of companies now where you can go and even if you want to do it by yourself, you go to you know, Quest Labs or one of these startups and get a blood test and most of them will offer a doctor's evaluation of those numbers.

But you can look and be like, Okay, my iron is low.

This was something that happened.

A doctor relayed this story to me that they had with a patient where the patient was taking an iron supplement because they were low on iron, and a natural path that they were seeing recommended that, and like, that makes sense if you're low on iron, take iron.

But what they didn't do is try and figure out why they were low on iron.

And when the patient came to see this cardiologist, the cardiologist was concerned that they might have a reason for low iron, thought it might be internal bleeding, refers them to a GI doc.

The GI doc did a colonoscopy colonoscopy and they had stage four colon cancer.

So it's one of these things where it's like if you don't understand the pathology as to why you might have a deficiency, even with like the quote unquote boring things like you know, I don't think people think iron supplements are sexy or like calcium or vine but they.

Think like quick shortcuts to health are sexy.

This is something I mean, I just found fascinating researching for the protein stories.

Just like I spoke to a food historian at length said I couldn't make it more into the article because obviously to focus the other stuff, but she had like spent months researching how basically, protein mania has been just a huge thing over the last two decades the very least, But it's because people attached like a health halo to certain words.

I think supplements are definitely one of those categories where people just assume they're an alloyed good because it's like medicine but not medicine, and then they don't ever think of the fact that these companies, I mean, one of the most interesting details about like the supplement like regulation or lack thereof in comparison to other drugs is that supplement manufacturers are supposed to make sure their products aren't harmful, but basically they get to determine what counts as harmful and set their own like limits for that.

So there's like no saying, hey, you can have this much amount.

Of lest give me an example of the limit.

They'd say so.

For like heavy metal contamination, for instance, the government might say like, hey, you probably shouldn't have like contaminants like heavy metal or you know, foreign like metals and contaminants in your product, But they don't say like, hey, you shouldn't have x amount of lead in there.

The companies themselves get to decide how much of a contaminant is harmful, and they get to do their own testing to make sure their products meet those self imposed limits.

This just feels like it's going to kill someone at some I'm sure someone who's already had a situation where they oversupplemented.

Well, now, this was a real issue back in the day.

Yeah, And I mean I think what's fascinating slash scary about it is because of the way this is reported, You i think, get a very underreported figure of when someone comes to the hospital and they triangulate that it was due to supplementation.

Because there can be issues where whatever you're taking, even if it isn't contaminated, can interact with a prescription drug you're taking or another supplement that you're taking.

And the doctors I spoke to said that it's not always clear what is causing the issue because it could be and one of the active ingredients in a supplement, it could be something that's a contaminant in the supplement.

And like, broadly speaking, liver damage is a huge issue in supplements broadly just because when you ingest something, part of the liver's job is you know, filtering that out, whether there's lead or whatever in it.

Even if it's exactly what you're supposed to be taking, it's taxing on the liver.

So, like, what I found kind of scary in the literature is that even when they know that liver damage was caused by supplements, the reason why is not always clear.

It could be because because you don't know what damage like, what it says on the label very often is very different than the concentration of you know, what's in the actual pill or powder.

See, this is the thing I've seen in a lot of Amazon reviews because I've absolutely gone down this rabbit hole before, and you'll read things and you people on Reddit will argue it'll be like, actually, the concentration of the main ingredient is different to the one they say, and it's just like okay, but.

I mean then you can go even further.

It's like, yeah, for that person, the concentration was different.

Let's say it's like two hundred percent more that person.

The next pill they took from that same bottle could be one hundred per could be like fifty percent less or three hundred percent more.

It's really difficult, and it also it baffles me because I feel like a lot of people who turn towards supplements do so because they perhaps are skeptical about the medical establishment or pharmaceutical companies, so instead they're turning to a less regulated industry with fewer checks and no one seemingly checking or I guess on the same level of checking to make sure the products are what they say they are.

And I will say I have some sympathy to that.

Don't worry, I'm not going in that direction.

Talking to when I used to be really of a way, it was like three hundred and fifty pounds as a kid, crazy fact, And when I go to doctors, they pretty much, God, yeah, you're fat.

They'd be like, yeah, mate, I know.

I'm told this every day at school seventeen times a day.

I'm well aware.

But any idea is that you should eat less, I'm like sick.

And then maybe ten fifteen years later put on a bit of weight, not quite as much, basically the same you tried some walking.

It's like, okay, but nutritionally I can put you in touch with the nutritionist.

Like it.

It's like the base level knowledge isn't what knowledge or advice isn't there.

And then booking, especially in America, getting a doctor's appointment costs money, cost time, You wait an hour to get in, like you have all of these things that are in the way, and then there are full of communities, full of people who will talk to you about supplements all day and be like, yeah, change my life.

I can tell you which of these nineteen pills I take an hour have changed my life.

I feel really good.

And I have a way of referencing that.

It's the same way that people get radicalized.

It gives them a sense of control over something that feels uncontrollable.

And the reason I looked at the Hubanan Lab stuff is not because I listen, but because there's a ranking of podcasts on Reddit, and you're.

I assume every I assume right now you have a window open just refreshing that to see.

I stopped doing that weeks ago.

But it's you can look and you can see.

It is like a cult style thing where it's like, let's look at your stank.

I think you may, you may, but it's like the pills stank and it's just.

I'm sorry, sank oh okay.

That the pill stank is what you get when you pop, when you kind of poop supplement for that.

But there's and since I started like posting my workouts few years go, I get the most insane advertisements on Instagram, these news like oh yeah, brain power, like mind brain power.

Every fitness influencer I've ever followed the unfollowed has always had like there's this really great one called like the blind Lifter.

He's just this guy who's blind and lifts insane amounts and his wife's like a very like normal looking woman and like really nice guy.

And they'll be like, yeah, it's my favorite something.

It's like brain fuse.

It's bright green.

It's like, what the fuck?

How do you know that this helps you?

Does this do you feel smarter?

I think, like going back to you know, some people feel alienated or they don't feel like doctors are listening.

I heard that from doctors themselves, where it's like, you know, depending on where you practice as a physician, you might have about fifteen minutes to see each patient.

Yeah, so like you're trying to figure out the relevant symptoms, what you can do.

Maybe it's a procedure, maybe it's a medication.

But like doctors themselves are telling me that either you know, you don't get enough time to talk about lifestyle proven lifestyle interventions you can make, talk about exercise, talk about nutrition and all these things.

It's more like just putting fires out so people don't feel like they are have any space to talk to their doctor about things they could try, whether it's with exercise or whatever.

So then you can find these people who will give you the time of day to walk through you know, their spiel and their pitch.

And then at that point is where poor decisions can be made, because just someone makes you feel seen and heard doesn't mean you take their bathtub pills that they made.

But exactly, oh, like, oh go get magnesium pills and picking a roundom one.

There's like seven the options on Amazon.

And to your point, Powers, it's like, how do you know pill to pill, how much magnesium is in it?

Do you have no consistency to it?

I think there's two different kinds of people here, though, Like there's some people who are resorting to supplements because they haven't found something that works for them in the traditional system, either because they haven't been diagnosed properly or they haven't had access to an expert or whatever.

And those are people who are very desperate to who will admit like I am lowering my threshold for evidence because I've tried everything else and if there's a chance.

But on the Huberman side of things, and like the stack, where it becomes ritualized, like I do this every day.

I do this every day.

I think that's more like the wealthy or well to do, like worried well is what they're called, where it's like I have everything else dialed in.

I like optimizers.

I eat Brian Johnson's eight ounces of chicken breast and X, Y and Z, and I make sure I get enough sleep because I'm tracking it and I haven't been.

That works as long as AWS is up and you know all of these things, and then the supplement is really like the icing on the cake is usually the term that they call it, where it's like, if you have everything else dialed in, this might help, and you know if it works for you, and if you're able to find things that are pure and like there's so many ifs like then maybe, but there haven't been studies to show, like we have like four thousand guys like you and we've run this as a test.

And a point that I think is missed sometimes is if something works, there's a mechanism, so like there's a trade off somewhere.

And I think actually doctor Cohen, who's an over.

To say, I could tell you doctor Peter Cohen, h I think he was referred to as now the supplement King, because it's the opposite of that.

He's like the chief supplement like skeptic.

He's a great researcher and doctor who we both spoke to for articles that has been kind of tracking the same issue that we've been talking about but for decades.

Yeah, and he was like, he's like, I'm not fully against supplements as a concept, but all of these issues we brought up where it's like, you know, before you even run one of these end of one studies on yourself, if you decide to, you can't guarantee that what you're testing yourself with is what it says on the label.

And then asides from that he was like, I think the main ones that he called out as being if his patients are using them, it's like we need to have a conversation about stopping.

That's actually a question.

I had like stuff for weight loss, stuff for exercise, stuff for male sexual enhancement, which is another gas station genre.

Oh yeah, so I woant to admit, like I take testosterone.

I'm on weekly ziastet prescribed my doctor.

Before I went and got that, I really looked into all of these weird testosterone things online.

You were doing the gas station bonor bill.

No, no, no, no, because like there was like it was a weird thing where I was like, I recognize this is a hormoner.

And I've known enough woman in my life that like, I know, hormones do more that you can't just like hormone up one day and it'll be fine.

But it's it's interesting because when you go and look online the amount of cons related to test just the word test.

There's a whole supplement thing of like testosterone enhancer, and it's just like based on no science.

And then there are websites you can go to where it's like we'll speak to a doctor and then you'll send us blood and then we'll send you testosterone in the mail and you'll inject yourself in the But I.

Think I love to send someone blood.

I love an injection.

No, there is a whole co viiome.

I think what you said like poop poop oh?

And then they yes, and then they it was a couple that started this poop testing startup, and that now they're both on the lamb from I believe fraud charge.

So that's why they didn't get back to me.

I said them a lot of poop.

Yeah, some mind, some others.

But it's just interesting how there's this whole predatory supplement testosterone protein powder thing online.

There's one hundred different companies that are doing weird share.

I get targeted for the the high protein foods.

Now, yes that was any of those full of lead.

I don't know.

We didn't test, God damn it.

But I'm fascinated by them.

And it's all I was thinking about when I was reporting this out.

I just put because every store has like a protein boosted pasta protein croissant.

I've eaten a lot of them as well.

But then you look in the back and it's like, what's one of the first ingredients like a way protein it just says it's like a way protein concentrate or like a pea protein one.

I'm staying the fuck away from.

Those ones are really fun though, because you go and look it's like, yeah, I need twenty grands of protein and only two hundred calories for the cookie and the cookie is the size of a dime.

It's like an it's the insanity of these things as well, and it feels the Internet is just this like this kind of abuse mechanism for it, because there's the ton Actually, I will say there's a ton of really good Reddit threads where it's like it's bullshit and now it's bullshit, which is awesome, but the amount of hoiploy around like yeah, this subseleuent changed my life, and then another guy, I hate this.

It gave me diarrhea, and it's like, Okay.

I've been really fascinated.

One of the responses I've gotten my article from some of the people who take the sublements that the most led has been like, well, it's not that much lead.

It's actually fine in comparison, I was like, why are we stumping for lead?

Guys?

But second, like, to your point, earlier.

I think just one of the things about this story that I find the most valuable is just people need to know, like should people should be able to figure out what is in their product and make an informed decision about whether or not they want that.

If you like read yeah that fuel.

One serving of Hueles black edition has like six point three micrograms of lead and you're like, I'm into that.

Good for you, Like, make your own decisions.

I've tried their food like that, And what's great is they call it food product, which is what you really want from thing you're eating, and it also tastes and looks like prison food.

It's food.

Back in the day was the silent girly during a really deeply.

Depressed I've had I've had some depressed yeah.

Yeah.

But there was like a time where soil it was just selling like a neutral rectangle of basically food slop.

It was.

It was slop, but in a square shape, slam brick.

Yeah, it was a slop brick and just stuff.

Yeah, I mean that was giving me some sort of mental poisoning at the very Oh yes, there really is, based on es.

I do think you kind of said something, Ashan, it's like there is a faith based thing too.

It's a ritual.

It's like, I know when I've been in the throat gonna be very vulnerable, the throes of like depression around weight loss and working out and such.

The ship I would eat and like the small amounts of food or like the weird insulting products I'd eat, and you go online and other people doing it too.

It's like, yeah, I am the penitent man.

I shall pass like in the Indiana Jones and I suffer like you do, and everyone's kind of suffering together.

And at the time, I was like, oh this is great.

Other people, I'm like, we all are very unhappy and it's but the amount of.

But it's forming a community around being unhappy, and that's addictive.

It's the predatory nature.

It's the it's radicalization by in a different form.

And weirdly enough, I haven't seen it around the fitness things, Like all the fight camp people I've talked to are just like kind of crazy, like we just enjoyed punching the bag.

I mean, but there is like such a cult around protein maximalization, like protein maxim yeah that I I mean.

Well, actually, tell me a little bit about this.

It's well, people overwhelmingly think you need more protein than you actually do.

Like I was definitely one of these people before I started like researching this story, I thought I was like similarly in my pits of depression, like uh and micromanaging the food I eat.

I was like, Oh, I'm wollfully protein deficient.

I need to be making sure I'm having like seven chicken breasts a day or something like that because that'll be great with my working out.

I shouldn't actually really helpful on this for me, keep going side, And.

It's just like for the average person, you're probably getting more than enough protein through your food, and unless you fall into some specific categories or have like a specific type of like workout need that you have, like you don't need to be having way over the recommended daily allowance of protein, which is point eight grams per kilogram body weight.

Thank you.

I'm glad you know this.

I was actually going to ask, but Ash when you you've been quite transformed to with my white loss, because you're the one who mostly advocated for doing less weird shit just like try and get like work on consistency and eating enough protein.

Yeah, I would have guessed doing things regularly is useful.

I feel like, because I definitely fall into the index, maybe over indexing for protein.

But in like, I think part of the reason that it's having a moment slash sustain moment is that when people like, if you're trying to have a rubric for you know, how to assemble a plate, and you know, the largest things are protein and edge, like those are the most filling things, right with fiber and how satiating protein is.

And it's like, if you do that, there's not many other rules that you have to kind of abide by without getting into like you know, you otherwise you can get kind of a little bit disordered depending on how you think about this stuff.

Yeah, but then I think what became an issue is that there's research and you know, an emphasis on protein, and then it's like, okay, we need to put protein in water, we need to put it in chips, we need to put it it was.

Protein beer, Like we need to we need to calm down, folks.

I like the protein chips.

It's fire.

The protein chips taste significantly better than you'd expect.

Yes, that's but that's always with proteins.

It's like it's better than you'd expect.

So it seems like it's a we're just whoever is trying to solve like a much bigger problem with just a consumption.

Yeah, And I think there was like some interesting researcher came upon, which is like people if they looked at like two identical like cereal brands that one had the word protein on it and one didn't, they be like, Oh, the protein one is healthier, and then you actually looked at the ingredients in the back, the protein one was like less health than loafat.

It is the new low fat.

But it's been like it's the first of these diet trends that we've had go on for a long time without ever having the bubble pop on it.

Like there's no people being like, oh, protein is bad for you, And I don't think like that's protein isn't bad for you.

It's totally fine to have, but you don't need to be obsessed with it.

It doesn't need to be the end all.

We both say this is people who have obsessed off of.

P Yes, yes, I think it's like the old the old trope was, you know how in you know, like women's fitness magazines, they'd be like I'm worried about lifting weights because as soon as I pick up a dumbell, I'm going to be like, you know, jacked bodybuilder, And I'm worried about that.

That's something that happens to people.

Yeah, and I think that and.

Not is categorically untrue, just to be clear, Yeah.

No, it's completely only it was that easy.

It's like, you know, you trip and fallow and if you pick up something by it.

I don't know about you guys.

Every time I might accidentally touch away, I just get ripped, just like a rob Lee, feeling like I can't even like wear sleeved shirts.

Yeah, just to pop out.

But I think it's the same thing now where you know, I've been like this.

I've had friends like this where it's like they go to the gym twice and they're like, I don't think i'm getting enough.

Pretty like why, You're like, I just I don't feel like i'm getting the results, and you're like, how long have you been doing whatever?

And then they're like two days.

They're like, Okay, you're trying to solve a much bigger problem with a consumption, you know, solution.

Yeah, And I think it's all taking advantage of a really shitty, sad thing, which is, yeah, if you're putting on weight, you might be eating too much food.

If you're not putting a muscle, maybe you're not doing enough consistently.

Yeah, yeah, maybe if you're not, if you're not feeling healthy, are you doing things that It's like.

They're kind a really easy shortcut to feeling better about your choices.

You're like, oh, I'm not it's not bad that I'm having a popter.

It's a protein poptar.

I'm not changing my I'm not changing my life in any way, but my life will change somehow.

And it's not my fault.

It's not changing, it's something else.

It's it's not bad that I had a whole old pasta tonight because it's protein.

The protein pop tarts are pretty good.

I've tried.

I feel like I do feel like we're in the golden age of like low calorie, high protein things.

I love it.

But at the same time, it's like, yeah, you can just eat as much food as you used to in protein and you're just gonna you're not you're gonna plateau.

Yeah, and it sucks, And it sucks a lot because I don't know this all gets back to the core Internet thing of everyone wants the easy choices.

It's like the radicalization of young men.

Oh it's because one won't speaking.

Maybe you're rude, Maybe you don't bring much to the cop you got bad vine, Maybe you have bad breath, like, maybe you have a bad something.

Maybe you have.

Maybe all that protein you're eating you stay.

Yeah, protein parts are real.

No, they really are.

They really it's really bad.

But it's like you can't find an easy way out, so you blame something.

And in this case it's I didn't have enough pills.

I didn't have all of the many pills my stack needs to my set.

No, it really the stack stuff is crazy.

Well that's actually to that point.

Like I've spoken to like health influencers who have and one is who I consider like pretty responsible, and they're like, we're trying to make boring things sexy.

Whether it's like because otherwise you can't have a health podcast that comes out twice a week when just established stuff, because it would be like, hey, did you get enough sleep?

How much of you exercise this week?

How is your mental health and how is your nutrition?

And that would be it, you know, like but they can be like, oh, there's a promising new rat study done on one two rats.

One of them exploded, but the other you know, looks pretty cool.

Long as you don't try, it'll be so hot.

Only two out of the seven rats exploded and they had bad vibes and the others were jacked.

Yeah.

No, this is the problem.

Whenever I spoke to like fitness or performance like experts in like the research field of like protein and muscle, I was like, oh, what's like the best advice for you?

And he's like, nobody wants to hear.

But just like, eat whole foods, make healthy choices, take care of your body, everyone falls asleep if you say that.

No, it's I like, my big secret is that I sleep seven and a half away hours a night.

I mandate this, and it's like, doing that change my life more than any pill I've taken in my goddamn life, other than like maybe my metal fendidate for my ADHD.

It's insane how much that helped.

But the problem is is once you once you've got into the routine of sleep, it's great, making yourself get into a routine of sleeping that much is actually very difficult.

Nightmare and you need like I sleep with like the blackout thing, Like I'm.

Just imagining you in a coffin.

No, I really like it's super cold.

Oh Like I like have like the full blackout eyemask.

I take a I take like melotonin and trazodone sometimes if I'm having trouble sleeping, I sleep like a baby and it's great.

But it's like to your point, Ashally, it's like, yeah, that would really help.

I don't know how the fuck a parent does that, Like, I don't know how like someone with like three kids would possibly ever fucking do that.

It works nice someone who works nights, someone who just has a stressful job that comes up in their mind when they close their eyes.

Who's insecurity.

Yeah, there's act like like any number of things could change, or just anyone with a decent amount of stress in their life.

It's difficult.

And even like the I feel like some of these fitness influencers or the fitness communities, there is a degree of pressure.

There's not really much empathy at all.

Like Asha, I've definitely messaged you with just like I feel like shit about most of the time.

You just say you're doing all right, like it could be maybe you got knocked off your routine.

And I think that the grizzly fact of all this is yet it's routine, consistency, actually having good advice, Like I took me years to find someone who could actually tell me a routine that would work.

I was lifting and literally hurting myself for years because everything a RED was like, need to do the big three core lifts, You fucking moron, You can't, you can't.

I'm like a Bucks sixty five bucks seventy bucks, yeah, buck seventy maybe, and i can't bench my body weight, but I'm healthier and stronger than I've ever been.

But just like on one core lift, I can't.

And it's like squat three hundred though.

And it's it's fucking strange because there's so much literature that says that's bad.

Even the BMI, which is by like a.

By like health insurance, not health insurance.

BMS, like an anthropologist.

No, it's by some corporate figure, perhaps life insurance.

No, No, that's Steps, Steps for the one that I'm sorry anyone who talks about STEPS.

That was a Japanese life insurance company.

It was like or like a Japanese health insurance company.

I'm pretty sure the BM I'm going to look this up live on the show.

I was going to say, you have the technology here, Yeah.

There we go.

Who invented this?

Adolf Quetelet, a Belgian astronomer.

Astronomer said that word mathematician status device on the basis of the BMI between eighteen thirty and eighteen fifty.

Hey, that's when they really knew their stuff.

That's when they really knew science.

For example.

It's just fucking stupid and there's so much bad.

Like the steps thing is the thing that frustrates me as well, because you can do so many steps without anything happening.

Like I've fallen into this trap myself, and I feel I hope that it's clear anyone listening to this.

This is not a shame thing.

This is a thing that I have done many It's like, oh, I got ten thousand steps.

I mean shit, it's like.

What is that based on?

Like the Japanese predominantly.

Yeah, that's exactly.

It's like the insurance company and it's it sucks because that was the earliest version of this supplement fitness kind of scam thing.

Well, I feel like, you know, ten thousand steps, was you know, the kind of like the prototype for a bunch of things we've seen since where all of these devices have come up with some kind of proprietary metric where it's like, you know, you got a million Google points for you know, your activity.

Strong one every the one I'm seeing so much now is like your body's age, your biological ages eighteen or something like that, and it's like, sir, you are a thirty nine year old man.

Just feel good about yourself.

You have boy blood, you got boy.

Should be clear.

By the way, if you're doing steps, moving is important, it's good.

If you're trying doing any of these things, it makes you happy, and you're an adult with free will, live your truth.

But I have an or ring and I do have an eight sleep mattress.

It did it break not during that I was and I'm a I'm a baby.

I need like cold cold like I have it like minus ten.

I'm I am like an actual creature.

But it's I have stats from my ring, I have stats from my bed.

I've got this thing called Soomny that does like tax electrical things.

It's great, really helps, and like my rem sleep is up and I think I feel it's just but like I don't really have any frame of reference what any of this does.

Knowing how much I sleep is useful because it's like, yeah, if I have less than eight, I don't feel as good.

But it's like I have for years, years and years, years and years, I could not tell you a single fucking thing about my fitness other than I feel and look better than I have, Like I can't tell you shit.

But there's this guilt fact factor about it as well, with like Strava loves to inform me like, oh, you move things down your numbers a lot.

It's like, thank you, Strava.

What am I meant to do with this?

Oh I forgot to work out, that's what happened.

I need guilt trips.

Yeah, I think like it takes a lot of discipline and perspective to not go nuts from you know, having all this information in front of you, Like I remember when I got one of the first fitbits and it verly, very quickly became like a obsessive thing that I had to stop using, where it's like, oh, I could get to a nice round number if I go for another run.

Or like my fitness pal of the trap.

Yeah, that was when I once I sign up for a gym and they had to like, as part of the package, you could get a session with a person trainer.

And I got this guy who's like, oh, you got to start tracking what you eat, and I he was like, use my fitness palette.

I tried it for a day.

I was like, this is going to drive me, yes insane and give me a new type of eating disorder that I don't want.

And you know, it's just one of those things where you know, some people are able to do that and make it part of their lifestyle, and other people it drives them fucking nuts.

I do think we need some degree of like tonal.

For example, I did injure myself using it.

It was my fault.

I just overtrained.

It feels like it should be able to tell you like, hey man, you've done four heavy lifts in the last five days.

Maybe not, maybe you should think about it for a second.

Peloton.

I mean I've overtrained on it when I used to do it years ago.

You gone the Reddit, tons of people overtrain on it.

You get obsessive.

They have the metals you can get and there's absolutely no like coaching aspect.

It's not like a, Hey, you've done a lot of heavy stuff.

Maybe do something.

There's no real guidance, and there's so much because all.

Of these companies now operate like tech companies were.

User engagement is one of the end of goals.

Of Course you want engaged users.

Of course you want your users that are moderately engaged to become highly engaged.

Why would you ever want to slow down that ramp?

But it gets more complicated when you're talking about people and their bodies and habits and actual human things.

Yeah, and it's also just just It gets back to the think of there's not much qualified advice.

That there's a lot of seemingly qualified, but it's hard to tell what the actual there's one hundred million different people will be like, I'll build you a plan.

There's none of them have worked other than a guy called Bend the PC guy on on Twitter and as in personal computer used to work Microsoft Love the guy.

He's the only person other than Ashwyn I think who's given me like any like useful, reliable fitness advice.

A lot of it's just yeah, makes it a bit of cardio volumes good and it.

But you read a bunch of other saw dude's starting strength five x five, you fucking pig.

Yeah, if you don't have one point five x by the end of.

The hum to your house and kick you.

Yeah, I'm gonna sir you a half.

Yeah, I'm gonna do to what Bane did to Batman and then I'm gonna log that in Strava.

Strava's also shit.

A lot of these things are also shit for logging fitness.

Like it's just like the Apple Watch also doesn't stay on my rep.

There's a lot of just times when I use this stuff, I like, do people who do fitness use this thing?

Or is this just to your point?

Paris just another tech company I like to I will go to bat for Tonal and that I've used it vas and I think it's one of the best ones because it does actually really hound you about form.

But like things like pelots on there Oka say.

I think any of these products, if you use them in moderation, if they bring some sort of joy your life, they bring consistency, that's great, but it's hard when you mix kind of habit forming products and the kind of flywheel of engagement with something like exercise.

Yeah, and I feel like it's almost antithetical to what makes exercise successful, which is you kind of need to learn how your body feels, which is a very woo woo thing, but it's true, Like, yeah, you know when your body like some weeks you may do for exercises.

Sometimes you may do too because you'll, I don't know, speaking for space, you hurt your calf and you hurt your elbow in the same week.

Yeah, you probably shouldn't push yourself to box or left, even if your brain's saying you get fat if you do.

But nevertheless, it's like that it runs completely contrary to a product.

That's the goal is to keep you using it, like the the you must log in every day.

If you don't do that, you're a pig.

And to have the dual lingo owl is going to be too kill.

The duo lingo owl, I will I.

Use, I do my dual lingo every day and like that literally will be like, hey, you haven't done it would be a shame.

If you lose your streak and I take all of my sleeping pills tonight, You're like, chill out, I'll do it.

But in the garage, like the the incentive for these you know, the companies you know, obviously they act like tech companies where they're trying to keep things as sticky as possible, and you know, have things on subscription basis instead of just being able to buy stuff outright.

And I found like it's antithetical to a proper business model.

But a lot of this stuff is useful for a period of time.

Like I tried Whoop and some of it I found useful.

Some of it, it was annoying to me that it doesn't track weightlifting as well as cardio, and because I lost the forest for the trees, I would do more cardio because that would get counted, which is idiotic if you step back and be like, I'm doing it because of my bracelet that I'm paying for.

But you know, some people, you use something to collect some data and then you kind of pair that with your intuition and what works or what you're feeling.

You know, because I found Whoop would tell me I had a great sleep and I felt like shit, and vice versa.

And you realize you have to know yourself well enough to maybe make a overriding decision that it's not accurately capturing how you feel.

And then once you spend this period of time doing whatever training.

You don't necessarily need a gizmo or gadget to tell you what you feel.

You know intuitively, but that's not something that they're going to say, like, oh, try this and then throw it in the garbage.

Yeah, you're only gonna need this a minute, mate, don't worry.

Just passed for a month.

Who gives a ship they love all the growth people are yelling at maybe you just fucking get rid of me.

It sucks, but I do love it.

I really I You.

Are the most I feel like metrics obsessed person I know in just terms of you're always posting your fitness metrics.

I love it, No, actually love It's just also like good to for me to just do and be like, okay I did that.

I forgot whether I did it or not.

You know, it seems like I don't know.

It's fun.

No, I just run to a local basketball court and I just run around for forty five minutes missing.

I'm just imagining you by yourself.

There's not even a basketball, no, man, I went on Amazon and there was a tech enabled basketball.

No.

I imagine that your basketball can like degrade you while you're not doing.

Like clap traps from border Lands like that was a that's a good fucking no.

It's like a condition.

Guys, who should stop this podcast now?

If you if you're one of the companies with a connected basketball, send it to me.

I would love to play the basketball.

You can send all my data to China, just like a there's a pig butchering operation that starts in on me because I can't shoot.

If you shoot the basketball well enough, then a hole opens in it and it shoots the protein supplement.

Right now like a fish getting lost.

No, or or just like it, if you shoot really badly, you have to keep playing.

The ball starts getting heavy.

There was two hundred and fifty dollars two hundred and fifty I guess, Like, I mean, I saw.

This as a dumb person, but my thought is it wouldn't it be kind of hard to make a tech product that works well that you also throw around.

That's the thing.

I'm like, I'm oddly curious about it, and I guess and I've talked about it on the show.

I could tax deduct it, but it's There was also a five thousand dollars basketball hoop, which fucking no, It's like it's so cool.

I definitely went down there.

I'm like, not would never about it is.

What it is is the who The backboard of it is a screen, so it's like peloton and it's like shoot the shoot.

They are making nerve complicated tech product that is expensive that you throw something really hard at.

Well, that I can understand because that's how basketball works.

It's more I'm just like, who the fuck is this for?

Because five grand for that you can just you can probably just go to a local court where people play it and they'll just tell you why you're trash.

They're screaming at you.

And like if anyone knew it was to get together shoot hoops, absolutely ashwy and I know it would be meaning.

But it's like, the most joy I've got out of any of this isn't the tech enabled stuff.

It's shooting the shit with people once you get over the initial hoop of exercise sucking.

And I wish like it sucks because the supplement stuff online is very noxious, the kind of predatory stuff.

But the communities online with fitness have been very good, Like there's actually like when you get away from the very negative ones, it's just the people having fun.

It's great.

That there's such a war within them of like the the stat maxes or the cheats.

Of course, the people who just cheat.

Yeah, the Peloton cheats are fucking great.

You can you can strut.

There is that website that wow you to cheat your Strava.

Yeah, that's the Peloton ones.

You can change the magnets, you can unskirt and change the maga.

Because when I used to do Peloton a lot, I used to get really pissed off because I'd really like, I knew my stats and I'd see a guy doing like five hundred what's for like forty five minutes.

I'm like, you are fuck, it's four.

It's like doping in the nerd Olympics.

It's straight off the group.

It's why I stopped using peloton, because I'm like, the whole reason I do this is to get better, and this is a measurement of my strength.

This number no longer means anything like this number is meaningless now.

I can't even tell this because.

It's obviously a competitive aspect.

Yeah, exactly what's on is like You're like, I'm always being lapped by this person who clearly just has like their magnets, and.

You look and the line is just at the top of the graph.

I don't know.

Maybe the strongest guy in the worldator man like the thigh is three feet wide thighs just like he has to get a special pedal the tiny feet.

All right, I think we're gonna wrap it then.

I we've talked about the tiny footed pelts on person Paris.

We people find you.

You can find me on blue Sky at Paris dot NYC or Twitter at Paris Martineau and follow my work at Consumer Reports.

Ashwin Uh yeah, you can find me at Blue Sky as well.

I think I'm the only Ushwin Rodriguez on there, and my website is Ushwin Rodriguez dot.

Com and I am at ziche and you can find me on the podcast better Offline.

I nearly missed it the name of the podcast there, but I recovered flawlessly.

I took a week off the but my fucking premium newsletter last week, so please subscribe so that I can feel better about myself.

Should be a fun, fun week coming up.

I think I'm just gonna do a very simplified modelogue this week and just really run through the basic sit because I've had requests that we need the basic of the AI bubble done, which is crazy because I've one like one hundred episodes on it.

Anyway, I love you all, Thank you so much for listening.

Thank you to Behied.

We're out here in New York City.

We've kicked us out here and yeah, catch you next week.

And actually on the monologue as well.

Thank you for listening to Better Offline.

The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matasowski.

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