March 28, 2024 • 58 mins
Discover the nuances of health and fitness as I, Simon DeVere, guide you through the latest Mind Muscle journey. Could intermittent fasting be a double-edged sword, with potential cardiovascular risks lurking behind its popularity? We sift through a recent American Heart Association study to bring you the full picture, balancing scientific data with personal stories. And don't worry, we're not here to preach; instead, we unpack the research, offering a well-rounded view that respects the unique health landscapes we all navigate. Plus, I'll share a friend's tale that exemplifies the importance of considering individual contexts when evaluating diet strategies.
Lifting weights isn't just about building muscle—it's a powerful ally against depression. In our thoughtful discussion, learn how adjusting the knobs of exercise volume can fine-tune your mental health. I'll share insights from my own program design, highlighting the journey from a minimal effective dose to a regimen that fully harnesses the mood-boosting benefits of strength training. But it's not all about lifting spirits; we also explore how higher training volumes can help overcome muscle growth plateaus, especially pertinent for mature fitness enthusiasts.
Wrap your mind around the tantalizing prospects of AI's role in personal fitness regimes. I recount my foray into using ChatGPT to tailor a strength program, illuminating the broader implications of AI in professional settings. Alongside our tech talk, we explore 'information fasting' as an antidote to the deluge of data we face daily. By the end of this episode, you'll see how intertwining intellectual and physical growth is vital for achieving peak fitness levels. So, stay tuned, and let's elevate our understanding—and our deadlifts—together.
Producer: Thor Benander
Editor: Luke Morey
Intro Theme: Ajax Benander
Intro: Timothy Durant
For more, visit Simon at The Antagonist
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Mind Muscle Podcast.
Here's your host, simon DeVere,and welcome back to Mind Muscle
, the place where we study thehistory, science and philosophy
behind everything in health andfitness.
(00:25):
Today I am Simon DeVere andthere's nothing new, except all
that has been forgotten andwhatever that was.
But yeah, actually today I dowant to talk about the news, a
few articles that I saw come outjust in the last week.
(00:45):
We're going to survey a fewdifferent topics, from
intermittent fasting to thedose-dependent relationship of
resistance training to gainingmuscle and fighting depression,
and then also fun story aboutusing chat GPT as a personal
trainer.
Maybe I should be scared thatmy replacement is upon us, but,
(01:09):
yeah, got a few fun articlesthat I wanted to actually just
break down individually, eventhough I do admit that I
probably lament from time totime being excessively focused
on the news.
I get the irony in having ashow.
But no, a couple of theseactually popped in some real
(01:32):
world conversations.
I saw them pop in my feed, so Iknow they're out there and they
might even be in a conversationnear you.
So, anyway, this one actuallycame to me via my feed and
friend at the park.
But the American HeartAssociation released a study
(01:53):
that was linking an eight-hourtime restricted eating window to
having a 91% higher risk ofcardiovascular disease of
cardiovascular disease.
This one shook a buddy of mine.
I run into at the park, but no,I'll get to at least my end of
(02:20):
our conversation.
But the study was looking atover 20,000 adults that had
followed the eight-hourtime-restricted eating schedule.
I got introduced to that by thename Lean Gains, I don't know
almost another lifetime ago now,but it's a very, very popular
form of intermittent fastingwhere you have the 16-hour fast
with the eight-hour eatingwindow.
In the group they observed a91% higher risk of death from
(02:44):
cardiovascular disease.
So up front that obviouslylooks bad grabs headlines.
People with heart disease orcancer also had an increased
risk of cardiovascular death,and this was compared with a
standard schedule of eatingacross a 12 to 16 hour per day
protocol, if you will.
(03:05):
So limiting food intake to lessthan eight hours per day was
not associated with livinglonger, one of the benefits that
you often hear spoken aboutwith intermittent fasting.
But now here gets to animportant bit in the sample
group and obviously it's goingto figure into our commentary on
the study.
But the average age was 49years old and the study
(03:33):
participants were followed for amedian length of eight years,
maximum length of 17 in thegroup.
There are some very biglimitations in that the study
did rely on surveys, and you'vespoken on this in the past but
(03:53):
any study that relies on surveysis always going to be difficult
to trust, just because the lackof control on what our
different people were eating.
If I wanted to defendintermittent fasting, which I
don't, I just want to point outsome obvious things that we
can't control, for Some personcould be eating fast food,
(04:14):
another person could be eatingwhole foods.
There's no way to know what wasgoing on there.
So this is a very biglimitation in reading all that
much into the results.
One other thing and I slightlyflagged it on the way through,
(04:35):
but I didn't point out what Iwas thinking With the average
age being 49, there's asignificant number of people in
here that are probably going tobe older than that, obviously.
So I actually think that with alot of the older adults I work
(04:56):
with, it's not like fasting orcaloric deficits are what
doctors are recommending forolder people in general.
So that could also be why we'reseeing that number with the
cardiovascular death the way weare is that the sample group
maybe is skewed towards peoplewho really shouldn't be limiting
calories, whether or notthey're fasting at all.
(05:18):
But no again, I don't reallyhave an interest to defend
fasting in any regard.
I've consistently tried tospeak to that middle ground on
fasting because it's very oftengetting well at least recently,
it's been mostly gettingexaggerations for its positive
health benefits.
This might obviously rein thatin, but I think it swings wildly
(05:45):
back and forth between a healthpanacea and a health threat,
and I don't know if either oneis true.
So I actually have a friend thatI talk with at the park and our
kids are playing and he's beenusing intermittent fasting for
(06:08):
or he was using it for weightloss.
Um, I had actually talked himoff of staying in that, for he'd
basically been doing it forexcessive amounts of time, like
we've discussed on uh here, youknow, talking about how people
get stuck in fat loss.
So he was exactly one of thoseguys stuck in fat loss.
He'd been excessively usingfasting.
(06:29):
In my opinion He'd gotten tothat plateau stage.
So the first thing that Iconvinced him of was that he
actually needed to bump caloriesand that it wasn't going to
feel cool at first, but that hismetabolism was struggling so
that if he bumped calories for alittle bit, kept his weight
level, then he could rebuild hismetabolism and then get back to
(06:51):
fat loss later.
So it was actually fun when Ioverheard him introducing me as
the guy who fixed his diet tosome other people at the park
one day.
But anyway, we've got him offone plateau in the past, but he
does like using fasting whenhe's in fat loss mode and that's
(07:12):
probably still the main goalthat he's chasing after.
So he was actually upset.
He's like oh, did you hearabout the fasting study?
And I had, and he was justclaiming bullshit.
Basically he likes fasting, sohe didn't want to hear any of
this.
I wasn't going to, you know,flip around and tell him like,
hey, fasting is dangerous andyou should stop.
(07:33):
But I did just remind him.
You know, similar to what I'dalready explained here is that
there's a lot of hype andconjecture on both ends of
fasting, whether it's beingclaimed to be healthy on a given
day or dangerous on another.
I've been following this for along time and that's generally
(07:54):
what you're going to see arewild claims on both ends of the
spectrum on the issue.
I told him not to look too deepinto this study as he wasn't
really the age cohort that theywere looking at and you know,
obviously didn't control forquality of food, anything like
(08:15):
that.
But I also did remind him thatyou know, on the other end, if
you're just fasting for weightloss, it really is only about
caloric deficits and nothingelse, in that people often and
regularly try to convincethemselves for a myriad of
reasons, that a calorie is not acalorie, or if you eat this
type of food it's a negativecalorie, or these enzymes cancel
(08:38):
this.
Nobody has really overthrownthermodynamics and you know,
although I had mentioned lastweek, it's not useful in terms
of practical knowledge to tellpeople simply to eat less.
That's why we do talk aboutvarious strategies,
psychological impact, what'seasier, but again, calories in
(09:00):
actually still works.
So for anybody who's ever donefasting and lost weight, you
achieved a caloric deficit.
You can also do it a number ofother ways.
So just kind of seeing howattached to you know one
protocol my friend was, I justwanted to remind him that it you
know wasn't wasn't the only onethat works, that I've used
(09:25):
countless, including the onehe's using now.
I've used and I've also usedmany others and coached the same
.
I've coached them all.
They all work.
There's nothing magic withfasting Again to remind
everybody that there's going tobe, you know, a new story, kind
of popping, who knows, maybe intwo weeks we'll have a full
(09:46):
reversal.
But again, I've been followingthis long enough to see that
with every new study there'sgoing to be an exaggeration,
there's going to be a subset ofpeople that are going to overuse
it and with those people that'swhere you start to see some
issues.
My buddy actually did referencethat he had done a seven-day
(10:12):
fast and people had told him itwas dangerous, this and that and
that was one.
He was again minimizing it, butI did just remind him.
I was like, well, I could neverdo a seven-day fast and it's
not about willpower and, youknow, psychological discipline.
I'm like my lifestyle actuallyjust burns too much energy and
(10:38):
there would be real-worldconsequences if I were to, you
know, ever adopt a strategy likethat is, if I were to ever
adopt a strategy like that.
And so I just reminded him, ifthe time and space is right and
that's something you feel youneed to do for some reason, sure
if it's a spiritual orreligious thing, but if you're
(10:58):
talking about it for the benefitof your body, from a physique
or a metabolic standpoint,that's probably not true, and I
know there's people out theresaying it.
But we've actually seen thesethings go wrong a fair bit and I
just reminded them if youactually have energy demands,
(11:20):
don't try something like that.
There would be real worldconsequences if I were to under
fuel and do the job that I havefor a week straight.
So, yeah, anyway, long andshort though with if you guys
did see the American HeartAssociation study that came out,
I don't think there's actuallyany new risk to see here.
(11:43):
In all honesty, I think this iskind of why people have
cautioned for certainpopulations, why you maybe
shouldn't be fasting.
If most of the older peoplethat I work with, in general,
their doctors are not reallygoing to be recommending caloric
deficits to them, they need toobviously eat less than they did
(12:05):
when they were more active andyounger, but in a sense, getting
proper nutrition gets moreimportant, and if you're
chronically under fueling, thechance that you're actually
getting all of the nutrients andother things that you need to
get from your diet is also justprobabilistically significantly
lower.
So, yeah, this is why,periodically, I have tried to
(12:32):
pivot to the genuine middleground, if you will, on fasting.
I think there are both endsover-exaggerations of the
dangers.
Obviously, food just wasn'tabundant for most of human
history, so living withabundance is the new feature and
the thing that we're actuallystruggling with.
That's perhaps why the fastingdiscussion comes and goes.
(12:58):
Obviously, I think it's astrategy that, psychologically,
is easier for people to get intoand you know, to be honest, I'm
not a fan, as you know, of allor nothing strategies.
I think that's what makes itattractive, quite frankly.
So I think that's why it alsocomes back and will never really
goes anywhere.
(13:18):
But you're going to find somepeople who get success with
these types of strategies.
In general, these aren't goingto be the people who achieve it
for long periods of time, andthis is the genuine boom-bust
pattern again.
So this is again why I justalways try to temper
(13:39):
expectations and throw a littlebit of cold water on both ends
of the fasting discussion.
It's a tool that definitely hasuses from time to time.
That being said, I think isjust wildly overused and,
frankly, over-discussed.
So, yeah, hopefully we canactually put that one to bed for
a little bit, but no anotherone that we have spoken about
(14:02):
this issue.
So this is probably the reasonthis one jumped off my radar.
But psychiatry research has astudy, well, meta-analysis, so
this is a good one.
Strength training has anantidepressant effect in people
with depression or depressivesymptoms.
So you know, just highlightsfrom the study.
Isolated strength training hasa moderate and significant
(14:26):
antidepressant effect.
I could have told you that andhave, but so strength plus
multi-component training has asmall and significant
antidepressant effect.
Frequency, number of sets andnumber of repetitions are the
variable that impact theantidepressant effect.
(14:47):
So that is the part that I findthe most interesting in all of
this.
And, yeah, it's actually thatessentially, we're basically
getting to the point where we'rebasically getting to the point
(15:27):
where strength training has adose-dependent relationship with
creating an antidepressanteffect.
Effect of a workout is all ofthe training variables that
we've always talked about whendescribing workouts the
frequency, the intensity, thenumber of sets.
You know, just basically,because I've actually been doing
this, I think, longer than them.
We're talking volume.
So, yeah, what theseresearchers have basically said
in a more long-winded way isthat volume is the variable that
(15:47):
you're going to want to alterto change the impact of your
workout, and I guess since Ialso have a few years of
experience in this one basicallyyou're going to introduce this
the same way they would anyother drug is that you're going
to try to start with a low dose,right?
So when you first do your firstworkout, if your goal is doing
it for mental health, um, you'regoing to want to do it at, you
(16:10):
know, essentially the lowestdose possible.
So minimal effective dose iswhere you're going to be
starting, and what's cool aboutthat is all that work has
already been done for you.
I'm not going to run through ithere, but, but no, you can
actually find out what is theminimal effective dose, and it
is communicated in terms of setsfor any muscle group, and
(16:34):
fortunately too and we'veprobably laid out all these
guidelines before in order to doyour minimal effective doses
for all of the muscles in yourbody, it really doesn't take
that long.
Um, you'll start there.
See how it feels, uh, if youdon't notice anything, obviously
up the dose, and so that isbasically the way you would
(16:58):
prescribe uh, um, workouts for,uh, treating depression, um, and
then again, just since we'redoing that, just, you know,
let's that's just conjecturewhat I just said, um, so we'll
see, but obviously we're gettingcloser towards that.
This is something at leastpeople in the well it's going to
(17:20):
be self-serving.
But I consider myself like inthe evidence-based training
milieu, if you will, and in thatcommunity we've talked about a
dose-dependent relationship ofexercise and treating any goal,
whether it's hypertrophy,whether it's depression, anxiety
, and what the optimal dose wetypically would communicate it
(17:42):
in terms of sets is for anyspecific goal.
So anyway, studies like thismeta-analysis, that's a good one
, but them noticing thatrelationship between volume and
the antidepressant effect, Ithink again conjecture, but I
think it's going to open thedoor for people to be able to
(18:02):
prescribe exercise in a way thathasn't been.
It's out there but it hasn'tbeen the norm, and I think this
might become a little bit moremainstream and I think that is a
move in a positive direction.
So very cool to see that studypop.
And then again, since we are onthe topic of that dose-dependent
(18:24):
relationship of resistancetraining and your goals, the
Journal of Applied Physiologyhad an interesting one Higher
resistance training, volumeoffsets muscle hypertrophy and
non-responsiveness in olderindividuals.
So, like I was saying, we'vealready known, science has known
this.
(18:45):
Bros figured it out a long timeago, even before science
codified it.
But to build muscle, it'sbasically the sets that count,
or volume.
There's a lot of different waysthat we can account for volume
but again, particularly in aresearch environment, it's most
going to be easy to control thatwith sets.
The best way to turn on musclebuilding adaptations We've known
(19:07):
this for quite a while and it'spretty straightforward it's
just simply add more sets or,again, add more volume.
Just because I want to be closerto being technically correct
and they even said as much inthis study is that it was
demonstrated that older adultswho do not respond to low volume
(19:33):
training that the most simpleand effective strategy to induce
muscular hypertrophy,increasing muscle and strength,
was again simply to add sets.
And I want to break that downbecause this is again something
(19:53):
that I've actually observedtraining older adults for a
number of years now.
So, first off, they have theirdelineation of older adults who
do not respond to low volumetraining.
So there's, first off, a coupledifferent ways that you could
do low volume training.
So, obviously, if you wereusing higher reps, you're going
(20:17):
to be using a lightweight tokeep the volume of the workout
low.
That in general, just eventhough it's a popular style of
workout to market, that's not avery effective workout.
Obviously you see a lot oflight work with light weights,
(20:38):
simply because it's easy andit's a good desire to market to.
The other way that you could begoing low volume would actually
be with heavyweights with lowreps.
So, because this study wasfocused on older adults,
something that just jumps out tomy brain is working with older
(21:00):
adults over many years, youtypically aren't going to be
doing like a low volume, highintensity adults over many years
.
You typically aren't going tobe doing like a low volume, high
intensity.
You know that's going to belike powerlifting or you just
don't see a lot of older adultswho want to do that training,
and not only you know do they.
Even the ones who do want toquite frankly tend to have joint
(21:22):
issues that are probably goingto restrict the amount of of
truly, you know, intense.
So all that just to say whetheror not, if you're an older
adult, low volume trainingtypically isn't really a good
strategy or a viable option forfor the vast majority of people.
Handful of exceptions, but justnot not something that would be
(21:45):
a good strategy.
Um, so exactly what theyobserved in this study has been
exactly how I typically haveprogressed.
Uh, strength training with thisdemographic and um, so again,
just by simply adding sets.
When you are working with anolder athlete, one of the main
(22:10):
things I want to make sure isthat they can recover from the
workout and that we're notmessing up any joints.
The chance that they alreadyhave existing joint injuries is
probabilistically much higher ifthey're older.
That's just kind of the natureof time, I guess.
If they're older, that justkind of the nature of time, I
guess.
And so, yeah, it was never agreat idea for me to go grab
(22:31):
super heavyweights.
You always want to work withreally manageable loads, but if
we're going to get people any ofa stimulus with a lighter load,
obviously we have to havesufficient volume.
Still, it can't be justlightweight.
Light work is not going to beenough to elicit a stimulus.
So, again, the easiest way thatI had found to progress an older
(22:55):
adult.
We've talked about the numerousways you can progressively
overload.
It's always easiest to actuallyjust add either a few reps,
like, let's say that you startsomebody working with a set of
eight.
You can scale them up to 10, 12, possibly as high as 15.
And then by that point you knowjoke.
But now we're doing cardio,we're not doing strength anymore
(23:17):
, there's gonna be nohypertrophy stimulus, so let's
up the intensity so we can scaleback down to something like
eight and progress that way.
But then we also have the otheroption which they were doing in
the study here would just be tosimply add another set so that
we make sure the total volumecontinues to increase.
(23:39):
What they observed in this studywas that it again was all about
the volume.
When you increase the volume oftraining over time muscles grow
.
So again this study, in a senseit's just telling us things
(24:00):
that we already knew,essentially volume's
relationship to increasingmuscle.
But at least we did get likesome fun little detail, at least
for older adults, obviously nota good idea to be looking at a
low volume approach to be addingmuscle one, because you should
(24:21):
be in higher reps anyway to addmuscle.
But even for strength, whichyou're normally going to see a
low volume approach applied to,it's not going to be the best
way for an older adult to trainfor strength.
Ironically, because this isn'tlike the cohort that typically
comes and asks you for this.
But some of the techniques ofbodybuilding are surprisingly
(24:45):
relevant for this demographic.
Obviously, I'm not talking likeanabolic steroids, supersets,
any of the crazy stuff, but justalmost the general rep ranges
that they're working in and thebasic linear progression that
people do with overload, I thinkis actually something that
(25:08):
beginning bodybuilders andactually aging adults share, or
should share, in theirprogramming, and I don't know if
those are two cohorts that knowthat their programming should
be relatively similar for wildlydifferent reasons, but it's
funny how it works out like that.
For wildly different reasons,but it's funny how it works out
(25:29):
like that.
Anyway, wall Street Journal,they actually arrived at my AI
take from over a year ago.
So, yeah, I just wanted tohighlight people circling around
to what I know we said herefirst, and that was that AI will
replace humans that don't learnAI.
How did they put it?
(25:49):
I actually jotted it down.
So Wall Street Journal saidthat, regardless of your
profession, the sooner you gainexperience with AI, the better
off you will be, and it mightjust be vital for your
employment.
Today's AI almost alwaysautomates individual tasks, not
whole jobs.
Some jobs consist mostly oftasks that can be automated,
like customer service content,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But yeah, what again I foundinteresting about this was that
(26:15):
early on, when people were kindof doing the doom or boom, and
it's probably still going on inthe AI space, and again, I know
that there's going to be amassive change in the state of
work.
But as this was one of the fewtimes in history where there was
(26:37):
a starting gun that was fired,there is a race to go out and
learn these skills and for once,everybody was told when to
start.
So, yeah, if you are worriedabout AI replacing jobs which
pretty much everybody should beironically you should probably
be learning how to train or howto use AI.
(27:01):
Actually, I didn't even plan ontalking about this part of it,
but the other part I find funnytoo is that the one thing you
probably shouldn't be doing ifyou're worried about AI
replacing people is tweetingabout it or whatever you call a
post on Facebook or any you knowof the platforms that you're
probably using to share thoseopinions, because all of them
(27:21):
are being actually used to trainchatbots.
So that's just a funny thing isthat that's probably the worst
thing you could do If you'reworried about AI replacing all
of us.
I would just say don't sharethose thoughts on social media.
You're training yourreplacement, I'm afraid.
But no, I'm not trying to besmug at all Because obviously my
(27:46):
job is in the crosshairs too.
This could be me, so I can'tmake like dare the universe with
a podcast episode that it'lljust almost have to come crush
Los Angeles trainers first.
But no, there was an articlethat I saw from Time, an article
(28:09):
that I saw from Time I usedChatGPT as my personal trainer.
It didn't go so well.
So yeah, I guess, where GPT iscurrently at, maybe it's not
ready to replace a trainer.
A couple of the notes I justjotted from the article that so
a writer felt that ChatGPT isnot much of a coach.
It generated some decentexercise ideas, but the chatbots
(28:31):
workouts are boring anduninspired.
I actually just I don't know.
So are programs designed byhumans and sold online right now
.
So no, not defending themachines just yet.
(28:51):
I want to be in good graceswith our overlords, so I'll
issue a formal rebuttal in asecond.
But no, I honestly think that,to be fair, any program, even
programs written by humans andthen just sold online, of course
they're boring, they're justlike a static thing.
So that's you know.
Even I'm a real good trainer inperson.
(29:11):
I think even if I drew you up aprogram of the exercises that
we're going to do in the session, I don't, I'm not so bold to
think that it would be super funand engaging in in that format.
So, yeah, I don't know, maybethat's a bonus for us trainers,
maybe we'll still feel, but,yeah, just the critique that the
exercises felt cookie cutterand it was boring.
(29:33):
I could offer the same critiqueof every workout program
written by a human.
So that's not a new AI featureto slightly defend there.
But oh and then, yeah, so Iguess another critique that it
said was turn to a human if youget injured, which actually this
(29:54):
one I actually think shouldhave some pretty serious subtext
.
Yeah, definitely, of course youshould go to a doctor when you
need a doctor, but, like, whileyou're sitting in the weight
room, you could like take ascreenshot and upload the
document to GPT and say, hey, Ineed help understanding this
document so I can be an advocatefor myself.
(30:15):
And yeah, that would probablytake all of I don't know, it
would take you longer to tweet.
So I don't know why youwouldn't get that.
I don't know if it even countsas a second opinion, but I don't
know why you wouldn't grab thatinformation.
It costs you nothing and youcan have it in seconds.
(30:36):
I've, unfortunately, had to dothis a lot lately.
So, no, this isn't anendorsement to say like, oh go,
use whatever GP says about amedical thing, but in one
situation that I was dealing, Iwas able to hand it some terms
and it very accurately predictedthe actual course of treatment
(30:59):
that was chosen by real lifedoctors, so I was actually able
to get versed on that very, veryquickly.
Um, so, yeah, obviously, if youget injured, go to a human, but
, um, I don't know why youwouldn't, uh, just you know,
basically inform yourself, uh,using an LLM, that that just
(31:20):
doesn't.
It's a great use of your time.
Um, and yeah, again, you canalready hear it.
I should be on this article sidebecause it's essentially making
an argument for the existenceof my profession and maybe it
does hold up.
But I guess one thing that Ijust wanted to point out is that
(31:46):
counterpoint.
I am a trainer and I have usedchat GPT, do design programs for
myself and it's really good.
So, no, I guess I just wantedto point out or I'm going to
literally walk you through howto actually use chat GPT like a
(32:06):
trainer instead of how to usechat GPT like a fitness writer.
I don't doubt that thiswriter's experience didn't go
well, but I am bold enough tothink I'm actually better at
using a chatbot than whoeverwrote that article, to be
(32:28):
totally honest.
So, anyway, I actually justthink that there might be value
in just teaching people how touse it for a fitness problem.
So my current program Iactually did write using chat
GPT, so you guys are free tofeel however you want about if I
wrote that.
(32:49):
But again, I'm going to and Ithink you'll see in this process
.
Prompting is a different skilland so, yeah, there is a little
bit of skill which I thinkprobably goes into why ChatGPT
is not necessarily a greattrainer.
If you're not good at something, I don't know if ChatGPT makes
(33:11):
you better instantly, yourceiling, if you will, might be
capped actually by yourknowledge.
But particularly if you haveknowledge of a domain, I
actually think that you cannavigate it.
And also, let's be honest,fitness isn't exactly like
rocket science or particlephysics.
(33:31):
So I think there's going to beenough people out there who have
a high enough understanding offitness to be able to use
ChatGPT to make some really goodprograms.
So anyway, yeah, without teasinganymore, I just wanted to walk
you guys through how I actuallyuse chat GPT to create my own
(33:53):
program.
So, yeah, I had actually gonethrough.
I had been doing a lot ofhypertrophy work all through the
winter.
I don't like to try to lose fat, so I was eating big, lifting
big.
My joints were starting toreflect that and I wanted to
(34:14):
switch gears.
So, again, I am completelycapable of writing a program on
my own.
I've been doing this for over 20years.
I have a literal library ofstrength training books.
I have a literal library ofstrength training books
highlighted, and actually Istarted buying books on Kindle
(34:37):
specifically so I couldhighlight them there, because
then it sends it to a cloud filethat then for me is organized
and searchable.
So literally every single bookthat I've read in the health and
fitness sphere, I have everynote, every highlight that I
ever created in it.
So I mentioned all that becausefor me to make a program
specific with the principlesthat are known to work, there's
(34:59):
a process of either.
You know, obviously I remembera lot, I can go through my
memory, but again you get intopatterns and you start
programming certain ways andsometimes you want to be broken
out of even your own patternsand a lot of times our
intuitions, if you will, aremore our passions.
I don't even really want toelaborate, but that's actually a
(35:22):
good one.
But anyway.
So even for me, after all ofthese years of writing programs,
even though I have all of thesetools, for me is one of the
most challenging things istrying to actually just make a
(35:53):
choice when I know a milliondifferent ways to do what, three
or four different things, butno, whatever it is that's the
hardest part about actuallybuilding a program.
So when I didn't want to go combthrough my library, I didn't
and I just wanted to see whatGPT could do with a program.
(36:16):
So the prompt the literal firstprompt that I threw out it was
I want to do a strength program.
One of my favorites of the pastfew years was Easy Strength by
Dan John and Pavel.
What I liked, it worked and itwas easy to run, not complicated
.
Can showed me some other ideasfor strength programs that are
somewhat similar.
So GBT shoots back at meStarting Strength, mark Ripoteau
(36:39):
, 5x5, strong Lifts, wendler 531, tactile Barbell, grayskull, lp
, gzcl.
So I'm familiar with everyprogram there, and there was one
in the list you don't need tobe, it's not the point, but it
was the tactical barbell,because that one includes some
running, and so this time ofyear I like to get out and play
(37:03):
sports, hike, do other thingsbesides be in the gym.
So then next I just mentionedthat.
Okay, the one that I feel mostinterested in right now is
tactical barbell.
I listed what my goals were andI also listed the modalities
that I wanted to train.
I even threw down a couplepreferences of mine, like I only
(37:27):
like to deadlift once per week.
Should I explain it now orlater?
All right?
Well, the only reason I like todeadlift only once per week?
Because my body doesn't recover.
Quite frankly, especially onthe heavy sets, when I'm pulling
a big, heavy weight, I don'trecover fast enough for the next
session.
So I can either have a subparsecond session or I could just
do something else, and as I'vegotten older, I just prefer to
(37:49):
do something else.
I could just do something else,and as I've gotten older, I
just prefer to do something else.
I can really get one top enddeadlift session and, ironically
, when I was weaker, I could gettwo into the week.
So that was actually somethingthat, for me, developed as I got
stronger, couldn't recover, butanyway I told chat GPT my
deadlift problem and the rest ofthe goals that I had for the
(38:10):
program.
So then what it spit out was dayone squat five by five, bench
five by five accessory work,doing dumbbell rows, lateral
raises.
Day two conditioning lightjogging, psyching 30 seconds.
I don't care about hisconditioning prescriptions
deadlift five by five, overheadpress five by five accessory
works, pull-ups, max reps.
(38:30):
This was cool.
That's actually a West sidetechnique that it had run in
there.
Um, yeah, skip, it's recoverywork, I don't care about that.
Uh, so then we had this, theconditioning which.
So this is where I alreadystarted to tweak a little bit.
You can hear I didn't care atall about its programming for my
(38:51):
conditioning or recovery.
All I really wanted was theskeleton of the strength work,
and so just on that prompt, Ididn't love the workout so much
that it was like, oh great, copypaste run it.
So much that it was like, ohgreat, copy paste, run it.
(39:17):
Immediately made a few changes,but to me basically 80% of the
program was there, and then thatwhole process that I just told
you that honestly took so muchlonger to talk out than it was
in reality.
That was like 15 seconds.
And again, I like to think thatI am good at writing programs.
(39:38):
I have every advantage and toolat my disposal and, that being
said, sometimes I still cancommit that error myself of just
paralysis by analysis or tryingto do too many things in one
program.
I found the experience ofwriting my own program in
(40:02):
ChatGPT actually reallyenjoyable.
But yeah, now I guess, gettingback to the article, the article
wasn't saying can ChatGPT writea program?
Well, this guy tried to use itas a personal trainer and from
(40:23):
that standpoint, maybe myprofession is safe for now.
I guess one of the reallimitations that I do see and I
think this, if I didn't knowwhat I wanted, I couldn't really
get it to where it needs to be.
But also this is something thatI still see people commenting
(40:43):
on use of LLMs kind of missingis that, for me, actually using
them is what's giving me a verydifferent you know perception on
, on, to be honest, even thecreative aspect of using an lm.
I am, I am quite confident thatif you know no offense, if you
were to go and you know promptchat gpt for a program, you
(41:06):
might not be able to get as gooda program out of it as I can,
and the point for me isn'tsaying that I'm better at it.
What I'm getting at is thatthere's actually creative value
to the works that people producewith an LLM.
I think right now there'sactually a little bit of a
pretentious and snooty attitudethat if somebody uses this
(41:29):
technology, that the work issomehow, on face value, inferior
by mere use of an LLM.
And yeah, I do think right nowme saying that is not going to
be popular.
This is going to be, at leaston the other side, people
arguing against it.
It's not going to age very well, just like people have used
(41:52):
existing technologies to pushany art form further.
I think this is just theconversation that we have as
something is being adopted.
So, yeah, back to the questionof can Chet GPT replace a
trainer?
Probably not.
I guess I have felt that again.
(42:15):
I want to point out some of thebenefits, because I do think
there are a ton there, andparticularly if, let's be honest
, if you don't have money for anutritionist or a lawyer or all
of these other professionalstaff around you, I think you're
going to find that actually,this is going to be a way for
(42:37):
you to democratize access to alot of information that you
haven't had access to.
Yeah, I'll just give you someideas.
But you can get legal formletters done.
You can use personas to make itsound like a lawyer from a
specific university or whatever,but no, there's a number of
(43:00):
different ways where it kind ofjust levels the playing field a
little bit for people whohaven't had access to personal
assistance and various tools.
Yeah, what is it?
There's some famous writer thatjust dictates his stuff to
someone and they write it down,and I've never heard that.
It's James Patterson.
Yeah, but it's not like peoplesay that that's an inferior way
(43:23):
to write.
People have different learningstyles.
People have different dictationstyles.
So, again, my stance on AI, Ithink, has been consistent and
has been use it, get real worldexperience with it.
The reason I keep saying thatis particularly I honestly think
(43:45):
intelligent, smart and creativepeople, that these are the
people that are going to come upwith the coolest things using
AI, and it seems like in some ofthose circles it's just not
seen as a cool thing to do orit's seen as beneath them, and I
think that's going to be a veryshort-sighted way of using this
(44:08):
tech, but yeah it's, I don'tknow.
Maybe maybe I'm safe for alittle while, as as a trainer it
definitely has.
You know it.
It has issues.
Um, there was I I saw a studyevaluating some gpt generated
workouts and it found thatrecommendations were only what
(44:33):
they were using.
It was basically versus theAmerican College of Sports
Medicine's components ofexercise prescription.
It was 41% comprehensive.
But even there, as I say that Ialready know how I could fix
that problem.
So if what they were scoring iton was basically how well it
adhered to the ACSM's sixcomponents, you could literally
(44:58):
add a layer to the prompt andtell it to do that, because,
admittedly, I actually do that.
One of the things you can do isrestrict the library, and
actually I learned this from anEnglish professor, but one of
the critiques is it writespoorly.
So you can get it to draftsomething and then, after it's
(45:18):
done drafting, you just say,okay, great, now rewrite that
using Kurt Gavonagate's 10 rulesfor writing, and what you'll
see is you can improve the draftvery quickly and I guess, in
short, and this is the way tothink of it, when you're
interacting with a chatbot actmore like its teacher, grade
what it's doing.
Iterate, work with it andyou'll notice your content gets
(45:39):
better and better.
Don't expect it's not like theearly days of Google, when you
would click I'm feeling lucky.
It shouldn't necessarily workin just one prompt.
You're going to have to tweakand iterate and that's actually
where the good things come out.
And, of course, hallucinationsare real.
You need to fact check.
(45:59):
People say that like that's anew feature.
You guys know.
Like you need to fact checkeverything on the internet,
right?
No, I'm sorry.
No, it's just that.
That one's just annoyingBecause it's like I.
It just shows that people arenot checking facts currently and
you should always be doing that, whether you're on an LLM or
(46:21):
your most trusted social mediaplatform or wherever you think
you're safe to not fact check.
Start fact checking that stuffto not fact check.
Start fact checking that stuff.
It'll blow your mind Anyway.
But no, I don't want to getsidetracked on AI forever.
Summarize so today, obviously,intermittent fasting was in the
(46:42):
news this week.
This is one that I continue tothink the hype and the dangers
are both over exaggerated on aregular basis.
Interesting issue, but reallyhow to operate in an environment
of abundance.
That's the real issue we're alltalking about and trying to
figure out here.
Like we've said on this podcastfor a long time, resistance
training is really good fortreating depression, and of
(47:05):
course everybody's known it.
But it's really good at addingmuscle too.
Of course everybody's known it,but it's really good at adding
muscle too.
Has a dose-dependentrelationship for positive
outcomes in both domains.
So highly recommend it.
Five stars.
Make sure you're doing that.
Actually using AI, I think, isthe best way to acquire opinions
on AI, whether or not itreplaces trainers.
(47:31):
Time will tell.
Um, but hey, we'll see how thatgoes.
Um, no, but just in evenreacting to the news cycle,
obviously every single thing wetalked about here came from from
a news cycle whose whose realgoal is to get me to click on
ads.
Um, but no that well, that'sessentially it.
I just wanted to kind of breakdown how, in general, how do we
(47:54):
break out signal from the noisein the news cycle?
I've mentioned it.
I'm actually not a huge fan ofconsuming a lot of news.
There was a time that I was,and I don't think it added any a
competitive advantage.
I think it added more eitherconditioning or complacency, or
(48:19):
a mix?
I'm not sure, but I wasactually exposed by one of my
clients to a guy a bit of anarrogant writer, but I don't
write him off for that.
I'm probably a little bitarrogant from time to time, so
can't really draw lines in thesand there.
But no, nassim Taleb.
First book I read of his wasthe Black Swan.
(48:41):
He talked a lot about thenarrative fallacy.
I read a few of his other booksand in Skin in the Game there
is a discussion about the noisebottleneck and kind of how to
break through.
But I do want to read just alittle bit about because I do
think this is really relevantfor the information ecosystem we
(49:04):
live in.
And then I just kind of want tocomment on what we can do about
this problem, if you will, um.
But so this is to lab.
In business and economicdecision making, data causes
severe side effects.
Data is now plentiful thanks toconnectivity, and the share of
spuriousness in the dataincreases as one gets more
immersed into it.
(49:25):
A not well-discussed propertyof data.
It is toxic in large quantitiesand even in moderate quantities
.
The more frequently you look atdata, the more noise you are
(49:45):
disproportionately likely to get.
The higher the noise to signalratio, the more confusion.
So now he gives an example.
So say you look at informationon a yearly basis for stock
prices and assume further thatwhat you're observing at that
yearly frequency has a signal tonoise ratio of about one to one
.
So half noise, half signal.
(50:07):
That means that about half thechanges are real improvements or
degradations.
The other half just came fromrandomness or degradations.
The other half just came fromrandomness.
So the ratio you would get fromyour yearly observation would
be 50% noise, 50% signal.
But instead, if you looked atthe very same data on a daily
(50:29):
basis, that composition wouldchange from 50-50 to actually
95% noise, 5% signal.
And if you observed it on anhourly basis, like particularly
people who observe news ormarkets in particular like to do
, you're getting now closer tolike 99.5% noise and 0.5% signal
(50:53):
.
So again, the basic observationfor that there is a lot of noise
, how can you reduce yourexposure is simply, you know,
first, consuming lessinformation.
So again, even though there'sgoing to be inherent irony in
(51:13):
closing out a discussion onreading a bunch of news stories
on consuming less, the reason Iwant to point that out is that,
first off, in every single storythat I mentioned today, there
really was not anygroundbreaking or new
information.
The way this is going to beused by our news cycle is to
(51:37):
place ads or push productsrelated to these ideas.
There was no breakthroughs thatneeded to be discussed in
intermittent fasting in any ofthis, but we have these studies
and stories and countless othersthat will come out Just like.
Just like it was saying youknow, assuming I think a
(51:59):
one-to-one relationship betweennoise and signal is actually
pretty charitable.
Um, I don't think it's actuallythat often that that things you
actually need to know are comingout and unfortunately, people
don't have to tell us, um, totell us that there's no real
breakthrough.
Yeah, I've already had you herefor almost an hour and I could
(52:24):
have said that up front.
Hey, no real breakthroughs.
I'm only going to talk aboutsome ideas that everybody
already knows.
You can't do that at thebeginning of a show.
Now I'm going to get feedbackthat this is where everybody
turned the episode off, but no,so I guess what I want to work
to just for something a littlebetter than saying consume less.
(52:45):
That's not that helpful advice.
We got to figure out how to getthrough there, and I actually
think nutrition can kind ofinform us how we can keep
cleaner information diets.
We talk about fasting withnutrition all the time.
What about fasting with, withyour information diet?
Um, you don't have to just cutout from you know all caloric
(53:06):
consumption.
Um, what about macros?
People love to talk macros theprotein, carbs, the fat.
What if we were instead insteadtalking about the ratio of the
sources you read fromtime-tested, peer-reviewed and
periodical, even therelationship with junk food.
(53:27):
There's a bunch of media that ispure crap and sometimes, when
you have these types ofpseudo-pretentious things, know
things to say.
You know, it's not like I don'twatch stupid.
You know pet videos and stufftoo.
But, um, junk is only a problemwhen you're not using it
sparingly.
Um, if you're, you know, justhaving a little dessert here and
(53:52):
there, it's honestly not aproblem.
Um, so, so no, just make surejunk isn't like the main food
group and you're fine, but no,anyway, particularly when we are
now looking at healthinformation.
This is something I have a lotof years experience just trying
to sift through and some of thegeneral principles and practices
(54:16):
that I think are best you wantto look for.
Well, big changes are moreimportant than small changes If
you're just noticing them,recalibrate like a risk level,
but basically stating somethingthat you already knew.
Just in slightly differentassociation.
That's not a big deal.
That's not really somethingthat you're going to have to, uh
(54:37):
, spend a lot of time on, umwith the health studies.
What you're really going towant to pay attention to is if
you're noticing big changes instuff that you um had seen in
the past, that that's probablygoing to be worth your attention
.
Um, you know, in the same veinwhere I was saying, like, when
we get new information about oldexposures, that doesn't, you
(55:02):
know, change the risks of thoseexposures.
It just changes your awarenessor understanding of them.
Quite frankly, to be morespecific, I've seen a lot of
this with you know, say, likeprocessed meat.
Processed meat Studies willcome out with a heightened
understanding of the risk andthen you'll have the hyperbolic
headlines where they won'tmention it's processed or
(55:23):
however they want to stretch it.
And we already knew that hotdogs and bacon and salami aren't
healthy.
If you thought they were, I'mnot sure where you got that
healthy.
If you thought they were, I'mnot sure where you got that.
But yeah, many, many timesthere's like a new information
about some old risk that wealready knew.
Those, to me, are the ones thatyou can probably spend the
(55:46):
least amount of time looking at.
And then, just in general, thenext time you see a provocative
headline that has astatistically impressive result,
um, you know, from someimpressive sounding diet study,
um, just ask yourself, how longwas the study?
(56:06):
Who was enrolled?
Um, what was compared to what?
Is there any reason to thinkthat this is anything other than
a short-term fix?
Or does this even pertain to me?
A lot of times I'll come fromthe sample group, but, um, no
one, don't read too many.
It takes too damn long.
Um, you know, wait, wait forthe big peer-reviewed, wait for
(56:28):
the meta-analysis.
Um, look for big changes.
You don't really need to readit.
And if, if you follow itclosely, it looks like the
fields are turning over on theirheads all the time.
They aren't.
Most of what we know about,particularly nutrition, very,
very stable.
Exercise science, very, verystable.
We're learning some fun newthings here and there, but a lot
(56:51):
of times, again, these arecodified to specific populations
, modalities or, trust me, it'sin that methodology section that
the headlines never really seemto like to report on.
But anyway, with that, you know, I always appreciate you guys
spending your time here with me.
You know, please make sure toshare.
Oh, and actually here we go.
(57:12):
Here's what I want to do.
If you want a chat GPT writtenprogram, I'll write it for you.
No, but throw it down in thecomments.
It literally takes me just ahandful of seconds.
So I just thought this would bea fun way to engage with
listeners.
If you guys want a program,it'll literally take me a few
seconds.
(57:32):
So shoot me all the relevantdetails, and what that would
mean to me would be age goal,injury history, modalities, you
have whatever.
If you reach out, I'll let youknow what I need.
I will get that done foranybody who wants a program.
(57:52):
Leave us a little note in thecomments and get that done for
you.
Anyway, guys, remember mind andmuscle are inseparably
intertwined.
There are no gains withoutbrains.
Keep lifting and learning.
I'll do the same.
Welcome to the Mind Muscle Podcast.
Here's your host, simon DeVere,and welcome back to Mind Muscle
, the place where we study thehistory, science and philosophy
behind everything in health andfitness.
(00:25):
Today I am Simon DeVere andthere's nothing new, except all
that has been forgotten andwhatever that was.
But yeah, actually today I dowant to talk about the news, a
few articles that I saw come outjust in the last week.
(00:45):
We're going to survey a fewdifferent topics, from
intermittent fasting to thedose-dependent relationship of
resistance training to gainingmuscle and fighting depression,
and then also fun story aboutusing chat GPT as a personal
trainer.
Maybe I should be scared thatmy replacement is upon us, but,
(01:09):
yeah, got a few fun articlesthat I wanted to actually just
break down individually, eventhough I do admit that I
probably lament from time totime being excessively focused
on the news.
I get the irony in having ashow.
But no, a couple of theseactually popped in some real
(01:32):
world conversations.
I saw them pop in my feed, so Iknow they're out there and they
might even be in a conversationnear you.
So, anyway, this one actuallycame to me via my feed and
friend at the park.
But the American HeartAssociation released a study
(01:53):
that was linking an eight-hourtime restricted eating window to
having a 91% higher risk ofcardiovascular disease of
cardiovascular disease.
This one shook a buddy of mine.
I run into at the park, but no,I'll get to at least my end of
(02:20):
our conversation.
But the study was looking atover 20,000 adults that had
followed the eight-hourtime-restricted eating schedule.
I got introduced to that by thename Lean Gains, I don't know
almost another lifetime ago now,but it's a very, very popular
form of intermittent fastingwhere you have the 16-hour fast
with the eight-hour eatingwindow.
In the group they observed a91% higher risk of death from
(02:44):
cardiovascular disease.
So up front that obviouslylooks bad grabs headlines.
People with heart disease orcancer also had an increased
risk of cardiovascular death,and this was compared with a
standard schedule of eatingacross a 12 to 16 hour per day
protocol, if you will.
(03:05):
So limiting food intake to lessthan eight hours per day was
not associated with livinglonger, one of the benefits that
you often hear spoken aboutwith intermittent fasting.
But now here gets to animportant bit in the sample
group and obviously it's goingto figure into our commentary on
the study.
But the average age was 49years old and the study
(03:33):
participants were followed for amedian length of eight years,
maximum length of 17 in thegroup.
There are some very biglimitations in that the study
did rely on surveys, and you'vespoken on this in the past but
(03:53):
any study that relies on surveysis always going to be difficult
to trust, just because the lackof control on what our
different people were eating.
If I wanted to defendintermittent fasting, which I
don't, I just want to point outsome obvious things that we
can't control, for Some personcould be eating fast food,
(04:14):
another person could be eatingwhole foods.
There's no way to know what wasgoing on there.
So this is a very biglimitation in reading all that
much into the results.
One other thing and I slightlyflagged it on the way through,
(04:35):
but I didn't point out what Iwas thinking With the average
age being 49, there's asignificant number of people in
here that are probably going tobe older than that, obviously.
So I actually think that with alot of the older adults I work
(04:56):
with, it's not like fasting orcaloric deficits are what
doctors are recommending forolder people in general.
So that could also be why we'reseeing that number with the
cardiovascular death the way weare is that the sample group
maybe is skewed towards peoplewho really shouldn't be limiting
calories, whether or notthey're fasting at all.
(05:18):
But no again, I don't reallyhave an interest to defend
fasting in any regard.
I've consistently tried tospeak to that middle ground on
fasting because it's very oftengetting well at least recently,
it's been mostly gettingexaggerations for its positive
health benefits.
This might obviously rein thatin, but I think it swings wildly
(05:45):
back and forth between a healthpanacea and a health threat,
and I don't know if either oneis true.
So I actually have a friend thatI talk with at the park and our
kids are playing and he's beenusing intermittent fasting for
(06:08):
or he was using it for weightloss.
Um, I had actually talked himoff of staying in that, for he'd
basically been doing it forexcessive amounts of time, like
we've discussed on uh here, youknow, talking about how people
get stuck in fat loss.
So he was exactly one of thoseguys stuck in fat loss.
He'd been excessively usingfasting.
(06:29):
In my opinion He'd gotten tothat plateau stage.
So the first thing that Iconvinced him of was that he
actually needed to bump caloriesand that it wasn't going to
feel cool at first, but that hismetabolism was struggling so
that if he bumped calories for alittle bit, kept his weight
level, then he could rebuild hismetabolism and then get back to
(06:51):
fat loss later.
So it was actually fun when Ioverheard him introducing me as
the guy who fixed his diet tosome other people at the park
one day.
But anyway, we've got him offone plateau in the past, but he
does like using fasting whenhe's in fat loss mode and that's
(07:12):
probably still the main goalthat he's chasing after.
So he was actually upset.
He's like oh, did you hearabout the fasting study?
And I had, and he was justclaiming bullshit.
Basically he likes fasting, sohe didn't want to hear any of
this.
I wasn't going to, you know,flip around and tell him like,
hey, fasting is dangerous andyou should stop.
(07:33):
But I did just remind him.
You know, similar to what I'dalready explained here is that
there's a lot of hype andconjecture on both ends of
fasting, whether it's beingclaimed to be healthy on a given
day or dangerous on another.
I've been following this for along time and that's generally
(07:54):
what you're going to see arewild claims on both ends of the
spectrum on the issue.
I told him not to look too deepinto this study as he wasn't
really the age cohort that theywere looking at and you know,
obviously didn't control forquality of food, anything like
(08:15):
that.
But I also did remind him thatyou know, on the other end, if
you're just fasting for weightloss, it really is only about
caloric deficits and nothingelse, in that people often and
regularly try to convincethemselves for a myriad of
reasons, that a calorie is not acalorie, or if you eat this
type of food it's a negativecalorie, or these enzymes cancel
(08:38):
this.
Nobody has really overthrownthermodynamics and you know,
although I had mentioned lastweek, it's not useful in terms
of practical knowledge to tellpeople simply to eat less.
That's why we do talk aboutvarious strategies,
psychological impact, what'seasier, but again, calories in
(09:00):
actually still works.
So for anybody who's ever donefasting and lost weight, you
achieved a caloric deficit.
You can also do it a number ofother ways.
So just kind of seeing howattached to you know one
protocol my friend was, I justwanted to remind him that it you
know wasn't wasn't the only onethat works, that I've used
(09:25):
countless, including the onehe's using now.
I've used and I've also usedmany others and coached the same
.
I've coached them all.
They all work.
There's nothing magic withfasting Again to remind
everybody that there's going tobe, you know, a new story, kind
of popping, who knows, maybe intwo weeks we'll have a full
(09:46):
reversal.
But again, I've been followingthis long enough to see that
with every new study there'sgoing to be an exaggeration,
there's going to be a subset ofpeople that are going to overuse
it and with those people that'swhere you start to see some
issues.
My buddy actually did referencethat he had done a seven-day
(10:12):
fast and people had told him itwas dangerous, this and that and
that was one.
He was again minimizing it, butI did just remind him.
I was like, well, I could neverdo a seven-day fast and it's
not about willpower and, youknow, psychological discipline.
I'm like my lifestyle actuallyjust burns too much energy and
(10:38):
there would be real-worldconsequences if I were to, you
know, ever adopt a strategy likethat is, if I were to ever
adopt a strategy like that.
And so I just reminded him, ifthe time and space is right and
that's something you feel youneed to do for some reason, sure
if it's a spiritual orreligious thing, but if you're
(10:58):
talking about it for the benefitof your body, from a physique
or a metabolic standpoint,that's probably not true, and I
know there's people out theresaying it.
But we've actually seen thesethings go wrong a fair bit and I
just reminded them if youactually have energy demands,
(11:20):
don't try something like that.
There would be real worldconsequences if I were to under
fuel and do the job that I havefor a week straight.
So, yeah, anyway, long andshort though with if you guys
did see the American HeartAssociation study that came out,
I don't think there's actuallyany new risk to see here.
(11:43):
In all honesty, I think this iskind of why people have
cautioned for certainpopulations, why you maybe
shouldn't be fasting.
If most of the older peoplethat I work with, in general,
their doctors are not reallygoing to be recommending caloric
deficits to them, they need toobviously eat less than they did
(12:05):
when they were more active andyounger, but in a sense, getting
proper nutrition gets moreimportant, and if you're
chronically under fueling, thechance that you're actually
getting all of the nutrients andother things that you need to
get from your diet is also justprobabilistically significantly
lower.
So, yeah, this is why,periodically, I have tried to
(12:32):
pivot to the genuine middleground, if you will, on fasting.
I think there are both endsover-exaggerations of the
dangers.
Obviously, food just wasn'tabundant for most of human
history, so living withabundance is the new feature and
the thing that we're actuallystruggling with.
That's perhaps why the fastingdiscussion comes and goes.
(12:58):
Obviously, I think it's astrategy that, psychologically,
is easier for people to get intoand you know, to be honest, I'm
not a fan, as you know, of allor nothing strategies.
I think that's what makes itattractive, quite frankly.
So I think that's why it alsocomes back and will never really
goes anywhere.
(13:18):
But you're going to find somepeople who get success with
these types of strategies.
In general, these aren't goingto be the people who achieve it
for long periods of time, andthis is the genuine boom-bust
pattern again.
So this is again why I justalways try to temper
(13:39):
expectations and throw a littlebit of cold water on both ends
of the fasting discussion.
It's a tool that definitely hasuses from time to time.
That being said, I think isjust wildly overused and,
frankly, over-discussed.
So, yeah, hopefully we canactually put that one to bed for
a little bit, but no anotherone that we have spoken about
(14:02):
this issue.
So this is probably the reasonthis one jumped off my radar.
But psychiatry research has astudy, well, meta-analysis, so
this is a good one.
Strength training has anantidepressant effect in people
with depression or depressivesymptoms.
So you know, just highlightsfrom the study.
Isolated strength training hasa moderate and significant
(14:26):
antidepressant effect.
I could have told you that andhave, but so strength plus
multi-component training has asmall and significant
antidepressant effect.
Frequency, number of sets andnumber of repetitions are the
variable that impact theantidepressant effect.
(14:47):
So that is the part that I findthe most interesting in all of
this.
And, yeah, it's actually thatessentially, we're basically
getting to the point where we'rebasically getting to the point
(15:27):
where strength training has adose-dependent relationship with
creating an antidepressanteffect.
Effect of a workout is all ofthe training variables that
we've always talked about whendescribing workouts the
frequency, the intensity, thenumber of sets.
You know, just basically,because I've actually been doing
this, I think, longer than them.
We're talking volume.
So, yeah, what theseresearchers have basically said
in a more long-winded way isthat volume is the variable that
(15:47):
you're going to want to alterto change the impact of your
workout, and I guess since Ialso have a few years of
experience in this one basicallyyou're going to introduce this
the same way they would anyother drug is that you're going
to try to start with a low dose,right?
So when you first do your firstworkout, if your goal is doing
it for mental health, um, you'regoing to want to do it at, you
(16:10):
know, essentially the lowestdose possible.
So minimal effective dose iswhere you're going to be
starting, and what's cool aboutthat is all that work has
already been done for you.
I'm not going to run through ithere, but, but no, you can
actually find out what is theminimal effective dose, and it
is communicated in terms of setsfor any muscle group, and
(16:34):
fortunately too and we'veprobably laid out all these
guidelines before in order to doyour minimal effective doses
for all of the muscles in yourbody, it really doesn't take
that long.
Um, you'll start there.
See how it feels, uh, if youdon't notice anything, obviously
up the dose, and so that isbasically the way you would
(16:58):
prescribe uh, um, workouts for,uh, treating depression, um, and
then again, just since we'redoing that, just, you know,
let's that's just conjecturewhat I just said, um, so we'll
see, but obviously we're gettingcloser towards that.
This is something at leastpeople in the well it's going to
(17:20):
be self-serving.
But I consider myself like inthe evidence-based training
milieu, if you will, and in thatcommunity we've talked about a
dose-dependent relationship ofexercise and treating any goal,
whether it's hypertrophy,whether it's depression, anxiety
, and what the optimal dose wetypically would communicate it
(17:42):
in terms of sets is for anyspecific goal.
So anyway, studies like thismeta-analysis, that's a good one
, but them noticing thatrelationship between volume and
the antidepressant effect, Ithink again conjecture, but I
think it's going to open thedoor for people to be able to
(18:02):
prescribe exercise in a way thathasn't been.
It's out there but it hasn'tbeen the norm, and I think this
might become a little bit moremainstream and I think that is a
move in a positive direction.
So very cool to see that studypop.
And then again, since we are onthe topic of that dose-dependent
(18:24):
relationship of resistancetraining and your goals, the
Journal of Applied Physiologyhad an interesting one Higher
resistance training, volumeoffsets muscle hypertrophy and
non-responsiveness in olderindividuals.
So, like I was saying, we'vealready known, science has known
this.
(18:45):
Bros figured it out a long timeago, even before science
codified it.
But to build muscle, it'sbasically the sets that count,
or volume.
There's a lot of different waysthat we can account for volume
but again, particularly in aresearch environment, it's most
going to be easy to control thatwith sets.
The best way to turn on musclebuilding adaptations We've known
(19:07):
this for quite a while and it'spretty straightforward it's
just simply add more sets or,again, add more volume.
Just because I want to be closerto being technically correct
and they even said as much inthis study is that it was
demonstrated that older adultswho do not respond to low volume
(19:33):
training that the most simpleand effective strategy to induce
muscular hypertrophy,increasing muscle and strength,
was again simply to add sets.
And I want to break that downbecause this is again something
(19:53):
that I've actually observedtraining older adults for a
number of years now.
So, first off, they have theirdelineation of older adults who
do not respond to low volumetraining.
So there's, first off, a coupledifferent ways that you could
do low volume training.
So, obviously, if you wereusing higher reps, you're going
(20:17):
to be using a lightweight tokeep the volume of the workout
low.
That in general, just eventhough it's a popular style of
workout to market, that's not avery effective workout.
Obviously you see a lot oflight work with light weights,
(20:38):
simply because it's easy andit's a good desire to market to.
The other way that you could begoing low volume would actually
be with heavyweights with lowreps.
So, because this study wasfocused on older adults,
something that just jumps out tomy brain is working with older
(21:00):
adults over many years, youtypically aren't going to be
doing like a low volume, highintensity adults over many years
.
You typically aren't going tobe doing like a low volume, high
intensity.
You know that's going to belike powerlifting or you just
don't see a lot of older adultswho want to do that training,
and not only you know do they.
Even the ones who do want toquite frankly tend to have joint
(21:22):
issues that are probably goingto restrict the amount of of
truly, you know, intense.
So all that just to say whetheror not, if you're an older
adult, low volume trainingtypically isn't really a good
strategy or a viable option forfor the vast majority of people.
Handful of exceptions, but justnot not something that would be
(21:45):
a good strategy.
Um, so exactly what theyobserved in this study has been
exactly how I typically haveprogressed.
Uh, strength training with thisdemographic and um, so again,
just by simply adding sets.
When you are working with anolder athlete, one of the main
(22:10):
things I want to make sure isthat they can recover from the
workout and that we're notmessing up any joints.
The chance that they alreadyhave existing joint injuries is
probabilistically much higher ifthey're older.
That's just kind of the natureof time, I guess.
If they're older, that justkind of the nature of time, I
guess.
And so, yeah, it was never agreat idea for me to go grab
(22:31):
super heavyweights.
You always want to work withreally manageable loads, but if
we're going to get people any ofa stimulus with a lighter load,
obviously we have to havesufficient volume.
Still, it can't be justlightweight.
Light work is not going to beenough to elicit a stimulus.
So, again, the easiest way thatI had found to progress an older
(22:55):
adult.
We've talked about the numerousways you can progressively
overload.
It's always easiest to actuallyjust add either a few reps,
like, let's say that you startsomebody working with a set of
eight.
You can scale them up to 10, 12, possibly as high as 15.
And then by that point you knowjoke.
But now we're doing cardio,we're not doing strength anymore
(23:17):
, there's gonna be nohypertrophy stimulus, so let's
up the intensity so we can scaleback down to something like
eight and progress that way.
But then we also have the otheroption which they were doing in
the study here would just be tosimply add another set so that
we make sure the total volumecontinues to increase.
(23:39):
What they observed in this studywas that it again was all about
the volume.
When you increase the volume oftraining over time muscles grow
.
So again this study, in a senseit's just telling us things
(24:00):
that we already knew,essentially volume's
relationship to increasingmuscle.
But at least we did get likesome fun little detail, at least
for older adults, obviously nota good idea to be looking at a
low volume approach to be addingmuscle one, because you should
(24:21):
be in higher reps anyway to addmuscle.
But even for strength, whichyou're normally going to see a
low volume approach applied to,it's not going to be the best
way for an older adult to trainfor strength.
Ironically, because this isn'tlike the cohort that typically
comes and asks you for this.
But some of the techniques ofbodybuilding are surprisingly
(24:45):
relevant for this demographic.
Obviously, I'm not talking likeanabolic steroids, supersets,
any of the crazy stuff, but justalmost the general rep ranges
that they're working in and thebasic linear progression that
people do with overload, I thinkis actually something that
(25:08):
beginning bodybuilders andactually aging adults share, or
should share, in theirprogramming, and I don't know if
those are two cohorts that knowthat their programming should
be relatively similar for wildlydifferent reasons, but it's
funny how it works out like that.
For wildly different reasons,but it's funny how it works out
(25:29):
like that.
Anyway, wall Street Journal,they actually arrived at my AI
take from over a year ago.
So, yeah, I just wanted tohighlight people circling around
to what I know we said herefirst, and that was that AI will
replace humans that don't learnAI.
How did they put it?
(25:49):
I actually jotted it down.
So Wall Street Journal saidthat, regardless of your
profession, the sooner you gainexperience with AI, the better
off you will be, and it mightjust be vital for your
employment.
Today's AI almost alwaysautomates individual tasks, not
whole jobs.
Some jobs consist mostly oftasks that can be automated,
like customer service content,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But yeah, what again I foundinteresting about this was that
(26:15):
early on, when people were kindof doing the doom or boom, and
it's probably still going on inthe AI space, and again, I know
that there's going to be amassive change in the state of
work.
But as this was one of the fewtimes in history where there was
(26:37):
a starting gun that was fired,there is a race to go out and
learn these skills and for once,everybody was told when to
start.
So, yeah, if you are worriedabout AI replacing jobs which
pretty much everybody should beironically you should probably
be learning how to train or howto use AI.
(27:01):
Actually, I didn't even plan ontalking about this part of it,
but the other part I find funnytoo is that the one thing you
probably shouldn't be doing ifyou're worried about AI
replacing people is tweetingabout it or whatever you call a
post on Facebook or any you knowof the platforms that you're
probably using to share thoseopinions, because all of them
(27:21):
are being actually used to trainchatbots.
So that's just a funny thing isthat that's probably the worst
thing you could do If you'reworried about AI replacing all
of us.
I would just say don't sharethose thoughts on social media.
You're training yourreplacement, I'm afraid.
But no, I'm not trying to besmug at all Because obviously my
(27:46):
job is in the crosshairs too.
This could be me, so I can'tmake like dare the universe with
a podcast episode that it'lljust almost have to come crush
Los Angeles trainers first.
But no, there was an articlethat I saw from Time, an article
(28:09):
that I saw from Time I usedChatGPT as my personal trainer.
It didn't go so well.
So yeah, I guess, where GPT iscurrently at, maybe it's not
ready to replace a trainer.
A couple of the notes I justjotted from the article that so
a writer felt that ChatGPT isnot much of a coach.
It generated some decentexercise ideas, but the chatbots
(28:31):
workouts are boring anduninspired.
I actually just I don't know.
So are programs designed byhumans and sold online right now
.
So no, not defending themachines just yet.
(28:51):
I want to be in good graceswith our overlords, so I'll
issue a formal rebuttal in asecond.
But no, I honestly think that,to be fair, any program, even
programs written by humans andthen just sold online, of course
they're boring, they're justlike a static thing.
So that's you know.
Even I'm a real good trainer inperson.
(29:11):
I think even if I drew you up aprogram of the exercises that
we're going to do in the session, I don't, I'm not so bold to
think that it would be super funand engaging in in that format.
So, yeah, I don't know, maybethat's a bonus for us trainers,
maybe we'll still feel, but,yeah, just the critique that the
exercises felt cookie cutterand it was boring.
(29:33):
I could offer the same critiqueof every workout program
written by a human.
So that's not a new AI featureto slightly defend there.
But oh and then, yeah, so Iguess another critique that it
said was turn to a human if youget injured, which actually this
(29:54):
one I actually think shouldhave some pretty serious subtext
.
Yeah, definitely, of course youshould go to a doctor when you
need a doctor, but, like, whileyou're sitting in the weight
room, you could like take ascreenshot and upload the
document to GPT and say, hey, Ineed help understanding this
document so I can be an advocatefor myself.
(30:15):
And yeah, that would probablytake all of I don't know, it
would take you longer to tweet.
So I don't know why youwouldn't get that.
I don't know if it even countsas a second opinion, but I don't
know why you wouldn't grab thatinformation.
It costs you nothing and youcan have it in seconds.
(30:36):
I've, unfortunately, had to dothis a lot lately.
So, no, this isn't anendorsement to say like, oh go,
use whatever GP says about amedical thing, but in one
situation that I was dealing, Iwas able to hand it some terms
and it very accurately predictedthe actual course of treatment
(30:59):
that was chosen by real lifedoctors, so I was actually able
to get versed on that very, veryquickly.
Um, so, yeah, obviously, if youget injured, go to a human, but
, um, I don't know why youwouldn't, uh, just you know,
basically inform yourself, uh,using an LLM, that that just
(31:20):
doesn't.
It's a great use of your time.
Um, and yeah, again, you canalready hear it.
I should be on this article sidebecause it's essentially making
an argument for the existenceof my profession and maybe it
does hold up.
But I guess one thing that Ijust wanted to point out is that
(31:46):
counterpoint.
I am a trainer and I have usedchat GPT, do design programs for
myself and it's really good.
So, no, I guess I just wantedto point out or I'm going to
literally walk you through howto actually use chat GPT like a
(32:06):
trainer instead of how to usechat GPT like a fitness writer.
I don't doubt that thiswriter's experience didn't go
well, but I am bold enough tothink I'm actually better at
using a chatbot than whoeverwrote that article, to be
(32:28):
totally honest.
So, anyway, I actually justthink that there might be value
in just teaching people how touse it for a fitness problem.
So my current program Iactually did write using chat
GPT, so you guys are free tofeel however you want about if I
wrote that.
(32:49):
But again, I'm going to and Ithink you'll see in this process
.
Prompting is a different skilland so, yeah, there is a little
bit of skill which I thinkprobably goes into why ChatGPT
is not necessarily a greattrainer.
If you're not good at something, I don't know if ChatGPT makes
(33:11):
you better instantly, yourceiling, if you will, might be
capped actually by yourknowledge.
But particularly if you haveknowledge of a domain, I
actually think that you cannavigate it.
And also, let's be honest,fitness isn't exactly like
rocket science or particlephysics.
(33:31):
So I think there's going to beenough people out there who have
a high enough understanding offitness to be able to use
ChatGPT to make some really goodprograms.
So anyway, yeah, without teasinganymore, I just wanted to walk
you guys through how I actuallyuse chat GPT to create my own
(33:53):
program.
So, yeah, I had actually gonethrough.
I had been doing a lot ofhypertrophy work all through the
winter.
I don't like to try to lose fat, so I was eating big, lifting
big.
My joints were starting toreflect that and I wanted to
(34:14):
switch gears.
So, again, I am completelycapable of writing a program on
my own.
I've been doing this for over 20years.
I have a literal library ofstrength training books.
I have a literal library ofstrength training books
highlighted, and actually Istarted buying books on Kindle
(34:37):
specifically so I couldhighlight them there, because
then it sends it to a cloud filethat then for me is organized
and searchable.
So literally every single bookthat I've read in the health and
fitness sphere, I have everynote, every highlight that I
ever created in it.
So I mentioned all that becausefor me to make a program
specific with the principlesthat are known to work, there's
(34:59):
a process of either.
You know, obviously I remembera lot, I can go through my
memory, but again you get intopatterns and you start
programming certain ways andsometimes you want to be broken
out of even your own patternsand a lot of times our
intuitions, if you will, aremore our passions.
I don't even really want toelaborate, but that's actually a
(35:22):
good one.
But anyway.
So even for me, after all ofthese years of writing programs,
even though I have all of thesetools, for me is one of the
most challenging things istrying to actually just make a
(35:53):
choice when I know a milliondifferent ways to do what, three
or four different things, butno, whatever it is that's the
hardest part about actuallybuilding a program.
So when I didn't want to go combthrough my library, I didn't
and I just wanted to see whatGPT could do with a program.
(36:16):
So the prompt the literal firstprompt that I threw out it was
I want to do a strength program.
One of my favorites of the pastfew years was Easy Strength by
Dan John and Pavel.
What I liked, it worked and itwas easy to run, not complicated
.
Can showed me some other ideasfor strength programs that are
somewhat similar.
So GBT shoots back at meStarting Strength, mark Ripoteau
(36:39):
, 5x5, strong Lifts, wendler 531, tactile Barbell, grayskull, lp
, gzcl.
So I'm familiar with everyprogram there, and there was one
in the list you don't need tobe, it's not the point, but it
was the tactical barbell,because that one includes some
running, and so this time ofyear I like to get out and play
(37:03):
sports, hike, do other thingsbesides be in the gym.
So then next I just mentionedthat.
Okay, the one that I feel mostinterested in right now is
tactical barbell.
I listed what my goals were andI also listed the modalities
that I wanted to train.
I even threw down a couplepreferences of mine, like I only
(37:27):
like to deadlift once per week.
Should I explain it now orlater?
All right?
Well, the only reason I like todeadlift only once per week?
Because my body doesn't recover.
Quite frankly, especially onthe heavy sets, when I'm pulling
a big, heavy weight, I don'trecover fast enough for the next
session.
So I can either have a subparsecond session or I could just
do something else, and as I'vegotten older, I just prefer to
(37:49):
do something else.
I could just do something else,and as I've gotten older, I
just prefer to do something else.
I can really get one top enddeadlift session and, ironically
, when I was weaker, I could gettwo into the week.
So that was actually somethingthat, for me, developed as I got
stronger, couldn't recover, butanyway I told chat GPT my
deadlift problem and the rest ofthe goals that I had for the
(38:10):
program.
So then what it spit out was dayone squat five by five, bench
five by five accessory work,doing dumbbell rows, lateral
raises.
Day two conditioning lightjogging, psyching 30 seconds.
I don't care about hisconditioning prescriptions
deadlift five by five, overheadpress five by five accessory
works, pull-ups, max reps.
(38:30):
This was cool.
That's actually a West sidetechnique that it had run in
there.
Um, yeah, skip, it's recoverywork, I don't care about that.
Uh, so then we had this, theconditioning which.
So this is where I alreadystarted to tweak a little bit.
You can hear I didn't care atall about its programming for my
(38:51):
conditioning or recovery.
All I really wanted was theskeleton of the strength work,
and so just on that prompt, Ididn't love the workout so much
that it was like, oh great, copypaste run it.
So much that it was like, ohgreat, copy paste, run it.
(39:17):
Immediately made a few changes,but to me basically 80% of the
program was there, and then thatwhole process that I just told
you that honestly took so muchlonger to talk out than it was
in reality.
That was like 15 seconds.
And again, I like to think thatI am good at writing programs.
(39:38):
I have every advantage and toolat my disposal and, that being
said, sometimes I still cancommit that error myself of just
paralysis by analysis or tryingto do too many things in one
program.
I found the experience ofwriting my own program in
(40:02):
ChatGPT actually reallyenjoyable.
But yeah, now I guess, gettingback to the article, the article
wasn't saying can ChatGPT writea program?
Well, this guy tried to use itas a personal trainer and from
(40:23):
that standpoint, maybe myprofession is safe for now.
I guess one of the reallimitations that I do see and I
think this, if I didn't knowwhat I wanted, I couldn't really
get it to where it needs to be.
But also this is something thatI still see people commenting
(40:43):
on use of LLMs kind of missingis that, for me, actually using
them is what's giving me a verydifferent you know perception on
, on, to be honest, even thecreative aspect of using an lm.
I am, I am quite confident thatif you know no offense, if you
were to go and you know promptchat gpt for a program, you
(41:06):
might not be able to get as gooda program out of it as I can,
and the point for me isn'tsaying that I'm better at it.
What I'm getting at is thatthere's actually creative value
to the works that people producewith an LLM.
I think right now there'sactually a little bit of a
pretentious and snooty attitudethat if somebody uses this
(41:29):
technology, that the work issomehow, on face value, inferior
by mere use of an LLM.
And yeah, I do think right nowme saying that is not going to
be popular.
This is going to be, at leaston the other side, people
arguing against it.
It's not going to age very well, just like people have used
(41:52):
existing technologies to pushany art form further.
I think this is just theconversation that we have as
something is being adopted.
So, yeah, back to the questionof can Chet GPT replace a
trainer?
Probably not.
I guess I have felt that again.
(42:15):
I want to point out some of thebenefits, because I do think
there are a ton there, andparticularly if, let's be honest
, if you don't have money for anutritionist or a lawyer or all
of these other professionalstaff around you, I think you're
going to find that actually,this is going to be a way for
(42:37):
you to democratize access to alot of information that you
haven't had access to.
Yeah, I'll just give you someideas.
But you can get legal formletters done.
You can use personas to make itsound like a lawyer from a
specific university or whatever,but no, there's a number of
(43:00):
different ways where it kind ofjust levels the playing field a
little bit for people whohaven't had access to personal
assistance and various tools.
Yeah, what is it?
There's some famous writer thatjust dictates his stuff to
someone and they write it down,and I've never heard that.
It's James Patterson.
Yeah, but it's not like peoplesay that that's an inferior way
(43:23):
to write.
People have different learningstyles.
People have different dictationstyles.
So, again, my stance on AI, Ithink, has been consistent and
has been use it, get real worldexperience with it.
The reason I keep saying thatis particularly I honestly think
(43:45):
intelligent, smart and creativepeople, that these are the
people that are going to come upwith the coolest things using
AI, and it seems like in some ofthose circles it's just not
seen as a cool thing to do orit's seen as beneath them, and I
think that's going to be a veryshort-sighted way of using this
(44:08):
tech, but yeah it's, I don'tknow.
Maybe maybe I'm safe for alittle while, as as a trainer it
definitely has.
You know it.
It has issues.
Um, there was I I saw a studyevaluating some gpt generated
workouts and it found thatrecommendations were only what
(44:33):
they were using.
It was basically versus theAmerican College of Sports
Medicine's components ofexercise prescription.
It was 41% comprehensive.
But even there, as I say that Ialready know how I could fix
that problem.
So if what they were scoring iton was basically how well it
adhered to the ACSM's sixcomponents, you could literally
(44:58):
add a layer to the prompt andtell it to do that, because,
admittedly, I actually do that.
One of the things you can do isrestrict the library, and
actually I learned this from anEnglish professor, but one of
the critiques is it writespoorly.
So you can get it to draftsomething and then, after it's
(45:18):
done drafting, you just say,okay, great, now rewrite that
using Kurt Gavonagate's 10 rulesfor writing, and what you'll
see is you can improve the draftvery quickly and I guess, in
short, and this is the way tothink of it, when you're
interacting with a chatbot actmore like its teacher, grade
what it's doing.
Iterate, work with it andyou'll notice your content gets
(45:39):
better and better.
Don't expect it's not like theearly days of Google, when you
would click I'm feeling lucky.
It shouldn't necessarily workin just one prompt.
You're going to have to tweakand iterate and that's actually
where the good things come out.
And, of course, hallucinationsare real.
You need to fact check.
(45:59):
People say that like that's anew feature.
You guys know.
Like you need to fact checkeverything on the internet,
right?
No, I'm sorry.
No, it's just that.
That one's just annoyingBecause it's like I.
It just shows that people arenot checking facts currently and
you should always be doing that, whether you're on an LLM or
(46:21):
your most trusted social mediaplatform or wherever you think
you're safe to not fact check.
Start fact checking that stuffto not fact check.
Start fact checking that stuff.
It'll blow your mind Anyway.
But no, I don't want to getsidetracked on AI forever.
Summarize so today, obviously,intermittent fasting was in the
(46:42):
news this week.
This is one that I continue tothink the hype and the dangers
are both over exaggerated on aregular basis.
Interesting issue, but reallyhow to operate in an environment
of abundance.
That's the real issue we're alltalking about and trying to
figure out here.
Like we've said on this podcastfor a long time, resistance
training is really good fortreating depression, and of
(47:05):
course everybody's known it.
But it's really good at addingmuscle too.
Of course everybody's known it,but it's really good at adding
muscle too.
Has a dose-dependentrelationship for positive
outcomes in both domains.
So highly recommend it.
Five stars.
Make sure you're doing that.
Actually using AI, I think, isthe best way to acquire opinions
on AI, whether or not itreplaces trainers.
(47:31):
Time will tell.
Um, but hey, we'll see how thatgoes.
Um, no, but just in evenreacting to the news cycle,
obviously every single thing wetalked about here came from from
a news cycle whose whose realgoal is to get me to click on
ads.
Um, but no that well, that'sessentially it.
I just wanted to kind of breakdown how, in general, how do we
(47:54):
break out signal from the noisein the news cycle?
I've mentioned it.
I'm actually not a huge fan ofconsuming a lot of news.
There was a time that I was,and I don't think it added any a
competitive advantage.
I think it added more eitherconditioning or complacency, or
(48:19):
a mix?
I'm not sure, but I wasactually exposed by one of my
clients to a guy a bit of anarrogant writer, but I don't
write him off for that.
I'm probably a little bitarrogant from time to time, so
can't really draw lines in thesand there.
But no, nassim Taleb.
First book I read of his wasthe Black Swan.
(48:41):
He talked a lot about thenarrative fallacy.
I read a few of his other booksand in Skin in the Game there
is a discussion about the noisebottleneck and kind of how to
break through.
But I do want to read just alittle bit about because I do
think this is really relevantfor the information ecosystem we
(49:04):
live in.
And then I just kind of want tocomment on what we can do about
this problem, if you will, um.
But so this is to lab.
In business and economicdecision making, data causes
severe side effects.
Data is now plentiful thanks toconnectivity, and the share of
spuriousness in the dataincreases as one gets more
immersed into it.
(49:25):
A not well-discussed propertyof data.
It is toxic in large quantitiesand even in moderate quantities
.
The more frequently you look atdata, the more noise you are
(49:45):
disproportionately likely to get.
The higher the noise to signalratio, the more confusion.
So now he gives an example.
So say you look at informationon a yearly basis for stock
prices and assume further thatwhat you're observing at that
yearly frequency has a signal tonoise ratio of about one to one
.
So half noise, half signal.
(50:07):
That means that about half thechanges are real improvements or
degradations.
The other half just came fromrandomness or degradations.
The other half just came fromrandomness.
So the ratio you would get fromyour yearly observation would
be 50% noise, 50% signal.
But instead, if you looked atthe very same data on a daily
(50:29):
basis, that composition wouldchange from 50-50 to actually
95% noise, 5% signal.
And if you observed it on anhourly basis, like particularly
people who observe news ormarkets in particular like to do
, you're getting now closer tolike 99.5% noise and 0.5% signal
(50:53):
.
So again, the basic observationfor that there is a lot of noise
, how can you reduce yourexposure is simply, you know,
first, consuming lessinformation.
So again, even though there'sgoing to be inherent irony in
(51:13):
closing out a discussion onreading a bunch of news stories
on consuming less, the reason Iwant to point that out is that,
first off, in every single storythat I mentioned today, there
really was not anygroundbreaking or new
information.
The way this is going to beused by our news cycle is to
(51:37):
place ads or push productsrelated to these ideas.
There was no breakthroughs thatneeded to be discussed in
intermittent fasting in any ofthis, but we have these studies
and stories and countless othersthat will come out Just like.
Just like it was saying youknow, assuming I think a
(51:59):
one-to-one relationship betweennoise and signal is actually
pretty charitable.
Um, I don't think it's actuallythat often that that things you
actually need to know are comingout and unfortunately, people
don't have to tell us, um, totell us that there's no real
breakthrough.
Yeah, I've already had you herefor almost an hour and I could
(52:24):
have said that up front.
Hey, no real breakthroughs.
I'm only going to talk aboutsome ideas that everybody
already knows.
You can't do that at thebeginning of a show.
Now I'm going to get feedbackthat this is where everybody
turned the episode off, but no,so I guess what I want to work
to just for something a littlebetter than saying consume less.
(52:45):
That's not that helpful advice.
We got to figure out how to getthrough there, and I actually
think nutrition can kind ofinform us how we can keep
cleaner information diets.
We talk about fasting withnutrition all the time.
What about fasting with, withyour information diet?
Um, you don't have to just cutout from you know all caloric
(53:06):
consumption.
Um, what about macros?
People love to talk macros theprotein, carbs, the fat.
What if we were instead insteadtalking about the ratio of the
sources you read fromtime-tested, peer-reviewed and
periodical, even therelationship with junk food.
(53:27):
There's a bunch of media that ispure crap and sometimes, when
you have these types ofpseudo-pretentious things, know
things to say.
You know, it's not like I don'twatch stupid.
You know pet videos and stufftoo.
But, um, junk is only a problemwhen you're not using it
sparingly.
Um, if you're, you know, justhaving a little dessert here and
(53:52):
there, it's honestly not aproblem.
Um, so, so no, just make surejunk isn't like the main food
group and you're fine, but no,anyway, particularly when we are
now looking at healthinformation.
This is something I have a lotof years experience just trying
to sift through and some of thegeneral principles and practices
(54:16):
that I think are best you wantto look for.
Well, big changes are moreimportant than small changes If
you're just noticing them,recalibrate like a risk level,
but basically stating somethingthat you already knew.
Just in slightly differentassociation.
That's not a big deal.
That's not really somethingthat you're going to have to, uh
(54:37):
, spend a lot of time on, umwith the health studies.
What you're really going towant to pay attention to is if
you're noticing big changes instuff that you um had seen in
the past, that that's probablygoing to be worth your attention
.
Um, you know, in the same veinwhere I was saying, like, when
we get new information about oldexposures, that doesn't, you
(55:02):
know, change the risks of thoseexposures.
It just changes your awarenessor understanding of them.
Quite frankly, to be morespecific, I've seen a lot of
this with you know, say, likeprocessed meat.
Processed meat Studies willcome out with a heightened
understanding of the risk andthen you'll have the hyperbolic
headlines where they won'tmention it's processed or
(55:23):
however they want to stretch it.
And we already knew that hotdogs and bacon and salami aren't
healthy.
If you thought they were, I'mnot sure where you got that
healthy.
If you thought they were, I'mnot sure where you got that.
But yeah, many, many timesthere's like a new information
about some old risk that wealready knew.
Those, to me, are the ones thatyou can probably spend the
(55:46):
least amount of time looking at.
And then, just in general, thenext time you see a provocative
headline that has astatistically impressive result,
um, you know, from someimpressive sounding diet study,
um, just ask yourself, how longwas the study?
(56:06):
Who was enrolled?
Um, what was compared to what?
Is there any reason to thinkthat this is anything other than
a short-term fix?
Or does this even pertain to me?
A lot of times I'll come fromthe sample group, but, um, no
one, don't read too many.
It takes too damn long.
Um, you know, wait, wait forthe big peer-reviewed, wait for
(56:28):
the meta-analysis.
Um, look for big changes.
You don't really need to readit.
And if, if you follow itclosely, it looks like the
fields are turning over on theirheads all the time.
They aren't.
Most of what we know about,particularly nutrition, very,
very stable.
Exercise science, very, verystable.
We're learning some fun newthings here and there, but a lot
(56:51):
of times, again, these arecodified to specific populations
, modalities or, trust me, it'sin that methodology section that
the headlines never really seemto like to report on.
But anyway, with that, you know, I always appreciate you guys
spending your time here with me.
You know, please make sure toshare.
Oh, and actually here we go.
(57:12):
Here's what I want to do.
If you want a chat GPT writtenprogram, I'll write it for you.
No, but throw it down in thecomments.
It literally takes me just ahandful of seconds.
So I just thought this would bea fun way to engage with
listeners.
If you guys want a program,it'll literally take me a few
seconds.
(57:32):
So shoot me all the relevantdetails, and what that would
mean to me would be age goal,injury history, modalities, you
have whatever.
If you reach out, I'll let youknow what I need.
I will get that done foranybody who wants a program.
(57:52):
Leave us a little note in thecomments and get that done for
you.
Anyway, guys, remember mind andmuscle are inseparably
intertwined.
There are no gains withoutbrains.
Keep lifting and learning.
I'll do the same.
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