Why Common Sense Beats Optimization in Fitness and Nutrition

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to there is a Method to the Madness.
My name is Rob Maxwell and I'man exercise physiologist and
personal trainer.
I am the owner of Maxwell'sFitness Programs and I've been
in business since 1994.
The purpose of this podcast isto get to the real deal of what
really works and, mostimportantly, why things work.

(00:21):
Hence the name.
There is a method to themadness.
Before I get to today's show, Iwant to thank Jonathan and Lynn
Gildan of the Gildan Group atRealty Pros.
They are committed to providingthe highest level of customer
service in home sales.
Why don't you give them a shoutand figure out what your home
is worth?
386-451-2412.

(00:44):
No, I'm going to tell you allwhat.
If you don't jump on this, Idon't know what's wrong with you
.
I mean, you'd have to be sillynot to jump on this new research
.
So I'm sure you've heard of theBlue Zone book, the Blue Zone

(01:06):
documentary, the Blue Zone study, where they looked at the
healthiest people in the worldwith the best longevity and what
they did and everything, andI'm pretty sure you read about
that.
But just in case you haven't,I'll just fill you in briefly
that they just studied thehealthiest cultures around the

(01:29):
world.
They call them, the Blue Zones,and it's basically just sort of
a historical viewpoint of whatthey eat and what they did and
what their culture was like,what their sociological makeup
was, what their psychologicalmakeup was, how much they
exercise, how much they eat,what they ate all that good

(01:50):
stuff, and you know it's prettycool.
I think stuff like that isactually pretty interesting
because you can look back and go, oh, that worked, so that's
pretty neat.
But man, it doesn't hold acandle to the green zone.
Okay, so the green zone hasrecently been discovered and I'm

(02:11):
going to tell you all about itand it makes, like the blue zone
, people look weak and lame andobese.
It's crazy to think that allyou have to do is understand
this new green zone concept andyour whole freaking life will be
transformed.
I mean, what's better than that?
Huh, all right, hopefullyyou've picked up on that I am

(02:37):
joking.
Hopefully that you haven't liketurned off, because you know
like turned off, because youknow I was putting down the blue
zone, which I absolutely wasnot and not, but I'm sure you
know me, or hopefully you know,or you know.
Maybe you thought this wasgoing somewhere and it is, but
it's not going where you thoughtit was.

(02:57):
There's no such thing as agreen zone people.
Maybe there is, I have no idea,but to my knowledge there's not
.
And before I continue, continue,let me say that the blue zone
literature is really cool.
I really did like reading thebook, I really did like watching
the documentary and I really dobelieve that they uncovered a
lot of pearls of wisdom of whatpeople did their whole life to

(03:21):
put them in the health statethat they were in.
And, as I said, I really dolike historical standpoints in
most things.
I like it in history, I like itin the history of health and
fitness.
I just like going back andlooking at what people did.
The old saying don't tell mewhat to do, show me what you did

(03:44):
, that kind of a thing.
I think there's a lot ofevidence to that.
But the whole point is this isto understand that there are
hooks out there and that was ahook and maybe not a very good
hook, but there are hooks outthere, there's clickbait out
there and you know it really isvery simple to make a ton of

(04:07):
money in the health and fitnessindustry if you are either
really naive or deceitful.
I mean it's really easy.
I mean, I joked around foryears saying, man, if I just had
it in me to lie, I could sellthis because people are going to
believe it.
Once people do trust somebodyand believe in somebody, they

(04:31):
will buy it.
Man, they will buy into it, andthat's good if you have a
reputable person that you'retrusting or a reputable
organization, but, man, that isnot good if you don't.
So I want to talk about someexamples that I know of, and
this kind of came up because,well, it comes up for a lot of

(04:54):
reasons.
I mean, this kind of stuffcomes up all the time because
it's one of the big, big, bigmotivations behind my podcast is
to educate you on who to listento, what you need to tune out
of and what you need to tuneinto, and I try to use humor
sometimes to get you tounderstand that just how

(05:14):
ridiculous some of these thingsare.
And look, I wouldn't besurprised if somebody does come
up with a new zone.
But look, in the game today,there are influencers out there
who have taken their game to adifferent level, like, there are
influencers that you can follow, and this isn't a bad thing, by

(05:37):
the way.
I mean, there's beeninfluencers long before there
were social media.
I mean, all that means isyou're a person that other
people look at, watch and wantto know what you're doing.
I mean you influence people,whether you realize it or not.
You influence your family, forthe good or the bad.
I mean we all influence, andthere are some people that are
just better at influencing rightor wrong, or good and bad or

(06:01):
bad than others.
So this isn't new and it's nota bad thing.
It's just that you need to knownow that there literally is an
industry of influencer, andthat's not bad either.
I mean, I listen and followsome of these guys and gals and
some of them are quiteentertaining and some of them
are quite helpful.
So there's nothing wrong withthat.

(06:21):
You just need to understandthat there's a whole new
industry out there and with anyindustry there's a chance of it
getting corrupted by greed andmoney.
Right, people are going to wantto sell out and start doing and
saying things that they don'tnecessarily believe in or know
that are true.
So a person can start out witha good social media influence,

(06:43):
such on Instagram or TikTok orwhatever.
It seems to be TikTok thatreally grows people into the
next stratosphere with that andthen they get pretty popular on
YouTube, which is similar toTikTok as far as that goes.
Like most influencers, don'tfool around too much on Facebook
because the generation ofpeople on Facebook are older,

(07:05):
they don't tend to buy as muchand it just it doesn't flow as
well.
Instagram's OK if you puttogether some good videos, but
really people get moreinfluenced by TikTok because
it's video for one thing or it'smade into a video and it's
usually got a short storyattached to it which engages

(07:27):
people, and then YouTube you cantake that story and spread it
out even more and then peoplecan subscribe to your channel
and watch you or listen to youLike.
This podcast is on YouTube, soYouTube is another way.
But once people kind of blowthrough that, then they get
pretty big and they startgetting big shows, whether it be

(07:48):
a podcast.
When I say big shows, not allpodcasts are big.
This one's growing locally andit's doing exactly what I wanted
it to do, which was just beable to talk to my clients and
people that know me and peoplethat are in my circle of
influence.
I'm also blown away andprobably a little nervous when I

(08:12):
pull up the maps and see who'sdownloaded some episodes and
it's like all over the world.
I'm like that's pretty darnwild and scary at the same time.
But in any event, when I lookat like the demographics which I
like to do because it's prettycool most of them show the
central Florida area.

(08:32):
As far as the downloads onSpotify and Apple Podcasts,
orlando seems to be a big one,but that's not too surprising,
and then some other parts of thestate and then there's other
states where I have family orfriends or whatever.
But you know, it's doing what Iwanted it to do.
It's spreading it to the localcommunity in which I serve and

(08:54):
that's cool.
So, no, this isn't a big show,but when these big influencers
do get their shows to big levelswhere they can get high level
marketing involved, well it'sbig business people.
I mean they're doing a podcastand then you'll notice like
really, really big sponsors.
You know my sponsors are great.
I appreciate all three of themand if you ever noticed,

(09:18):
sometimes Buzzsprout throws anad on here and that's because my
podcast got enough views towhere somebody wanted to put it
on there.
But let me tell you people thatlittle bit.
I mean I appreciate it and Ithink it's pretty cool.
But I mean the highest check Iever got from that ad when you
hear a hold on and it goes andthen it gives a little ad.

(09:39):
You know, not that one, not myGilding Group or Overhead Door
or ProCharge, not my literalsponsors, but these guys right,
and they'll come on and they'llsay something.
So the largest check I ever gotfrom that was seven bucks.
It's like woohoo.
Anyway, now we're talking likewhen I listen to some of these
big wigs, these heavy hitters Ilisten to, they got the big boys

(10:01):
out there throwing big money atthem.
So naturally there's going tobe a little bit of change of
opinion.
Right?
Not all of them, I mean, thereare a couple I'll listen to and
I'll go oh man, why are youpushing that?
You know better than that.
And then I think, well, maybeyou don't, cause I usually am
just sensitive to, like, thehealth and fitness ones, and you

(10:21):
know, maybe the person doesn't,maybe he or she has no idea
that this product is just snakeoil, who the heck knows.
But anyway, most of them, ifnot all of them I listen to seem
to represent companies that youknow are reputable, whatever.
But anytime there'sadvertisement there's going to
be a change in influence of whatyou have to say.
So you have to be really,really cognizant of that.

(10:44):
You have to understand that whenyou are seeing things out there
, it is a whole new level ofmarketing that goes on.
You know, people talk aboutclickbait.
Clickbait is absolutely realand people are like they don't
understand.
Every time you click on it orengage, you are helping that
person.

(11:04):
So if you want to help themkeep clicking, it doesn't matter
if this is political, if it isbig business, if this is a
corporation let's say this is anairline screwed you over, and
so you see that they postedsomething and you get in there
and you start giving them hell.

(11:24):
Right, you just helped them,you did not hurt them.
They're not looking at the typeof engagement and I've had well,
I didn't have to learn thisthrough the years for bad
reasons, but I've learned itfrom talking to people in that
industry.
They're looking at clicks man.
They're looking at how manyviews this thing got and they've
realized the marketingcompanies that rage and anger

(11:47):
gets more clicks than anything.
Nothing is going to getsomebody to follow a post and
either like it or try to give usa frowny face or, you know,
comment than anger.
They know that and they takeadvantage of it.
Not so much in health andfitness, although I do see it.
Sometimes There'll be somebodyout there rage baiting and say

(12:10):
something like for the guytelling you to do cardio, well,
tell him to stick it, because hehas no freaking idea what he's
talking about.
All that cardio you're doing ismaking you fat, and then he
posts it, he leaves it, probablynever checks it again, and you
have a ton of cardio loversclicking on it and debating him
all day and he's not debatingback, he's just watching his

(12:32):
clicks and views go up.
Which advertisers look at.
They don't look at style ofengagement.
They go oh man, so this postjust got a thousand likes in a
minute, or it got a thousandviews in a minute.
It got a thousand angrycomments in a minute, like they
don't know it's angry, theydon't care.
So that's how it works.
So clickbait is something to beaware of, that you know.

(12:54):
If you see something like thatand it seems a little like
controversial, probably isprobably don't have to go there
Like I'm guessing.
You know that it's somethingthat you don't need to know at
that very minute.
All right, and I'll wrap up thislittle education part on it
because I want to get to themore of the meat and the

(13:15):
potatoes with one final littlestory on that.
So yeah, I listen to a podcastthat talks a lot about
philosophy and he tells thestory often about Napoleon who,
you know, right or wrong, didn'tdo some great things but is
considered to be a very goodgeneral.
So one thing he did he told his, his people under him, was like

(13:37):
he wasn't going to look at themail for one month.
He wasn't going to look at themail.
He was just going to say, allright, in a month, bring me last
month's mail and if it wasn'tdated a month, he didn't read it
until a month went by.
People were like that's a kindof a peculiar behavior.
Why do you do that?

(13:58):
He goes because all thesethings I was going to get
wrapped up in have most likely99% of the time resolved
themselves without me having anyinput, and I just thought that
was really fascinating.
Can you imagine if he lived intoday's society?
Right, he's not going to be thedude scrolling on Twitter or X

(14:21):
whatever it's called these days,or threads or wherever, and
please don't tell me you getyour news there, but probably
not going to go on there to getthe daily news, because in one
month's time, if you think aboutit, it's going to be the next
catastrophe, right?
And then what did your input onany of this have to do?
It didn't, right?

(14:42):
We have to think about it thatway.
With the internet, is thissomething that really deserves
my attention?
Look, I want you to click on mystuff.
I appreciate it.
It helps me and I think if youdo, and you know me you want to
help me and that's cool.
I'm just telling you that ifyou see stuff out there you
don't like, don't engage in it,because you're helping them, no

(15:05):
matter what.
It's plain and simple.
It is big business in thefitness industry and every other
industry, all right.
So let me give you someexamples.
This stuff came up with foodbecause I overheard a client say
and he was dead right he goes.
I remember taking nutritionclass back in I don't know 1980s
, and I remember the teachersaying you know what?

(15:27):
It's pretty darn simple Eat avariety of moderately healthy
foods and don't eat too much ofthem.
And I thought to myself yeah,the world hasn't changed as far
as what is true, because that isstill true to this day.
There's not going to be anygimmicks out there that is going
to help you.
You know, these guys who arethe big wigs of influencers

(15:51):
right Big time.
I mean people like I don't knowwhat's going to be next with
these guys, you know, are peoplegoing to start like building
churches around them?
I mean, like what they say isgospel to some people and it's
really really insane.
And in the world of optimizing,I'm telling you people, not

(16:13):
everything has to be optimized.
There isn't a perfect food thatis going to optimize your diet.
It's going to come down to whatI just said.
The client hit it on the head.
Whatever his nutrition teacher,whoever it was, bless them,
because let me tell you, theysaid the right thing.
We need to eat a variety ofmoderately healthy food and not

(16:36):
eat too much of it.
When it comes to nutrition,that is it.
If you need to lose weight, youneed to eat less than you're
eating to move more.
It's that simple.
If you need to get stronger,you need to eat less than you're
eating to move more.
It's that simple.
If you need to get stronger,you need to go to the gym or
strength train on a regularbasis, at least two times a week
.
You need to be doing cardiorespiratory exercise most days
of the week.
That's it.
Get some sleep, drink somewater.

(16:56):
That's it.
Don't buy into the bullshit.
And if you do, don't blameanybody else my clients that do
it.
Man, I will talk about thisstuff and then the next thing
you know, a client will bringsomething up and I'll look at
them and I'll say, seriously, Imean, didn't we just talk about
this?
Did I put that on the podcastand in the email?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, youmeant this.

(17:18):
So there was a guy who is nolonger alive and I will spare
his name.
Um did a lot of good things.
He also did a lot of prettycrappy things, but anyway, he
was in the fitness industry,very well known, very famous,
and, uh, I knew some of his uhpeople and, um no, people that
knew him very well worked underhim and on one of his trips

(17:42):
across the world, he decided hewas going to collect elephant
dung, which is elephant poop,and he knew exactly what he was
going to do with it and he saidwhat I'm going to do is I'm
going to collect all this.
I'm going to like run itthrough a few machines.
I'm going to make it smaller,I'm going to mix it with some

(18:04):
other crap and I'm going tobring it back to the united
states.
And this guy was american, buthe was in another part of the
world, another continent, and,uh, don't really want to say
where because it might give themaway.
So, you know, people can guess,use their imagination.
But anyway and he said it tohis fellow travel mates who knew

(18:24):
him, so they weren't surprisedat all he said I'm going to
bring this back to the UnitedStates and mix it with some
other things and I'm going tosell it to the Americans,
especially the ones that go tothe gyms, because, man, they are
a bunch of freaking morons andI will get them to believe that
this is going to be the nextsupercharger, muscle builder,

(18:45):
fat burner, and they will buy it.
Now, keep in mind when it comesto supplements, the FDA doesn't
regulate, so people can do that.
Right, there is buyer.
Beware, here is the crazy part.
He didn't hide it.
He told people well, number onewas on the ingredients and

(19:06):
number two, he told people whatit was Like, didn't say this is
a joke on you.
I mean, I guess it wasmoderately safe.
Nobody died from what Iunderstand, but I don't know how
many people bought it, but somepeople did.
They literally told him on thepackaging what this is going to
be said.
You know it doesn't matter, itis this super charger.

(19:26):
Nobody's heard of it.
You know, kind of like my greenzones in the beginning, like
you're an idiot if you don't doit.
You know that kind of marketingand people bought it, even
though they know they wereconsuming elephant poop.
People bought it.
Do I believe it?
Well, number one, absolutely,because I know the people who
told me the story and I trustthem and I value their opinion.

(19:47):
And number two, I've seenbehavior like this in the past
35 years.
When I worked out at my littlegym in New Smyrna, we had this
dude and he sold a lot ofdifferent things and a lot of
people did actually, but thisguy I'm just going to refer to,
in his gym bag he would bring instuff, you know, and it could

(20:09):
be like liver in a supplement.
You know, like people wereselling liver back in the day.
There was all these littlethings.
He didn't make them, he boughtthem or got.
Well, it's going to stay offthe internet.
But no way, this is.
He bought them.
He went to I don't know somewholesale health food store and
bought up a bunch and he wouldbring it to the gym and he would
sell it to people in there andbe like, dude, you got to take

(20:32):
this.
It's going to make you sovascular.
How much?
20 bucks.
Somebody would go to their cartat 20 bucks.
Come back he'd hand it to them.
You know, I mean I seen it overand over and over this guy
would be making a hundred bucksa day every time he came to the
gym selling five differentbottles of shit to people.
So, yes, people are going to doit.

(20:52):
You know, I mean I was going tosay to his credit, but I don't
know if I can really give thisguy credit, but you know, he did
, I think kind of believe in it.
Like I think he took this stuff.
I don't know for sure, but Iknow he sold it.
So look, yes, I believe it andit's pretty scary.
So you know, the moral of thestory is use your common
freaking sense.

(21:13):
Okay, if it's.
I mean, didn't we all hear thisfrom our parents or
grandparents?
You know, if it seems too goodto be true, it probably is.
You know little things likethat.
There are quotes and sayings,for a reason, and it seems like
in today's society we have justforgotten these things.
All right, so hopefully you'velearned how to navigate the
internet, how to eat and, hey,let's go out there and celebrate

(21:37):
all of these new green zones.
Thank you for listening totoday's program.
I ask you to please follow theshow wherever you get your
podcasts and please selectautomatic download, because that
really helps the show.
Now I want to thank OverheadDoor of Daytona Beach, the

(21:58):
area's premier garage doorcompany.
They have the best product.
They have the best service.
I personally vouch for Jeff andZach Hawk, the owners.
They are great people with agreat company.
If you have any garage doorneeds, please give them a shout
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