January 28, 2025 • 49 mins
Ever wondered if your favorite fitness influencer is more interested in your wallet than your well-being? Join us as we humorously dissect the world of "fitfluencers" with your hosts, Lindsay McClain and Christopher Patchet, LCSW. Our mission? To help you sift through the glossy promises and algorithm-driven content that bombard our screens. We're taking a historical stroll to uncover how fitness went from being a natural part of life to the marketing behemoth it is today. Spoiler alert: It's not all kale smoothies and yoga selfies!
Our exploration kicks off with a little history lesson, tracing back to the early fitness gurus like Bernard McFadden and Charles Atlas. These trailblazers were selling supplements and advice long before Instagram's filters were even a twinkle in a developer's eye. Fast forward to today, and many modern "fitfluencers" continue this tradition, often promoting products without much regulation. By reflecting on the past, we aim to equip you with the knowledge to question the legitimacy and safety of what we're being sold in the name of health.
Manipulation isn't just for magicians and politicians—it's a staple in the fitfluencing world. We'll unravel the art of visual trickery, from strategic angles and lighting to more sophisticated filters and editing tools. Whether it's the iconic MySpace angles or Chloe Ting's catchy workout titles, there's a method to the madness. But fear not! With a touch of humor and a dash of skepticism, we're here to arm you with critical thinking skills to navigate the often deceptive landscape of fitness advice. So, buckle up and prepare for a lively ride through the world of fitness fads, scams, and everything in between!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hi and welcome to the Toxic Cooking Show, where we
break down toxic people intotheir simplest ingredients.
I'm your host for this week,lindsay McLean, and with me is
my co-host.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Christopher Patchett, LCSW.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Let me set the scene for you.
You're scrolling Instagram orTikTok or YouTube Shorts or
Instagram Reels or Facebook, orit doesn't matter where you're.
Yep, you're scrolling throughand there you see it, and
through, and there you see it.
It's a young, fit male.
He's topless, showing off hismuscles.
(00:52):
Or maybe it's a young, fitfemale and she's in a matching
two-piece pastel bra andleggings set.
They're in the gym and they'retelling you.
Usually it's written on thescreen, or maybe they're kind of
shouting it at you withexcitement.
Before you can scroll away,they hit you with their first
(01:12):
attack Do these three exercisesto get ripped.
Or these three exercises willget rid of your mom pooch.
They'll boost your energy andthey'll snatch your waist.
Rid of your mom pooch, they'llboost your energy and they'll
snatch your waist.
Or my Pilates instructor alwayshas us do these three exercises
to get the fat burning going.
Now you scroll away becauseyou're smart, but you're not
(01:37):
safe.
No, no, no.
The algorithm has seen that youwatch that video and it has seen
that you want more.
You were curious enough to stayjust long enough to be like
what are these three exercises?
What are they?
I'm just, I'm curious.
No, I'm not interested.
No, no, you were interested.
The algorithm saw, and, beforeyou know it, your feed is filled
(02:00):
to the brim with all of thesefit people working out or
wearing oversized headphones.
All the exercises look vaguelythe same, but they all have
these different names and theyall target your deepest
insecurities.
So you keep watching becausethey keep coming up.
You're curious, you know, sinceit's not that harmful, right?
(02:21):
But again, joke's on youbecause the fit flinter, which
is who you have stumbled upon,has lured you in and now they're
going to pounce and make theirkill.
So at some point, one of thesevideos, one of these cute little
videos that you're watching,with three exercises, do these
three reps, whatever they'regoing to hit you with the.
I make sure I stay in the bestshape of my life by always
(02:46):
starting my workout with a scoopof powder from XYZ, who they're
the sponsor of today's video.
I'm just such a fan of theirs,but thank you so much to XYZ
company for sponsoring it.
I can't, you know, get out ofbed in the morning without this.
This really gets my exerciseprogram going.
This gets the fat burning.
(03:06):
You've seen this before.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yes, yes, I have.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yep.
So that night you fall for itbecause you're like, again, it's
not that big of a deal, itcan't be that big of a problem.
It's not that expensive.
It's $9.99 plus shipping andtax.
That big of a problem, it's notthat expensive, it's $9.99 plus
shipping and tax.
Like, I can try this Sure.
So yeah, that night, while youmake your little purchase, the
Fitfluencer feasts well and theyare able to pay their social
(03:35):
media team to keep addingfilters to all their videos.
They're able to pay theirpersonal coach to actually come
up with exercises that keep themfit.
They're able to pay theirmakeup artist to airbrush their
abs, boobs, whatever, beforeeach take, while you're over
there coughing down a supplementthat the FDA has no
jurisdiction over.
Welcome to the world offitfluencing.
(03:55):
Oh boy, now if you're askingyourself, you're like wow, you
guys really hate on influencers.
You've hated on general oninfluencers.
You've hated on like generalinfluencers.
You've hated on mom fluencers.
You're here hating on fitfluencers.
That is correct.
I do hate them, and you shouldtoo.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I'm not even gonna try and hide it and be like no,
no, I hate influencing, I hateinfluencers, just straight up
you know, I never like, actuallytook the time to think about if
I hate them or like them, and Ithink that, yeah, we'll
definitely kind of go into thathere.
But yes, go on.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I mean, I never really thought about it even
until I was writing this episodeand I was, like, I've said the
word fluencer so many timeswithin the past couple of months
and none of it has been good.
So fitfluencing is not new byany means.
This has been around since theidea of exercising to work out
(05:02):
became a thing which is actuallykind of a relatively new
phenomenon within the space ofhumanity, which makes sense,
because for most of humanity youdid manual labor.
Maybe you were training to be asoldier or something else, but
that was included in that.
You didn't have kings who weresitting there like, yeah, I'm a
(05:23):
lift weights.
That that didn't exist.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Or even further back.
You were running from tigersand that's how you got your
cardio in.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Exactly.
No one was like planning.
They're like right, so I'mgoing to at 3 PM.
Guys, let's meet up near thetiger den, and you know, Gronk
is going to like wake them upand then we get our little run
in.
Okay, let's go.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
You know what I would love to see like?
I wonder if there ever was atime where they were like that.
They're like me, belly gettingbig.
Me must work out Me.
Wake up, tiger to run.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Every day this week me wake up, tiger.
We'll never know, but I'd liketo believe that that that is
what happened.
We really don't see until the,the late 1800s, which does kind
of make sense because that'swhen you have a time in history
where you've got people who weremaybe working suddenly had a
(06:24):
group of people who may beworking more sedentary jobs, who
are like, oh, I'm supposed tobe a manly man, I should somehow
do that, but how?
And you see this kind of risein bodybuilding that starts
around that time and basicallyas soon as that appeared, the
bullshit appeared too.
I mean, the bullshit was therebefore, like nutritional
(06:44):
bullshit, like doctors who werenot actually doctors.
That has always existed Badnutritional advice.
But we see the two kind of getconnected late 1800s, and the
father of all of this thatyou'll typically see is Bernard
McFadden.
He was very active in the late1800s and early to mid-1900s, I
(07:06):
believe until up about 1950.
He invented the tabloidmagazine, which should tell you
something, and he also becamefamous for railing against
various health trends likedoctors and gluttony.
Both of these bad Doctors, badgluttony, bad, same bullshit.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Okay, both of these bad doctors, bad gluttony, bad,
same same bullshit okay, yeah,don't, don't.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Don't ask yourself too many questions about that
one.
He also claimed that prolongedfasting would help you live to
the age of 150, which he didn'tlive to 150, so I I'm not sure
what was going on there.
He definitely got some flackfor some of this at the time,
(07:50):
but not enough, because hisprodigy came along, charles
Atlas.
He was active from about the1920s up to about 1970, and he
focused on how to exercise tobecome a real man.
He focused on how to exerciseto become a real man.
One of the ads that he ran atone point read I can make you a
new man too, and only 15 minutesa day.
(08:10):
And if that does not sound likesomething you would see on
Instagram today, just 15 minutesa day do my exercises.
So there was him.
There's also Bob Hoffman, whohosted the first weightlifting
competition in the US in 1924,who then moved on to selling
(08:30):
really bizarre supplements thathe got busted for like for
decades.
Jack LaLanne, who had thelongest running TV exercise
program in US history.
That started in 1953.
He also then moved into sellingvitamins in a juicer.
So you see, there's been ahistory of this for a long time
of like work out, get famous,sell crap.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Every time I think of Jack Lewine, I think of
eyebrows, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yep, apparently the juicer that he created is like
still being sold today.
I wouldn't be surprised.
Yeah, I mean, the juicer thathe created is like still still
being sold today.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yeah, I mean the juice is fine, but you know,
it's one of those things whereyou're like okay.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I mean, if you think about it fast enough, then it
does sound Latin.
You know, you take fruits andvegetables and you throw it into
a machine and okay, yeah, thatthat's that's good.
Yeah, get your fruits andveggies but yeah, at the moment
that you really start thinkingabout everything that's being
(09:36):
taken away from it, then yeah,so then we get into more kind of
names that I believe a modernaudience might know Jane Fonda,
richard Simmons.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
You know, we all kind of have heard about these
people in one way or another.
The idea of like Jazzercise,which actually has been around
since 1969.
Oh wow, I did not know that.
I associate Jazzercise withlike 80s and 90s, 70s.
I did not place it at all, butit was there.
(10:11):
And that's not to say thatthese things are all 100% toxic,
but you see these kinds ofideas of like ooh, there's this
one person who appears and istelling you like do this
exercise, buy my program, buy myvitamins, eat this, I wear that
and look at how good I look.
All of these people have thatin common and that has carried
(10:32):
through.
That unfortunate line hascarried through in today's
fitfluencers.
We're still doing it, we'restill pushing crazy stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Still pushing crazy stuff.
But you know, at least back inthe day it was how you were kind
of saying where you started offas a fifth fluencer.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
And then you progressed to selling shitty
things.
Now we just combine the two.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
And I do give a little morecredit to the people who started
off actually as a weightlifter,as a bodybuilder, as a whatever
, and then they were like, oh,maybe this is really hard on my
body, I need to make moneysomehow else and I have all this
fame, so what do I do?
I sell these other things.
It's not right, but it'sunderstandable and you're right.
(11:22):
Today it's just like same timeand the whole thing is a lie.
We'll get into that, don't youworry.
The first thing I want to pickapart are the supplements that
you'll get.
So we talked about this personwho starts off and is like I
always, you know, before I workout, I add a scoop of this to my
(11:46):
protein shake, or I always havemy protein shake.
I start off my morning with.
There's one company, ag1.
I see them mentioned frequently.
They frequently sponsor peopleand have never tried.
It cannot comment on it, notjudging them as a company, of
course.
So the thing to note when yousee these people who are pushing
a supplement being like, oh,company, of course.
So the thing to note when yousee these people who are pushing
a supplement being like, oh,you should take this, it's got
(12:08):
all these vitamins and mineralsand stuff like that.
The FDA regulates dietarysupplements, which includes
vitamins, differently fromregular food and drugs, and that
means that they actually don'tregulate them.
According to the FDAgov, and Iquote, manufacturers and
distributors of dietarysupplements and dietary
(12:30):
ingredients are prohibited frommarketing products that are
adulterated or misbranded.
That's it.
They are not checking.
Now you cannot make wild claimson there.
A lot of companies still kindwill, but you're, you're not
really supposed to.
But the fda is not checking tomake sure that if you say this
(12:53):
pill has green tea and caffeineand this and that, and they're
not actually checking to makesure that pill has those things.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I do know, like I have seen where on the bottle
will say I have like a review ofit, and then underneath it will
say something along the linesthese statements have not been
reviewed by the FDA.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yeah, and you know, if you were
to buy other food or drugs likeif you were to buy some sort of
medicine again in the US, theFDA is in charge of that and
they're the ones making surethat your aspirin doesn't have
fentanyl in it.
Just we like that, we like thatit has.
You know the ingredients it'ssupposed to and obviously like
(13:37):
mistakes happen and people getbusted.
But just be aware that vitaminsare not regulated at all.
So you should be hyper aware ofanyone trying to get you to
take a supplement of any sort,because, again, no one is
checking what is in thatsupplement that this fitfluencer
is trying to sell you.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I figured with supplements, I didn't think
vitamins, I figured.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, vitamins are actually included in that.
I mean, obviously there arereasons why you might want to
take a vitamin, but in general,if you are a healthy enough
adult eating a semi-balanceddiet, unless you have been
tested by a doctor and have beendiagnosed with a vitamin
deficiency, you don't need to betaking vitamins, even vitamin D
(14:23):
.
Did you know?
In the UK, which is famous forits warm, sunny weather, they
did a study that, if you're,that's valid.
That's important here, becauseif you are, if you have pale
skin, if you spend 10 to 15minutes a day between April and
September outside around midday,that is enough vitamin D for
(14:45):
the year.
This was in the UK.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
So again, if you're an adult, you're eating a
decently healthy diet.
You are going outside.
You're spending time outside.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot.
You're probably not vitamin Ddeficient.
You're probably not anythingvitamin deficient, again, unless
you've been diagnosed.
So taking vitamins will nothelp.
You don't need it.
(15:09):
The other thing you have to beaware of with these you know
vitamins and supplements andwhat I eat in a day videos.
These people are pushing at youbecause they're not sharing,
because sharing is caring rightlike they want you to come join
their side.
Come, come, eat like I do.
Come, do all the things.
Because if you're eating like Ido, then if I kind of add in a
(15:30):
little and I always take thisvitamin, you're going to be more
likely to be like I should takethat vitamin too.
But just just think about thatwhen you're watching those
videos.
Are you that person?
Do you have their metabolism?
Do you exercise like they do?
There are so many questionshere that we may look the same,
(15:51):
but there's a lot else that goeson beneath the surface.
That means that you are eatinga significantly higher amount or
a lower amount of whatever thanI should be eating.
Do not take dietary advice frompeople on the internet and also
on that note 1200 calories a dayis starving yourself.
(16:13):
Don't do that.
If you starve yourself, you arenot only going to not lose
weight faster, you will fuck upyour metabolism permanently.
Don't do it.
The other, the final thing thatyou'll see for fitfluencers
(16:33):
when they're talking about foodand vitamins and stuff like that
, when they're kind of gettinginto the woo-woo wellness
influencer territory, they'lltry and tell you that you need
to flush toxins from your system.
So you need to be eating allthese things, and this smoothie
really helps you flush toxins.
Did you know Patches?
Did you know that your body hasa secret hack for flushing
(16:55):
toxins out?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Poop.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Close Peeing out Poop .
Close Peeing it's a really goodjob of filtering out the toxins
and being like whoop out you go.
But pooping, yes, we can gettoxins out that way too.
Your body is great at it.
Your body wants you to stayalive.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
But getting off my supplement soapbox for the
moment.
Getting back to the exerciseportion of Fitfluencers, you may
have noticed when I was givingthe examples that all of them
they always say it's alwaysthree exercises.
These three things, these magicthree exercises and these
magical three exercises aregoing to do three things to you.
(17:40):
You're going to have threeeffects.
This is not a fairy tale, okay.
You are not a character in aSarah J Maas fairy smut book
where the power of three isgoing to make you hot and get
you like sexy fairy Batman.
It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I get it.
The human brain likes thenumber three.
It easy to deal with, it's cute.
We see it all the time instories like in history.
We just we really like it.
We like it mathematically,little triangles like.
But it doesn't apply toexercise schoolhouse rock even
said three is a magic numberyeah, although there was a game
(18:23):
we used to play at camp calledfour is the magic number,
because four is four is four isfour.
I'll.
I'll show you another time.
I'm not gonna play it with youhere and embarrass you and
myself probably.
But yeah, that is a deadgiveaway if you see someone
who's just like three exercises,three positive effects from
doing these three exercises.
(18:44):
No, no, just three exercises.
That's all it takes.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
You know, I've I've always been skeptical when it
comes to uh, because there'salways either three or one.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
No, there's one simple trick, or these three
simple things.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yeah, yeah.
You should be skeptical,because life doesn't work like
that.
That's the thing that we ashumans have created, that we
like this idea.
But your life doesn't need torevolve around the number three
and it shouldn't revolve aroundthe number three.
And so when you see thispopping up over and over and
over again, it is a deadgiveaway that these have been
just like.
These have been copy pasted fromsomewhere else, and people are
(19:25):
just kind of like putting thescript over the video to get you
to watch and click, and there'sa whole scheme I don't know if
that's the right word, but youwill see really similar videos
and text that appear just kindof like all at once, like a
(19:45):
whole bunch of videos will bemade about this and people will
then kind of copy them andspread it, but they are
predominantly being put out bypages that are just here to sell
you supplements.
They just want you to watch thisvideo and then, because you've
watched it, the algorithm islike you want to see more, and
so eventually you watch enough,you like enough, because you're
(20:07):
like it's just three exercises,I can add this into my routine.
Okay, maybe it's not going tosnatch my waist and get rid of
my mom pooch.
But yeah, I can add this inWrong, don't do it, because the
next video is going to be asupplement video.
So finally, you've gotten ridof all of these Fitfluencers
(20:33):
selling you supplements.
You keep telling Instagram no,I'm not interested in this
person.
You've gotten rid of all theones with the terrible dieting
advice because, don't forget,dieting fails an astonishingly
high percentage of the time, andit's not your fault.
Your body is just not made todo that.
So most people like if somebodygoes on an extreme diet, they
(20:56):
may lose weight initially, butunless you stick to that
permanently for the rest of yourlife, like, the weight will
come back Cause your bodydoesn't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah, you know, and and being a bigger guy myself,
like one of the things I do seeoften is the fat guy who is on
the losing 200 pounds andeverything and and you'll see,
like you know, like them youknow, losing the weight and
everything, and then it kind ofseems that the videos kind of
(21:26):
stop once they lose the weight.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, yeah, Because you have to keep up what you did
to get there.
You don't get to just like goback to like add some stuff back
in again, because then theweight will come back on again.
There are people who manage to,but in most cases it's not
viable.
So anybody who's also sellingyou a diet run, run away from
(21:50):
them.
So you've gotten rid of thosepeople.
You know that's fake becauseyou listen to our show and you
believe everything we say, asyou should.
But you're still not safebecause you have one more boss.
You have to beat One more fitfluencing boss.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Molly.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Filters worse than Molly.
I like how you wish it wasMolly.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
As soon as I said her name, she's, she's.
She's now giving me a pissylook, because I woke her up.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
How dare you?
And you're not going to giveher treats.
She had enough treats earlier.
I witnessed it.
So let's not forget that intoday's age, 2025, you can put
filter on or filters on movingbodies and videos, and you've
(22:38):
been able to do this for years.
They're just getting better,like they've gotten a lot better
with AI and all theadvancements there.
You can snatch your waist, youcan make your shoulders look
broader using a filter, and evenif you're moving around, the
filter will stay in place.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
That is probably the scariest thing is because I
remember only like two years ago.
You know you see a footer butlike as soon as the person like
moved their head, you would seelike part of it, like a glitch.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
And you still see that, even with the good filters
.
But I think a the filters havegotten better and B the people
have gotten better at learningwhat you can and can't do with
the filter.
So obviously, if you've got afilter on to make your waist
look smaller, if you put yourhands on your waist you're going
to end up with like horrificlooking fingers, and so people
(23:34):
know this Same thing.
If you've got like a patternbackground, it will, you'll see,
like the stripes bend in wherethe waist is being like in, and
so people will make sure thatthey're positioning themselves
against a background thatdoesn't have anything to be
distorted.
They're going to make sure thatthey're not putting other body
(23:54):
parts in places where they canbe distorted.
And then you don't realizebecause there's nothing
glitching.
If the background is just black, like if they're standing there
talking to their stupid littlemicrophone with their giant
headphones on as a blackbackground and they're just kind
of like moving around a littlebit like this and their hands
are up in the air, you don't seeanything move and so you may
(24:16):
not realize that there is afilter on them.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Oh God.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yay.
But you know, in addition toknowing this, you can do stuff
the old fashioned way.
Let's not forget that you can.
The Victorians actually didthis back in the day.
They photoshopped some of theirphotos.
Have you ever seen like oldVictorian photos where the
woman's got like this littlewaist that may be photoshopped
(24:42):
like 1800s photoshopped?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
well, like with a corset yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
But you'll see some of them and you're like how is
that even possible?
It was photoshopped back in theday they were.
They were able to it in evenmore on top of the corset.
So you can do stuff likeclothing, you can do angles, you
can do makeup.
You can take a cue from dragQueens.
(25:09):
Contour yourself some boobs,some abs.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
So so the first thing that came to mind is and I made
you myself here the MySpace-Duck lips.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
But but you here the MySpace Duck lips.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
By holding the phone up and then that way it's like
pointing down.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
And then this way you're getting the massive
cleavage for the girls and thenthe guys.
Your head is blocking the biggut.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yeah, there are all sorts of ways that you can do
this.
There's a woman I watch onInstagram.
Sometimes she does fashionstuff.
I always weirded me out theangle that she was like taking
her videos from and finally sheaddressed it.
She's like I'm really short, soI have.
I put the camera down at thisangle because it makes me look
tall and I was like, all right,respect, I mean, maybe don't,
because it's very obvious thatyou've picked this angle and I
(26:03):
couldn't figure out why for awhile.
But yeah, you're shorter thanme, so I see why you do it.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
It's funny, glenn Danzig, you ever hear of him.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
So I think he's like five, somewhere between like 5'3
and 5'5, I five, five I think.
But like that's the thing islike uh, if you ever see
pictures of him in the band,you'll kind of see everybody
kind of like crouched down, butyeah, you know the surrounding
him.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Or if you see, like you know, like on his videos,
you'll always see you know thethe down up yep, yeah, we've
been doing this for as long aswe've been taking like
photographs, people haverealized there are good angles
and there are bad angles, andobviously the same applies to
videos too.
Like you can position yourselfin such a way that you know that
(26:57):
with, like the right lightingand you know a little bit of
this, a little bit of that youlook swole as fuck and maybe if
the person saw you in real lifethey'd be like, yeah, dude has
muscle, okay, but like not theway you look in the photo or the
video.
You can have padding like butt.
Padding is a huge thing forinfluencers, for fitfluencers
(27:20):
too, to pad out your butt, likeon the inside.
I introduced you to the idea ofscrunch butt leggings earlier,
before we started recording.
How do you feel looking atthose?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
so, okay, I, I remember I saw a video and it
was.
It was basically one of thesevideos where girl was at a gym
and she's wearing it and she'sshowing off about how you know,
all these guys are, like, youknow, like looking at her and
everything like that, and shewas getting frustrated and
things like that.
(27:56):
Oh, no.
So a guy actually ditched in.
You know he got a pair of thoseand he did the same thing.
He'd go into the gym and youknow he's working out and people
were, just like you know,staring him down and, just like
you know, like staring at hisass and everything like that.
(28:17):
Because, yeah, if you arewearing something that's making
your, that's sole purpose ofmaking your ass stick out, then
people are going to notice anasset sticking out.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
It's very obvious because I have seen them once in
the wild at the gym when I wasgoing to the uvs very briefly,
and I saw them from afar and itcaught my attention.
I was just like damn.
And then I realized I was like,oh no, those are fake, like
that's not actually her butt.
But it catches your attention.
That's the whole point.
Same for the other ones I sentyou the picture of that have,
(28:53):
like the um, a slightly darkerarea, like just underneath again
, to give this illusion of likeit's a shadow and your brain may
recognize that like that's notactually a shadow.
That's the leggings.
Same thing with the scrunchbutt ones, if you don't know
what scrunch butt leggings arewell they are leggings.
Yeah, as the name implies, theseam that goes down the back of
(29:19):
the leggings has ruched fabric,so it draws your attention to
the area and it does make itlook bigger, like.
Obviously, if the person turnsto the side, you can be like
nice, but if you see it frommost angles, it does provide
this illusion of like, wow, nicebutt.
(29:41):
So even when you get rid of theAI, there are still so many ways
that you can convince peoplethat they should listen to you,
because look how fit I am, andI'm really fit and I do these
three exercises.
So if you do these threeexercises, you're going to be
fit like me.
That is the implied idea behindall of these videos, and some
(30:07):
of them are upfront about it.
There's a well-known fitfluencer named Chloe Ting, huge
on YouTube.
A.
This woman knows how to domarketing.
I won't give her credit forthat.
She has very aesthetic videos.
She knows how to writesemi-clickbaity titles and she's
admitted to it.
She's like, yeah, you're notgoing to get around butt in two
(30:29):
weeks, but people click on thosevideos.
And the other thing she likesto do is she'll create these,
like you know, two or three weekprograms and you have to watch
the video multiple times.
So the videos get theseastronomical views on there
because you have something who'slike I'm going to do Chloe
Ting's 2024, two week shred,2024, two-week shred.
(30:51):
And in doing that, you have towatch the ab video five times
and the butt video six times andthe arms video three times.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
And so it's getting all these views.
I give her credit.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, I mean, you know again and she's kind of
admitted it's still not a greatthing to do because you are
leading people on and you couldargue that people should know
that this isn't the case.
But let's be honest, let's takea little look at humanity.
(31:31):
It is unfortunately not the case, and people will believe that
this is what's going to helpthem.
At the very least you may leadsomebody on, and so they start
working out.
They start believing youbecause maybe they're seeing
some effects because theyweren't working out before and
now they're doing this.
And then you hit them with the.
You can buy my workout set here.
That one I don't mind as much.
It's when we get into the.
Buy my workout plan, buy mysupplements, buy this whatever
(31:55):
sponsored thing that you'reingesting that I have a really
big problem with it.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
So and they know.
They know what they're doingand that's why I have such a big
problem with it is that theyare preying on people's
insecurities.
Almost all of these fitfluencers Are there some good
ones?
Yes, there are some people whoknow what they're doing.
There's some people who stickto their lane.
You know like I am only goingto give advice about long
distance running because I am along distance runner.
(32:26):
But yeah, these fitfluencers,they're preying on your
insecurities and they're doingit by all those things I
mentioned above.
They're also relying on the factthat there is all of this
conflicting information outthere.
I mean, how many times have youjust again in your daily
scrolling, within a very shortperiod of time, seen one person
be like you should do thecarnivore diet and then the next
(32:50):
person is like don't eat meat.
Ever you'll see like these two,these wide, like different
things within a very shortperiod of time, that's just for
meat.
There's like do this exercise,don't do this exercise, eat this
, avoid foods in the nightshade.
Family.
Cut out carbs completely, onlywhole grain carbs.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
You should be carb loading.
Yeah, I mean, I think of likeeggs, where how many times have
they been the thing that youshould eat to the thing that you
shouldn't eat?
Back and forth.
Same thing with milk, oh God.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Dairy is really good for you.
Strong bones oh no, oh no.
Dairy is causing all theseproblems.
No, if you eat dairy in thisway, it's got lots of protein.
No, it's gonna mess up yourbowels like, oh my god.
They're just constant and youcan have all these ideas going
at the same time.
So there's all of thisinformation out there and it's
exhausting and it's confusing.
(33:51):
And so when people see astraightforward video that's
just like do these three simpleexercises or follow along with
me as I, you know, give you thisworkout plan to do a two week
shred, just do what I say, eatwhat I eat, do what I do, and
you know, you could look like me.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
People are going to want to do that yeah so where do
you see the fit fluencing worldgoing from here with what we
already have, our abilities, ohyes, one thing I wanted to add
on to, like, you know, theinsecurities, like the ones that
(34:30):
I, I I see a lot of, is, youknow, uh, you know, tired of not
getting the girl that you wantit.
So like, yeah, you know, thethey'll, they'll go for one
insecurity to bring you in andbeing, like, women want the, uh,
the ripped man, and this is howyou can do it, and you're just
(34:52):
like, okay, whatever.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah, the fucking mom pooch sends me every time.
I despise that, but it soundsgross.
It's like, yeah, you had a kid,you've had multiple kids.
Like your body may not be inthe exact same shape as it was
when you were 20.
That's okay, that's normal,it's not something that you need
to be feeling ashamed about.
But they, they throw that in.
So then you do feel ashamed,like, oh, is that something I
(35:16):
should be worried about?
I wasn't thinking about before,but now I am thinking about it
and I'm focused on it and Idon't like it, and so if I can
do this exercise to get rid ofthat, then I'll be hot again.
wrong oh, let's say I know youcannot target fat loss.
I promise, If there was onesimple trick, we would know it
(35:40):
by now.
We would know if there was oneexercise to do, there's one
anything with how fat phobic ourculture is.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Oh God.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Trust me, if there was one thing that you had to do
, if there was one exercise, oreven three exercises, even three
exercises, that all you had todo was just do these, if there
was one simple way we would havefound.
Somebody would have marketed itto you by now because
capitalism, but it would be outthere.
(36:12):
Yeah, it's not because itdoesn't exist.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, Ah.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
I know.
So where?
Where do you see the world offit fluencing going, or how do
we improve upon it Rather?
Speaker 2 (36:28):
is hard.
It's hard to really say because, like you can say, educate
yourself, but where are yougetting the education from, you
know?
So it was like you know, likehuh, I wonder, is this accurate?
Let me you know, google thisand then you're going to see you
(36:49):
know 20, you know fit fluencerssaying the same damn thing.
You know, because, just as yousaid, it's copy paste.
Uh, so so now you see it, youknow, um, google is saying, like
you know, like you know, thisis you know your top 20, like
options and everything, andthey're all saying yes, so how
(37:11):
do you educate yourself?
And, and at the same, like Ithink this is one of the things
that you know, I saw a thing andI I drives me absolutely insane
that we're not doing this.
Um, so, basically, in Finland,they have, you know, by like
(37:36):
sixth grade, they have like anentire year of you know,
teaching kids how to spot scams,how to spot, like, true media
versus fake media.
You know, and that's the thingis that, like you know you, they
teach them how to to check forsources and things like that.
(37:57):
Meanwhile, here in the unitedstates, we have fucking, how you
know, people are controllingthe weather yeah, fema is
digging up lithium.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
that's why, after helene came through, fema was
kicking people out of theirhouses because they wanted to
get the lithium that wasunderneath it was like running
through the area.
Yeah, you have crap like that.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
And it just came worse and worse every fucking
year.
It really is, oh God.
So I mean, I think that youknow, like, uh, how finland does
, like we, we need that.
We like uh, but unfortunately,like you know, then you have
(38:46):
half of america who is like youknow.
See, this is why I don't thegovernment is just trying to
brainwash us and it's just like,so it's, it's just such a um,
it's like watching a tennis, youknow, you know uh, you have uh
people who are, you know,thinking that you know, um,
(39:09):
looking for conspiracies andthings like that, and then you
have like, okay, well, how do webring you know looking for
conspiracies and things likethat?
And then you have like, okay,well, how do we bring you know
truth to light?
And then you know, then thatbecomes well, this is a
conspiracy that you're trying tobring things to light by only
getting.
It's just like oh shit, fuckingyeah, just like back and forth.
Yeah, yeah so I don't know.
(39:32):
I I really think that I likeFinland's idea.
Would it ever fly here inAmerica?
Speaker 1 (39:40):
No.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
No, so it's horrible.
Yeah, it's going to continue.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, I thought about this too and we talked a little
bit about some of this in ourepisode called Decoding
Deception, navigating, ethicsand Credibility being aware of
who made this media and what dothey do and what their
credentials are, and so you cantell people to be like you know,
if you're looking at a photo ora video and somebody's got like
(40:09):
no skin texture, like neverheard of her parts of the video
that move when others don'treally soft, blurred body parts,
hair weirdly white andperfectly shaped teeth, disney
princess eyes, unusual anglesyeah, the list goes on.
(40:31):
You can tell people like watchfor all of these things.
It's exhausting.
Quite frankly, I cannot gothrough every video and
constantly be just like hyperalert.
Do their teeth look like tooperfect?
And watching their skin as theyturn their face?
Is that a flicker on theircheek?
Is that the filter that'sglitching because they turn too
(40:53):
quickly or the lighting changed?
Please, I can't.
It takes a lot of energy toalways be on like that and even
telling people stuff like oh youknow, watch out for anything
personalized, and there arelegit people out there who are
making personalized meal plansand exercise plans, not Brittany
(41:15):
Dawn.
That's why she got sued by thestate of Texas for scamming
people.
If it's too good to be true inthe fitness world, it's a scam
that you can be sure of.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
But yeah, I mean, I think the people who are trying
are sometimes just exhausted orjust don't have the ability.
Again, the filters are gettingreally good.
You may not realize.
I'm confident in the fact thatwithin the past week have I seen
multiple videos with filters onthem and I didn't realize, yes,
(41:49):
because it was good enough andthey knew what they were doing.
All of that it's been proventhat if you give people the
tools to understand how fakenews works and that's fake news
on on all sides and to pickapart you know what is a
(42:09):
clickbaity headline and stufflike that, if you give people
those tools, they are actuallybetter at analyzing media.
But you have to get to them, togive them the tools, and I think
we just we have a lot of peoplewho don't want that.
They're just they're, they'renot interested in it, and so
they're going to happily gothrough life.
So yeah, unfortunately, I'm onthe same page as you that this
(42:30):
is just going to stay and it'sprobably going to get worse For
a little while as we get betterand better at it, that you're
going to see more of thesepeople who, as long as they have
money, they can convince you ofanything because they don't
have to show up in real life ordo anything.
They just have to create thischannel, create this persona,
(42:52):
have these filters potentiallybe paying a real trainer on the
side to come up with actualexercises and they just show you
.
Whatever is the current trend?
I mean, I would believe, forinstance, that chloe ting is
probably actually working outlike real workouts, but she's
not going to show you thatbecause that's not fun, that
doesn't get 25 million views onthe youtube video.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
That that's that gets left out you know, and and
we're getting down to such apoint where you know, like I
think of dr oz, had to show upin front of congress and
basically, you know, got a slapon the wrist and you know, all
(43:36):
you had to do was just change acouple words, uh, and then you
know, carry on yeah, yeah, thesmart ones know, they know not
to promise you anything.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
they know not to.
You know go give too muchinformation.
For those who don't know aboutbritney dawn, she is a scammer
influencer who told people thatshe was giving them personalized
meal plans and I think shespecifically marketed herself
for helping people deal withlike eating disorders and people
(44:11):
who got these meal plans A itwas like triggering eating
disorders and it was like reallyhard for them to deal with.
And then there was a group thathad been formed for people who
were like doing the BrittanyDawn plan and they realized that
she just had like five or sixof these meal plans she was like
giving everyone.
There was nothing personalizedabout it.
So, yeah, she got sued.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Well, I mean, she probably said uh, here you go,
Chris, and that's personalized.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yeah, yeah, I mean she was found guilty, if I
remember correct, or it was likesettled out I'm not really sure
, but it was everyone knows.
Like if you look her up, you'llsee and you're like, yeah,
you're guilty as accused.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Oh God.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
So on our scale O toxicity and I'm aware that
there's a lot that we didn'tcover here but in the interest
of time, just like a brieflittle overview of some of the
delight that is fit fluencingthat you might run into.
Where would you rate fitfluencers?
Would you say that they are agreen potato, make you sick if
you eat it, but you can justscrape off the green part and
(45:21):
you're good to go.
Are they a death cat mushroom50, 50 chance of death or coma
even when cooked?
Or are they a delicious butdeadly last snack of antifreeze?
Speaker 2 (45:36):
so if you would have asked me 10 years ago, I would
have said green potato.
Just based off of what we werejust kind of talking about,
where it's becoming more andmore of quote-unquote factual
information, I think as of rightnow it is, I would have to say
(46:02):
death cap and Rising.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Yeah, I would agree that this is a Deathcap mushroom
, because there are fitfluencers who I have come across
who, again, are legitimatelygood at their specific field and
they stick to their field andthat's what you get.
You know, I'm just doing thisone little thing, and so you
(46:29):
know that that I can deal with,and it's like you know yes,
you're here, you're makingexercise videos.
You're not making me weirdpromises.
You know.
You don't have weird clickbaitytitles.
You're not promising thingsthat you're not only not
delivering but could potentiallybe harmful to someone You're
very upfront about.
Here's what you're going to get.
Good, make that money.
(46:49):
You're doing work.
You deserve to be paid for it.
I support that idea, but thereare so many of them and it's
becoming easier and easier, Ifeel like to get, get out there,
and people have seen that youcan make money from it, like so
many of these things.
And so now it's drawing in thescammers, the ones who realize
(47:12):
that they have, like, goodgenetics and so, with a little
bit of working out, you know,and the right clothing and the
right angles and the rightfilter, they look really good
and they have a greatpersonality, and so you fall for
it and you buy their crapliterally.
I mean, as far as I know, therehaven't been any crazy
incidents of a fitfluencersaying to this or follow me for
(47:36):
that, and somebody has died Notthat I know of.
I could be wrong, but yeah, Ithink that, as you said, death
cap and rising.
It's probably going to getworse before it gets better.
I've stopped watching or gettingany information about working
out from Instagram.
There was some stuff that Iwanted to see and then I could
(48:00):
not get the algorithm to onlyshow me decent quality stuff.
I kept trying so hard and beinglike not these videos, not
these videos.
This video, yes, not this oneand the algorithm just like,
couldn't wrap its head around itand I just don't want to see it
at this point because it'sthere's so much out there and I
don't have the education to belike this is a good exercise.
(48:23):
This is a bad exercise.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
So if you have some supplements to sell us, you can
write to us at toxic, at awesomelife skills.
We are also open to beingsponsored by your supplement
company over on Instagram, onTwitter, on Facebook, on threads
(48:48):
on if it's not banned yet,tiktok, let us know.
For the right price, we willlove your supplement.
Sell it to everyone Until nextweek.
This has been the toxic cookingshow.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
bye bye you.
Hi and welcome to the Toxic Cooking Show, where we
break down toxic people intotheir simplest ingredients.
I'm your host for this week,lindsay McLean, and with me is
my co-host.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Christopher Patchett, LCSW.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Let me set the scene for you.
You're scrolling Instagram orTikTok or YouTube Shorts or
Instagram Reels or Facebook, orit doesn't matter where you're.
Yep, you're scrolling throughand there you see it, and
through, and there you see it.
It's a young, fit male.
He's topless, showing off hismuscles.
(00:52):
Or maybe it's a young, fitfemale and she's in a matching
two-piece pastel bra andleggings set.
They're in the gym and they'retelling you.
Usually it's written on thescreen, or maybe they're kind of
shouting it at you withexcitement.
Before you can scroll away,they hit you with their first
(01:12):
attack Do these three exercisesto get ripped.
Or these three exercises willget rid of your mom pooch.
They'll boost your energy andthey'll snatch your waist.
Rid of your mom pooch, they'llboost your energy and they'll
snatch your waist.
Or my Pilates instructor alwayshas us do these three exercises
to get the fat burning going.
Now you scroll away becauseyou're smart, but you're not
(01:37):
safe.
No, no, no.
The algorithm has seen that youwatch that video and it has seen
that you want more.
You were curious enough to stayjust long enough to be like
what are these three exercises?
What are they?
I'm just, I'm curious.
No, I'm not interested.
No, no, you were interested.
The algorithm saw, and, beforeyou know it, your feed is filled
(02:00):
to the brim with all of thesefit people working out or
wearing oversized headphones.
All the exercises look vaguelythe same, but they all have
these different names and theyall target your deepest
insecurities.
So you keep watching becausethey keep coming up.
You're curious, you know, sinceit's not that harmful, right?
(02:21):
But again, joke's on youbecause the fit flinter, which
is who you have stumbled upon,has lured you in and now they're
going to pounce and make theirkill.
So at some point, one of thesevideos, one of these cute little
videos that you're watching,with three exercises, do these
three reps, whatever they'regoing to hit you with the.
I make sure I stay in the bestshape of my life by always
(02:46):
starting my workout with a scoopof powder from XYZ, who they're
the sponsor of today's video.
I'm just such a fan of theirs,but thank you so much to XYZ
company for sponsoring it.
I can't, you know, get out ofbed in the morning without this.
This really gets my exerciseprogram going.
This gets the fat burning.
(03:06):
You've seen this before.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yes, yes, I have.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yep.
So that night you fall for itbecause you're like, again, it's
not that big of a deal, itcan't be that big of a problem.
It's not that expensive.
It's $9.99 plus shipping andtax.
That big of a problem, it's notthat expensive, it's $9.99 plus
shipping and tax.
Like, I can try this Sure.
So yeah, that night, while youmake your little purchase, the
Fitfluencer feasts well and theyare able to pay their social
(03:35):
media team to keep addingfilters to all their videos.
They're able to pay theirpersonal coach to actually come
up with exercises that keep themfit.
They're able to pay theirmakeup artist to airbrush their
abs, boobs, whatever, beforeeach take, while you're over
there coughing down a supplementthat the FDA has no
jurisdiction over.
Welcome to the world offitfluencing.
(03:55):
Oh boy, now if you're askingyourself, you're like wow, you
guys really hate on influencers.
You've hated on general oninfluencers.
You've hated on like generalinfluencers.
You've hated on mom fluencers.
You're here hating on fitfluencers.
That is correct.
I do hate them, and you shouldtoo.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I'm not even gonna try and hide it and be like no,
no, I hate influencing, I hateinfluencers, just straight up
you know, I never like, actuallytook the time to think about if
I hate them or like them, and Ithink that, yeah, we'll
definitely kind of go into thathere.
But yes, go on.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I mean, I never really thought about it even
until I was writing this episodeand I was, like, I've said the
word fluencer so many timeswithin the past couple of months
and none of it has been good.
So fitfluencing is not new byany means.
This has been around since theidea of exercising to work out
(05:02):
became a thing which is actuallykind of a relatively new
phenomenon within the space ofhumanity, which makes sense,
because for most of humanity youdid manual labor.
Maybe you were training to be asoldier or something else, but
that was included in that.
You didn't have kings who weresitting there like, yeah, I'm a
(05:23):
lift weights.
That that didn't exist.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Or even further back.
You were running from tigersand that's how you got your
cardio in.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Exactly.
No one was like planning.
They're like right, so I'mgoing to at 3 PM.
Guys, let's meet up near thetiger den, and you know, Gronk
is going to like wake them upand then we get our little run
in.
Okay, let's go.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
You know what I would love to see like?
I wonder if there ever was atime where they were like that.
They're like me, belly gettingbig.
Me must work out Me.
Wake up, tiger to run.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Every day this week me wake up, tiger.
We'll never know, but I'd liketo believe that that that is
what happened.
We really don't see until the,the late 1800s, which does kind
of make sense because that'swhen you have a time in history
where you've got people who weremaybe working suddenly had a
(06:24):
group of people who may beworking more sedentary jobs, who
are like, oh, I'm supposed tobe a manly man, I should somehow
do that, but how?
And you see this kind of risein bodybuilding that starts
around that time and basicallyas soon as that appeared, the
bullshit appeared too.
I mean, the bullshit was therebefore, like nutritional
(06:44):
bullshit, like doctors who werenot actually doctors.
That has always existed Badnutritional advice.
But we see the two kind of getconnected late 1800s, and the
father of all of this thatyou'll typically see is Bernard
McFadden.
He was very active in the late1800s and early to mid-1900s, I
(07:06):
believe until up about 1950.
He invented the tabloidmagazine, which should tell you
something, and he also becamefamous for railing against
various health trends likedoctors and gluttony.
Both of these bad Doctors, badgluttony, bad, same bullshit.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Okay, both of these bad doctors, bad gluttony, bad,
same same bullshit okay, yeah,don't, don't.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Don't ask yourself too many questions about that
one.
He also claimed that prolongedfasting would help you live to
the age of 150, which he didn'tlive to 150, so I I'm not sure
what was going on there.
He definitely got some flackfor some of this at the time,
(07:50):
but not enough, because hisprodigy came along, charles
Atlas.
He was active from about the1920s up to about 1970, and he
focused on how to exercise tobecome a real man.
He focused on how to exerciseto become a real man.
One of the ads that he ran atone point read I can make you a
new man too, and only 15 minutesa day.
(08:10):
And if that does not sound likesomething you would see on
Instagram today, just 15 minutesa day do my exercises.
So there was him.
There's also Bob Hoffman, whohosted the first weightlifting
competition in the US in 1924,who then moved on to selling
(08:30):
really bizarre supplements thathe got busted for like for
decades.
Jack LaLanne, who had thelongest running TV exercise
program in US history.
That started in 1953.
He also then moved into sellingvitamins in a juicer.
So you see, there's been ahistory of this for a long time
of like work out, get famous,sell crap.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Every time I think of Jack Lewine, I think of
eyebrows, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yep, apparently the juicer that he created is like
still being sold today.
I wouldn't be surprised.
Yeah, I mean, the juicer thathe created is like still still
being sold today.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yeah, I mean the juice is fine, but you know,
it's one of those things whereyou're like okay.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I mean, if you think about it fast enough, then it
does sound Latin.
You know, you take fruits andvegetables and you throw it into
a machine and okay, yeah, thatthat's that's good.
Yeah, get your fruits andveggies but yeah, at the moment
that you really start thinkingabout everything that's being
(09:36):
taken away from it, then yeah,so then we get into more kind of
names that I believe a modernaudience might know Jane Fonda,
richard Simmons.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
You know, we all kind of have heard about these
people in one way or another.
The idea of like Jazzercise,which actually has been around
since 1969.
Oh wow, I did not know that.
I associate Jazzercise withlike 80s and 90s, 70s.
I did not place it at all, butit was there.
(10:11):
And that's not to say thatthese things are all 100% toxic,
but you see these kinds ofideas of like ooh, there's this
one person who appears and istelling you like do this
exercise, buy my program, buy myvitamins, eat this, I wear that
and look at how good I look.
All of these people have thatin common and that has carried
(10:32):
through.
That unfortunate line hascarried through in today's
fitfluencers.
We're still doing it, we'restill pushing crazy stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Still pushing crazy stuff.
But you know, at least back inthe day it was how you were kind
of saying where you started offas a fifth fluencer.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
And then you progressed to selling shitty
things.
Now we just combine the two.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
And I do give a little morecredit to the people who started
off actually as a weightlifter,as a bodybuilder, as a whatever
, and then they were like, oh,maybe this is really hard on my
body, I need to make moneysomehow else and I have all this
fame, so what do I do?
I sell these other things.
It's not right, but it'sunderstandable and you're right.
(11:22):
Today it's just like same timeand the whole thing is a lie.
We'll get into that, don't youworry.
The first thing I want to pickapart are the supplements that
you'll get.
So we talked about this personwho starts off and is like I
always, you know, before I workout, I add a scoop of this to my
(11:46):
protein shake, or I always havemy protein shake.
I start off my morning with.
There's one company, ag1.
I see them mentioned frequently.
They frequently sponsor peopleand have never tried.
It cannot comment on it, notjudging them as a company, of
course.
So the thing to note when yousee these people who are pushing
a supplement being like, oh,company, of course.
So the thing to note when yousee these people who are pushing
a supplement being like, oh,you should take this, it's got
(12:08):
all these vitamins and mineralsand stuff like that.
The FDA regulates dietarysupplements, which includes
vitamins, differently fromregular food and drugs, and that
means that they actually don'tregulate them.
According to the FDAgov, and Iquote, manufacturers and
distributors of dietarysupplements and dietary
(12:30):
ingredients are prohibited frommarketing products that are
adulterated or misbranded.
That's it.
They are not checking.
Now you cannot make wild claimson there.
A lot of companies still kindwill, but you're, you're not
really supposed to.
But the fda is not checking tomake sure that if you say this
(12:53):
pill has green tea and caffeineand this and that, and they're
not actually checking to makesure that pill has those things.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I do know, like I have seen where on the bottle
will say I have like a review ofit, and then underneath it will
say something along the linesthese statements have not been
reviewed by the FDA.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yeah, and you know, if you were
to buy other food or drugs likeif you were to buy some sort of
medicine again in the US, theFDA is in charge of that and
they're the ones making surethat your aspirin doesn't have
fentanyl in it.
Just we like that, we like thatit has.
You know the ingredients it'ssupposed to and obviously like
(13:37):
mistakes happen and people getbusted.
But just be aware that vitaminsare not regulated at all.
So you should be hyper aware ofanyone trying to get you to
take a supplement of any sort,because, again, no one is
checking what is in thatsupplement that this fitfluencer
is trying to sell you.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I figured with supplements, I didn't think
vitamins, I figured.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, vitamins are actually included in that.
I mean, obviously there arereasons why you might want to
take a vitamin, but in general,if you are a healthy enough
adult eating a semi-balanceddiet, unless you have been
tested by a doctor and have beendiagnosed with a vitamin
deficiency, you don't need to betaking vitamins, even vitamin D
(14:23):
.
Did you know?
In the UK, which is famous forits warm, sunny weather, they
did a study that, if you're,that's valid.
That's important here, becauseif you are, if you have pale
skin, if you spend 10 to 15minutes a day between April and
September outside around midday,that is enough vitamin D for
(14:45):
the year.
This was in the UK.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
So again, if you're an adult, you're eating a
decently healthy diet.
You are going outside.
You're spending time outside.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot of food.
You're eating a lot.
You're probably not vitamin Ddeficient.
You're probably not anythingvitamin deficient, again, unless
you've been diagnosed.
So taking vitamins will nothelp.
You don't need it.
(15:09):
The other thing you have to beaware of with these you know
vitamins and supplements andwhat I eat in a day videos.
These people are pushing at youbecause they're not sharing,
because sharing is caring rightlike they want you to come join
their side.
Come, come, eat like I do.
Come, do all the things.
Because if you're eating like Ido, then if I kind of add in a
(15:30):
little and I always take thisvitamin, you're going to be more
likely to be like I should takethat vitamin too.
But just just think about thatwhen you're watching those
videos.
Are you that person?
Do you have their metabolism?
Do you exercise like they do?
There are so many questionshere that we may look the same,
(15:51):
but there's a lot else that goeson beneath the surface.
That means that you are eatinga significantly higher amount or
a lower amount of whatever thanI should be eating.
Do not take dietary advice frompeople on the internet and also
on that note 1200 calories a dayis starving yourself.
(16:13):
Don't do that.
If you starve yourself, you arenot only going to not lose
weight faster, you will fuck upyour metabolism permanently.
Don't do it.
The other, the final thing thatyou'll see for fitfluencers
(16:33):
when they're talking about foodand vitamins and stuff like that
, when they're kind of gettinginto the woo-woo wellness
influencer territory, they'lltry and tell you that you need
to flush toxins from your system.
So you need to be eating allthese things, and this smoothie
really helps you flush toxins.
Did you know Patches?
Did you know that your body hasa secret hack for flushing
(16:55):
toxins out?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Poop.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Close Peeing out Poop .
Close Peeing it's a really goodjob of filtering out the toxins
and being like whoop out you go.
But pooping, yes, we can gettoxins out that way too.
Your body is great at it.
Your body wants you to stayalive.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
But getting off my supplement soapbox for the
moment.
Getting back to the exerciseportion of Fitfluencers, you may
have noticed when I was givingthe examples that all of them
they always say it's alwaysthree exercises.
These three things, these magicthree exercises and these
magical three exercises aregoing to do three things to you.
(17:40):
You're going to have threeeffects.
This is not a fairy tale, okay.
You are not a character in aSarah J Maas fairy smut book
where the power of three isgoing to make you hot and get
you like sexy fairy Batman.
It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I get it.
The human brain likes thenumber three.
It easy to deal with, it's cute.
We see it all the time instories like in history.
We just we really like it.
We like it mathematically,little triangles like.
But it doesn't apply toexercise schoolhouse rock even
said three is a magic numberyeah, although there was a game
(18:23):
we used to play at camp calledfour is the magic number,
because four is four is four isfour.
I'll.
I'll show you another time.
I'm not gonna play it with youhere and embarrass you and
myself probably.
But yeah, that is a deadgiveaway if you see someone
who's just like three exercises,three positive effects from
doing these three exercises.
(18:44):
No, no, just three exercises.
That's all it takes.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
You know, I've I've always been skeptical when it
comes to uh, because there'salways either three or one.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
No, there's one simple trick, or these three
simple things.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yeah, yeah.
You should be skeptical,because life doesn't work like
that.
That's the thing that we ashumans have created, that we
like this idea.
But your life doesn't need torevolve around the number three
and it shouldn't revolve aroundthe number three.
And so when you see thispopping up over and over and
over again, it is a deadgiveaway that these have been
just like.
These have been copy pasted fromsomewhere else, and people are
(19:25):
just kind of like putting thescript over the video to get you
to watch and click, and there'sa whole scheme I don't know if
that's the right word, but youwill see really similar videos
and text that appear just kindof like all at once, like a
(19:45):
whole bunch of videos will bemade about this and people will
then kind of copy them andspread it, but they are
predominantly being put out bypages that are just here to sell
you supplements.
They just want you to watch thisvideo and then, because you've
watched it, the algorithm islike you want to see more, and
so eventually you watch enough,you like enough, because you're
(20:07):
like it's just three exercises,I can add this into my routine.
Okay, maybe it's not going tosnatch my waist and get rid of
my mom pooch.
But yeah, I can add this inWrong, don't do it, because the
next video is going to be asupplement video.
So finally, you've gotten ridof all of these Fitfluencers
(20:33):
selling you supplements.
You keep telling Instagram no,I'm not interested in this
person.
You've gotten rid of all theones with the terrible dieting
advice because, don't forget,dieting fails an astonishingly
high percentage of the time, andit's not your fault.
Your body is just not made todo that.
So most people like if somebodygoes on an extreme diet, they
(20:56):
may lose weight initially, butunless you stick to that
permanently for the rest of yourlife, like, the weight will
come back Cause your bodydoesn't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah, you know, and and being a bigger guy myself,
like one of the things I do seeoften is the fat guy who is on
the losing 200 pounds andeverything and and you'll see,
like you know, like them youknow, losing the weight and
everything, and then it kind ofseems that the videos kind of
(21:26):
stop once they lose the weight.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, yeah, Because you have to keep up what you did
to get there.
You don't get to just like goback to like add some stuff back
in again, because then theweight will come back on again.
There are people who manage to,but in most cases it's not
viable.
So anybody who's also sellingyou a diet run, run away from
(21:50):
them.
So you've gotten rid of thosepeople.
You know that's fake becauseyou listen to our show and you
believe everything we say, asyou should.
But you're still not safebecause you have one more boss.
You have to beat One more fitfluencing boss.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Molly.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Filters worse than Molly.
I like how you wish it wasMolly.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
As soon as I said her name, she's, she's.
She's now giving me a pissylook, because I woke her up.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
How dare you?
And you're not going to giveher treats.
She had enough treats earlier.
I witnessed it.
So let's not forget that intoday's age, 2025, you can put
filter on or filters on movingbodies and videos, and you've
(22:38):
been able to do this for years.
They're just getting better,like they've gotten a lot better
with AI and all theadvancements there.
You can snatch your waist, youcan make your shoulders look
broader using a filter, and evenif you're moving around, the
filter will stay in place.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
That is probably the scariest thing is because I
remember only like two years ago.
You know you see a footer butlike as soon as the person like
moved their head, you would seelike part of it, like a glitch.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
And you still see that, even with the good filters
.
But I think a the filters havegotten better and B the people
have gotten better at learningwhat you can and can't do with
the filter.
So obviously, if you've got afilter on to make your waist
look smaller, if you put yourhands on your waist you're going
to end up with like horrificlooking fingers, and so people
(23:34):
know this Same thing.
If you've got like a patternbackground, it will, you'll see,
like the stripes bend in wherethe waist is being like in, and
so people will make sure thatthey're positioning themselves
against a background thatdoesn't have anything to be
distorted.
They're going to make sure thatthey're not putting other body
(23:54):
parts in places where they canbe distorted.
And then you don't realizebecause there's nothing
glitching.
If the background is just black, like if they're standing there
talking to their stupid littlemicrophone with their giant
headphones on as a blackbackground and they're just kind
of like moving around a littlebit like this and their hands
are up in the air, you don't seeanything move and so you may
(24:16):
not realize that there is afilter on them.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Oh God.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yay.
But you know, in addition toknowing this, you can do stuff
the old fashioned way.
Let's not forget that you can.
The Victorians actually didthis back in the day.
They photoshopped some of theirphotos.
Have you ever seen like oldVictorian photos where the
woman's got like this littlewaist that may be photoshopped
(24:42):
like 1800s photoshopped?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
well, like with a corset yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
But you'll see some of them and you're like how is
that even possible?
It was photoshopped back in theday they were.
They were able to it in evenmore on top of the corset.
So you can do stuff likeclothing, you can do angles, you
can do makeup.
You can take a cue from dragQueens.
(25:09):
Contour yourself some boobs,some abs.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
So so the first thing that came to mind is and I made
you myself here the MySpace-Duck lips.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
But but you here the MySpace Duck lips.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
By holding the phone up and then that way it's like
pointing down.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
And then this way you're getting the massive
cleavage for the girls and thenthe guys.
Your head is blocking the biggut.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yeah, there are all sorts of ways that you can do
this.
There's a woman I watch onInstagram.
Sometimes she does fashionstuff.
I always weirded me out theangle that she was like taking
her videos from and finally sheaddressed it.
She's like I'm really short, soI have.
I put the camera down at thisangle because it makes me look
tall and I was like, all right,respect, I mean, maybe don't,
because it's very obvious thatyou've picked this angle and I
(26:03):
couldn't figure out why for awhile.
But yeah, you're shorter thanme, so I see why you do it.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
It's funny, glenn Danzig, you ever hear of him.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
So I think he's like five, somewhere between like 5'3
and 5'5, I five, five I think.
But like that's the thing islike uh, if you ever see
pictures of him in the band,you'll kind of see everybody
kind of like crouched down, butyeah, you know the surrounding
him.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Or if you see, like you know, like on his videos,
you'll always see you know thethe down up yep, yeah, we've
been doing this for as long aswe've been taking like
photographs, people haverealized there are good angles
and there are bad angles, andobviously the same applies to
videos too.
Like you can position yourselfin such a way that you know that
(26:57):
with, like the right lightingand you know a little bit of
this, a little bit of that youlook swole as fuck and maybe if
the person saw you in real lifethey'd be like, yeah, dude has
muscle, okay, but like not theway you look in the photo or the
video.
You can have padding like butt.
Padding is a huge thing forinfluencers, for fitfluencers
(27:20):
too, to pad out your butt, likeon the inside.
I introduced you to the idea ofscrunch butt leggings earlier,
before we started recording.
How do you feel looking atthose?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
so, okay, I, I remember I saw a video and it
was.
It was basically one of thesevideos where girl was at a gym
and she's wearing it and she'sshowing off about how you know,
all these guys are, like, youknow, like looking at her and
everything like that, and shewas getting frustrated and
things like that.
(27:56):
Oh, no.
So a guy actually ditched in.
You know he got a pair of thoseand he did the same thing.
He'd go into the gym and youknow he's working out and people
were, just like you know,staring him down and, just like
you know, like staring at hisass and everything like that.
(28:17):
Because, yeah, if you arewearing something that's making
your, that's sole purpose ofmaking your ass stick out, then
people are going to notice anasset sticking out.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
It's very obvious because I have seen them once in
the wild at the gym when I wasgoing to the uvs very briefly,
and I saw them from afar and itcaught my attention.
I was just like damn.
And then I realized I was like,oh no, those are fake, like
that's not actually her butt.
But it catches your attention.
That's the whole point.
Same for the other ones I sentyou the picture of that have,
(28:53):
like the um, a slightly darkerarea, like just underneath again
, to give this illusion of likeit's a shadow and your brain may
recognize that like that's notactually a shadow.
That's the leggings.
Same thing with the scrunchbutt ones, if you don't know
what scrunch butt leggings arewell they are leggings.
Yeah, as the name implies, theseam that goes down the back of
(29:19):
the leggings has ruched fabric,so it draws your attention to
the area and it does make itlook bigger, like.
Obviously, if the person turnsto the side, you can be like
nice, but if you see it frommost angles, it does provide
this illusion of like, wow, nicebutt.
(29:41):
So even when you get rid of theAI, there are still so many ways
that you can convince peoplethat they should listen to you,
because look how fit I am, andI'm really fit and I do these
three exercises.
So if you do these threeexercises, you're going to be
fit like me.
That is the implied idea behindall of these videos, and some
(30:07):
of them are upfront about it.
There's a well-known fitfluencer named Chloe Ting, huge
on YouTube.
A.
This woman knows how to domarketing.
I won't give her credit forthat.
She has very aesthetic videos.
She knows how to writesemi-clickbaity titles and she's
admitted to it.
She's like, yeah, you're notgoing to get around butt in two
(30:29):
weeks, but people click on thosevideos.
And the other thing she likesto do is she'll create these,
like you know, two or three weekprograms and you have to watch
the video multiple times.
So the videos get theseastronomical views on there
because you have something who'slike I'm going to do Chloe
Ting's 2024, two week shred,2024, two-week shred.
(30:51):
And in doing that, you have towatch the ab video five times
and the butt video six times andthe arms video three times.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
And so it's getting all these views.
I give her credit.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, I mean, you know again and she's kind of
admitted it's still not a greatthing to do because you are
leading people on and you couldargue that people should know
that this isn't the case.
But let's be honest, let's takea little look at humanity.
(31:31):
It is unfortunately not the case, and people will believe that
this is what's going to helpthem.
At the very least you may leadsomebody on, and so they start
working out.
They start believing youbecause maybe they're seeing
some effects because theyweren't working out before and
now they're doing this.
And then you hit them with the.
You can buy my workout set here.
That one I don't mind as much.
It's when we get into the.
Buy my workout plan, buy mysupplements, buy this whatever
(31:55):
sponsored thing that you'reingesting that I have a really
big problem with it.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
So and they know.
They know what they're doingand that's why I have such a big
problem with it is that theyare preying on people's
insecurities.
Almost all of these fitfluencers Are there some good
ones?
Yes, there are some people whoknow what they're doing.
There's some people who stickto their lane.
You know like I am only goingto give advice about long
distance running because I am along distance runner.
(32:26):
But yeah, these fitfluencers,they're preying on your
insecurities and they're doingit by all those things I
mentioned above.
They're also relying on the factthat there is all of this
conflicting information outthere.
I mean, how many times have youjust again in your daily
scrolling, within a very shortperiod of time, seen one person
be like you should do thecarnivore diet and then the next
(32:50):
person is like don't eat meat.
Ever you'll see like these two,these wide, like different
things within a very shortperiod of time, that's just for
meat.
There's like do this exercise,don't do this exercise, eat this
, avoid foods in the nightshade.
Family.
Cut out carbs completely, onlywhole grain carbs.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
You should be carb loading.
Yeah, I mean, I think of likeeggs, where how many times have
they been the thing that youshould eat to the thing that you
shouldn't eat?
Back and forth.
Same thing with milk, oh God.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Dairy is really good for you.
Strong bones oh no, oh no.
Dairy is causing all theseproblems.
No, if you eat dairy in thisway, it's got lots of protein.
No, it's gonna mess up yourbowels like, oh my god.
They're just constant and youcan have all these ideas going
at the same time.
So there's all of thisinformation out there and it's
exhausting and it's confusing.
(33:51):
And so when people see astraightforward video that's
just like do these three simpleexercises or follow along with
me as I, you know, give you thisworkout plan to do a two week
shred, just do what I say, eatwhat I eat, do what I do, and
you know, you could look like me.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
People are going to want to do that yeah so where do
you see the fit fluencing worldgoing from here with what we
already have, our abilities, ohyes, one thing I wanted to add
on to, like, you know, theinsecurities, like the ones that
(34:30):
I, I I see a lot of, is, youknow, uh, you know, tired of not
getting the girl that you wantit.
So like, yeah, you know, thethey'll, they'll go for one
insecurity to bring you in andbeing, like, women want the, uh,
the ripped man, and this is howyou can do it, and you're just
(34:52):
like, okay, whatever.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah, the fucking mom pooch sends me every time.
I despise that, but it soundsgross.
It's like, yeah, you had a kid,you've had multiple kids.
Like your body may not be inthe exact same shape as it was
when you were 20.
That's okay, that's normal,it's not something that you need
to be feeling ashamed about.
But they, they throw that in.
So then you do feel ashamed,like, oh, is that something I
(35:16):
should be worried about?
I wasn't thinking about before,but now I am thinking about it
and I'm focused on it and Idon't like it, and so if I can
do this exercise to get rid ofthat, then I'll be hot again.
wrong oh, let's say I know youcannot target fat loss.
I promise, If there was onesimple trick, we would know it
(35:40):
by now.
We would know if there was oneexercise to do, there's one
anything with how fat phobic ourculture is.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Oh God.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Trust me, if there was one thing that you had to do
, if there was one exercise, oreven three exercises, even three
exercises, that all you had todo was just do these, if there
was one simple way we would havefound.
Somebody would have marketed itto you by now because
capitalism, but it would be outthere.
(36:12):
Yeah, it's not because itdoesn't exist.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, Ah.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
I know.
So where?
Where do you see the world offit fluencing going, or how do
we improve upon it Rather?
Speaker 2 (36:28):
is hard.
It's hard to really say because, like you can say, educate
yourself, but where are yougetting the education from, you
know?
So it was like you know, likehuh, I wonder, is this accurate?
Let me you know, google thisand then you're going to see you
(36:49):
know 20, you know fit fluencerssaying the same damn thing.
You know, because, just as yousaid, it's copy paste.
Uh, so so now you see it, youknow, um, google is saying, like
you know, like you know, thisis you know your top 20, like
options and everything, andthey're all saying yes, so how
(37:11):
do you educate yourself?
And, and at the same, like Ithink this is one of the things
that you know, I saw a thing andI I drives me absolutely insane
that we're not doing this.
Um, so, basically, in Finland,they have, you know, by like
(37:36):
sixth grade, they have like anentire year of you know,
teaching kids how to spot scams,how to spot, like, true media
versus fake media.
You know, and that's the thingis that, like you know you, they
teach them how to to check forsources and things like that.
(37:57):
Meanwhile, here in the unitedstates, we have fucking, how you
know, people are controllingthe weather yeah, fema is
digging up lithium.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
that's why, after helene came through, fema was
kicking people out of theirhouses because they wanted to
get the lithium that wasunderneath it was like running
through the area.
Yeah, you have crap like that.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
And it just came worse and worse every fucking
year.
It really is, oh God.
So I mean, I think that youknow, like, uh, how finland does
, like we, we need that.
We like uh, but unfortunately,like you know, then you have
(38:46):
half of america who is like youknow.
See, this is why I don't thegovernment is just trying to
brainwash us and it's just like,so it's, it's just such a um,
it's like watching a tennis, youknow, you know uh, you have uh
people who are, you know,thinking that you know, um,
(39:09):
looking for conspiracies andthings like that, and then you
have like, okay, well, how do webring you know looking for
conspiracies and things likethat?
And then you have like, okay,well, how do we bring you know
truth to light?
And then you know, then thatbecomes well, this is a
conspiracy that you're trying tobring things to light by only
getting.
It's just like oh shit, fuckingyeah, just like back and forth.
Yeah, yeah so I don't know.
(39:32):
I I really think that I likeFinland's idea.
Would it ever fly here inAmerica?
Speaker 1 (39:40):
No.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
No, so it's horrible.
Yeah, it's going to continue.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, I thought about this too and we talked a little
bit about some of this in ourepisode called Decoding
Deception, navigating, ethicsand Credibility being aware of
who made this media and what dothey do and what their
credentials are, and so you cantell people to be like you know,
if you're looking at a photo ora video and somebody's got like
(40:09):
no skin texture, like neverheard of her parts of the video
that move when others don'treally soft, blurred body parts,
hair weirdly white andperfectly shaped teeth, disney
princess eyes, unusual anglesyeah, the list goes on.
(40:31):
You can tell people like watchfor all of these things.
It's exhausting.
Quite frankly, I cannot gothrough every video and
constantly be just like hyperalert.
Do their teeth look like tooperfect?
And watching their skin as theyturn their face?
Is that a flicker on theircheek?
Is that the filter that'sglitching because they turn too
(40:53):
quickly or the lighting changed?
Please, I can't.
It takes a lot of energy toalways be on like that and even
telling people stuff like oh youknow, watch out for anything
personalized, and there arelegit people out there who are
making personalized meal plansand exercise plans, not Brittany
(41:15):
Dawn.
That's why she got sued by thestate of Texas for scamming
people.
If it's too good to be true inthe fitness world, it's a scam
that you can be sure of.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
But yeah, I mean, I think the people who are trying
are sometimes just exhausted orjust don't have the ability.
Again, the filters are gettingreally good.
You may not realize.
I'm confident in the fact thatwithin the past week have I seen
multiple videos with filters onthem and I didn't realize, yes,
(41:49):
because it was good enough andthey knew what they were doing.
All of that it's been proventhat if you give people the
tools to understand how fakenews works and that's fake news
on on all sides and to pickapart you know what is a
(42:09):
clickbaity headline and stufflike that, if you give people
those tools, they are actuallybetter at analyzing media.
But you have to get to them, togive them the tools, and I think
we just we have a lot of peoplewho don't want that.
They're just they're, they'renot interested in it, and so
they're going to happily gothrough life.
So yeah, unfortunately, I'm onthe same page as you that this
(42:30):
is just going to stay and it'sprobably going to get worse For
a little while as we get betterand better at it, that you're
going to see more of thesepeople who, as long as they have
money, they can convince you ofanything because they don't
have to show up in real life ordo anything.
They just have to create thischannel, create this persona,
(42:52):
have these filters potentiallybe paying a real trainer on the
side to come up with actualexercises and they just show you
.
Whatever is the current trend?
I mean, I would believe, forinstance, that chloe ting is
probably actually working outlike real workouts, but she's
not going to show you thatbecause that's not fun, that
doesn't get 25 million views onthe youtube video.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
That that's that gets left out you know, and and
we're getting down to such apoint where you know, like I
think of dr oz, had to show upin front of congress and
basically, you know, got a slapon the wrist and you know, all
(43:36):
you had to do was just change acouple words, uh, and then you
know, carry on yeah, yeah, thesmart ones know, they know not
to promise you anything.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
they know not to.
You know go give too muchinformation.
For those who don't know aboutbritney dawn, she is a scammer
influencer who told people thatshe was giving them personalized
meal plans and I think shespecifically marketed herself
for helping people deal withlike eating disorders and people
(44:11):
who got these meal plans A itwas like triggering eating
disorders and it was like reallyhard for them to deal with.
And then there was a group thathad been formed for people who
were like doing the BrittanyDawn plan and they realized that
she just had like five or sixof these meal plans she was like
giving everyone.
There was nothing personalizedabout it.
So, yeah, she got sued.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Well, I mean, she probably said uh, here you go,
Chris, and that's personalized.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yeah, yeah, I mean she was found guilty, if I
remember correct, or it was likesettled out I'm not really sure
, but it was everyone knows.
Like if you look her up, you'llsee and you're like, yeah,
you're guilty as accused.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Oh God.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
So on our scale O toxicity and I'm aware that
there's a lot that we didn'tcover here but in the interest
of time, just like a brieflittle overview of some of the
delight that is fit fluencingthat you might run into.
Where would you rate fitfluencers?
Would you say that they are agreen potato, make you sick if
you eat it, but you can justscrape off the green part and
(45:21):
you're good to go.
Are they a death cat mushroom50, 50 chance of death or coma
even when cooked?
Or are they a delicious butdeadly last snack of antifreeze?
Speaker 2 (45:36):
so if you would have asked me 10 years ago, I would
have said green potato.
Just based off of what we werejust kind of talking about,
where it's becoming more andmore of quote-unquote factual
information, I think as of rightnow it is, I would have to say
(46:02):
death cap and Rising.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Yeah, I would agree that this is a Deathcap mushroom
, because there are fitfluencers who I have come across
who, again, are legitimatelygood at their specific field and
they stick to their field andthat's what you get.
You know, I'm just doing thisone little thing, and so you
(46:29):
know that that I can deal with,and it's like you know yes,
you're here, you're makingexercise videos.
You're not making me weirdpromises.
You know.
You don't have weird clickbaitytitles.
You're not promising thingsthat you're not only not
delivering but could potentiallybe harmful to someone You're
very upfront about.
Here's what you're going to get.
Good, make that money.
(46:49):
You're doing work.
You deserve to be paid for it.
I support that idea, but thereare so many of them and it's
becoming easier and easier, Ifeel like to get, get out there,
and people have seen that youcan make money from it, like so
many of these things.
And so now it's drawing in thescammers, the ones who realize
(47:12):
that they have, like, goodgenetics and so, with a little
bit of working out, you know,and the right clothing and the
right angles and the rightfilter, they look really good
and they have a greatpersonality, and so you fall for
it and you buy their crapliterally.
I mean, as far as I know, therehaven't been any crazy
incidents of a fitfluencersaying to this or follow me for
(47:36):
that, and somebody has died Notthat I know of.
I could be wrong, but yeah, Ithink that, as you said, death
cap and rising.
It's probably going to getworse before it gets better.
I've stopped watching or gettingany information about working
out from Instagram.
There was some stuff that Iwanted to see and then I could
(48:00):
not get the algorithm to onlyshow me decent quality stuff.
I kept trying so hard and beinglike not these videos, not
these videos.
This video, yes, not this oneand the algorithm just like,
couldn't wrap its head around itand I just don't want to see it
at this point because it'sthere's so much out there and I
don't have the education to belike this is a good exercise.
(48:23):
This is a bad exercise.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
So if you have some supplements to sell us, you can
write to us at toxic, at awesomelife skills.
We are also open to beingsponsored by your supplement
company over on Instagram, onTwitter, on Facebook, on threads
(48:48):
on if it's not banned yet,tiktok, let us know.
For the right price, we willlove your supplement.
Sell it to everyone Until nextweek.
This has been the toxic cookingshow.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
bye bye you.
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