December Bonus: THE 2022 GRIFTIES!
It's the most wonderful time of the year: Mike and Aubrey yell about wellness grifters! In our second annual Grifties, we're honoring (?) the best, worst and weirdest of wellness and weight loss in 2022. We're also bestowing our first-ever LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD on a grifter for the ages. And we're answering a truly groundbreaking question: "what if I told you we could turn regular food ... into squares?"
Some links we talk about along the way:
Drew Gooden: "We Ate the Squares"
Diabetes Med Ozempic in Short Supply as Americans Use It for Weight Loss
‘Liver King’ Admits He’s on Steroids, Says Persona Is an ‘Experiment’
In January's bonus episode, we'll be exploring some of the 700+ stories that you all sent us about your experiences with workplace wellness programs--and there are some real doozies. As ever, if you've got requests for future bonus episodes, tell us in the comments!
See you in January!
M&A
Comments (290)
Why don’t they just fake actor’s bodies? Everything else is fake, we know that and immerse ourselves just fine. Use makeup on more than just their face to add dimension, edit their physique in post. Does it feel terrible to even think about the implications of editing someone like this? Yes and also the actor gets to keep a sense of normalcy around their body and eat real, full meals
"I think that about wraps it up for Dr oz" if only if only
Wha???? He used drugs to get that body? Say it isn't so 😆 Liver King Admits to Fraud in New Netflix Documentary — Here's Why His 'Sorry' Doesn't Cut It https://share.google/MuXG6o6j161wa7wwf
Hello, from 2025. LMAO.
Brutal to come back to this in 2025 with Dr Oz and the other grifty-ist of grifters in this administration
01:02:00. Welcome back Prometheus’s eagle
Garbage dude word salad 😂
A bit late 😂 but killer whales will eat only the liver of great white sharks. There have been numerous cases of attacked where this has been documented n South Africa 🦈
I was gonna say this. Yes Mike it's well documented that they eat it with a knife and fork 🤣 with their fancy squid hats
please put a "we need to be worried" -michael hobbs shirt in the merch store
Looked up brightline eating on google and the first search result was the ED helpline!
Brightline is just Food Addicts Anonymous but expensive. And it's pushed by some self-help/trauma healing YT channels too -_-
Part of the way through this episode and SqarEats seems like a dream come true for people with food texture issues (like myself, autistic & has arfid) although the way they market their products is. Strange and very Nothing
I did a healthy wager and it worked well as motivation until I got covid and stopped riding my new ebike everywhere. I didn't lose the money, though, because I happen to have an identical twin who is thinner than the goal weight I set. She logged into the account and took the weighout video on my behalf. It was great.
wow, that's an iconic scheme. I think you're the only person who's using it any kind of helpfully
How is SquareEats not called SquareMeals? And will their next product be the FoodPyramid?
If someone told me SquareEats wasn’t initially designed either for or by autistics, I would be genuinely surprised. (Saying this as an autistic person who is actually now considering looking into it…)
LOL
I goddamn love how the comments seem like utter nonsense before I listen, and then things like SHARK THUMBS makes sense.
Hi! I’m re-listening to the Grifties (for like the 3rd time 🤣) and in the 2021 episode there are a few mentions of a Noom deep dive to come - did it ever get made?
I was wondering that too!
Shark thumbs! 😂
I've been hearing here and elsewhere that the popularity of Wegovy as a weight loss medication is causing a shortage of the drug Ozempic prescribed as treatment for type 2 diabetes. I googled it and according to goodrx.com they are not interchangeable. Where is this information coming from? Could someone direct me to where this might be covered please? Thanks 😊
Wegovy and Ozempic are two of the brand names for the medication semaglutide. They are not inter-changable as they were both approved by the FDA for different indications and at different dosages. The indication is the condition that the FDA has approved the medication for. Novo Nordisk was approved by the FDA in 2017 to sell semaglutide for weight loss under the brand name Wegovy with dosing of up. to 2.4 mg of semaglutide. Novo Nordisk was also approved by the FDA in 2017 to sell semaglutide under the brand name Ozempic for diabetes with final dosing available in .5mg, 1mg, and 2mg. I do fact checking for pharma (yikes lmao) and heres the sources, which is the prescribing information for both drugs https://www.novo-pi.com/wegovy.pdf https://www.novo-pi.com/ozempic.pdf
I used to love Michael Mosley, he used to be an amazing documentary guy before he got into all the 5/2 stuff. I went to his talk back in the pre-pandemic times and it was super interesting and amazing, then i went to one a few weeks ago and it was absolutely just him trying to sell his and his wife's new cook book, fast 800 keto. and even worse, it was boring.
I wonder if the square eats thing is for individuals with sensory differences? I am a speech pathologist, and I know that some of my neurodivergent clients prefer same textures and shapes.
Ah! I was just going to comment about this! I teach students with exceptionalities and some of my kiddos and the autism spectrum maybe could be convinced to diversify their diet if all their food was the same shape? Haha I would love to see if anyone has tried it!
Ahhh, I'm watching this on April 1st and it's difficult to believe square eats is not an April Fool's episode...
I now need a shirt that says “don’t come into my house with statistics speak” thank you michael 🙏🏻
Oops never mind you already had the link I was going to mention...
Listened to this episode two nights ago + just got an ad on Pinterest for seamoss gel. 🤨 1) I misread the word seamoss as "samosas" about three times and could not figure out what tan + bright pink samosa sauce these people were eating?? very concerning + 2) it looks so bad, dude! literally gloop. maybe it's because I'm neurodivergent, but the texture is so upsetting, I can't understand anyone eating this instead of food. edit: even the people in this ad look put off by the texture
This is giving me flashbacks to working on the neuro floor when they would purée food and then shape it back into a mold of what the food would look like for patients that can’t swallow past a certain consistency… nothing worse than puréed chicken sadly shaped back into the form of an actual chicken part. I’ve never seen such sad eyes looking at food
That brings back a span where I couldn't chew without pain and I just played a lot with what tasted best pureed or mashed or super soft and then made them nice and flavorful with slightly different but interesting textures, (like soft black eyed peas, really silky butternut puree, roasted yams) so I wouldn't get bored. Man I wanted something crunchy soo much though.
I want to share a perspective from the other side of this ozempic thing. I have been gaining weight somewhat steadily throughout the pandemic. At my latest physical my doctor mentioned these new medicines as though they were a miracle and said nothing about any potential side effects just yay drop weight. She did refer me out to another program to manage whatever the treatment ended up being. I looked at the website and everything was just surgery, restrictive dieting, taking medicines to eat less or enjoy food less. Then I started looking at the side effects and decided it was 100% not worth it for me at all and I never would have considered it. I’ve been on a JOURNEY trying to find mental health medications that don’t make my body revolt. I am so disinterested in continuing to experiment with putting stuff into my body just to try to lose weight because someone doesn’t like my weight. (Every health marker is A-OK for me.) The way the medicines were uncritically pitched and pushed without any questions about where I was at or how I might approach it felt gross. And then the weight loss clinic was unbelievably aggressive about trying to schedule an appointment and wouldn’t let me just say “yea I’m not interested” until the fifth time. They kept saying stuff like “your doctor wants you to do this” and I was like “yea cool I’m an adult who pays for it so nah”. If people are benefiting and getting good care in this, I think that’s great. There’s also a real froth of anti-fat bias in how we’re handling this on a societal level though.
I'm really getting the impression there's been some serious perks being handed out for these drugs to be uncritically pushed and written about
square eat has such severe nathan fielder energy
I googled Square Eats because i really thought I had misunderstood what they were (they really are just making food into squares)... then i started getting Facebook ads for something called , "Gem". It seems to be food condensed into cubes so you can take a "natural" multivitamin.
https://apple.news/AtvnSwETdRSeX_XZUAguj0Q
It’s going great so far -
The misinformation about semaglutide and other GLP-1 agonists is kind of upsetting. I get this is a bonus episode but do you normally do all your research on Twitter? This podcast has been one of my very favorites, but I don't like seeing the fat community who have chosen these meds being thrown under the bus and blamed for the shortage as though we're stealing from the more deserving and killing diabetics. For one thing, Wegovy isn't even for diabetes. And for some of us, the side effects really aren't terrible. You'd think that maybe it would be okay that some of us choose to treat our metabolic disorder, and really realize that it's not our fault, that something is causing the weight gain. Feel free to not use it, but it feels like we're not welcome in the in group anymore if we choose a different path. We're traitors. How does that help your message at all? You're just as bad as the mainstream media. What a disappointment.
I don't think they meant that no one should use it to lose weight. My impression was that they were referring to people who are not fat using it for purely cosmetic reasons and disrupting availability for people that use it for conditions like diabetes, not just diabetes.
Hey just a note - Type I Diabetics also use ozempic to prevent diabetic complications from insulin resistance. It'd be great in the future if you include all diabetes rather than just T2 in your discussions unless something truly only applies to T2. Otherwise, great episode, thanks!
That's off label use, just like weight loss is off label use for Ozempic.
Normally I love your show and trust what you guys say but after the talk about semaglutudes being so wrong idk how to feel. As a fat diabetic, no one needs semaglutides to live. That’s just categorically wrong. It’s been an amazing med that controls my blood sugar and makes me feel better and I don’t feel hungry all day long, however, I would survive without it as I could easily take insulin which would do the same thing except insulin makes you gain weight while gl1ps prevent that part. While I don’t agree with ppl who are 10-20lbs over their ideal weight taking it because it is inappropriate but people who are 80 or more lbs over and have any sort of insulin resistance or high blood pressure etc that stuff is really helpful.
Thank you for saying that. I am so tired of people saying I am stealing medication from diabetics. The one I am on was released in June! What the hell was saving their lives before that?! I have lost 80 lbs, avoided a costly and painful foot surgery, cured my sleep apnea, and was able to stop taking heart burn medication for my debilitating reflux. Being told I’m part of a “grift” because I hadn’t been officially diagnosed with diabetes — though I was right on the cusp — is super insulting and gave me the ick on the show. Sorry, but people’s prescription medications are different than square food or whatever bullshit Dr. Oz is selling. What a terrible, uninformed take. And, by the way, Ozempic IS a weight loss drug packaged as Wegovy. Same thing, different name. No one with diabetes is dying because they cannot get this medication. That’s disingenuous and lazy reporting. Aubrie is for sure not the only person spreading this nonsense, but I did expect better of her so it was extra disappointing to hear myself characterized as stealing medicine from diabetics.
As an autistic person with sensory related food issues, a lot of the jokes you made about square eats describe my actual complaints about food. 🤣 To be clear, I am not offended. I thought it was hilarious.
You should definitely do an episode on Dr Michael Mosley, he was/is huge in the UK, he's had TV shows and very popular books. His first book on IF "the fast diet" in 2013 was the first place I heard about IF, which was followed up in 2019 with "the fast 800" I'd be interested to know if he was a pioneer pusher of IF or just following an overseas trend.
He really encapsulates the experiment-on-yourself method. I am all for working out what works for you, but I would never do a TV show about and insist other people try it
ok but regarding IV drips for hangovers, if you're that health-conscious and concerned about "toxins" and such... why are you drinking alcohol at all, let alone to excess? Those kinds of people are so inconsistent I can't deal.
right! i’ve never understood it.
Ugh I know you don't want to do another "drug companies are bad" episode but just read this article literally spouting drug company views as news because they're up to their old shit but now they claim weight loss drugs will stop anti fat bias. The "biological cause" idea has been at the heart of fighting mental health stigma for a long time now think it will help with fatphobia? httpss://www.smh.com.au/national/a-new-weight-loss-drug-is-having-remarkable-results-could-it-also-change-the-way-we-talk-about-obesity-20230113-p5ccfj.html
Sydney Morning Herald has really declined. It has been getting worse for decades and when Channel 9 bought it, it became much worse. Unfortunately, Australia has the most concentrated media when compared to other democracies.
I’ve been working my way through all of your episodes and patreon content and was going to search for your email so I could ask you to PLEASE cover liver king and you guys read my mind with this one. thank u 0:-)
I would love to hear an episode about navigating medical visits as a fat person/how to advocate for yourself when doctors are shitty. I know you’ve both touched on these issues in previous episodes but I know it’s a really prevalent issue for fat people, myself included. Thank you both for being amazing humans! I love the show and I’ve learned so much from listening.
happy new year Mike & Aubrey! I was wondering if you two may consider doing an “evolution” of how you (Aubrey) went from dieting for many years to the place you’re at now with doing anti-fat bias work, authoring your books, and this podcast. I understand you learned a TON about the science of weight and health, but how did you kind of evolve from doing all kinds of diets to rejecting what is such a deeply rooted anti-fat social narrative? I also understand that is probably very personal and raw, but I thought it may be interesting to hear about. Love & appreciate you both!
I just listened to the Ed McMahon episode and had kind of a flashback to the 70s. I am 62 so I grew up in that era. My father was a huge fan of Adelle Davis, a popular yet controversial nutritionist of that era. And he was a fan of another fairly strange writer, Euell Gibbons- who advocated eating foraged wild plants and wrote a series of books- like Stalking the Wild Asparagus. Thankfully we lived in a big city, so we never ate wild plants for supper. But the 70s definitely had a streak of the “natural” foods will make you healthy movement. Also lots of anti fatness, tho not as you say, not at the institutional level of current times. I also remember those met life height/weight tables. Flashbacks!
Love your podcast! Thanks so much🥰
Just listened to this episode and wanted to let you know I found the podcast through a TikTok dietitian. Love at first listen.
I cannot begin to explain the psychological damage that optivia inflicted on me. It absolutely gave me an eating disorder and 5 years later I still have to fight the idea that eating potatoes is somehow morally wrong
Wait those weight loss drugs actually slow stomach emptying?! That’s literally a disorder called gasteroparesis, which I have lol. Ppl with severe presentations have to go on all liquid diets because they can’t keep down solid food…and people are giving it to themselves on purpose?!? Bleak.
Ugh, same! I feel such rage at the thought that people believe that a digestive disorder is better than being fat. Also, my emptying is delayed and I am not skinny lol...it just ruins food/enjoyment/life every day!
I was delighted to open Burnt Toast in my podcast feed this morning and find Aubrey talking about her book! I hope others here check out this week's episode because it was so interesting to get more insight into the book. (Also, you know when you want to be friends with a podcast host? Aubrey recommending Taskmaster, which I cannot stop watching, really intensified this for me!)
Audrey watches Taskmaster, too? *Fangirling increases*. Such a great show!
Will you be doing be an episode on the new guidelines put out by the American Academy of Pediatrics? As a parent and an educator, I am seeing red…
Me too! Unconscionable.
I just busted myself measuring 17 inches on my office chair to get an idea of how I would fit in a standard airplane seat because I’ll be traveling in February. I couldn’t afford first class this time because airline ticket prices have gone up so much. I’m obsessing over what pants to wear. Which ones will hold me in the most? Should I wear suck wear as well as tight pants? Can I stand to wear all of that for 16 hours worth of travel? I’d be interested in hearing about the evolution of airplane seating. Meanwhile I’ll be over here having a month long anxious meltdown, hoping against hope that I don’t have to sit next to someone mean.
Please dress comfortably for you. It's bad enough you may have anxiety, give yourself a break and at least be in comfortable clothing during the 16 hr trip. You deserve that!
Ok, Squareeat is marketing to the wrong audience... I could call it Minecraft food and feed it to my kids 😂
Hampl SE, et al "Clinical practice guideline for the evaluation and treatment of children and adolescents with obesity" Pediatrics 2023; DOI: 10.1542/peds.2022-060640.
New Horror: I'm a doctor and I just got the new AAP (American Assn of Pediatrics) Guidelines: 'Watchful Waiting' No Longer the Right Call for Child Obesity - which includes: "providers should refer children ages 6 years and older -- and potentially those ages 2 to 5 years -- with overweight or obesity to intensive health behavior and lifestyle treatment" - like medications and surgery. Wasn't torturing children with starvation diets at 5 and screwing up their tiny metabolisms then enough? arrrrrghh this world...
This is a terrifying development. When will obsessive focus on size and appearance be too much? Do you feel doctors will actually prescribe bariatric surgery for a 13yo? Let's not fool ourselves, this move is driven by profits, not health--big pharma lobby? dieting industry? Every healthcare professional I know all agree that BMI is worthless yet docs are still using it as a metric to "treat" obesity. Now, we're going to tell overweight kids, your body is not good enough on the outside so we're going to cut you open and mutilate your internal organs so you can be "normal;" and, yes, we kjnow, you're still not finished growing; here, have some amphetamine-type drugs at age 10 so you MIGHT not develop HTN when you're 44 yo. It's unconscionable. Where are all the studies showing how healthy post-bariatric surgery patients are faring? How about studies showing improved metabolic health markers 10 years after a person sheds significant weight?
Sometime can y’all do a movie review of The Whale? It looks awful so I don’t want to see it, but would enjoy hearing y’all rant about it…
Fun fact -- Channing Tatum went to my high school for a while. I am older than him tho so I haven't met him. Upon reflection, maybe this fact was not very fun.
The requirements for dudes in action movies to look increasingly musclebound is really weird. Go back and watch Raiders of the Lost Ark and the first Star Wars. Harrison Ford was a massive sex symbol, and you couldn't count any of his abs. Hell, watch the first X-Men movie and compare it with the later ones - Hugh Jackman is in great shape for the first film, but apparently not great enough. Each film he gets subsequently more weirdly muscular. Doesn't make sense from a dramatic perspective, where the lead character has muscles that can only be obtained by 6 hrs in a gym every day. When would he ever find the time to spy/be a superhero/kick bad guy butt?
Aubrey saying "shark thumbs" really got me hahahahah
I'm so toxic that I want to suggest y'all do a taste test of the square thing. But I also 80 percent believe that it is a hoax and money laundering system 😂😂😂😂 Also isn't raw meat going to make you sick? There is a reason that meat must be cooked to a certain temperature
Just pre-ordered the new book. I got Audrey’s book and Harry’s book. 01/10 is gonna rule
There was an episode of a British detective series once where people were being killed by being fed dog liver which contained a toxic amount of vitamin A and that's really all that I can think about when I hear the word "Liver King".
I really thought I started listening to an interdimensional cable commercial from Rick and Morty during the square segment...
He was almost on to something with the great whites eating liver, except that it seems we have more evidence of the great whites having their livers eaten by orcas! https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/killer-whales-orcas-eat-great-white-sharks
When I used to do crossfit, a trainer started up a hard75 group right before covid. I tried to do it but once lockdown started and we were no longer meeting in person my persistence trailed off 😂
75-Hard! I’m embarrassed to admit I used to listen to his podcast 🤦♀️Before he got unhinged and alt-right political it was all about entrepreneurship, mindset, personal development etc. It was helpful for me at a particular time in my life. But then he got very pro trump and once COVID hit he went off the rails. The guys name is Andy Frisella. He had (not sure if it’s still up or if he changed the name) a podcast called “The MFCEO” and now it’s called “Real AF”. It’s a little much. He’s like the male equivalent of Tomi Lahren now. Needles to say I tuned out a while ago. He actually used to be very overweight and 75 hard was how he lost/loses weight on the regular.
Optavia took over all at my boutique gym. In Jan 2019, there was a New Year fitness challenge that I wanted to join thinking it was going to be along the lines of go to a workout 4x/week. It turned out to be an Optavia sales pitch and noped out of the challenge. I am no longer a member of the gym but I still follow a couple of my (former) favorite trainers. They are ALWAYS hawking this junk by utilizing BLATANT fatphobic language and giving advice that you would have seen on pro-ana tumbler pages.
Octavia took my neighborhood by storm sometime during 2021. Everyone was into it, pushed by one of the women who got really into "fitness". I had to unfollow her social media because the fatphobia got so bad. It makes me really sad and nervous for her teenage gymnast daughter.
Robert Pattinson was lying about not working out for the Batman movie. There was a small flurry of articles early last year.
I can think of a market for square food: people with sensory issues around food, specifically, assuming the squares wouldn’t trigger that (I could barely listen without gagging. 😂)
Obviously I love everything put out by Aubrey and Mike and want as much of it as I can get, or what would I be doing here? At just about minute 52 the audio cut out to silence. Is it just me or did anyone else have this issue? I’m desperate for the end of the 2022 Grifties! Happy New Year to all!
I didn't have that issue ?
"Drains your willpower" = exercise will make you hungrier and you're already not eating enough
I forgot I listen to everything on my podcast app at 1.25, so whenever I listen to bonus episodes in my browser, Aubrey and Mike sound stoned. I love it.
I think I need a motivational video of Aubrey shouting random nouns.
I agree with this
It would truly be a dream come true if there was a way you could do an episode with Anthony Warner (The Angry Chef) as a guest! I imagine that would be the most incredible conversation. Love you guys! Thanks for another amazing year ❤️
Slightly disappointed there was no squareats taste test
I don’t want to see them suffer, but I would enjoy it.
The trend of doctors prescribing diabetes meds to non-diabetics for weight loss is not new. About a decade ago I was seeing an endocrinologist for "treatment" of my hypothyroidism (main side-effect: rapid permanent weight gain) and PCOS. One of the other side-effects of PCOS is insulin resistance, which is labelled "pre-diabetes" - as if anything that's not diabetic is NOT pre-diabetic. He said one of the things that interferes with the body's ability to make use of insulin was fat stored in the abdomen - a symptom of PCOS. And that such retention made it hard to lose weight. He then told me I should try and lose the weight around my abdomen... so I would then be able to lose weight?! Anyway, the man was a quack and an idiot, and clearly just wanted to blame patients for the conditions that he was supposedly licensed to treat. Needless to say, he did NOT hear me when I told him I didn't overeat. That my size was caused by a collection of factors INCLUDING the conditions I was specifically seeing him for. The last straw was the appointment where he offered to give me a fraudulent diabetes dx so that my insurance would cover the latest and greatest of injectables for diabetics - "It's called Byetta! It's like a lap-band in a box!" I asked him if I didn't overeat, and this kept me from eating, wouldn't that just mean I was starving?" He literally ignored my question and I told him no. Once I got home I found a website that reported the amount of $$$ that doctors had accepted from pharma companies, and that year he made more than my salary just from pharmaceutical bribes alone. Several years later, I became for real diabetic. OCD levels of self-testing confirmed what I eat has had no effect on my blood glucose levels, but the metformin I'm on controls them pretty well. I am still fat. And I believe Byetta is now the subject of those "If you or a loved one were prescribed Byetta and have suffered illness or death, you may be entitled to compensation" commercials. As for the endo, I'm sure he's happily passing out fraudulent diagnoses. The whole medical community is to blame for this fatphobia much, much more than "influencers" on the tiktoks.
I believe the reason it took off this year is because Wegovy was officially approved for weight loss and had shown the most effective results so far. It’s been so popular that it’s in a shortage - many people still can’t access the lower doses even if their doctor is willing to prescribe. So what people have been doing is trying to obtain Ozempic (same drug, but for diabetics) since it wasn’t in a shortage at the time. That’s what went viral.
In the "Glorifying Obesity" episode just posted I just wanted to note another piece of logic behind the people saying images of fat people doing things glorifies obesity. They are basically saying that keeping fat people out of our media and telling everyone that fat people can't be beautiful is essential to making our population skinnier. If we all agree that it's fine to be fat and fat people get just as many opportunities as thin people, then there is no societal incentive to be thin and so people won't work so hard at it. Aka it is essential our society keeps treating fat people terribly otherwise there won't be as much pressure to be thin. So basically societal bullying is a good thing and essential. Being pro-bullying and encouraging other people to bully is such a shitty opinion to actually confess to having
Hoping for a Noom episode soon! (I’m still cranky about wasting money on that app)
Came up with a texture ruining nightmare instead of the Minecraft food that would be fun like pixels.
This is what I was thinking too! I'm ADHD and test right on the border for being on the spectrum, and I could see how this could be beneficial if the texture wasn't a nightmare.
I'm autistic so the square food actually really appealed to me at first! Weirdly, I am the audience for food cubes. I'm sad that they came jo
I was thinking the same exact thing :p
Completely lost it when I got to that part and saw the photo.
Hi guys! On the square food, one of my fave youtubers uploaded a video trying it: https://youtu.be/Ws_YyegWGKY He goes into quite a bit of detail and includes a taste test, pricing etc. But it’s a really good and funny watch :-)
Andy Frisella (the 75 Hard guy) and his supplement store franchise fascinates me. It is literally a cult following and I’m convinced all of his employees are contractually obligated to maintain a very specific social media presence. They all post the same fitness and supplement stuff in basically the same format and worship this guy. It’s whack!
I used to listen to his podcast years ago. I found to very helpful at a specific time in my life but he started to get political and say things that were red-flagey then Trump happened and his political opinions came out. THEN COVID happened and the gloves came off. I stopped listening. There are a bunch of people in his cult of personality peddling the same ideas :/
Squares sound like space food. Or like something someone who hates food and having to eat at all came up with. Also, the waste involved in the packaging!
Just thinking about the 'bizarrely experience devices' genre have you ever seen an embr? It's supposed to help with hot flashes using special vibrations. My husband is a PhD physical chemist and he's taken a look at their materials and they really don't provide enough information to make an actually informed choice. Obviously their only study is one they paid for because who would test the rose gold encoldening watch. Being able to make myself cooler is a big quality of life thing for lots of people and I'm so sus of these hugely spenny bracelets
If you do end up doing a full episode on the GLP-1 drugs I hope you touch on the fact that there’s a link between them and pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. Because I guess the risk of an aggressive cancer with a terrible prognosis is better than being fat. 🤨
The thing is you really need to be careful to distinguish between the weight loss marketing and the fact that these drugs are very effective for T2D. My risk tolerance for diabetes treatment is a lot higher, given the known sequelae of the disease. The big issue here is teasing out issues with diabetes and weight, which is a very complex question.
I really think you guys need to do more research on ozempic and monjouro. Diabetics are usually given other meds first. Also, it’s not a life threatening med for them it’s supplemental to their primary medication. It’s also approved for weight loss. I love this show, but some of us still want to lose weight while dealing and learning about our own person fat shaming. The medication has been really helpful for many people. I’m on my feet 12+ hours and the extra weight has been killing my feet and joints. The stress and emotional eating makes it hard to lose.
Do you think that even a "supplemental" medicine should be given to people who want to lose weight instead of people with diabetes? There is a limited amount of it being made, people are paying cash for it to lose weight and diabetics are going without medication they need. There are MANY medications that aren't "life threatening" that are still life-altering.
Shark thumbs!!
The square foods remind me of the molded pureed foods used in hospitals and nursing homes for patients with dysphagia... I wonder if that's where they got this idea.
Maybe good for ND people too? My autistic son would be all over these
Guys guys guys. Tarte cosmetics has an undereye concealer called Shape Tape. It’s quite successful, the name has become its own brand within a brand, now expanding into other products. Anyway I wonder if there was a legal battle between them and Tape Shape.
Speaking as a long-time listener/huge fan of Maintenance Phase and YWA: I don't know BLE by name, but it lines up similarly to a close family member's measured-food-with-support-system of ~10 years. I get that measuring and setting rules about food could set off ED alarm bells and be grumpy-fying to hear about. But I was surprised to hear this described in a Grifties episode, let alone called "deranged." My family member said that after decades of struggle with binge-eating, the structure of specifying when and how much they were going to eat (minimum as well as maximum) was freeing and helpful for them personally. I don't know if BLE is being pushed onto unwilling listeners, or marketed as a universal good. But my family member has never even suggested any of us try their diet. On the other hand, the "friends," family members, and coworkers who give them shit about weighing their food are the same ones who fat-shame and ask fat people "Are you sure you need to eat that?" Also, I think of Michael Hobbes as a fact-checker. I don't understand how he read "She discourages adopting a NEW exercise regimen during this time period" and heard "If you enjoy riding your bike or walking to work, STOP IT RIGHT NOW." What the heck, dude. Given the number of times I've heard "If you want a donut, eat a $#&@# donut!" on this show, it strikes me as weird that "If you want exactly 4 ounces of meat and 8 ounces of veggies, eat exactly 4 ounces of meat and 8 ounces of veggies" is somehow worthy of derision.
I wish Mike and Aubrey engaged a bit in the Patreon comments. When people point out errors they have made, they simply aren't ever addressed. Not here or on the show. I think the podcast would also benefit from the hosts inviting expert guests on. Neither of them are researchers or scientists, and they get a lot of stuff wrong because they don't actually have deep knowledge of the topics.
Are we all going to just pretend aubrey didn’t say “we aren’t rubbing anything” and give me the sound bite I needed to go on?!
I'm autistic so the square food appealed to me at first but goddamn....
I'm sure I'm being ridiculous with this, but texture limits a lot of what I'm able to eat. So like if there was a way to get the flavors and nutrition in a format that we can expect texturally, that would be great for the Autism community.
Red light therapy is an old old old skincare treatment that estheticians in general haven’t done for ages. But perms have come back so I guess the red light crap has too 🤪
Thanks for another fabulous edition of the Grifties! Just wanted to add Mina Le's analysis on the re-rise of heroin chic and "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" toxicity in 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsfhPerez2Q
Ok I gotta say, as a person with Autism Spectrum Disorder the square food thing is actually REALLY appealing to me 😳 I have always struggled with food textures and usually default to the same safe/consistent foods to a fault…and in the process I know I’m probably missing out on certain nutrients and variety but I just can’t get past the “mouthfeel” of even the most basic vegetables and animal products. I would loooove to just eat a nice, smooth consistent and nutritional square of something. Not to mention the aesthetic appeal…mealtimes would be wayyy more enjoyable if it involved selecting and arranging colored squares on a plate 🤓 The Square Eats marketing is pretty awful though, their purpose seems aimless and I’m really surprised they didn’t mention or try to appeal to ASD folks at all!
i literally scrolled through all the comments to find someone talking about ASD with the squares thing! i was thinking exactly the same thing!!
Food scientist chiming in to say that we typically develop a few "wellness shakes" a year and then sell them to multiple companies with minor tweaks. They're all about the same, just with a different flavoring system and maybe a different vitamin mix or balance of macronutrients. People spend so much money and don't realize that (depending on their health needs) they could probably get about the same nutritional profile and energy boost from a glass of regular or chocolate milk and a vitamin.
Please pin Gem (the multivitamin you eat not take) it’s a CUBE it’s a whole new dimension from squares.
Is that the one that looks like a weekend fish feeder you'd stick to the side of the tank?
YES. Optivia is infecting my social media timelines. I *guess* they're not allowed to show the name, so my friends who sell it are all secretive about it. Fingers over names and 'pm me for more info on your health journey!' Blah.
the "read any book" guy - is that why rightwing nutjobs keep talking about reading books as a masculinity thing lately?? without ever recommending any actual books?
When I tell you I SCREAMED when you brought up fake Dr Michael Moseley... I feel like he's my eternal nemesis.
Aubrey is totally right about her point at the end that "those shares are all still shares," but in this episode also chose to highlight this weird squareat thing that seems like 100% a scam and also has under 1,000 views on youtube.... This podcast is so much more popular than squareat. I feel like they just gave a lot of free promo to a thing no one would otherwise know about?
A family member tried to sell me Optavia at Christmas dinner. Her pitch was I could eat all the Christmas goodies and start the meal plan the next day to lose three pounds a day. I told her that did not sound healthy or sustainable. She countered that the government would not allow it to sold if it wasn’t healthy and safe. She’s not a dumb person but has this blind spot. I did not realize it was a MLM company.It makes her hard sales pitch make a lot more sense.
It’s a terrible plan, I was on it for about 9 months before I fully realized “oh hey, this is textbook eating disorder behavior” and the guilt and the humiliation at having to send a picture of your scale every week. I could go on.
Omg! Please please do a deep dive on Optavia (Op TA Vee Ah). It is another fast lane to eating disorders. All the training is there- limiting calories, weighing and measuring food, restriction lists GAH!!! It also has the wonderful added benefit of weekly doses of guilt and humiliation. Every week you stand on the scale and take a photo of your # number and send the photo to your coach. If your number isn’t lower that week you get a phone call or text to find out what YOU are doing wrong and what adjustments you need to make. ( usually more restriction. There is no exercise on this plan. Exercise throws the body out of “fat burn” which is not a thing. If you get sick they also have guidelines on what kind and how many cough drops you can have. It also has major cult vibes bc when diet stops working (as all diets do) the blame is put on the dieter with a LOT of guilt and a dose of shame. No fruit- bc you can’t have any sugar in any form. I was in this for 9 months and was constantly told about how I could finally live the life I was meant to once I lost the weight. My disordered eating was trigger, I felt like crap all the time, no exercise and when I decided to quit I got a huge dose of “how can you do this?” What I realized is that there was no exit ramp on this. You don’t move back into “normal eating” you are expected to eat their food for the rest of your life. It’s a really bad one, please expose this dangerous diet.
The irony of the theme music starting while Aubrey's sharing her final thoughts for the episode
The Optavia discussion was making me want an episode on the large number of wellness MLMs generally - Optavia, Beachbody, doterra and young living, herbalife, isagenix, etc. Many of these have targeted and preyed upon those with chronic medical issues, as well as the typical mlm scamminess of generally preying on a lot of folks who need more money.
Agreed. It totally floors me that MLMs are 1. Something that continues to scam people, 2. Legal at all. It would be interesting to hear a maintenance phase take on it
So glad you guys mentioned Michael Mosley ! I emailed a couple months ago about him & I'd love an ep about him. He has the entire middle aged population of the UK in a chokehold - it's damaging he will be on mainstream TV as an "expert"
Australia too! I think my parents have every one of his books and people are always talking about doing the 5 and 2. Please do an episode on him!!
Burnt Millipede would HATE Square Eat ❎
Optavia is like a shady family owned restaurant that keeps getting shut down due to health code violations, so someone else in the family "buys" it and changes the name, but literally none of the business practices change.
Wegovy is APPROVED for weight loss and is effective. It is a higher dose than the T2D version. Not everyone experiences side effects. There is a patient copay program that makes it affordable.
I’ve had zero side effects except for eating a comfortable amount of food and losing weight
Oh hells yes, I’d love an episode on Michael Mosley!
Re lizzo, there’s also a huge problem where women (especially Black and fat women) are expected to stay silent and “just take it” no matter how much abuse is hurled their way, so even the vaguest of responses will be seen as “oh, there they go again making a huge deal…”
Okay, so the square food thing - if it is puree/gelatin consistency, this sounds like a godsend for some of the folks that have issues with swallowing solid food that I've known. Pureed everything gets old after a while. So, like any other things that look silly on the surface (pre-pealed oranges, etc) it does have applications for folks with certain disabilities. HOWEVER: How they are advertising it is ridiculous. There are so many other angles they could take (Transitional baby food! Soft diet!) that would make this better.
Also, having listened all the way through, the fact that it tastes like crap is a Problem.
The Liver King could never run for Senate because then he'd have to wear a shirt.
İs that actually a rule? Cuz if it's just an unstated norm...
For more info/antidiet analysis on Hard 75 I’d recommend the Fit Literate podcast!!
Someone was told to "eat 3 square meals a day" and asked no follow up questions
I have seen the healthy wager commercial and been disgusted by it! I had wondered what Audrey and Michael would think, so I was so happy to hear it come up
One good thing I’ve found this year is the good science babe on instagram who debunks all the crazy things people say about seed oils and other nonsense.
Yes!!! I am a food scientist who tried to do that on IG and quit due to the intense hate (including threatening death and SA) from keto bros and other men who are very invested in "wellness". I honestly don't know how TFSB does it.
Ummmm….. this is what I did when making food for my baby. Steam or cook, purée and then freeze in ice cube trays before storing in bags.
We aspired to this for, like, 1 day. We often gave chunks or purée of whatever our dinner was to baby, but apparently tried to freeze stuff for the future at some point. Because when we got a new fridge 2 years ago I found a very old ice cube tray full of unidentifiable frozen purée. At that point the baby was 9 years old.
As I was making my breakfast this morning I realized that I already have the perfect cube food in my house! King Arthur Baking “Jammy Bits”. Tiny little cubes of sweet happiness that you can throw into your oatmeal or baking as you see fit. (Though the real hero of the bunch is their cinnamon bits, which are unfortunately not cube shaped.)
It also reminded me of this bizarre daydream I had as a child with undiagnosed sensory processing issues: a giant cube of white chicken meat devoid of any gristle, bone, or any other indication that it had ever been part of an animal. Just homogeneous white chicken meat processed to within an inch of its life in a giant cube. Like James and the Giant Peach proportions. As I type this it seems even more bizarre than before. I think I also had this idea that an amazing giant meat cube like that would be an efficient way of feeding a lot of people. But now that sounds even more bizarre so I’ll stop now with this cube food fantasy of my youth…
Lol I’ve never been more ready to take a bite out of my square life ahahaha
Re: the podcast becoming more political as right wing grifters overlap with health grifters, I had this conversation with a patron about factcheck.org. They were trying to convince me that it’s a partisan org because they seem to fact check RW pols more and I had to be professional and couldn’t say “maybe those are just the ones on average who lie more??” 🙄 just kept repeating about it being a nonpartisan nonprofit project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center idk!
Historically, and not that long ago, this health grift stuff was nonpartisan but increasing as you went to political extremes. So you'd get these left wing hippies who hated medicine because capitalism and then the right wing health freedom grifters. Since trump, it's been increasingly right wing and some former left wingers have switched sides. The Conspirituality podcast (which Aubrey was on a few weeks ago) has been delving into this.
Shark thumbs!
I love you, Aubrey and Michael, so I have to set you straight on Bright Line Eating. First, please understand that BLE is not just a diet program. Sure, anyone can use it to lose weight, but it’s designed to retrain our brains to eat 3 full, healthful meals automatically, every day, without thinking about it, without food cravings or obsessing over food. And it works! 2) BLE, based on Overeaters Anonymous, is especially for those of us who are food addicts and compulsive binge-eaters who can’t stop eating ourselves sick on junk foods that are literally killing us. And in this, BLE succeeds where The Emily Program and Melrose failed us over and over again with their “everything in moderation” bullshit. Those clinics set us up to fail; addicts can’t do moderation. I’ve heard that BLE is also very effective at training anorexics to eat real food, real meals, and stay alive--but I don't have experience with that. 3) Michael, you misspoke when you said that we can’t exercise on BLE. Of course we can! What’s recommended is not starting a NEW exercise program while in the weight loss phase. There are several reasons for that: • We’re trying to focus on “getting our food right” once and for all and that’s a hard enough task. • Exercise increases hunger. • The Compensation effect is an exerciser’s downfall, “I worked out today, so I can eat extra ___.” 4) Measuring our food isn’t about denying ourselves. It helps the highly-addicted to control their binging. It also ensures that we are eating all that we need to have. People trying to lose weight or maintain a weight loss tend to eat less (fats, in particular) than they should, which is not healthy and often ends with a pendulum swing in the other direction. And we don’t always have to weigh/measure our foods, just until we recognize by sight our own “bright”-sized portions. Same with writing down our meals in advance; that’s not necessary after we reach automaticity. 5) BLE is also grounded in loving support of each other as we go through this learning process, realize our goals, and help and celebrate each other along the way. (I don’t do a whole lotta that, frankly, since I lean toward autodidacticism and introversion.) 6) BLE is available to anyone who wants it. You don’t have to pay $1000 for a bootcamp or shell out $hundreds a month for special foods. You can: • shop for everything at a regular grocery store, • join an inspiring, supportive BLE community free on Facebook, • and learn the hows and whys of eating “bright” by reading the BLE book free from the library. I’ve been BLEating for 5 years now. It got me to my goal weight and automaticity in 10 months (pain-free!), and taught me how to stay there by eating LOTS of delicious foods I love at every meal. I gained stamina and even some energy, which has been astonishing with my chronic fatigue (EBV, fibromyalgia). I’ve been able to work outside the home these last 3.5 years – I hadn’t been able to do that in 17 years! Thanks to BLE, I’m finally free of food obsessions and eating disorders, and I look and feel the way I always wanted to in my body—without torturing myself and risking my health. I’d been searching for this solution for 45 years, and it feels nothing short of miraculous. If you’d like to know more about BLE, I’d really love to tell you. And no, it’s not an MLM. :D Happy New Year!
It sounds to me like what's happening with Bright Line may be similar to what happened to ketosis - it started out as a treatment for a specific condition, and it works well for people with that condition, and then some grifter comes along and decides that they'd make more money if they marketed it to everybody and not just folks who actually use it for actual health outcomes. I'm so glad it's working for you and allowing you to build a healthy relationship with food. <3
O-o-Ozempic! Hi, I'm a T2D who takes Ozempic (on top of metformin) because my blood sugar is shit, and I have a lot to add! First of all, Ozempic/Wegovy/semaglutide is one of a class of medications called GLP-1 receptor agonists that include Victoza, Byetta/Byedureon, Trulicity, and Mounjaro. Rybelsius is oral semaglutide but bioavailability is lower and it seems to have fewer effects on weight. Victoza is also marketed as Saxenda for weight loss. GLP-1s are actually super interesting drugs. They don't just slow gastric emptying. They appear to affect hormone levels. You'll hear from Ozempic users about no longer craving sugary foods. The side effects on Ozempic are actually not as bad as some other GLP-1s. Each time you go up it's a week of nausea but most people do adjust. And it's always better than losing your feet from chronic poorly controlled sugars. And yes, if you stop taking them, you gain it all back. I took the first GLP-1, Byetta, 12 years ago. My old doctor was trying it out on PCOS patients to help with insulin resistance and its consequences. Byetta was a LOT harsher than Ozempic and was daily injections, so it never took off. I did lose quite a bit of weight... and promptly regained it when I stopped. All the GLP-1s seem to have some weight effects, and up till a few months ago, semaglutide seemed to be the #1 drug for it. Mounjaro, which just got approved, is supposed to be even better (heard this from my doctor, sigh, the emphasis on weight in the treatment of T2D is a whole other topic). Novo Nordisk has run with it. And frankly, Novo deserves a big old heap of blame for creating this fucking mess. They have *ALWAYS* promoted Ozempic for "And you might lose some weight!" Then they discovered that at higher doses you lose more weight. Well, now you have a blockbuster lifestyle drug, and you're not just marketing it to the Medicare crowd (biggest buyers for all T2D meds). So they priced it accordingly. Insurers balked. Buuuut, it's way easier to get a prescription for Ozempic. So that's what doctors prescribed. Then Novo cannibalized their own market. The top dose for Wegovy is 2.4mg... so they introduced a 2mg Ozempic dose. BOOM. They created massive demand for both formulations that they couldn't meet. Word on the diabetes subreddits is that you can't get it in Australia. The NHS is very strict on GLP-1s for T2D and won't prescribe Wegovy outside carefully managed medical weight loss, but there's services advertising private prescriptions online for £175. Now some PBMs want a T2D diagnosis to cover Ozempic because of the massive abuse. I have somewhat more sympathy for people who have legit Wegovy scripts and have jumped through their insurance hoops than I do for all the influencers and TikTokers who think this is the hot strategy to lose 20 pounds. I have been *extremely* lucky and been able to fill my script, maybe because I live in BFE or something, but I have friends who haven't and some have had to scramble switching meds.
Hi, people have maintained weighloss once they stop taking it
The issue with people using the IV drips recreationally is that a lot of the ingredients are in short supply. So, people doing it for fun could be taking away supplies from people who are actually sick and need it.
Came here to say this! I work in EMS as both an administrator and an EMT, and those freaking IV Drip Therapy places make me so angry. IV fluids are a life-saving tool for patients having medical and traumatic emergencies, and it's endlessly frustrating to be in a shortage and see that resource being wasted in the name of "weight loss" or "curing cancer" or whatever insane thing they are claiming
FYI, Emma Thompson wasn’t wearing a fat suit in Maitilda, she was wearing shoulder pads and what’s basically the foam muscles from Superman costumes. The character isn’t supposed to be fat, she’s supposed to be insanely jacked- she was a hammer thrower in the olympics.
Yikes, that's a pretty massive error.
IF sharks go after livers (if anything, it looks like orcas target shark livers) it's probably because they need their own liver to be super fatty in order to maintain buoyancy in a more energy efficient way. More often sharks eat blubber. The reason sharks tend to bite humans but not eat them is because they've mistaken the human for a blubbery seal (especially when humans are surfing because from below the silhouette is hella sealish). btw, I used to party with an EMT who would use the occasional saline IV to recover during a hangover, they swore by it.
Oohh!! A bonus episode that's a run-down of all of King Charles's wierd interest in coffee enemas and pressuring the NHS to look into "alternative therapies" sounds interesting
OK I know about coffee enemas via some fundie midwife, but King Charles is into them????????? I knew he was big into homeopathy but this is Something Else. The NHS already will prescribe alternative medicines in some circumstances and pharmacies already sell plenty of homeopathic crap. So many surgeons perpetuate the myth about arnica helping with bruising after surgery for instance!
Liver King looks like he smells of raw meat. *shudder*
No I'm sorry but I fully refuse to believe the squares aren't satirical
to me it honestly sounds like something made for people with food sensory issues that just isn’t being marketed as a “disabled” product…weird that it’s so infomercially, but potentially helpful to people who struggle to eat balanced diets due to texture variations
Omg please do an episode on the Fast 800 guy! He isn't just the UK, Australians love him and my extended family are obsessed with his program! I found out about the obsession when they visited me from interstate, and we went out for breakfast. I ended up with a table full of grown ass adults watching me eat my eggs Benedict, chastising me for eating before noon. Whatever mum, should have told me you didn't eat breakfast and we could have met for lunch 🫠
And my dietitian hates him. I am seeing a dietitian to repair my relationship with food, since my family ruined it for me growing up. Guess who can eat ice-cream now without panicking?! This guy!
Yay!! My first bonus episode now 🙌
I work for a naturopathic doctor who is known for IV Therapy. I started to get nervous when they brought it up as a nomination but glad to hear Mike has nothing against it! It’s very popular in the naturopathic community.
Naturopathy is still pseudoscience though.
I want a mixtape of Aubrey's laugh, mixed in with "COME ON, MICHAEL" and Michael's mimics of people saying things!
you two are such a joy to listen to, hope your holidays are happy & as relaxing as possible♥️
My niblings watch a Netflix kids show called Gabby’s Dollhouse. It features a bunch of animated cats in various forms, including a cupcake cat called Cakey who loves to bake and eat whatever he wants. His “Cat of the Day” song is 2022’s best wellness take, imho. Lol https://youtu.be/9xPMvsgZ92Q “Got the French toast With the most Cherries and berries, gotta have ‘em everywhere I go Gotta see to believe All the things I'm making, making! Watermelon smoothie Blueberry pie Fondue got me spinnin through the air like, whoo Let's get together and let's get baking, baking Every day is a sprinkle party Treat yourself to that sweet sunshine Come on in, it's a sprinkle party Help yourself to anything you find It's sprinkle time!”
Something about Lizzo that I think people miss in the constant uninvited discourse about her body is that she is actually a very strong activist for so many causes unrelated to wellness - voting rights, abortion access, trans rights, black empowerment, and more - but people who aren’t so familiar with her think of her as someone who’s activism focuses on fatness when that’s not really her aim and she has so much other great activism to learn from. I don’t think of her as someone who only wants to make music, she definitely cares about using her platform to advance justice, but it’s much more expansive than this focus on fatness would reduce it to.
Yeah she’s always used her platform to promote activism. Even fat activism to an extent. But a lot of people project so much onto her and put so much on her shoulders and it’s so frustrating.
Just a teeny nitpick, semaglutide is the generic name. Ozempic is the name for its diabetes indication. Wegovy is the name for weight loss. I only point this out because a person could hear that someone is on Ozempic and erroneously think that they’re on it for weight loss.
Some insurances approve ozempic off label for weight loss now
Omg im so glad they talked about sea moss gel. I'm tired of seeing the videos of people doing shots of this and practically almost throwing up. Then saying "ITS SO HEALTHY, THATS WHY ITS GROSS!"
My husband always talks about joke businesses he would start if he was a billionaire. Square Eats feels like this.
Can you guys do an episode on Seed oils? Seeing the everywhere as the new scary health threat. Thanks!
I liked your discussion on toxic masculinity and current health fads. I would love to hear your takes on the shift of current diets/wellness fads to being targeted at men (and how they are targeted at men). Keto/ intermittent fasting seem to be overwhelmingly done by men (though I don't have proof of this). These fads are often disguised promotions of disordered eating. My brother got into all this last year. He was telling me that he never wants to eat anymore because he keeps thinking about how the food is toxic to his body. When I pointed out that this was my mentality in high school (when I had an eating disorder), it shocked him.
Also, wow Vitamin A toxicity is a real and horrible thing. I would be very worried for all these people eating so much liver every day.
I heard about Hard 75 from an AskAManager letter where some poor souls were being forced to do it for WORK. And the dept head who was pushing it just could not comprehend how this was a bad thing to do to your staff.
Yes! That's where I read it!! So messed up
Intermittent fasting hot take: I do it every day for about 10 hours and it leaves me cranky every time. It's called the time between dinner and breakfast the next day. #notamorningperson.
Ha, yes! I do intermittent fasting without even trying. I'm a night person, I sleep late and I can go all day without eating solid food until dinner. But in "my day," we were told this was a metabolism killer.
OMG Just listening...Optavia used to be Medifast!! I did Medifast...those damn powdered packets.
My mother did both Medifast and Optimist in the 1980s. (My mother did a LOT of diets and these weren't even the worst) Optavia has a lot of popularity amongst Orthodox Jewish women for some reason and so I keep getting hit up by wannabe coaches.
I don't know why but for some reason I thought the food squares were gonna be a lot smaller than they were.
Omg. My coworker did the MediFast diet a few years ago, and I tried some of the “food” out of morbid curiosity. Woof. The chili cheese popcorn in particular was like licking Satan’s taint.
Vaguely remembered getting annoyed years ago at a relative rambling about how camel milk cures Autism because there’s low rates among Bedouins in the Sahara (um, screening access?!) and checked to see the “miracle diet” author has written a second book on it with a forward by JOEL SALATIN all caps. https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-60868-648-3
I agree with Michael on the IV. I have had problems with absorbing nutrients thru food and have been able to get to normal levels of basic vitamins with the IV treatments, which is reflected in blood tests and also I just feel a lot better. I think it’s a good intervention for ppl in my situation.
When you do your show on Noom, don't forget that the #1 complaint is once you set up the recurring payment, it is virtually impossible to stop. I almost got sucked in, but read reviews online and did not join.
Can anyone touch on beyond body? I keep seeing it on my tiktok like every other minute
Omfg squareats why?!?!😂
Hoping you will emphasize supplements and how they are ALL BAD and anyone buying them is being victimized. Alex, Gwyneth, etc. The money for the Gurus comes from the supplements.
All bad as in unrelated or...? Because taking vitamins for suffix deficiencies is a normal thing that doctors recommend. I don't feel scammed by my vitamin D capsules lol
I'm sure I'm not the first to link to Food Theory's video from just the other day about how grifty and ridiculous Liver King is XD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOgg-_vav_8
Wait - is Liver King why it’s been impossible to find chicken livers at my grocery store for over a year now? I thought it was a pandemic shortage - DID BROS EAT ALL THE LIVERS??
"Any of those white people nostalgia projects, is worth being suspicious of." -Aubrey Gordon You'd think I learned not to drink water while listening to this show, but no. Still having spit takes. 😂
I lost money on Healthy Wager….
Finally a chat on Liver King! I’ve been trying to ring the alarm on this dude for years!!!!
I'm British, and as soon as you said "British guy who's had a number of diet books of various levels of griftiness", I knew you meant Michael Mosley 😂 It would make my month if you guys did an episode on him, he is a menace 😫
The demand of these “weight loss drugs” is crazy. It’s also used for folks with PCOS. I am disgusted because my mom actually needs it for type 2 diabetes and cannot get any!
There’s grill marks on the meat ones!!! Hahhahahahaha!!!!!
I now want a shirt that says "Shark Thumbs!"
Same reaction! I also thought “Alpha Organisms” with the pear and apple logo or something could be good but I’m worried people would not understand I wasn’t serious.
I could see Square Eats as great for people who have issues with food texture. My son was on a puree-only diet for years and would have loved a square of salmon! Maybe it started for people like him and they're just trying to market it to a wider audience? That happens with a lot of products that are intended for a specific need but would be too expensive if only sold for that.
Can’t wait for the taste test episode if squareat. And being a UK listener, I knew that fast 800 would be michael mosley without you having to name him 🙄
Squareat boldly asks 'what if food, but square?' in a world where the answer would resoundingly be 'okay, but why tho?'
The Squareat reminds me of the Neil Gaiman's character Famine in the Good Omens book. Famine created the Famine by selling "non-food" food. Or maybe Soilent...
i need merch that says "shark thumbs" and "alpha organism"
So funny that I've heard about sea moss gel being used for clearing out your lungs more than anything listed... Just goes to show how wide and varied these nets can be cast
I gotta say if the square eats reviews had been good I might have been in on it. I have a hard time with breakfast and need an easy routine thing so having a "well balanced" meal cube was exciting to me. I think if the marketing wasn't about revolutionizing food but being a product for people who struggle with it for whatever reason and just need something that can easily fit into their routine it would have worked. Also apparently they taste bad, so maybe fix that too.
Please do an episode on ozempic! My mom is a pharmacy tech and she said the demand for it was nuts- everyone at her job started taking it to loose weight at the pharmacy which I thought was wild.
Shark thumbs!!! 😂😂😂 Cackling!
SHARK THUMBS...I almost crashed 😅😅😅😅
Aubrey: "shark thumbs" I totally snort laughed so hard I almost choked.
The square thing honestly sounds amazing for many autistic people with sensory issues. It’s weird they don’t just market to us, but we would be their target market.
i had the same thought!! but god forbid a major company see autistic adults as an actual consumer market 🤦🏼♀️
Prediction for 2023 -- follow-up to the diabetic drugs shortage issue will be an increase in the push to reframe continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) as "lifestyle" devices causing shortages (if it's not happening already), especially shortages for lower income folks. My basis for this prediction is I quit a job earlier this year where I found myself helping build a mobile app specifically for this for a large medical devices manufacturer. The app was designed by a "glucose influencer", and the whole situation was exactly as bad as you'd expect.
There are already “fitness” influencers pushing that in 2022, along with tips for the smallest possible post-meal spikes.
The blackmail diet was on an episode of Nathan For You 😂 but it wasn’t money it was like a picture of yourself naked as the hot dog in a bun would be sent to your boss or something
this is exactly what i thought of!!
My boyfriend uses Ozempic to aid in controlling his diabetes. He has run into an issue this week because the pharmacy is unable to fill his prescription. He has lost about 70 pounds over the last two years from modifying his diet, increasing his exercise and the medication has caused him to feel more satiated so he isn't eating as much. He is very clear that the medication alone wasn't the main driver of his weight loss. He does credit the fear from having almost slipped into a diabetic coma keeps him on track, but the medication is an integral part of his health management. Hopefully this trend will pass and people will be chasing another miracle cure.
that's so scary!! as someone with adhd, i know how frustrating it's been recently with the adderall shortage (in part because of scammy telehealth companies like cerebral), but i can't even imagine how upsetting it would be to not be able to get a medication like that that's absolutely VITAL to me
also thank you for talking about Optavia!! My mom fell victim to this. I was horrified when I counted up her calories for the day and they were under 1000. When I told her I was concerned & wondered what her doctor thought of this diet, she said her doctor told her to "lose the weight however possible." 😩
I could see how the square foods would be beneficial to people with sensory processing challenges, especially around food texture. I am shocked they're not marketing it to parents who just want their kids to eat something with more nutrition than a cracker. But still. I think unfortunately most of the people who it is appealing to are the women who have told me that they don't care about food at all & wish they could just take their nutrients for the day in a pill and be done with it. Interestingly, they all had a personal history with an eating disorder. 🤔
In order for kids to buy in the foods would have to actually TASTE GOOD to them... and I for one can't imagine the texture would be anything but utterly repulsive.
Having Dr Oz at the end reminded me that while 2022 has been a BAD year, one thing that we dodged in PA was Oz as a senator and a hard fash governor. Not that things are good but oh my gosh.
Also, hot take: Lizzo is the new Dolly Parton. An incredibly talented musician and business woman who only gets asked or talked about in one stupid asinine context. Dolly is always asked about her looks and Lizzo is always asked about her weight. Their talents are so much more than their appearance.
I saw the square eats on Facebook. The comments were a hoot! Filled with people making fun of them, but the creators were trying to defend themselves through it all!
I feel like at some point in the future we're going to hear that all these male celebrities who got super ripped didn't do it with just boiled chicken and working out twice a day. . .
Bonus episode idea: the F Factor diet controversy. (Thanks to thin privilege, that’s the only diet program I’ve ever tried. I worked so hard to be compliant and then cried the night I journaled my net carbs and realized I was “sabotaged”by my kombucha.) The lawsuits between the CEO and an influencer are BONKERS.
The Fed Up podcast by Wondery opened my eyes to this - bananas
Trust me, Optavia mac and cheese doesn't resemble actual mac and cheese in the slightest. Also, The Dream rules! First season is great, but the second season covers health and wellness woo, and there's an episode covering why supplements have no regulation in this country. Spoiler alert: it's Orrin Hatch!
I want to hear Aubrey's reaction to there being a child in a fat suit in Matilda so that sounds like a good bonus episode 😅 Was happy to hear you mention it because your previous episodes on fat suits were on my mind watching it. Also the Bruce suit was just plain bad
“I don’t get [the square food] market share” Um… ARFID and sensory processing disorder. Facebook link goes to an image shared by Spectrumy in 2020 and credited to Feeding Littles Image with four different sizes and textures of blueberries labeled “juicy • squishy • sweet • sour” And a parallel panel with four identical crackers “the • same • every • time” https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0i9CvixszCeTXQEMaKqqfbV5cJ5KAsdaDLxoUEPapkzZcmpkt9W4sUiYANAth3tRPl&id=391000254586036&mibextid=qC1gEa
I get your point, but I don’t think that’s the target market they’re aiming for tbh
obsessed with you both, i would love for you to look into 20th century fascist diets - lots of early fascism in italy was based on weight loss and total body control. far right weight loss ideology is not new!
Wait what was Aubrey's reference to "EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM!!" what's the drama there
It’s from the worm episode
Unbelievably, the sharks eating liver thing is almost true - except the sharks were the ones getting eaten by orcas. This was a thing off the coast of South Africa a couple of years ago where they were finding Great White and Sevengill shark carcasses with the livers (which are proportionally WAY BIGGER than in mammals) ripped out but the rest of the body including other organs left uneaten.
Michael, please go watch Hannah Alonzo’s YouTube video trying Optavia “fuelings”. They are absolutely not meals 😆
Worked for a healthcare marketing company and Wegovy was my main account 😑. (Also I quit around the time they wanted to start working on a Wegovy teen campaign 🙃🤢)
“Fun” fact, Wegovy just got approved for patients aged 12 and older. 🤢
Wow, that square eats thing is really weird. I like my food to look like, um, food.
The blackmail diet was an episode of Nathan for you 😭
Thank you for this Grift Gift! Howl-laughing through my neighborhood at 7:00am walking my dog. “It’s not potatoes, it’s squares!”
My son came upstairs to see why I was laughing so much. FOMO (the pod, not the squares).
Oh my god the SQUARES! Why do companies keep doing this?! Almost as bad as Soylent and Huel. "What if we made food way less tasty and appealing?"
So I listened to the very long breakdown of Tucker Carlsons garbo "documentary" via the excellent podcast Qanon Anonymous. I just want to say what stuck out to me as most funny is that if any of his bizarre hacks to boost your testosterone actually worked, trans men would be all over that. As one myself let me say none of us are eating egg yolks or blasting our balls with red light
Next taste test should be the squares 😂
I looked up the SquarEats I am obsessed. It looks like what people in the 1940s thought future food would look like. It looks like space food. It looks like what I thought airplane food was before I ever rode on an airplane. It's not faster, fresher, tastier, more convenient, or cheaper than real food, but it IS square. Amazing.
Tying into the tiktok conversation: I found this podcast through a tiktok video with resource recommendations and tiktok has become my most anti-diet social media platform. My feed is full of anti-diet discourse! :)
Thank you! Also, Freeley the Banana Girl!
Ooohhhh myyyy goooood I was a Freelee/RawTill4 truther like 7ish years ago. All I ate was copious amounts of fruit and looking back now I can’t believe how absurd (and wildly disordered) that is. Reading that name again was a jump scare 😂
Aubrey!! Thank you for mentioning the Fitbit. I had one, then another, for several years. When my last one broke, I replaced it with a $10 digital watch only. What a relief. I didn't realize how much anxiety was coming from my freaking watch!! Every morning, I would let it decide how rested I was, based on how my watch detected my sleep. Never. Going. Back.
I have a fake fitness watch. I use it at work to see how much I'm walking around as a nurse. LOL so times I walk 4 miles a night, totally bananas 😜
(And also - how have we not talked about “Dr” Michael Moseley before??)
Happy New Year! My favourite thing about the Liver King is that, despite all his very loud enthusiasm, you can SEE him gagging when he eats the raw stuff on video - it’s so funny!
Gotta say I'm not sure that fasting for 14 hours a day is "intermittent"
If you stop eating at 7:00 pm and begin eating again at 9:00 am, you have fasted for 14 hours. So not totally crazy. 😉
Also, I woke my cat up laughing at the square thing. I kind of want a full episode on that, but I’m worried that I might stroke out laughing.
It’s funny to me that the liver dick mentioned lions in the quote you read. It’s the FEMALE lions that are the badass hunters, you dolt.
Oh man, I knew that Fast 800 was gonna be a Michael Mosley vehicle before I even looked 😂 I would love an episode on this guy. Everything he does is pushed by mainstream TV (the BBC in particular) without question and it’s just… ughhhh
I had an exercise physio push his stuff on me 😬
Thank you for this very entertaining bonus episode! My idea for a future episode (although it might be research heavy) would be for something about autism and food. Aubrey mentioned friends who like some of the "all-in-one foods" in your taste test and I myself know I can't eat a "healthy and balanced diet" because of sensory issues - so maybe you could just talk about what you think are good alternatives (I have discovered pureed fruit snacks for toddlers for myself) or speculate why so many autistic people have gut problems (maybe part of it is /because/ there are so many foods we can't eat?) - I'll be happy with whatever bonus content you give us though ☺️💜
Yes! When I was listening, and Aubrey talked about chronic fatigue or physical disability, I immediately thought about this 2020 post and was like 😕 ARFID and sensory processing. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0i9CvixszCeTXQEMaKqqfbV5cJ5KAsdaDLxoUEPapkzZcmpkt9W4sUiYANAth3tRPl&id=391000254586036&mibextid=qC1gEa
Episode request - please cover another movie. "The Whale" comes to mind.
Omg please
Episode request (although it’s very Australian specific), the crazy bad fat phobia in Kath and Kim. I have so many thoughts about this show, but I’d love to hear Aubrey and Mike tear it apart. Thanks folks! Love what you do.
I’d welcome a whole series of episodes on various shows with fatphobia. I’ve been rewatching Parks & Rec and holy moley is it bad.
making my 6am flight bearable 🤠🤠
Hooray, bonus episode time. Episode suggestion/request... Sugar is more addictive than cocaine. Do you remember this and the villainizing of sugar? There was the "I quit sugar" lady and more!
Could include the 'Supersize Me'-esque documentary, That Sugar Film (2014)... I have taught at schools and was covering a Health & PE class where the students were asked to watch it. So many of them groaned and grumbled because they had seen it so many times before. I smelt bullshit but haven't been reminded of it until now. Would love to hear Aubrey & Mike shed some light on it.
Happy New year