Dr. Michael Israetel
Appearances
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
I now have a line of organic earth supplements and shit that's really good for you. Here's where to buy. And I'm like, motherfucker, these are just unapproved drugs.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
People die anyway. That's right. You're eventually going to die.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Yeah. The good news is that even at 45, there's a very decent probability that within a few months, your nuts are going to be back to normal all by themselves.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Yes. But a decent probability is not the same thing as a very high probability. And so if I told you like, hey, I want to go on vacation in Afghanistan. I'd be like, yeah, if you go to Kabul, there's only a 20% chance you're going to get kidnapped and tortured by the Taliban. You get like, ah, it's not a big deal. But like, wait a minute, the downside risk is insane. The magnitude is wild.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And so if your nuts no longer work and you've shriveled down to way less muscle and you're clinically depressed after six months of coming off of TRT and they just won't start again. And now you have to realize like, oh shit, I have to be on this forever. Even if you were only one out of five people that that happens to. And knowing something upfront, like if I told you, hey, like,
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
on a road trip from New York to Las Vegas, there's a 20% chance of death on the freeway. There's no way you would take it. And then, so if I told you, look, there's a 20% chance you're not getting your testicles back to a fully functioning order at age 45, you may at the very least approach the problem differently. Really quick, how bad are my things?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And one of the other things I think I'm trying to get really, really across to people in these TRT videos, which I make seemingly every six months. And every time I go on podcasts, I want to make a big deal out of this.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
testosterone replacement therapy is something that is awesome and it's great and it works and anyone who's said it sucks is just like lying old guard like oh everything's bad steroids are bad drugs are bad that's however it's something that comes with trade-offs and downsides and you have to like really robustly demonstrate that you have a need for it Like I get asked about TRT from 18 year olds.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
I'm like, mom, your nuts work as good as TRT, except they're inside your body. You don't have to put needles into yourself. You're already on TRT. Enjoy your life, my friend. You know, like if I could re-engineer my genetics to have to take zero supplements and just exist in my supplemental form all the time, of course I'd do it. But like, that's what most people are.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So a lot of times people ask about TRT and they haven't demonstrated one of two things. a low serum testosterone level or to any of the very well-documented side effects you would see or effects you would see of low testosterone. You talk to someone, you're like, how's your muscle mass and training? They're like, it's great, but better than ever. All right. How's your sex drive? Like, phenomenal.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
How's your success for life and your, like, tendency to be depressive? Like, man, I'm crushing it. Like, okay. So what did you say again? Like, I want to start TRT. Like, why? Why? Why? Why? It's like you live in some, like, community in America which has, like, you know, functionally no crime. That's most of America, right? Like, you look around the suburbs, there's nothing happening.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And you like talk to someone who does like up armored cars and you're like, can you like up armor my Escalade so they can take like seven, six, two rounds? You're like, okay, sweet. So like, are you going somewhere like dangerous? You're like, no, it's just driving around town. Like what the fuck is wrong with you? Do you know that costs $10,000 to do?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It also doubles your gas expense from here on out. And where's the car down like five years sooner? Cause it's, another 5,000 pounds on your vehicle. Well, you know, you're better safe than sorry. Like, I'm sorry, safe from what? Do you have assassins coming to get you? You have to justify the expense. The TRT people think is like this thing I'm going to do and it's going to be great.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
The thing is, the thing comes with a lot of stuff. You're injecting yourself, you're taking pills, your own nuts shut down, you got to watch your health all the time, you know, correspond with your doctor.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
You want to go on a trip to a foreign country, you got to bring your replacement pills or your shots and a copy of your script so that when you get popped by the TSA of that country and they talk to you for three hours in the back, Finally, they learn how to read in English and figure out that these are scripted for you.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And they say, hey, this is good this time, but you can't come to our country again with this kind of shit. You're going to be like, why the fuck did I get onto TRT?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
They're not taking into consideration multiple things. Absolutely what you said. And they're also not taking into consideration the fact that if you're just above the cutoff for normal, let's say roughly 300 to 900 nanograms per deciliter is sort of the reference range.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
If you're like 305 and you feel like total shit in every way that indicates you have functionally lower testosterone than you could benefit from, there is a very good argument for trying to raise you up to 450, 500, 600, and even 900 to see where you get your best combination of like outcomes and blood work because
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
If you have your best blood work and best outcomes at 900, it looks like your body was finally attuned for a high reference range and that's where you live your best. And so a lot of times people will say, oh, well, you know, you're in the normal range. The normal range is very big and you can have very, very distinct outcomes within the normal range.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Usually not for muscle growth, but for like how you feel and how you sleep, all this other stuff. And over the long term, definitely for muscle growth, if you're one of those kinds of individuals, it's very sensitive to that sort of thing. So you're totally right. A lot of doctors, and very understandably so, don't deal with almost any variables from an optimization perspective.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
They deal it from a functionality perspective. The traditional way the doctor interacts with the patient is, Are you going to die when you leave my office? Are you in the normal range for everything?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And if you are, hey man, it's kind of like someone who you like have like a super, super knowledgeable outfit person who knows fashion 10 times better than everyone at your house when you're dressing up to go out. And like they have one of two instructions. One is like, just don't let him leave in a clown suit or half naked. That's the doctor's job, by analogy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
The optimizer's job is to be like, can you get this person in an outfit that is good for the occasion, it's good for the season, it reveals modern trends, but it's also well-fitting to their body, and all the rest. And so that's two very, very, very different things. And people, I think, sometimes go to the doctor thinking, I'm going to get this really in-depth advice to optimize my shit.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And the doctor looks at their shit and is like, you're good. And I'm like, okay. And it's kind of weird because you feel like you're not being attended to as a human. And that's absolutely correctly true. You're not. But that's not the doctor's job normally. And it's not like, oh, doctors are bad. Like, no, they literally think they're doing another job, which they're correct about.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Like their job is to keep you upright. And that's why they get paid the big bucks. And if you want an optimizer, you might talk to them about it. And they're like, oh, you want optimization? Well, shit, let's talk. Or you just go to a different doctor because your doctor might be like, I'm not into that. But there's these other TRT guys that have all the questionnaires.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
They have all the detailed stuff. They'll titrate your dose up and down. They'll do all that. And they just, so it's up to the person. If they're interested in optimization, not to just take their doctor as you are, right? As like a carte blanche, like that's it. Like end of discussion. You know, when mom says he can't play PlayStation anymore, like it's the end of the discussion. Go see dad.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
He might be like, come on, honey, a kid's been good this week.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And usually people don't even articulate their values. So the doctor has to like assume you're just a regular person. They'll just give regular person advice. Like if someone asks me, like I'm sitting on a plane, my ultimate analogy for conversations with random people, sitting on the plane next to someone and they're like, hey, how much protein should I be eating?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And if I just assume they're a regular person, I'll tell them one thing. But if like I'm actually a competitive bodybuilder, I'm drug free, I'm in the last three weeks of my contest prep, I'm going to give a very different answer in very different contexts, but I just didn't know. So it's really good to communicate with your doctor and tell them where you're coming from. And if...
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
you're not getting traction with your doctor and you don't feel heard, then it's time to find a new doctor. And usually most people can do that quite easily.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
How dare she? So beautiful. She doesn't want other women to start paying too much attention to you.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Testosterone is a steroid. So your own body makes steroids. So everyone's on steroids. But colloquially, that's not what that means. So on steroids almost means one of two things. One, you're taking substantially more testosterone than you can produce naturally or that anyone can produce naturally. Double, triple, 10x the amount.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Or you're using analogs of testosterone, molecules based on testosterone derived from it and that are very similar to it, but have slightly different effects and slightly different side effects. And those are just the anabolic steroids that are not testosterone as a class.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Deca, EQ, Premo, and all these other steroids. Those are things your body does not make, but they work very similarly to testosterone. They're steroids. So is testosterone. Your steroids are being produced for you at normal doses by your own body.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
There's TRT, where steroids are being shot into you or taken by a pill, and they're at roughly normal doses or normal human range anyway, and all is well. Then there is another category I'd like to insert. There is understood and calculated risk steroid use. So like athletes and bodybuilders will take like very specific amounts of very exact steroids of very, very good blood work.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
They understand all their values. They understand the health and longevity trade-offs and they're using it as a tool to enhance their appearance or performance or whatever. And then their steroid abuse, whereas like every time you lower your doses of psychotic amounts of steroids,
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
You feel slightly human again and you can't make insane gains again and your veins are always popping out of your forehead and you hate how that old version of you was because they got made fun of too much. And you just ramp back up to super high doses. And even though it's destroying your life and making you insane and destroying your health, YOLO, you don't give a ****.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
You're flying out on many, many grams of steroids. And then another one is like, you know, you're 16 and you decide to do steroids. That's abuse by definition. And so there's all those categories in that other one.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It's like telling a race car driver that they can't tell you about like that speeding is dangerous. Yeah, that's good. I really like that one. They're actually the most familiar with why exactly speeding is dangerous. Right.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Yeah, don't speed. Don't speed, kids. Nothing at the end of that road for you. Yeah. I mean, I can address that directly. First of all, that argument, while I appreciate where it's coming from, is an illustration of what's called the genetic fallacy. It has nothing to do with genetics.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
The genetic fallacy is because an argument is articulated by someone or generated by someone that actually has logical merit on the argument's validity and veracity, which just can't possibly be true. So if the world's strongest man said, hey, do a lift like this, people would be like, oh yeah, it must be right.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
But if he told his son, who's 12, to go tell someone in the gym, hey, do a lift like this, he'd be like, get the f**k out of here, little kid. Like, what the f**k do you know? And he's like, my dad told me Dan's World's Strongest Man. Like, oh, now it must be right. It's the same exact exercise. Like, what about the actual exercise? Was the exercise a good idea?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Like, on my mechanical grounds, on muscle stimulus grounds, on injury and all this other grounds, that's how you actually determine the validity of an argument. So if someone who's totally drug-free lifetime tells you steroids are bad...
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And if I tell you steroids are bad and I have not been drug-free lifetime, how could it possibly be that those two arguments have anything to do with who's saying them? Like you can write them down on a piece of paper and drop them off at a bus stop and leave. And someone picks up the piece of paper, they can examine the validity of the argument without even knowing who was saying it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So that whole thing of Dr. Mike's a hypocrite, part of that's genetic fallacy. The second part is like, I think there's a misunderstanding of what hypocrisy is. Hypocrisy is like telling someone to do one thing, but doing another yourself. I've never told people not to take steroids.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
I've said, if you take them, there will be decided consequences, like consequences I'm paying right now and will be forever. Is that hypocrisy? Like, imagine like a soldier gets back from war and he's like, war is terrible. You're a hypocrite. You went to fight it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It would be just as nonsensical. Now, I do understand that like... Once you are labeled as a steroid user or whatever kind of moral degenerate you happen to be labeled as, some people lose an overall degree of trust for you. It's like a mobster trying to tell the police how to enforce crime better. You're like, yeah, but you're on the production side of crime.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Exactly. They get paid for that. Exactly. So yeah, I understand the emotional valence those people are coming from, but largely it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense when they say, oh, like Dr. Mike's on steroids. So don't listen to him about steroids. I don't think we need to have someone on steroids or off steroids to listen to them.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
The only way is like, if you really need the experience to say, like if someone was like, this is how it feels to be on testosterone, but they've never been on testosterone, something's missing. They can read a lot about other people's accounts. and admit that they haven't themselves been on steroids, and talk about recounting other accounts, and then it's also still valuable.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So that whole focus on who's saying the thing is usually just f***ing baseless, to be completely honest.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Yeah. Actually, I was in Los Angeles about a week ago and this like 16 year old kid is like, hey man, could you buy me a Zim or whatever pack nicotine thing? And that 7-Eleven, I was just like, I had to think for a moment, like what is being asked of me? And I was like, oh, I'm good, man. And I walked off.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Dude, that is so wise. And I call it jokingly either like the thirst or the hunger, you know, the male sex drive. It never sleeps. It just waits. And the longer you don't attend to it, the more insane it gets. And it's really difficult, even difficult.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It's funny to communicate with women about like what the sex drive implies and them just have like a category error in trying to understand you, just like we have category errors in trying to understand how women feel about various things. And it only by trying, do you really fully know?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So it's really funny when women try steroids or, you know, start to become males and they're like, Oh, cause like, you know, for example, you know, Chris Williamson, you know who that is? He's a podcaster, a good friend of mine. And he had a dating expert on his show way early back in the day, Kezia, something or other. She was great.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And she's like, I have incredibly good looking male friends that are super tall, super well, their game is stacked front to back. And they like leave a club at the end of the night with just like a dinosaur of a person. And you're like, why you could get whatever. And the guy's just like, yeah, I was just like talking to other people. And then it's 2 a.m. and it's time to leave.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
But I'm trying not to like use my own hand tonight. So this person will be sufficient. And to women, they just absolutely can't understand that. But to guys, when you felt the hunger slash thirst, like anyone who is not hideous and who has functioning hands and a mouth will do 100% fine depending on the circumstance. And that's something that's so absurd to say.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
You're like, there's no way a lot of men think like that. And there are two types of men, men that think like that. Men who lie about it still think like that for exaggeration, but not by much. And so that's one of those trippy things. Like when you do have a male sex drive, you realize the rules are different. How you treat the world is different.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
I was like, no, you bitch ass little kid at night, you know, with 18 or over for tobacco products. Like, do you think I was born yesterday? Also, you're nobody to me. What are you talking about? Also, like you're creepy and standing in the middle of a corner. Like I'm not going to turn my back to you at all. It was just wild. But to your point of nicotine is totally fine. So here's the thing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Yeah. So there's like a bit of a different thing that happens to steroid users when they use a lot. Some of this is kind of hypothetical. It has some decent amount of research support, but nothing I can as a scientifically minded person say, this is like almost for sure a thing, you know? But some of the suspicions are that it is neurotoxic, like it's harmful to your neurons and your brain.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Some of the other indirect evidence is like it might lower certain types of intelligence in the person who takes them for a long time at very high doses. Some of that might come back if you stop. Some of it might not. And some of it's acutely dose dependent, like when you're on high levels of steroids, you're dumber. When you're on lower levels, you're smarter. But some of that might be permanent.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Steroids also at high doses, you're processing about mood and stuff like that. They make you more male in every respect mentally. And so you become, for example, less apt to exchange emotional information with other people because women are much better at doing that. The female brain is the best at doing that. The regular male brain's decent, but not so good.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And when you take steroids, you become like a hyper male brain. And then you begin to have lower throughput of social interactions, lower ability to have empathy. You become quicker to become aggressive or angry or see things as like affronts because the dominance hierarchy becomes like really, really front and center in your mind at a subconscious level. And you become more likely to be anxious.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
You become more likely to be closed off. And potentially even your ability to form kind of introspection about your emotions and verbalize them, both might be lowered. Those are really estrogenic sorts of things, the opposite of androgenic sorts of things.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And if you tolerate it poorly, you can get high levels of anxiety, potentially some depression in there thrown in and problems with sleep and so on and so forth and problems with mood and being kind of dick to people because you have that kind of alpha male mentality sort of all the time and it doesn't have a gradation or a switch to it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And so those are some of the offhand downsides that can occur with steroid use.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Yeah. So right now I'm on TRT and I'm just smarter on TRT, just smarter. I can tell it myself. My verbal fluency improves substantially. My ability to keep track of multiple concepts concurrently in a conversation improves substantially.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
My context window of like how much information am I aware of in my mind's eye at the same time to be able to manipulate to come to the right conclusions goes up and a bunch of other stuff. So like it's palpable, it's notable.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And it's not a huge deal within moderate ranges, but at the high ranges, like, yeah, you're just dumber and meaner and more emotional and more reflexive and all the things that do not feel great. So right now I've been on TRT for a little while now, and it's the best I've felt in a very, very long time. So very, very palpable, very worthwhile considerations and changes.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
If you were teaching an AI that has been insanely well-educated in all the topics of the world, except it just has never dealt with sodas. It doesn't know what those are. Somehow you took a whole data set from the internet. You scrubbed any mention of diet soda or soda in general. And then you gave the AI a prompt. You said, here's the diet soda and here's regular soda.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Yeah, well, don't say they're on a diet part, because, Jesus, they're going to be like, oh, my God, we're on a diet. You call me anorexic?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So muscle dysmorphia in bodies, dysmorphia in males is real. It's not as common as the concomitant phenomenon in females, which tend to be more related to body weight. The average female wants to be smaller. The average male wants to be more jacked, but the average female wants to be smaller more than the average male wants to be more jacked.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So it would be a disservice if I said this affects males and females the same because it's more of a female problem and it actually causes a substantial amount of higher death rate in females because anorexia nervosa is one of the deadliest diseases, period.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And it is maybe the or one of the most deadly psychiatric illnesses you could ever experience because some substantial number of people that are diagnosed with anorexia nervosa are not savable. They'll bring them to a hospital when they're in a lower weight. They'll force feed them. They'll give them anabolic steroids to help them put the weight back on.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And many of these people, when they leave the hospital on their own accord, they will just spiral back down and end up being found in their kitchen like dead from starvation.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Let you die is a real harsh way to say it. It's not wrong. I would say another way to say it is the ROI to help you is now negative in reference to the ROI to help other people. Like if you have someone on a combat hospital line, some person is like bleeding out of their arm, but if you tie it off and sew it, they'll be able to keep their arm and not die.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Whereas another person has both their legs severed and the blood is coming out so fast that you're like, he's going to die in about two seconds. There's no way to save him. Who do you attend to? The logical answer, if you care about humans, period, and you don't even care who you're helping, The logical answer is you help the people you can save. That's at the basis of triage.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And emotionally, it's really fucked up to be like, once gone, they're out. They think the way we need to deal with that is like, well, let's improve innovation and wealth and technology in our society so much that we'll have robots attending to people and we'll have infinite number of beds and no one's ever kicked out. That's the only way to solve that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Because if you're like, well, why don't we help those people? Like there's literally other anorexics that are helpable are going to die. Do you want two people to die or do you want one person to die? It's really up, but there's only one correct answer if you like people. So it's true.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
How did you get my video cam for my gym?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Here's all their ingredients. Well, you already know all the statistical data on the various harms of the ingredients, like it knows what sucralose is and all that. And on first principles, is there any reason to suspect that Diet Coke is better than regular Coke or worse than regular Coke for your health?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
There's a huge, huge human nature component to it. First of all, a lot of times it's genetic and environmental in a way that you can't predict or you can just describe. So some people, they get really into how their muscles look, and some people, you just can't actually get them to give a shit.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
There are multiple Hollywood actors that are known for getting in shape for roles, and as soon as principal photography is over, they're just, I'm not lifting for the next however long it takes the studio to contact me about my next movie. I don't give a fuck.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Some people will start lifting, and they'll catch the bug for forever, and they'll take so many steroids to try to get their appearance to be amazing at all times. that they'll die because of it. That whole range exists. And short of dying, there's also such a perseverative focus on physique that you really lose touch with a lot of the great other things in your life.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
You won't go on vacation or you have to weigh out your food on vacation because you can't have one ab go away on you and all this other stuff. There are ways that genetic and environmental proclivity can be altered by various other forces. A big one is what has been your relationship to your body historically?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
If you totally thought your body was totally fine up until you were in your thirties and then you're like, ah, I could do better. It's less likely that you're going to be really obsessed with your body. If you hated your body for whatever reason, coming up as a, especially a teen and all the way through your twenties, and finally you get some traction and start to be able to change it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
You might have such a hole in there where your body confidence is supposed to be. That's going to take a long time to fill it up. And you might really like go far down the road of optimization before you're like, nah, I'm actually jacked and lean enough that I'm like, I feel pretty good about my body and I don't give a shit to go any further than this. So that's a big deal.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
The thing is, if you treated it like that, at the very least, the AI would be confused as to why you suspect Diet Coke is bad. So another way of saying that is, on first principles, there's no reason to suspect that Diet Coke is bad outside of various fallacies of logic.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
That can be a really big deciding factor. Another one and a huge one is what's your social circle and what do they value and how do they give you criticism? How do they give you acceptance and who is valued highest in that social circle?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
and if all those are very physique oriented it can get pretty crazy social media is like ideal for doing this and so it's particularly toxic when not used intelligently obviously when used intelligently it's the greatest thing ever second to ai but with social media it's like okay everyone i follow is a pro bodybuilder People that follow me know me for bodybuilding.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
All the pictures people put up on social media are the best ever. And so I always look like shit compared to everyone. And then when I go and do a couple shows, I look 220 pounds, shredded, veins everywhere, but not quite as good as the competitor. So I place middle of the pack and then I hear forever on the internet about how much I suck at bodybuilding. I'm total shit and I'll never be a pro.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And then if you're in that world all the time, it can be like, wow, how I look matters and I need to look better and better and better. And everyone else looks great and I'm just falling behind. And that's a big deal. And then the other one is also probably a personal quirk, but different people have this different extents.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And it's really good to be mindful about it is when I get a certain thing that I wanted objectively out of my physique, How do I settle on that? How do I reflect in it? How do I really accept the fact that I'm in a really good place? I should really be grateful for this. I should really bask in the sun, so to speak, versus how quickly am I apt to be like, okay, this is the new normal.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Now what's next? It's not like a right or wrong answer there. Just you have to know which one you want and what comes with it. If you're like, no, I can do better. It's cool from a mountaineer who's looking up at the Everest peak from base camp perspective, looking up and being like, fuck, man, there's more up there to explore. I love that. That's an open-minded, positive way to see it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
The negative way to see it is you look down from Everest. You're like, I'm never coming down ever again. And if I'm not up to the peak of the mountain by whatever next year, then I've really just done terrible. And so there's a big mindset problem there.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Some people, once they get to an objectively best shape of their lives, at the very least, feel some gratefulness for it, feel some love from themselves about like, dude, you did this thing. You look sweet. Like after, you know, training sessions, I'll often take my shirt off and just like do some posing. And a lot of that's for me to just like get vibes off myself and be like, man, I look awesome.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
This is great. And my desire to continue to trade off everything in my life to push for higher and higher is at least for the time mitigated because I'm like at least vibing. One of the most terrible things you can do is like you see yourself and you objectively look the best you've ever looked. And your first thought and last thought is, man, this ain't shit. Like I got to do better.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
For example, what is called the naturalistic fallacy or the argument from nature, which is a false argument, is the idea that just because something is artificial, that means it's bad for you. The corollary is just something is natural. Because it's natural, it's good for you.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Like if you're not willing to pat yourself on the back for what you look like now, the road of physique perfection may never end for you. And nobody's happy in that road, specifically you. And remember, like if you had, you asked the question, like who had a better time in life
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
a bodybuilder that mostly did interact with people and died hopeless and alone from steroid abuse, or Hugh Hefner, who looked like whatever, but like a trillion people. You're like, okay, Hugh Hefner won that one. Right, right. So if you don't have the best body of all time, you can clearly still live an amazing life, right? Like, right, okay.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So now you have to trade off how far am I willing to take my body bullshit away from living the best life that I can. So the optimality isn't because people have this idea. They're like, I'm going to be ripped, shredded to the bone all the time. And I'm going to have amazing life and balance and all this stuff. If you can manage that, dope, amazing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
I can't wait till like drugs and genetic engineering allow us all to be pro bodybuilders and walk around and do nothing. Amazing. We're just not there yet. And so a lot of times you have to be like, how important is it for me to look a certain way? And is me looking better over time associated with me feeling better?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
For example, for some people who have felt small or weak or fat during their lives, when they finally get in shape and start slowly improving their shape over time, it's just like all gravy. It's all amazing for them. They're like, I'm living my fucking dream. I can't believe I occupy this body. I'm thankful for it every day. It's making everything better. Dope.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
But if you're like, the last four years, I've been really optimizing for my physique. And if I look back at it as just me missing a lot of social functions and me hating myself a lot, and I've never really been satisfied, that's just not the road that's going to great places.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It's like someone tells you there's a really great trick-or-treating house down the street, but you've been on the street for 20 minutes already, and the houses are getting incredibly more dilapidated with ghosts and shit in them. You're like, what the fuck? screw you. What's down there that I need so much? There's clearly nothing down there. Let's turn around.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And I think some people after years of meticulously perfecting their bodies have received almost no joy from the process. It just made them like hate themselves more. Like you have to be mindful of that and understand how to walk it back.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Scorpion bite, arsenic, air conditioning and pillows are artificial. And like, I haven't seen people deny those too often. And so all of a sudden you're like, okay, this is not a helpful heuristic. It actually, we should go point by point on what's natural and artificial, like select out like that. It's tantamount to saying who's better, men or women. Like, I'm sorry, what? First of all, at what?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Those animals. Yeah. Yeah, that's a big deal. That's a big deal. People, a lot of times, will do things without questioning. And since suffering is such a big part of the sport, because it has to be, because it's just hard, a lot of people will be like, well, suffering is hard. And the harder I work, the more I suffer.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Thus, the corollary of the more I suffer, the better the results will be should be true. So try to suffer as little as you can, try to be as happy as you can, but work the necessary amount and be diligent to get the physique that you want. And my best advice is every now and again, take some time to think to yourself, what physique do I really want?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And what does my track record of various physiques making me happier or not happy? Because if you can maintain a certain physique and you just feel like over the moon about living in that physique for like ad infinitum, Dope. Amazing. It's probably worth it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
But if every time you get leaner and more jacked, the only thing you're left with is like, oh man, I really don't still like this look and I really need to be more lean and jacked. Just ask yourself what the downside risks of those are and what the upsides are and see if you're making like a remotely interesting calculation. Like I had to step away from competitive bodybuilding for some time.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
I'll be back to it in a year or two. But like, cause you know, YouTube and business and all that was really shooting up and I couldn't just take Mondo tons of drugs and computer time. Just taking my abilities and time away from the main thing. And like, it was painful. It's still painful. It still sucks. But I had to realize like, yeah, I just can't keep cranking like grams of steroids anymore.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
I'm not willing to pay this trade off. And I'm in a better place than I was then. Is there a better place for me still that I come back to competition and I do some good stuff and I'm proud of the physique that I can kind of leave competitively with? Yes. I think that's in my future, hopefully. And I think it'll work out great, but I'm always aware of all these things.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
If I just did things on vibes alone, I mean, good God, who knows what the hell I would be doing now. And the problem is with a lot of dysmorphia is they're completely subconscious and people don't ever bring them to the full mindfulness. And I'm like using like Sam Harris's waking up app and stuff to keep my meditation going and everything.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And stuff like that helps a lot because it's like, are you really aware of what's going on? Are you really getting what you need out of this situation? And that's something you must, must, must ask. It's really, really important.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And second of all, based on which individual, like if you tell me men are better at basketball, but- I can recruit a five foot two guy who's never played ball or a literal, the current best female in the WNBA. Like who the do you think I'm picking from my team? You have to be deep dive to actually learn things.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Yeah, that's the most dangerous kind of fat, actually. You did yourself a real good service.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Sure. There's so much to say there. I mean, it's absolutely a problem that people have an on-off switch for dieting or not dieting. And then how can you not zigzag when your on switch is you lose weight and your off switch is you gain a shitload of weight. And zigzagging or what's called yo-yo dieting is very bad for your health, very bad for your psychology.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It never leaves you with a stable ground. The other thing is once you use an app like Macrofactor for a long time, you actually get so good at eyeballing your average meals that you can just stop using the app for months at a time. I think the people that publish it are awesome. So I would just say don't even mess with your subscription. It's whatever small amount of money. Just keep it going.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
People do, but it takes a long time to inculcate that tracking. So I think you have just a few more years of tracking out of you. I've been tracking for a real long time. So for me, eyeballing is super easy. And you can also eyeball... If you're gaining weight, just know that you're eyeballing too much and just spare the eyeballing a little bit and then you're good to go.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So you don't have to track for forever, but tracking for a while and really... developing really good eating habits and then understanding how to change them from the fat loss diet to the maintenance diet is a really good thing. So take your fat loss diet and it'd be lots of protein, a little bit of fat, a little bit of carbs in a meal, lots of green veggies and stuff.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And that's most meals and you don't do cheat meals. When you're maintaining, you keep the core protein in the veggies, add some fruits and grains and fats to liking and to fullness and to something that can maintain your body weight. Once or twice a week, have a cheat meal and go ham and have fun. And then you just adjust your diet slowly as it goes and you maintain your weight.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And so that heuristic of our Diet Coke's made of artificial sweeteners, that means it's bad is just wrong. And there's worse because a lot of the articles you find on the internet about artificial sweeteners are written by like express advocacy groups that are naturalistically biased.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
But you still have those core, very healthy, high protein, high veggie, whatever meals that you have, your Greek yogurts, your protein shakes, your chicken breasts, your turkeys. That high protein, high nutrition core keeps your calories lower because it's filling food and it's very low calorie density and it's not super tasty. You don't want to keep eating it all the time.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And that in combination with some junk and some bullshit is like, that's just what's going to allow you to maintain your weight roughly for years and years and years. Whereas if you have the diet mode where you're starving to death, and then as soon as you end that, you're like, okay, so like I'm not dieting anymore. That means I just go back to my old habits of just eating Cheetos for every meal.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And then that tends to cause the problem of like reverses all of your good benefits. And it takes you back up to where you're starting. And then you're just on another diet again. I have many people in my life that I know very well only do periods of extreme insane dieting juxtaposed with periods of like, I'm eating whatever. And that is not a good thing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And so by following what I just said, the principle of keeping the protein in a healthy food core and adding some bullshit to it and monitoring your weight over time, keeping active, that's something that's very rarely taught, very rarely practiced, very rarely encouraged. Some people don't even know that it's real.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And so people get stuck in that cycle of like, I'm either dieting or I'm not dieting. And when I'm not dieting, I'm not maintaining my results from dieting and supplying my body with nutrition it needs. I'm just like a child with much more money to spend.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
That's impressive. It's an impressive superpower.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
You earned it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
You earned it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
What is the metabolism thing about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually just wrote down a good YouTube video idea based on what bad eating is really just eating like a kid and how we learn not to eat like that when we grow up and how you should eat like an adult. Yeah.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Like the Mercola Foundation, for example, aggregates a lot of information about the various studies of which official sweeteners were bad for health. Now there's a problem with these studies. One, these are almost always the studies that haven't been replicated. Like one out of 10 studies found that Diet Coke is bad for you and they just have never been able to replicate those results.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Very straightforward. So the metabolic stuff, if you diet for a very long time on very low calories and you have lots and lots of cardio as an output, a couple of things happen. One is you get in a very high stress state. And some people in a high stress state will hold lots of body water. So your weight won't be going down.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It might even be going up for a few weeks because you're getting bloated because your body's in like fight or flight mode. Another thing is your body will decrease your overall metabolic output to account for almost all of that extra activity. And it'll actually get more efficient at processing your food. And it'll get you to slight underestimate how much food you're eating.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
With all these little subtle changes, it can basically make it so that even though you're on paper doing more physical activity, as far as calories in, calories out, nothing's really changed. And your body water is going up because of that increased inflammation. And so it actually seems like you're gaining tissue because you're gaining weight. Now, you're almost certainly not gaining tissue.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
You're gaining water weight and... More activity and fewer calories will not solve the problem because you've accumulated a lot of fatigue, diet fatigue, and you need a time where you're at maintenance, maybe regain a little bit of weight, stay in maintenance. And if weeks and weeks and weeks and probably months of just like enough food for your body to finally be like,
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Okay, we're not starving to death anymore. Then it cranks down the body water situation. It makes you feel better. It cranks up your energy levels. So not only are you maintaining calories, but you have to peel back your physical activity to like sane, sustainable levels. Once you do that, your body's really good.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And then you can go and do some more physical activity and some less food for a number of weeks and months because your body's refreshed. You'll get great results. You'll get the leanest you've ever been if you'd like, but then you have to back away and do the same thing again. The body works like any machine. It needs phasic pushes and then pulling back to recover.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
You can't just push all the time. There is not a kind of factory machine you could do that with. There's not a kind of machine humans ever made. There's not a biological system we've ever discovered. You could just push the gas pedal all the time and it doesn't matter. That's just not a reality. And I think some people, they are introduced to dieting as like, this is the thing you do now.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Now you don't eat carbs. Now you don't eat junk food. Now you just eat like this. And it ends never go. And inevitably they'll get into a really bad spot. they'll try to reduce calories even more and increase activity even more to get out of it. That just makes the diet fatigue even more insane. And sometimes that pushes the needle along and sometimes it doesn't.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And then sometimes they end up like you, where they're like gaining weight and they're not supposed to be. Nothing's broken. It's just really, really off kilter. And it takes some time at maintenance calories, lots of sleep and a much lower level of physical activity. So your body can recover from all those things and get out of its kind of shock mode that it's in.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And then more and more studies keep coming out and it's totally fine.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
I mean, it might be true to say it's catabolizing everything you did last week, but you have like five years of working out under your belt. It just does that a week at a time each time. So you're not losing any more than that. And gaining it back is profoundly easy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Totally different results. Right. It's like one of the core elements of scientific process because like one study doesn't prove hardly anything, but 100 well-conducted studies all approaching a similar problem from slightly different angles and even the same angle over and over.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And you don't notice any actual tissue gains and muscle with most of our best measures within like about two weeks is when you really can start measuring it. So you're like losing two weeks worth of muscle has a few outcomes outside of like, you're not pumped anymore for being at the gym all the time. Nobody can tell.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And two, if you come back and lift for like half a week, you've regained all the muscle you lost and then you're just gaining new gains after that. So it's really not a big deal. Your specific situation tells me that you are quite overreached, quite fatigued and quite far gone because if after two weeks of not training and eating recreationally, you look better, you dug yourself one hell of a hole.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
I've been in that circumstance before. So have many, many bodybuilders and physique athletes. And only after you start eating more and you come out of that deficit, are you like, oh shit, I'm looking better and leaner and fuller the more I eat. And it's like, well, it's not magic. You just have depleted yourself so much, thrown off all your hormones so much that
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
that your body is just like in an unhealthy place. It's kind of like if you get someone who's been like on the front lines fighting and getting lots of experience with, you know, gunfights and stuff, but they're like, haven't slept in days. They haven't eaten in a long time. They're dehydrated. How good are they going to be like on the gun range, firing, maneuvering? Well, like not good.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
They're really tired. But if you take them and you have a week of them, like just sleeping a ton, eating a ton, no gunshots, no explosions. As soon as they get the weapon back in their hands and they go down the range, they're going to be like a savant with the shit because they're now they have all the skills they built, but they don't have any of the fatigue.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It's that same kind of thing happens with the body all the time and people totally discount. I think a lot of people think like whatever I do to my body is like last for like a few hours and then it's like totally reversed. Like I work out today, at least for a day. Good. If I miss a day, bad. If I have a good meal, good. If I have a bad meal, bad. I'm already like losing ground.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It just takes longer. It takes weeks to have all those things set in motion. And if you've pushed way too hard for weeks, it's just going to make you better until you get back to baseline.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
can like really get you, like if someone has a friend that's really strong and they beat you in arm wrestling, you know, well, that's pretty cool. Like maybe you should try arm wrestling again with them. Maybe you should try them arm wrestling really strong people.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
yeah just like delay it for a few months and then you get months of it and years of it like back as much as you want in a healthy balance that's a very very wise thing to say i think a lot of people with the best intentions that are in the health space like health nuts is what we call them the 90s i don't know if that's still term but
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
They're like so psychotic about the shit in the best possible way that they give other regular people a bit of an illusion as to what's involved. They'll say shit like, oh, when you eat healthy and you eat salads and stuff, you feel so much better. Some people get that. Some people don't. Some people are like, I felt better when I ate pizza.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
I just feel hungry and frustrated when eating chicken salads all the goddamn time. And they'll say like, because they're health nuts and because they're mentally maybe not so well and have body dysmorphia up the ass, they're kind of like always counting their macros or always eating quote unquote clean diet food and they never cheat or hardly ever.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And people look at them and they're like, well, apparently that's how you're supposed to look your best is you just are a robot and you eat only what's prescribed for your whole life. And it's just not true. It's similar to when people will interact with various professional athletes, and they just always assume that they're in their peak training and diet control phase all the time.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And then after they beat everyone, you're like, okay, your friend's legit versus like you arm wrestle them again and you beat them and you're like, oh, your friend's strong, but not that strong because I'm not that strong and I just beat him in arm wrestling. So, you know, replication is good. The other problem with what they do
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
They're like an NFL player after the Super Bowl when their team won. A week later, they're like, oh, training's pretty tough, huh? Actually, no one at the organization is going to contact me for the next month. I don't train at all for a month. And they're like, why?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Because my bones got broken into pieces during that last game, so I have to heal my bones, my tendons, my cartilage, my psychology, everything. People just have this perception that... People who do the thing always do the thing in increments of linear increasing difficulty until they reach 90 and die. I don't even know. But that is a very, very big misperception.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And like exactly to your point, causes people on the outside looking in to be like, was it this is fitness? Doing this shit all the time and never having a break?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
that's not for me and you just back off and one of the things i like is the idea of a cleanup phase where like once you've done most of your body composition change you've gained a lot of the muscle you wanted you've lost a lot of the fat and like you are today like you feel great you look great and you're good to go if you ever find yourself in a position where like you know the holidays a couple work trips couple various other things and now you're in a situation where you're like yeah i've got a little bit of a spare five or six pounds of fat that i gained over whatever amount of time
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
just like four weeks of eating no junk and reducing your carbs and fats in your meals by half, sticking to that protein and veggie core for all the meals and whatever Greek yogurt or some bullshit. And just like making sure you get 10,000 steps a day and really hitting the gym diligently can just completely wipe away all five or six pounds of excess fat, keep and build even more muscle.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And then after that, you go just back to your normal because people will think maintenance is like, okay, maintenance means I never accumulate body weight. I never get out of shape. As soon as I get out of shape one day, the next day has to be a good day. Like actually you can float for months up in body weight by five or six pounds.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
in those research aggregations is they will use studies with purposefully or unbeknownst to them have been refuted in a sense of methodologically refuted. So for example, there are the Ramazzini studies from the Ramazzini Foundation in Italy that came out with these studies about like aspartame and rats. There's a group of like several studies that they did
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And it's a great time because first of all, you're not food obsessed. Second of all, you're working out. Yeah, you're doing your shit, but also, you know, we have a couple of junk food items here and there, skip the gym a couple of times here and there. And then when you, the phase of life shifts, it's no longer the holidays. Now it's January.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Now you're like, yeah, I actually do have four weeks to clean this up. And then you buy yourself another multiple months worth of time of living in fundamentally healthy habits, but also not psychotically looking over your meals and workouts like a hawk and ruining the rest of your life. I think that slow up and down, very little cleanup, once, you know, twice a year, you'll do it for a month.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And the rest of the time you live your life in an awesome, healthy balance that's not psychotic. I think that's probably one of the better ways to approach it. Having that ability to know how to clean up in your pocket and deploying it when you have a few weeks here and there.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And even if you have only two or three weeks at a time, even one weekend spent diligently dieting and not going out for pizza can be a measurable impact on your physique. And so there's always a chance to clean it up. I love, love, love that approach because it says once you get to a really good place, you can really have a lot of freedom.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And coming back to that good place to restart the clock, so to speak, is insanely easy. It takes a few weeks of diligence. Empowering people with that takes them out of the perspective of like, well, should I really have this ice cream bar? I don't know, 210 calories. My cap's 200. Like, bro, bro, have two of them.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And then in three months when you're like, ah, I want to look a little leaner, you can spend literally a few weeks getting back exactly all the leanness that you ever lost.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Yeah. So every donut should be seen as like a two to four mile run. And that's brutal, but also it's good because your body is designed by evolution to conserve on calories. And so it's insanely efficient. That means our ancestors could survive like off of the land in Africa, hunting various small animals and eating roots and tubers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
But because now we have modern grocery stores, it's different game. And once you realize like, okay, actually our bodies are phenomenally efficient to physical activity, phenomenally efficient with absorbing and adjusting food. We're not really going to use one of those processes to counterbalance the other.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
and aspartame was just toxic to rats and aged them faster, called all kinds of disease, tons of cancer. And then somebody made a request for raw data for the Ramazzini studies, and they just wouldn't fulfill it out.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So what we want to do is like get up to a level of physical activity that's healthy and allows us to, you know, burn a moderate amount of calories, nothing too low, roughly 10,000 steps a day worth of regular activity with some lifting in there. And once we do that, the main lever we can pull for getting a calorie deficit so we can lose fat is going to be diet control.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And the good news is you don't even need to pull the lever that hard. First of all, getting rid of all of your junk food when you're dieting is like just such a huge hack. No more regular sodas, no more junk. And when you do eat food, keep it a protein core with plenty of veggies.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And if you need to eat more food to not lose weight too fast or be hungry like crazy, some high quality nutritious carbs, whole grains, fruits, things like that, or some high quality fats like olive oils and nuts and nut butters and stuff, they can fill in the blanks. And then that's really how you do it. You're not very hungry, but you're losing weight constantly.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
That's probably the best approach to go for that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
We don't know exactly how it works on every little level, but some of the inklings we have has to do with satellite cells. So your muscle cells have a nucleus which controls the cell and then the rest of the cell that does all the cell stuff. But the nucleus is like a town center with like a fire department, like a mail distribution service.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And the rest of the cell is like the rest of the city, the apartment complexes, the gyms, the factories, and so on and so forth. At some point, your muscle cells get big enough that they need more town centers to be located in because like one fire department is not enough to cover New York City because the city's grown so much. So once your muscle cells get big enough,
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Like they're not, here's the data we actually collected, which in science is like, if you're not willing to release raw data that you've properly de-identified, by the way, these are animals, so there are no ethical privacy concerns. you're probably up to no good in the sense of like your raw data does not show what it's supposed to.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
There's all these little nuclei barely covered up by a cell enclosure sitting around close to that in your muscles. They're microscopic and they have almost no cell around them. They're just a nucleus. And those satellite cells, when the regular muscle cell gets big enough to where they're like, eh, too big, it's called a myonuclear domain ceiling. It hits that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
The satellite cells will donate their nuclei. So the nucleus pops into your old cell and now has two nuclei. So it can get like twice as big. And the thing is, once nuclei go in, they seem to not come out.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So if you get a bunch of nuclei, which are like the control processes of the cell that help to direct all the protein manufacture, and the more of them you have, the more protein you can manufacture and the quicker you can bulk up your muscles and sustain them.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Once you have lifted and then you quit for however long, you will lose the city amount, like people will close down the shopping malls or whatever. But the fire station, police station, government, the nucleus never closes. And so when you want to build in that city again, you're like, okay, we want to build in the city. Do they even have a fire department? Yep.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And it's really close to your house. And now you're the only person who lives there and you have a whole fire department to yourself. You're going to be able to build out that city real quick. And so once the nuclei stay and then you stop lifting and the muscle around them shrinks, when you start lifting again, your muscles are like, okay, we got to get this lifting going.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Hey, nuclei, you ready to work? And there's like all these nuclei are like, yes. And you're like, oh my God, there's a goddamn factory over here. And so you regain that lost muscle real quick because your superpower to do it because you have so many nuclei. It's almost the same thing as giving yourself just better genetics from the get-go.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And so for that reason and a few others, muscle regain happens really, really rapidly. And if you've gotten really jacked, which is you've already translocated a bunch of nuclei from satellite cells into your core muscle, then they never leave. And so that's kind of how the memories develop, like kind of always there. And whenever you want to get it started again, you get to go.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It's kind of like if you used to play PlayStation, but you haven't played in a while, the system's still at your house and it still turns on and you're right back. You don't have to like go to Best Buy and buy a new one or whatever. Like you still have the system at your house and it's never leaving. That's kind of the analogy there.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
You still have them. And so because you don't have as much testosterone in your body, the analogies there is you still have the fire station, police station, but the export GDP coming in is lower. So there's not as much business to be done. However, you can do way more business with fire stations, police stations than without.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And some elements of the data that they released was like, they actually didn't control for age for the rat sample. So there may have been like way more older rats in the aspartame sample. And of course they're older. And then they just get tons of cancer and shit because they're old and that's it. And so what ends up happening is if you actually look at the literature from an unbiased perspective,
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And so you're not going to, unless you take steroids again, get back to your steroid size. But you'll get back to a way bigger size than you could have had without having ever done steroids. Or it would have taken like five more years of training to get that big. The steroids do incorporate satellite cells faster as they grow muscle faster.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Because the number one reason satellite cells are incorporated is when the cell gets too big to run itself without more nuclei. And so steroids can grow your cell so fast, you just add satellite cells faster when you're on steroids. Then when you stop steroids, you still have them all incorporated.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
That's one of the reasons why many sports scientists have now sort of taken the position that steroid use for especially long period, any time in your career is a permanent enhancer, a permanent cheat code. And so they used to just test people right before the competition. And if you didn't have any steroids in, you were good to go. Nowadays, it's really tough.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And there's a lot of very rational voices in the community to say, if you've ever tested positive for steroids, you should never be allowed to compete with drug-free people ever again because you always have an advantage. And there's absolutely a lot of truth to that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
We have no reason to believe that we found any time limit. Every examination we take seems to be like years at least, probably decades and maybe forever.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Yeah, it's great. Isn't it great? That means you can like take three weeks off on traveling to Tokyo or whatever, and you come back to lift and two weeks later, you're the most jacked you've ever been. Because people, man, they get really up in their head about that. They're like, oh my God, I'm going to quit lifting. I'm going to lose it all.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Even if you do lose it all, your comeback road is 10 times easier than the road to get there initially was, which is huge.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
That's great. Huge, huge hello to Rob. He's awesome. I saw him pin someone in wrestling once in seven seconds. It was the fastest pin I've ever seen in my entire life. It was awesome. It was a big hero moment. A lot of people will say, yeah, man, I used to be a college athlete, and now I'm a stock trader or whatever. It's just tough.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And to those people, obviously, I'd usually say polite things that they like to hear, weave in some wisdom. What I'd like to say is shut the fuck back up and go to the gym regularly, you a**hole. You're arguing in a way that seems for you to tell me that like, oh, it makes sense, man. Must've fallen so far. It's tough to get back. But the reality is because I know you used to be more jacked.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It's easier for you to get more jacked. If you're like, yeah, man, you know, in college, I never did anything and I was Harry Potter skinny. Should I lift weights? I'd be like, yeah, it's going to be an uphill battle. You're going to have to build everything anew. It's possible and it's going to be great, but you know, like it's a big dig. Like it's like deciding to pull out
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
There is no reason either via the direct empirical literature or mechanistically by supposition or population studies to suspect that Diet Coke is bad for your health. That is not the same as with regular Coke because regular Coke has sugar and sugar in the context of a well-balanced diet in which you control your calories is totally fine, as much of it as you like to eat.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
You buy a piece of property with a house on it, you just had to pull that house out and put another one in. Like, this is some shit's going on. Whereas if you are on the position where you used to be pretty jacked and lifted regularly, any point in your life for like months on end at least, then coming back to that, it's just going to be way easier.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It's like having the house and the frame already there. You're just adding a new roof or something. It's just way, way different proposition.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Yes, by such a small calorie number that's nominal. It just won't be picked up by most equipment. That's good to know. And so is the statement more or less true than average of they're the same would bring us? I would say the statement is less true than is on average a good idea.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So if you operate under the assumption that muscle and fat burn roughly the same amount of calories, you're going to have various things happen to you and to your body as a result of that assumption.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And if you operate under the assumption that muscle burns substantially more calories than fat, and thus you change your behavior and change your goals and everything, you're going to be much closer to reality and a good time and a good outcome if you just assume they're the same.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Yeah, well, I can't explain it because it's always during my manic episodes on podcasts, and I just don't even remember those. So, you know, AI is really powerful and it's powerful in ways that most people, including myself, have just not really wrapped their minds around. It's also going to be powerful really soon in a way that's impossible for you to wrap your mind around.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Because, like, how does your dog understand why do you go to work? There's actually insufficiently intelligent to understand what work even is or even think of, like, various ideas just by themselves. So AI is growing exponentially and it's super powerful. It's going to do all these great things.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
But one of the things that AI doesn't even have to exist for this, but because AI exists, this is going to come much sooner than later, is the idea of looking at the body and being like, okay, so when we're exercising, how does exercise make us more muscular and healthier and all these other things? And it turns out it actually just does it in really one way.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
A few others, but they're very, very small contributors. The most direct way is actually something about exercise is detected by your cellular machinery, and your cellular machinery changes how it operates, and it produces more proteins of some kind, less of another kind, and then it upgrades your body to give you what you want.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It's not literally true that lifting weights makes your muscles bigger, because how the f**k does that have anything to do with the laws of physics? Where is the signal coming from to make your muscles bigger? You're not eating the weights.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Because we know that the end result of exercise, exercise is a stimulus, and the final result is some kind of molecular alterations in the cell, we have to ask the question of like, well, what are the intermediary steps to change those molecules and molecular machines to work in a different way? And we're like, oh, they're like chemical substances. Like, uh-huh. Okay.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So you can make a drug that's them. Uh-huh. If you just take that drug, they'll just like do the thing that you're trying to do, but like get right to the point. Uh-huh. Okay. What's stopping us from doing that? Like, well, we're not so good at designing drugs that are exactly the thing we want, and we're not so great at delivering them into the body system such that they survive digestion.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
But sugar in addition to a diet of normal calories and like very few people drink a Coke or any kind of Sprite or anything with sugar in it. They're like, oh, that really filled me up, Jim. Gee whiz, I'm going to skip dinner.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And like, hey, AI, can you help us with that? And AI's like, yeah, I can actually scan all the types of protein you could ever make, be given information about all the different receptor types that that protein can clip into, and probably design a protein that has a 99% chance of being exactly the thing that you want it to be.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And you're like, oh, so if we can really do that, then all of a sudden we can maybe like take a pill that gets us all the muscle that we need and with zero training. Can you give us some kind of grounding? And the reality is there's actually just one molecule in skeletal muscle called myostatin. It's naturally produced. Myo for muscle, statin for stopper or blocker.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And it stops you from growing constant, huge amounts of skeletal muscle. And when you exercise, among various other things, myostatin's activity turns down. And then when you don't exercise for a while, it turns back up. So muscle loss isn't something that just happens all the time because nature. It happens on purpose. Your body gets rid of muscle on purpose.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Some substantial number of people that are diagnosed with anorexia nervosa are not savable. It actually causes a substantial amount of higher death rate in females because anorexia nervosa is one of the deadliest diseases, period.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
When it stops getting rid of muscle, that's actually its default state, and then it gets you super jacked. How do we know that's a real thing? With chemicals, researchers have confirmed that it exists. And we have animals that are mice, we have greyhounds, we have cattle, and a few humans who have the myostatin protein just doesn't work.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And so they just never stop gaining skeletal muscle to a point that's much higher than us, and they just look jacked and ripped all the time. So we actually know that there's not like this magical set of circumstances we have to unlock for muscle growth to occur. It's really just like even one molecule goes like 95% of the way to maximum muscle. If we just turn it off, we're good to go.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So now all we're looking for is a way to turn myostatin off in a graded exposure level with a pill or an injection for humans to one protein target in one type of cell. It's not rocket science. They've done this with other things before. And now it's just a matter of getting the candidate molecules developed and getting them researched.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
They're usually like, it's so easy to get sugars into your diet, they're so highly palatable, they're so liquid and easily digestible, that you can often use sugary beverages as like a buffer to your caloric intake. So a lot of people who drink regular sodas, they just have a harder time controlling their calories, and then they do get fatter, and then they do get all these health maladies.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And it's not happening right now because all of the large pharmaceutical corporations are are now using AI, but they're using it to hit like big hitters, like diabetes, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary, like all these things that are mega killers. But very shortly, they're going to realize like, actually insufficient muscle mass in older populations is like a real big killer by itself.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And so they're going to develop that. And then the rest of us who are of normal healthy weight
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
can take however much of that we need to be as jacked as we want functionally it doesn't address like muscle asymmetries and imbalances you will get like your head will look more like mine marginally because you'll develop muscles everywhere these are all skeletal muscles that's why i look kind of ridiculous i didn't notice that but uh thank you but as a result of just hitting the chemical buttons
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
That's kind of the story. We're already doing that with appetite. You've noticed the new drugs, the Ozempics and stuff like that. GLP-1, is that what they're called? GLP-1, yep. And there's GLP-GAP dual agonist. There's retatratide, which is a triple agonist, which actually increases your basal metabolic rate in addition to reducing your appetite and a few other things.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So we're getting to this point where we are known for generations that the body's a very complex machine and that if you turn various genes off or if you turn various proteins on and off or turn them up and down, you can sort of get whatever the fuck you want out of it within the realms of biological feasibility. But now we're actually having some traction in this.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
In the next five to 10 years, I think we're just going to get a lot of traction onto it. We're going to have super ozempics coming out and we're going to have drugs that can modulate your muscle mass and modulate your health. And so like, yeah, with like two or three pills a day, you can have an incredible amount of health, muscularity, et cetera.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And if you want to work out just for extra aesthetic appeal and get the muscles all in balance, like that's great. But then people who like want to do hiking or want to hang out with their families and want to travel around the world, they'll still be able to be healthy and fit without having to spend hours and hours at the gym, which I personally think is a blessing and an amazing thing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And I think it's also rather inevitable, but some people in the fitness community maybe misunderstand my position or maybe they understand it appropriately and they think that's going to be like the worst thing in the world. Yeah.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Oh man, my best answer is I'm not sure. I have trouble experiencing the emotion of pride. And anytime I get proud of anything, I try to figure out like why me and not other people. And I realized like most of the reasons are like my parents just happen to be pretty smart. And I came out genetically real smart and genetically prone to hard work.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And I took some opportunities that came my way through nothing other than luck multiplied by my genetics. And I don't really know how to feel proud about any of that. Imagine asking a basketball player if they're proud about being 6'10", and they're like, well, I just kind of grew into it. So I don't know, man.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So I would say like in the context of oil-balanced diet, both Diet Coke and regular Coke, et cetera, and all the diet regular sodas are totally fine. But if you have to get rid of something from your diet that's really making it tough for you to lose weight or stay at a healthy weight, then like regular sodas are tier one, exactly the first thing you get rid of.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
I think my parents have seen me be so not successful that they're probably most proud of the fact that I'm just like a decent human being who earns a living. But I think they're proud of the fact that I'm like, you know, financially very well to do. It's a big deal for Ashkenazi Russian Jews.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And the fact that I'm like sort of in the fitness space kind of world famous or whatever that seems to be, I think, I think they think is nice. But I think they just like that I have a thing that I'm good at and that thing pays well and that I'm like support myself and my wife and everything. I'm not in jail, you know, for various degenerate crimes. I think that's for them like a real big deal.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Russian Jewish parents tend to see pride as like, can you checklist these three or four major things? We're good. And if you haven't, you're like a disaster failure. That's seemingly how it works. But yeah, for me on a personal level, I'm just trying to do my best, man. I've tried to like really be proud of some stuff, but it just never sinks in. So I'm just kind of like, yeah, but.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
I think it's nice that I have all these things, but I'm just trying to be like a decent human being and do better to help myself and help other people one day at a time without stepping on too many toes. It was best I can hope for.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Can't wait to get back on the show again. And thank you so much for having me. Thank you, man.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Because unlike fruit juices, they don't even have vitamins and minerals. Now, fruit juices are also probably not the greatest thing if you have weight control problems. But if you have a fruit juice here and there and your weight's fine, hey, the vitamins and minerals are good. Sugar is totally fine for you.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
But what diet soda really comes out on top is like, man, this thing is just like roughly inert outside of a couple of really, really esoteric concerns, which just don't add up in the long term. Diet soda is totally healthy. And it's not one of these things like, oh my God, like what did we learn new? How is it like a huge revelation? Like I always thought it was bad.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Like, no, no, no, there never was any good evidence for it being bad. And there was no theoretical supposition. This is just something that like emerges straight from like instinctual human knowledge.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
preference it's like people who are trying to dump stocks during a stock market drive like do not sell when the stocks are falling my god what are you doing this is a terrible best practice everyone will tell you it's terrible you're just doing because of human instinct because like when it's a hot potato you want to throw it away you just don't do that and so same idea for the diet soda thing it's one of those things like it's totally fine to drink and there is no good reason to think it's bad
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Yeah, I just got into this thing with alcohol on another podcast. So last I checked, nicotine is not an ROI positive net balance drug to be taking through your lifespan. However, as with almost anything you take in, it has some downsides and some upsides, and nicotine has distinct upsides. Nicotine is technically a nootropic in the sense that it helps you think clearly. It can calm you down.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It can give you a sense of peace. It can allow you to focus. And to that end, nicotine has some real big upsides. It's an appetite reducing agent, and so it can help you curb your cravings. So it has all those advantages, and some people, for whatever reasons, genetically or otherwise, just don't seem to get tons of the downsides, but get lots of the advantages.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So there's going to be people out there in the world that, for them, nicotine use is better on net balance than not using it. Those people aren't super common, but they do exist, and everyone gets something beneficial out of nicotine. though usually the health downsides are worse for most people.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
They're definitely worse if you use the tobacco vehicle of smoking, but chewing has its downside risks and all these other things. So there are ways to minimize them that they're doing now with various patches and various gums that don't have tar that f***s up your teeth and gives you oral cancer.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
But still, the argument for nicotine being a health benefit on average needs substantially more evaluation, and the probability that that's correct for most people is low. So that's the deal with nicotine.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And so the good news, I guess, is that I think if you're really dead set on loving nicotine, and it's great, people love it, they get addicted to it, then you can definitely find ways in which it's beneficial. And then you can post about them to your bro friends on the internet and mention it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
If you really just hate and despise nicotine for whatever reason, you can find like a thousand things wrong and bad about it and only talk about those and never accede to the fact that it has some benefits and upsides. The whole world is mixed, but I'd say everything shades of gray. It's an average for the average person. Nicotine is probably not a good idea to take.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
If you do take nicotine, there are ways to take it that can minimize, though not eliminate the downsides potentially if you are a good responder to the drug.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Damn. Yeah. That's intense. Yeah. I mean, like there's lots of data about the addictive proclivity of various drugs and most people just don't get addicted to cocaine. Some small fraction will. The problem is like when you do get addicted to cocaine, it's insanely expensive. It messes you up real fast. And so it's a real huge downhill slide.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
I think probably proportionally way more people get addicted to nicotine than cocaine on people who try it or use it recreational. But nicotine does not have the same deleterious, very acute downsides to your life and health that cocaine does. So there's a lot of stuff like that where people are well addicted to it. But the thing is, it's not a big deal.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Like you could be addicted to watching several hours of Netflix documentaries per night. that's actually really good. You know what I mean? So nicotine is not nearly as bad as cocaine, but yeah, you know, it's interesting. A lot of people have trouble giving up caffeine like for good. Can you imagine that? Like how many people are like, wait, no coffee ever. You're like, yep.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
They're like, man, that like, They just won't do it. And if they try, it's going to be terrible. And a lot of this interfaces with lifestyle. So if you think about it, like, okay, so when do I do cocaine? It's at crazy parties when I'm at the industry parties before movie releases. Okay.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So if I just do some other drug at that party and just stop doing cocaine, it's not like I'm going to be doing cocaine before my kids, you know, baseball game on Saturday. So I'm out. I'm out of the whole game. Whereas like, where do you do nicotine? Everywhere. And where do you do caffeine? Like what's actually actively encouraged by society? You just are expected to be a caffeine addict.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
So when something is integrated into your daily life and everyone around you does it, they're like, do you want a coffee? We're making espresso. You're like, well, this is a really hard habit to kick.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Yes, of course I do. I've actually never tried cocaine, but I've seen my friends do it. And I'm like, there's enough of me to go around already. Like, I don't need to be talking any faster, getting more excitable.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
I'm already on the end that's inconvenient for people. But caffeine consumption and specifically through coffee is a net health benefit every time it's studied. So people who are worried about like, oh, but I drink too much coffee, like unless your sleep is actively hampered.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
which you can test really easily by drinking coffee earlier in the day, stopping earlier, drinking less and seeing how your sleep folds out. Unless that's really the approximate case or it could cause you a lot of anxiety or something like that, then it's probably like coffee is really good for your health. As a matter of fact, I'm drinking...
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
The worst thing in the world to coffee drinkers, you're going to hate me in three seconds. This is an instant decaf coffee made with hot water from my sink, like faucet, and three packets of Splenda and just a spoonful of that bullshit that people dare to call coffee. The reason I take it is because I love the taste. It's like one of my favorite beverages.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
It's nice and warm in the morning with my protein bars that I eat for breakfast, but also it has like tons of antioxidants and all these other health things. So There's this thing from the wellness influencer space where like they start getting real, real gatekeepy about anything that you take is bad for you. Like any kind of semblance or hint of a drug or like coffee's got to be bad.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
And it's funny, we've seen this from people's kind of biases and what they've seen from the health space as long as like I've helped run Renaissance Periodization, RP Strength, because we had clients back before we even had a company name where you would tell them a lot of New York City clients, big wig people. And they would be like, okay, I'm starting to diet with you. You're like, yes.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
They're like, okay, so I assume like no coffee, no soda, no tea, right? And we're like, who the fuck told you that? And they're like, I don't know, a yoga lady always says. And it's kind of like this thing that lives in the ether and it's just not true. It's just not true. So drink coffee as long as it's fitting your lifestyle to your heart's content.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
But I have even better news, sir. Right now, you can get it for cheaper if you buy the year up front.