The Jordan Harbinger Show
1109: Michael Israetel | Fitness Myths and Science-Based Solutions
Tue, 28 Jan 2025
Is diet soda bad? Do muscles vanish when you stop lifting? Dr. Michael Israetel, bodybuilding professor and fitness expert, answers these questions and more! What We Discuss with Michael Israetel: Common beliefs about artificial sweeteners and diet sodas being inherently harmful are largely unfounded. According to Dr. Israetel, there's no scientific evidence supporting that diet sodas are bad for health when examining both empirical literature and mechanistic studies. Muscle dysmorphia in men is a real issue, though not as prevalent as body image issues in women. It can lead to unhealthy obsessions with appearance and potentially dangerous behaviors, especially when combined with social media pressure and unrealistic comparisons. "Muscle memory" is a real physiological phenomenon based on satellite cell nuclei that remain in muscle tissue even after losing muscle mass. These nuclei never leave once created, making it easier to regain lost muscle even years later. You can't outrun a poor diet with exercise — the body is extremely efficient at conserving energy, making it much harder to burn off excess calories through exercise than it is to simply not consume them in the first place. The key to sustainable fitness is implementing "cleanup phases" rather than extreme dieting. You can maintain a healthy weight by following normal, balanced eating habits most of the time, then doing 3-4 week periods of stricter eating when needed to reset. This approach allows you to enjoy life while staying fit, rather than constantly restricting yourself. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1109 And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom! Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: Is diet soda harmful to your health?
How did you get my video cam for my gym?
Exactly. But I also, you know, look, I used to be the guy who used to be like, oh, roll their eyes at the guys flexing in the mirror at the gym. And I still probably do that. But I will tell you, as soon as I dieted for like a year and I ended up with a six pack for the first time in my entire life and I had that.
six pack for maybe three weeks before I was like but I want like the sides to go in more and then I want like this stuff to go away my original goal was it would be great if I fit into my pants again and now it's like but I kind of want like the V thing and it's just ridiculous and you keep moving the goalposts and I know myself well enough to go I could be built like the cover of men's fitness and I'd still be like ah but like my back muscles are like not the same size it's just human nature or something like that or am I just neurotic
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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Chapter 2: What is muscle dysmorphia and how does it affect men?
Oh, I tried eyeballing. I was like, I'm going to eyeball this. And I was like, oh, I'm getting fatter. And then I went back to weighing and I was like, oh, yeah, no, I'm just shit. That's just because you're not that smart. Most people will do better than you. Most people don't lie to themselves when they eyeball the meal.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Chapter 7: Can diet and exercise alone maintain muscle mass?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I've got some friends that are, let's just say they have some city miles on them from living in Hollywood for a long time. They have all told me that nicotine was harder to kick than cocaine.
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.
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