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A father and daughter discuss life across their generations. Science, medicine, music, and whatever else they choose to discuss are on the table.
Peter
00:00
It's you're just making your urine more expensive.
Aubrey
00:09
Welcome back to Generations. I'm one of your co-hosts, Aubrey.
Peter
00:13
And I am your other co-host, Peter.
Aubrey
00:16
How are ya? How has your last few weeks been, Dad?
Peter
00:20
Uh they've been pretty good, busy. Um I I decided like a week and a half ago, and I know that there's lots of people who would be like, oh that's nothing anyway, but But I decided that I wanted to try and get at least 12,500 steps every day. And some days that's not that hard. And there are some days for that flipping socks. Like, you know, on a Sunday where mostly I'm gonna be home, that means I have to go for a Fast for well or like yeah, like like I went for an hour this morning and I'm gonna have to go later again today because other than that it's just like puttering around at home and walking to and from church and that's not very many steps. So it's definitely one of these things that there's been a few nights where I get to the end of the night and I look and I'm like, oh, come on. I've gone and paced in the backyard.
Aubrey
01:16
I do the same thing. Hayden calls it my manic pacing when because I started like doing it just walking around the house because I've been trying to get 10,000 steps. a day just just again, not necessarily for the number, but just to make sure I'm moving around more throughout the day. You know And I just started manic pacing in laps around the apartment. He was like, Oh, are we manic pacing? What's going on? I was like, Yeah, I'm almost I'm almost done with my steps, I gotta keep going. Sometimes I'll have to manic pace at the end of the the night so I get it.
Peter
01:49
Yep. Yep. But uh how have you been?
Aubrey
01:54
I've been pretty good. Um it's getting to be warmer weather, farmers market weather, that sort of thing. So that's been really nice. Hayden and I went to um a farmers market like a week ago and then there's like um some cute like night markets that they do downtown um that we went to on Thursday. Um it was Hayden and I's six year dating anniversary on Friday. Um so we went out to dinner for that. So that was super fun. Got some steak at a fancy steak restaurant. Which was very good. Very good. They had some truffle fries and mashed potatoes and stuff. Stuff like that. That was delicious. Very good. So yeah, that was that was nice. Um But yeah, we're just I'm just getting ready for summer. All of the kids at work are a little antsy, you can tell, 'cause it's the end of the school year and they're ready to just be outside running around all the time. Um but yeah, it's been it's been pretty good. So
Peter
03:01
I believe it.
Aubrey
03:04
For our topic today, um I'm excited for this one. Uh, I do want to do a little a wee bit of a disclaimer here at the stars. Please do. Of this. Oh, I just got an amber alert and it's screaming in my ear. I was gonna say tornado warning. Oh, imminent threat. Take shelter now. Um, do we need to is the sky green? Do we need to go downstairs? Do we need to go very f away from the window? Close the blinds so if the glass breaks. It might. It literally says critical with three ex exclamation points. Imminent threat alert is the tornado warning in this area until twelve PM. Take shelter now. I can hear the sirens. Can you hear the you probably can't hear the sirens?
Peter
03:52
Yeah, no, I can kinda hear it.
Aubrey
03:54
Um why are you acting so nonchalant about this? Okay, let's check the map. Let's before before we take cover now. It literally says in exclamation points in all caps take cover now. Move to a basement or interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. Wait, is it in Milwaukee? No, it's literally right. I'm looking at the map. Hold on.
Peter
04:17
Yes, this is all, you know, this is this is all stuff you should figure out and make sure you're going to be able to do it. It's never done this before. You're like, this is more critical than in the past.
Aubrey
04:26
Yes, that was the time we had to go in the basement. Okay. Hold on. I'm just gonna check the map.
Peter
04:31
Yeah, that's wild.
Aubrey
04:33
Okay, it's moving east. through us.
Peter
04:37
Yeah, I just went to tornadohq. com.
Aubrey
04:40
Central D yeah, okay. The severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located over Verona, moving northeast at twenty five miles per hour. That was two minutes ago. Hazard tornado and quarter sized hail. Flying debris, tree damage, damage to roofs, windows, and vehicles, Madison, Fitchburg, Verona, Monona, Shorewood Hills. Take cover now in all calves
Peter
05:04
Yeah, it's a little north of you the center of it, but you guys are in the So uh do we wanna hit uh
Aubrey
05:11
I'm worried about my car. I'm glad your car's in the garage. Do
Peter
05:16
do we need to
Aubrey
05:17
Okay, we're far enough away from the window.
Peter
05:19
Do we need to come back?
Aubrey
05:21
I can't hear you.
Peter
05:22
Do we need to hello?
Aubrey
05:25
Oh, there we go. Oh, jeez. Sorry.
Peter
05:29
Okay. So do we do we need to pause?
Aubrey
05:33
No, we're good We're good. We're fine. It's not even the sky's not green. The sky's not green, so um I'm okay.
Peter
05:40
We're okay. I can I can hear
Aubrey
05:43
get started in Verona. It's kinda crazy. Yeah, we'll be okay. The other tornade like the sirens just stopped.
Peter
05:50
Okay, yeah, no, I can hear they stopped. Well that's exciting. That was uh a bit of an unplanned So our disclaimer is not that Aubrey's going to die in a tornado. And it took
Aubrey
06:04
the roof of that. Yes, yes, my love. We were not in the city of St. Louis when that tornado came through. Yes, but if the tree had fallen to the right and not the left, your car would have been crushed. Okay.
Peter
06:16
Anyways.
Aubrey
06:16
So I'm not gonna die by a tornado, but anyways, so sorry about that. So back to the disclaimer that I was gonna say. Our disclaimer is that neither of us are Uh professionals in all exercise health sciences Sure. Neither of us are that. Um and we are going to chat about some You know, some topics some people may have misconceptions about, but it's not like we are the leading experts on these topics
Peter
06:53
Okay, that's a cute disclaimer, and I am okay with it, but I'm gonna be a little bit more forceful and say that while we are not f necessarily certified whatever fitness people. I am a doctor. Well
Aubrey
07:12
that was going to be my second disclaimer.
Peter
07:14
And I have Researched every one of these things. I basically what happened in is you sent me this list of questions and I went in on my own and I responded to each of them with what I thought And then I took those and I went and researched all of them to see was I right or was I wrong. And guess what? In every one that I had an answer, I was right. But I made sure I researched them first before I said definitively this is what we're gonna say. So you are correct. We are not certified absolute experts in every one of these areas, but I think we've got a pretty solid leg to stand on.
Aubrey
07:55
Yes, and my second disclaimer was gonna be although we may not be the leading fitness health experts, um A few of these questions I would say you are actually probably a leading, a leading expert on. Yeah, that's
Peter
08:09
that's probably true
Aubrey
08:11
So if you're gonna complain, if anyone is who's listening is gonna complain about the answers to a few of these questions I do just want to say that you are the pea doctor.
Peter
08:23
I am the pea doctor. And as you titled this, you you dubbed these piss myths. Yep. So these are. They're not all necessarily just about piss, but they are and more. Yep, exactly.
Aubrey
08:35
Piss myths and more. So
Peter
08:38
So I created a notion. page database and stuff for us. And so in there I've got all of the uh the the myths, the the things that you mentioned, and then a few others that after I went through and looked, I thought these need to be these would be good things for us to discuss while we are addressing other fitness type myths because here's the thing and and I think this is where it's an interesting it's hopefully it makes us an interesting conversation Because you grew up predominantly in an era where there was social media and there was obviously YouTube and people spouting these things all the time. And you can't like open any app that has video on your phone or on the internet and not be barraged by fitness influencers by experts by people walking around the grocery store with a camera like mega douches And and stuff like that. And so you just like live in this world where there's a torrent of potential misinformation. And that's the hard part is trying to ferret that out. Whereas I grew up in an era where, you know, we had a ha a lot less of that. And it was generally coming through things like the TV, whether it was news or like news magazine, like 60 Minutes or 2020. or or actually through the news, papers, and things like that. And that doesn't by any means mean to say that those things were always correct either. But most of the time there was at least some level of editorial rigor applied to the things that made it through there. to try and catch. And now that anybody with a a phone, literally, I mean just, you know, a phone, camera, and a I mean your phone has the camera, the microphone, and the entering software. Now that anybody can do that, there's this barrage of things that makes it really difficult. And I'll be honest that I myself have found sometimes I'll catch some of these and I'm like, oh. Oh, oh my. And then I'm instantly going, wait a second, I'm checking myself because you know I have that experience and that uh that background of, okay, here's a claim. Well what d f let me find the research. Let me see what actually happens. And but and so I think that's important to go through a lot of these because there are so many of them out there. I mean it's just all over the place.
Aubrey
11:16
Yep, yeah, exactly. Like anyone could kind of just t take a video of themselves and start yapping and just say things that are they say is solid facts and I've I tend to find myself if I'm like scrolling social media and I hear anyone say like any sort of fitness tip or anything, I kind of immediately am like that's probably not true. But then even if it is, I'm like, no, there's no way that's true
Peter
11:42
It's good to be skeptical, I think.
Aubrey
11:43
Yeah, I tend to be pretty skeptical, but it c cause also it's not like anyone's putting the sources that they found or any like no one's citing any sources when they're saying things. Half the time I'll see like influencers say, and here are my credentials. And then they like flex their muscles or something. And I'm like Okay. Credentials how? Like you're saying sure you might be jacked and that's lovely for you, but there's so many things that can go into you could just have really good genes and never work out and somehow you're jacked.
Peter
12:14
I mean, let's be honest. Like it is literally that that type of credential, you know, touting is literally equivalent of me having a bowel movement and then saying I'm a gastrometerologist.
Aubrey
12:28
Yeah, literally. It's like, here's my credentials. There's my tricep muscle. It's like, okay, good for you. Good for you. Anyway, so. For this, do you want do we want me to introduce the myth and you give the answer?
Peter
12:41
Sure, sure.
Aubrey
12:42
That sounds good.
Peter
12:43
Let's do it.
Aubrey
12:44
All right. We'll start we can go kind of kind of in order of the list, because I think it's a good it's a good order. So this one s we start pretty generalized. Here is one that you see everywhere that you need to drink X amount of water every day There's many different some people say you need to do sixteen glasses, you need to do this many ounces, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Is this true? Do you need to drink X amount of water every day?
Peter
13:13
No, absolutely not true. Do you need to drink water every day? Yes. Yes, you do. Water is compatible with life. At the same time There is no easy set number. I grew up in the era where it was you need to drink eight, eight ounces, eight, eight ounce glasses of water every day for 64 ounces. Hey, guess what? For me, as a you know, bigger guy who exercises for 60 to 90 minutes, literally like every day, even if today it was just a 60-minute walk, and who makes kidney stones, 64 ounces is laughable. Like that's a laughably low amount of fluid.
Aubrey
13:56
for me to take.
Peter
13:57
But at the same time, you know, you find some little old lady, well, she doesn't need to be drinking nearly what I need to be drinking. And so it's super easy for people to make claims about some discrete number that everybody needs to be shooting for, but that's wrong. Everyone's different. how active they are, what is their mass, what is their, again, what we would refer to as their intravascular volume. You know. If uh I have a much larger intravascular volume than certain people. And so if Somebody else tries to get as much water as I'm, they could honestly get dehydrated and hyponic or overhydrated and hyponutrimetic. Yeah. from that because it could if they tried to put all of the fluid volume into their blood system that I try to put into mine, it could overload them. It could literally be too much, depending. And you know, what time of year is it? What's the ambient temperature around you? How much are you like all of these things make it so there is no everybody needs this every day? It's different. It's different for everybody and it can be different day to day depending on your activity level and level and a whole bunch of other things.
Aubrey
15:04
Yeah. I remember you always said um that you should just drink when you're thirsty.
Peter
15:09
I mean there's a lot of thirsty. Not wait until you're like parched, but if you're like, yeah, I want a drink, go ahead, have a drink. Your body's actually pretty okay at giving you signals to say, you should take a drink. Yeah. And the other thing too that's worth mentioning is when it comes to things like hydration, uh people uh, you know, say this much water. Honestly, look, almost everything you drink, any fluid helps hydrate you. And so when you're thinking about what your total volume of fluid in a day is, you get to count everything. You just do.
Aubrey
15:39
There you go. Well, and when I worked at the hospital, this it was pretty eye-opening to me for obviously these kids are very sick, so it doesn't really matter what they're eating or drinking as long as they're eating and drinking. But that was the thing is that at the very base level it was like how many CC's of fluid are they getting? It doesn't matter what it is. Yeah. They're like, get them juice, get them whatever they will drink You you count that as the fluid that they're getting. And you just you just count that. And same with the calories. It was like, how many calories are they getting? Doesn't matter what it is. Cupcake, great. Fruit, great. Just calories.
Peter
16:17
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Aubrey
16:18
So, all right, very good. Well, let's move on to the next one. Pretty similar, is that your pee needs to be clear.
Peter
16:27
Absolutely not. Your P does not need to be clear. In fact, even when we're talking to people who are kidney stone formers, like myself, and we say we give them targets of what color their urine should be so they know if they're hydrating adequately Uh we always tell everybody, it should be pale yellow, but it should still be visibly yellow. If it is clear, they either just drank way too much right then before, and their body went, Whoa, I don't need all this fluid, and then you're just peeing it off Or if that's the way they are all the time, I mean that could be potentially a sign of overhydration. So um, you know, pale yellow. That's it. Yellow is still okay. Yellow is still okay. And if it is constantly Clear, back off a little bit. This is your body's sign saying, I don't need this much.
Aubrey
17:15
Yeah, because it's literally just peeing it out.
Peter
17:17
Yeah, absolutely.
Aubrey
17:19
There you go. All right, next one is caffeine dehydrating you. Does it?
Peter
17:26
Caffeine dehydrating you. So this comes from, and here's what I'll say, absolute false. Totally debunked, absolute ridiculous quote, ridiculous statement. But this comes from the idea that caffeine is a diuretic. A diuretic is something that makes you produce more urine. Get rid of extra water. And the truth of the matter is, is that caffeine is a very weak diuretic diuretic. And especially in people who take caffeine in fairly regularly, for you to actually see any diuretic effect of it at all. You're not even going to see that until you're hitting 500 to 600 milligrams of caffeine. And so what's in a cup of coffee, what's in a soda, a tea, anything like that, that's usually you know, under a hundred milligrams of caffeine, depending on what it is, anywhere 50 to 100 at most. That absolutely does not dehydrate you. And the amount of fluid that you get from that is hydrating for however many ounces that was. Zero dehydration from caffeine. Even people who are caffeine naive, unless they're shooting at, you know, hundreds and hundreds of milligrams. Yeah. Almost an imperceptible, ind undetectable amount of diuresis occurs, and so not hydrating in any way. Not dehydrating rather in any way.
Aubrey
18:38
Very good. All right. Then we'll move on to the next one. This one was kind of a um, you know, something you hear as as a kid. Yep. That if you eat before you swim, right before you swim, it will get you give you cramp.
Peter
18:56
See, I r I was raised. We I was raised, we would go to the lake all the time during the summer. And it was always when we came out for lunch, we ate lunch, and then we were forced to wait like an hour before we could go back and play in the water because of this myth. The only source I could find was a nineteen oh eight Boy Scout manual that said you should wait. And the idea behind this is best I could tell is that well if you eat, then more of your blood is going to your digestive system to help with digestion. So maybe your muscles don't have enough blood, so your muscles are gonna cramp. Uh bogus never been demonstrated to actually happen. Uh if you totally gorge yourself and then you try and go swim like uh you know 500 met or 5,000 meters in the pool or something, you're going to feel lousy Right. But it's not going to cause. I mean, it was such a strong thing that I was taught like your muscles will cramp, you'll seize up, and then you're gonna die. You're gonna drown in the water if you nope, not gonna happen. Wow. Not gonna
Aubrey
19:56
happen. Very good. That's so funny. Alright. Next one. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
Peter
20:05
So I grew up being told this. And do you know who told us that? Who told us that, Aubrey? Post. Let me General Mills. This was literally the only reason this was a marketing ploy by cereal companies in the 80s to start selling more sugar-loaded cereals. That's it. That's where it came from. There is some faint evidence to say that a protein-rich breakfast can mildly suppress ghrelin levels. Ghrelin is a hormone that when it goes down, you're at you feel less hungry. So by suppressing growing. But even in that regard, the effect is so minimal that it's not something where you would tell anyone ever. Force yourself to eat a high protein breakfast so that you'll eat fewer calories the rest of the day. That's all behavioral. That's what people get used to If somebody does better with breakfast in the morning, have breakfast. We would generally recommend a balanced breakfast, which again, all of those cereal companies would show us this picture of a big bowl of cereal, a piece of toast, and a glass of orange juice, and say, you know, Kellogg's Frosted Flakes is part of a healthy, well-balanced breakfast. And you look at that and you're like, that's not well balanced, my friends. That's not well balanced at all. A well-balanced breakfast is going to be some carbs, some protein, and a little bit of healthy fat. Do that if you want. If you don't want to eat breakfast, if you don't enjoy eating breakfast, if it doesn't agree with you to eat first thing in the morning, then flip and don't. Yeah. There's absolutely no magic to eating first thing in the morning. And again, I've seen people online who are like, oh, it primes your metabolism. And so if you don't eat breakfast, it slows down your metabolism. Yeah, we'll get back to that one later. Bogus, totally bogus. Yeah. Breakfast, there's nothing special about it. There's nothing magical about it. If you like to eat breakfast and it's part of a healthy nutritional regimen, then go for it. And if you don't like breakfast or you don't feel like eating first thing in the morning, which I'll be honest, I usually don't. Like I don't really feel like eating until like ten or eleven o'clock most days. Great, don't.
Aubrey
22:18
Yeah, there you go. Okay. Next one is Electrolytes for regular people. Just regular old people.
Peter
22:29
Yeah. Who are not athletes. So you see this one a lot. There are a lot of companies selling you electrolytes. You can't walk through Costco without being assaulted by the different varieties of liquid IV and all this kind of stuff. Yep. Um the truth is these are really, really good. For parting you with some money. And that's all. That's it. There you go. There's the the evidence and the data that I could find suggested that Electrolyte replenishment only becomes important and possibly necessary once someone has been exercising continuously for four hours. So ultra -marathonners, triathletes, century, you know, long-distance bike riders, people like that, people who are riding the Tour de France, they probably need electrolytes. Yeah. But the rest of us who are exercising 30 to 60 to maybe 90 minutes a day, you probably don't need them. You just need the water to hydrate with and the electrolytes aren't actually doing you really anyway. anything, you're probably just peeing most of them off. Because there you go. Because you're not losing enough from sweating. Because you're not sweating enough for long enough to actually lose enough. That you get those extra electrolytes and your kidneys doing what they're very good at doing say, Well, I don't need all this sodium. And so you just piss it off.
Aubrey
24:00
Yeah. Yeah, the only time in my life that I was like I maybe could benefit from electrolytes, but didn't really do much research was when I was training for the boxing fight. And I was in the morning doing like an hour to two hours of like boxing where I'm sweating like the whole time. And then also lifting and slash or doing some sort of cardio. So then I'm sweating for another like hour and then also doing sparring that night. Um that was like the only time that I was like, I can drink this Gatorade. Maybe I could drink this Gatorade. Totally. But other than that,
Peter
24:42
but again, the it's it's you're just making your urine more expensive because you're just you're just urinating out those electrolytes that you pay for. Right, exactly.
Aubrey
24:54
All right, then the next one also similar. So this one um I heard from like a niche TikTok Jim Bro who um is just because like Hayden and I are both kind of focused on like hypertrophy more on the body not bodybuilding per se, but just like hypertrophy training. And so this was like a hypertrophy training bro. Um and he said you should drink two liters of water before you train and if you train in the morning, try and get in at least one liter.
Peter
25:29
Okay.
Aubrey
25:29
So what do you have to say about that?
Peter
25:32
So if you are training at the end of the day, I would really hope that you've had at least two leaders throughout the course of that day before you exercise. So in that regard, I will say, if you're training at 6 o'clock at night, hopefully you've had two leaders before you get there But drinking a liter or two liters right before you go and train is nonsense from an intellectual level. I couldn't come up with any reason why this would be beneficial. I could again, yeah, sure. If it's a, you know, depending on the time of day, if you're later in the day and you've been doing a good job of hydrating throughout the day, then it's absolutely and utterly useless. If you've gone all day and you haven't had anything to drink, well, you should have something to drink before you go. And yes, when you wake up in the morning, are you relatively dehydrated because you've been fasting for however long you were asleep? Yes. But again. You're more likely to make your workout suboptimal by gudge by guzzling a bunch of water before, because now you're gonna kind of feel gross and be sloshy and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, I I could not find uh in any way that this had any substantive uh evidence to back it up.
Aubrey
26:45
Very good. And I mean see that's kind of like the prime prime example of some random guy saying some random stuff. He m he probably he has some good points. He seems like, you know, his page is relatively um he he seems like the gym is like his his nerdy hyperfixation. So I'm sure he has some very good points. But that one I was a little like, hmm, that feels like you're just saying stuff.
Peter
27:07
Again, it's easy for people to go on the internet and say stuff.
Aubrey
27:10
It's true. All right, next one. 10,000 steps a day needs to be the minimum.
Peter
27:17
So I threw this in based on our own initial Yeah. Only because I think it's really interesting where the ten thousand steps a day comes from. Now look, years ago when Fitbit was still just a teeny little lozenge that you slipped in like your coin pocket or slipped on a belt loop and had a teeny little LED screen where a flower would grow as you filled your steps, it came out and it was 10,000 steps a day. Aubrey, do you know where the 10,000 steps a day comes from? Where that number comes from? No idea. 1969, there was a Japanese company that sold like clocks and counting devices. and to like capitalize on the excitement of oh excuse me, nineteen sixty-five, to capitalize on the excitement surrounding the nineteen sixty-four Tokyo Olympics They made a pedometer. And the name of the pedometer was the manpokai, which translates literally to the 10,000 steps meter
Aubrey
28:20
Okay.
Peter
28:21
That's where the number 10,000 comes from was literally the random name that this Japanese company gave a pedometer and then With that name, the idea was people were going to use it more. People were going to walk more. They were going to get more steps. And so they could pedometers. So, um, large-scale epidemiological teams went back to try and study this to see if there was any data to support this. Health outcomes do not scale all the way to 10,000. And that was the big thing is we were taught, oh, you got to get to at least 10,000. And the closer you get to 10,000, there's this like linear improvement in overall health metrics. Um no, there is not. It depends on age. Uh so older adults, the reduction in all cause mortality plateaus somewhere between six to eight thousand steps today. And getting more than eight thousand steps offered really zero benefit. For younger and middle-aged adults, 8,000 to 10,000, but again, honestly, the improvement in all-cause mortality and cardiovascular health after 8,000 steps was really minimal. Uh and you know, the biggest uh the biggest change is when someone goes from less than 10,000 than like 2,000-ish steps a day to somewhere around 5,000 steps a day, that's a huge impact there. And the improvement from two to five thousand steps is actually significantly more than the improvement from 5,000 to 8 or even 10,000. Yeah. So again, the number doesn't matter so much. And I know this, so why did I choose 12,500? It was just to give me some motivation. to go for a walk in the evening. Just get out and move a little bit more. Not because there was anything magical about the number, but just to get me moving.
Aubrey
30:04
Yes, exactly. Yep, that's that's why I have again I don't care necessarily about the exact number of ten thousand. Um on the athletic app, if you meet your step goal, you get a cute little green check mark. So that's the only reason why I'm actually trying to get to the to the numbers because then it turns green instead of yellow. Um but exactly it's more of just a scale or it's just a visualization of how much I actually moved that day. And e exactly like you said, it's like, okay, maybe I could go for a little walk and that would be beneficial so very good. Then Kay. This one I was very interested in because I felt I felt like it was a lot of bogus. to me. Cardio Zone two being the best for quote fat burn.
Peter
30:52
Okay. So this one is the answer here is long because this is a little complicated. But the problem and the reason this is complicated boils down to a common misunderstanding that we all tend to have. And that is there is a dramatic difference between fat burn. and fat loss. And the problem is is that when people hear fat burn, they just automatically, our brains think fat loss. And that's not true. Now, the truth is, is that low-intensity steady-state cardio, zone two cardio, is the best. at oxidizing fat to use as your primary energy source to support support that workout. In fact, because it's low intensity in fairly steady state, you'll often actually kind of preserve your glycogen stores, both in muscle and in liver, and go to fat oxidation. for energy for that exercise. So yes, zone two cardio does burn fat while you're exercising. More than any other form of exercise. But that doesn't mean you're going to lose fat from it. There's a few different reasons. If you then go and cram your face full of excess calories, you're just going to take those excess calories and make them fat. That's what your body's designed to do And in terms of other types of exercise, high-intensity interval training, for example, because its high intensity is going to burn glycogen. while you're doing it and less fat because it takes a lot longer to metabolize and like mobilize and uh and begin that fat oxidation process, um you're going to burn less while working out, but because of what's known as epoch or uh elevated post-exigenoxygen consumption you theoretically could burn more fat, oxidizing more fatty acids throughout the day, than after you do that steady-state cardio for 30 to 60 minutes. The big differences, the differences between those are not dramatic enough that one would ever say, well, you should then only do hit. There's lots of reasons you shouldn't only do hit. There's lots of reasons that zone two cardio is good But in terms of actual fat loss, zone two cardio is far from the king. And again, that's the important difference between fat burn and fat loss. People are doing zone two cardio for 30 minutes a day, three or maybe five days a week. Or if they're really going crazy, they're doing 60 minutes five to six times a week. So at the very best, what you're talking about there is you're talking about people who are like burning fat for 150 to 300 minutes a week. Okay, but there's over 10,000 minutes in a week. And so what happens in those other 10,000 minutes is dramatically more important. than what happens during those 150 to 300 minutes. Right. So it's kind of like, you know, again. What happens when you're not exercising has so much more to do with what you're going to, whether you're losing fat or storing fat, than what happens while you are exercising.
Aubrey
34:29
Right, right. Like that's not gonna be the magic. If you are trying to lose weight for whatever reason, just doing zone two cardio is not gonna be be what does it for
Peter
34:41
again what's going to help more is what are you doing the rest of the day in terms of you have to be in a calorie deficit. You have to be taking in fewer calories than you are expending. Number two, there are other things that are going to improve your body's ability to be in a calorie deficit. So for example, weightlifting and high-intensity interval training, they increase your body's ability, your bait, your body's metabolic rate. throughout the rest of the day because you have, especially with muscle, you have more lean, metabolically active tissue that is requiring energy to sustain itself. And so then again, it makes it a little bit easier to stay in a calorie deficit if you're doing those things because your body just needs more calories. But zone two cardio has its role, but it's not magic. And again Important to understand difference between burning fat and losing fat.
Aubrey
35:35
The next one is so I've seen this one a lot again from like influencers online
Peter
35:40
who is like
Aubrey
35:40
this is the best morning routine. How to be a morning person And blah blah blah. So to wake up, to wake yourself up in the morning, you have to drink an entire water bottle as soon as you wake up. First thing when you wake up.
Peter
35:55
Yeah, this is another one of those that is just completely stupid I mean, it's stupid. This is stupid. This is stupid. Um, do you know what your body has been doing for Decades and what human bodies have been doing for millennia , they have been waking up.
Aubrey
36:19
Right
Peter
36:20
over and over and over and over again. And you know what you didn't do when you were at the healthiest stage of your life? w for most of us, which is when we were little kids and we were running around, especially in like my generation where we just were feral. We lived outside. We were running around all day long, every flipping day. When we were the very healthiest in our lives. We weren't waking up and going right out and drinking a big glass a bottle of water. Yeah. And and and so is it okay to get some fluid in you first thing in the morning if you're thirsty? And because you are relatively dehydrated when you wake up in the morning? Yep. Sure is. But is there any magic in it? Absolutely not. And your body doesn't need it and it won't do anything to your body and You know, all of these stupid things where I'm like, oh, and it needs to be room temperature and you need to put a pinch of salt and you should have some outside or vinegar or something. Like again, bogus. Absolutely, utterly bogus. If you wake up and you're thirsty, which I know I am, I like to go out and get a drink of water. And I don't measure it and I don't care because it doesn't matter, because your body knows how to wake up.
Aubrey
37:31
Yeah. Yeah.
Peter
37:33
It just does.
Aubrey
37:34
There you go.
Peter
37:34
It's been doing it for years. It's gonna keep doing it. And evolutionarily, we've been doing it for millennia.
Aubrey
37:40
Yep. There you go. All right. Next one is That a detox or a cleanse is ever worth it.
Peter
37:51
Yeah. I think what I put in the notion doc, this one is so aggressively wrong that it actually makes me angry. And the reason it makes me angry is because now when it comes to all of these things you see, here's the first easiest red flag to know if what someone is saying is poppycock. If they have something to sell you, whether it's their own cleanse mix or it's recipe book for this, that, or that, if anybody has anything like that to sell you, just Walk away. Just walk away because they're going to do some fear-mongering and they're going to do it all for the point of trying to convince you that you need to spend money on what they're hawking. Between your GI tract, your liver, your kidneys, and your lungs, your body is an expert at detoxing itself.
Aubrey
38:40
Yeah.
Peter
38:41
You have organs literally whose sole purpose, or at least primary purpose is to detoxify your body. Is literally to get rid of the toxins. And the truth of the matter is, is where do most of those toxins come from, Aubrey?
Aubrey
38:58
Where?
Peter
38:59
Your body made them. Your body was making them in the process of breaking down other things and taking what it needs from here. and getting it over here, but at the same time in the process of that, it made some stuff that it doesn't need anymore and it wants to get rid of. And so it's designed to do that because it knows I made this, I'm gonna get rid of it. Are there disease states where that starts to fall apart? Yes. Will a juice cleanse or any sort of detox and cayenne pepper and this other the other ever Do that. No, it will not. If your kidneys stop working, you either need new you need a new kidney or you need to be on dialysis. If your liver stops working, you need a new liver. Like there's nothing, there is no alternative. No magical juice cleanse of any kind will detoxify you if your body's built-in machinery that already does it stops working. Because it's bogus and those things are baloney.
Aubrey
39:53
Mm-hmm. Yep. Exactly. Love it. All right. Next one. That cold plunges do anything other than just make you cold.
Peter
40:05
You know what cold plunges are really good at doing?
Aubrey
40:07
Making you cold?
Peter
40:09
Making you cold. Do they do anything else? Not really. Some people may get a dopamine hit from taking a cold shower or getting into cold water. Okay. Do you shiver a little bit and maybe that briefly activates brown fat? Okay. Does that actually produce any meaningful caloric burn over the course of a 24-hour period? Nope, sure doesn't. Does taking a cold plunge after lifting weights heavy possibly decrease muscle soreness? Yes. At the same time, there is evidence that it actually stunts muscle growth and muscle protein synthesis. And so you are far better off actually getting heat applied to muscles after resistance training than cold. Cold bad, heat good. Um After, I mean, if people like it, okay, but there's nothing magical about it. And I've heard and I've read people, especially on Reddit, because sometimes Reddit's a fun place to go to find people who are psychotic about a certain thing. And I say this as someone who enjoys Reddit, but you find people in like the cold showers, subreddit or something, and they talk about like the mental focus that it provides them. And that they're more sharp and it's cured their depression and all this stuff. And I'm like, no, it didn't. No, it didn't. Maybe it made you feel good. And maybe because you believe that it's making those things better in that aspect, okay, it can help. But is there any physiologic benefit to cold showers? Or coal plunges, no, there is not. And so people who are selling these like thousands of dollar like ice bath things where you fill it with water and you can tell it exactly what temperature to cool it down to and then climb in after your workout. Don't don't do it. Don't waste your money and that space and I mean don't I guess if you really like it and it makes you feel good, I don't want to harsh your yum, but like really, it doesn't, it doesn't help. There is no physiologic benefit. to that.
Aubrey
42:07
Yep. The the major I feel like the kind of the key um like takeaway that will be for like this whole episode is that there's n none of these things are like the magic, do it all things that of course they're marketed to be. It's true. Um, if you want to be a healthy person that feels good. you have to just do the basic things. You have to move your body in whatever way feels good to you and eat not like shit.
Peter
42:38
Yeah. And that's what so much of this boils down to is it's like All of these things are little one-offs. Well, if you do this one thing first thing in the morning, if you do this one thing, if you take this 15-minute cold plunge after your exercise, again, people, 10,080 minutes in a week. And what you do for little free to ten minutes moments scattered throughout the week has so little effect. on your overall health. It is what you do consistently and regularly about 80% of the time. People talk about the 80-20 rule when it comes to both exercise and it comes to nutrition. Exercise well, stay active about 80% of the time. And you've got 20% where you can relax. You can back off. You can let your body take it easy. You can chill out. Eat well, eat healthy, eat mostly whole foods in a wide variety of colors that is a good mix of protein, carbohydrates, and some healthy fats, 80% of the time And then go get that ice cream cone or have that piece of cake or pie or whatever once, once that week, or you know, once every couple weeks, something like that. That's all okay. But all of these things that are solitary quick fixes are solitary lies that make you waste part of your day and get you, again, so focused on these silly little things. that you lose sight of the big picture and lose sight of again, just try and do well, move more and eat better 80% of the time.
Aubrey
44:13
Yep.
Peter
44:13
And you're gonna be in pretty dang good shape.
Aubrey
44:17
Yep.
Peter
44:17
Are you gonna get on a stage and take first in some bodybuilding or figure competition? Nope. You're sure not. The people who do that have to go psycho. Um they have to go
Aubrey
44:25
yeah, they have to do like the the optimizing where they're all they're doing all the big picture stuff, but then they do actually have to go do all the freaky little freak things that not regular people need to do.
Peter
44:36
And if somebody wants to do that, again, no yuckin, you're yum. Go for it. I think those are great things to work for. But at the same time, you talk to people. I talked to somebody um Uh there was a nurse at ROR who was was training for a figure competition. And As especially in like the last two months beforehand, she'll straight up tell you she was miserable. She was miserable every day. She hated what she was doing. She still did it and she did great and it was very impressive. But then once she was done, like I asked her, I was like, you ever gonna do it again? And she was like, no, because now I'm actually gonna try and have a baby because I actually can can now that I'm actually eating and stuff like that.
Aubrey
45:21
Right, because you can't your body shuts down in those like last like right before the competition. Like Yeah, there was this YouTube video I watched from this one, this one guy where he kind of was demonstrating what people actually look like at different body p fat percentages so that You know, there's not like a once you get to this body fat percentage, you're gonna have abs if you're uh you know, whatever. It's just kind of to make it like a more realistic this is what these look like and this is what their life has to look like to maintain that body fat percentage. And like the women and also the men that were really, really low body fat percentages, he was like, So how do you feel? And they're like, I'm so tired and I'm so hungry. I can't move. Like , they look shredded and insane, but they're like, I'm so hungry. I could go for anything right now. But but here's the pocket this computer.
Peter
46:15
Then you hear those people talking about they finish the competition and they like get halfway through a donut and their stomach is like revolting. Like it's it's it's like I can't do this. Yes. So again, I I don't know. We have we we have a few more that we can run through and I'll make these answers a lot more quick.
Aubrey
46:32
Yes, yes, yes. So the next one is if you sweat more, you are burning more fat.
Peter
46:37
Nope, sure doesn't. If you sweat more, it just means that you're hot. It means that your body's thermoregulatory. system said well we need to get rid of we need to evaporatively cool ourselves uh sweating like doesn't burn fat it sweats Sweat.
Aubrey
46:52
Yep. There you go. That's all. Should you do cardio and weight training in the same workout?
Peter
46:58
Okay, this one is a little nuanced, and again, it depends really what your goals are. What I'm gonna say is for most people, it doesn't matter. If you really are like, I have very specific goals and I'm trying to optimize, you should Lift weights first and then do cardio. There's been a number of studies that found about 45 % increase in uh muscle strength, progression, muscle growth if they lifted weights before they did cardio. Yeah. So again That's what I choose to do. I always lift before I do cardio on the days when I'm going to do both. But we get back to this idea that do something, go move, and don't stress about it If you get to a point where it matters the order in which you do these things, good for you. You're already farther ahead than like 90% of people in America.
Aubrey
47:49
Yep.
Peter
47:50
Yep. So
Aubrey
47:51
exactly. There you go. Um, does your metabolism really care how often you eat?
Peter
47:58
Nope, sure doesn't. People who tell you to eat every two to three hours are full of it. People who tell you that fasting is going to put you in starvation mode and slow your metabolism are full of it. People who tell you you need to eat breakfast in the morning so your metabolism doesn't slow down. are full of it. Just get in a 24-hour period, a fairly decent balance of calories in versus calories out, or whatever deficit you want to be in, or Slight, you know, uh surplus if that's what you're going for, and make it an appropriate number of macros for your stage of life.
Aubrey
48:31
Yep. Love it. Should you be eating 300 plus grams of protein a day?
Peter
48:37
No, no, you shouldn't. And Uh protein supplement companies are out here pushing this idea because it makes them billions of dollars a year if we believe it. Now Especially if one is in a calorie deficit, is there evidence that increasing and having a higher percentage than normally would be recommended of protein help preserve muscle mass while you are losing fat in that deficit? Yes, there is good evidence for that. But it really looks like the diminish the point of diminishing returns is about 0. 82 grams of protein for every pound of body weight. Anything above that, you really aren't going to see any significant improvement. And another easy way to do it is to say if you are if one is overweight and trying to lose weight, then a good target is to say one gram of protein per one pound of your goal or target body weight. That's ample. But you don't need to. So again, easy numbers. You have a 300-pound man who wants to get to 200 pounds. He should eat 200 grams. He does not need to be eating those 300 pounds or 300 grams. Yeah. So so yeah, protein is good and people talk about, oh, well, it's more metabolically demanding to digest protein than it is others. Yeah, but not to a point that that's actually going to contribute to your overall calories.
Aubrey
49:51
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like for me I I tr I try to hit my protein goal that my app has for me based on my height and weight and blah blah blah blah and like my goal weight and goal deficit and everything. And I do try and hit the goal just because it makes me feel fuller and a little less hungry. Sure.
Peter
50:09
Sure. And again, for reasons like that, it's fine. Uh on the flip side, there's also no evidence that unless you are already in some degree of kidney disease and kidney failure, there's no evidence that eating higher amounts of protein actually does any damage to your kidneys. So that's also a myth. Yeah. But but again, you know, it's really it's like 0. 7 to 0. 8 grams per kilogram. You're gonna be at the upper end of where you're going to see benefit from that.
Aubrey
50:33
Yeah, there you go. Okay, I like this one. Carbs are bad, and if you want to lose fat, you have to stop eating them. Oh, and you can't eat after six o'c six o'clock at night.
Peter
50:45
Oh, where do we start with this one? Uh it's so wrong. In in every way, shape, and form, it's wrong. Look. Carbohydrates are the primary fuel source for high-intensity exercises, such as high-intensity interval training, as well as weightlifting. Also, guess what? They are the source of energy for your brain. Your brain uses carbohydrates. And that is all. And so anything that your brain is going to use has to get converted to a carbohydrate before it goes in. There. We are literally designed. Our entire body's metabolic system is designed. to use carbohydrates as a prim as our primary energy source. It is the way your body is made. Now, is it easy to eat excess carbs? Yeah, because guess what? They're frickin' awesome and they taste great. But the big problem comes down to this. There's a huge disconnect, and again, it gets into this point where it's too easy to make overgeneralizations. There's a huge disconnect where we say carbs equals bad. Highly processed carbs, refined sugars, things like that. Yeah, those do equal bad. And you shouldn't have very many of them. Again, 80-20 rule, you can have a little bit But carbs in general, no, they're not bad. You know what? Potatoes? Potatoes are carbs. They're like carbs with carbs with carbs. And potatoes are freaking awesome. Now the way we often prepare potatoes, frying them, putting in lots of butter and cream. That might be where the problem comes in and why these are considered things that make people fat. But carbs themselves are not. Fruit Fruit. I saw a really interesting thing where some dude on the internet was talking about, oh, your body's okay with glucose and your body's okay with sucrose, but fructose. Is poison. And fructose is the form of sugar that's found in fruit. Now, why can we definitively look at that and say he's full of cacapu? Because what is fructose? Fructose is what's known as a disaccharide. It is a disaccharide made of one molecule of glucose and one molecule of sucrose. Mm-hmm. But he just said that sucrose and glucose are fine. And you know what your body's really, really good at doing? Breaking that bond between those two disaccharides. And then boom, you've got it. So again. Carbohydrates, they're not bad. They're good. Your body needs them. Your body wants them. It was designed to use them. Highly refined and processed carbohydrates, those aren't great. Find ways to ferret that out. Fruit is awesome. Fruit is great. Fruit is low calorie. Fruit tastes amazing. It has fructose, but it also has fiber in it. Like fruit is incredible. People shouldn't demonize carbohydrates just because highly refined and processed carbohydrates can increase weight gain. And they don't do it because they're magical in and of themselves. They do it because they are hyper-palatable. And so you have a small amount and you want to eat more. It has nothing to do so much with the thing itself, but it's the quantity that you end up getting. And as far as the time of day, no, all that matters is again what happens in a 24 hour. hour period. Eating after nine o'clock at night isn't going to make you magically store more of that as fat than eating those same number of calories earlier in the day. The only issue becomes a lot of people find it easier to mindlessly eat later in the evening. And so they are getting unaccounted calories that they don't really pay attention to. But the timing itself, absolutely nothing.
Aubrey
54:17
Yep. There we go.
Peter
54:19
Well that was the whole list. That was the whole list.
Aubrey
54:22
Amazing. I love it.
Peter
54:24
We had a lot to cover there, but hopefully we educated folks and and again I can say confidently that I made sure that all of my opinions, which is what I shared, that I, but I went and I double-checked them. I researched, I referenced all of them to make sure that I wasn't, my gut wasn't just spouting poppycock.
Aubrey
54:43
Yep, exactly. Yeah, and I again like like I said before, I feel like the theme the theme of this whole episode is just that there are So many things that people will try and say this is the magic, you know, magic to get the body that you want and to be the healthiest and the blah blah blah, but it doesn't It doesn't come down to those little things that make you healthy and feel good. It comes down to the overall big picture, what you're doing throughout your day. with all you know, all the minutes in the week, how much you're moving your body uh if you're moving your body at all and what you're putting into your body and You don't need to freak out.
Peter
55:25
Really? It's like, okay, do you want to know the one easy trick that will absolutely make a difference? Are you gonna say that? Move more. Nope. Oh move more. Eat less and make what you eat fewer refined and processed things.
Aubrey
55:44
Right.
Peter
55:44
It's I mean that's
Aubrey
55:46
there you go.
Peter
55:47
But but that doesn't sell because that's pretty basic. You don't sell supplements and you don't sell programs and and hold diets and this, that, and the other. And like honestly, at this stage of the game, especially with All of the access that is free on the internet, people, in my personal opinion, shouldn't be paying for nutrition plans I just don't think you should. I think you can find general guidelines and look, you can get recipe books that are healthy, this, that, and the other. And I've done it. I've paid for some of them. And then I look at them and I go. This is dumb. Why did I pay for this? I already know this crap. Or I could have figured this out. Or a Google search could have got me a recipe that's going to be just as good as that. this.
Aubrey
56:31
Yep.
Peter
56:33
So it's like there's a lot of fear mongering. There's a lot of preying upon people's insecurities. And it it people don't need to do those things. Move more, eat less, and make sure that what you're eating, that 80% of it, it's less processed, more whole foods. And And let yourself have that piece of cake every, you know, couple once or twice a month. Let yourself have that reasonably sized bowl of ice cream on a Saturday night. It's okay.
Aubrey
57:04
Yep. It's okay. Okay, you'll be okay. Yeah. All right. Sweet. Well, thank you for doing all the research for all the questions. I appreciate that.
Peter
57:13
Oh, it was fun. It was interesting. So happy to
Aubrey
57:16
Yeah, that was super fun. We'll be back in a couple weeks with another episode and we will see everyone later.