80. Has Wellness Culture Taken Optimization Too Far?

- Yep, did it again, although it was fairly graceful. - All right. - All right. - What is up folks, welcome back to another episode of "Lifting, Running, and Living." Episode 80 with your favorite podgastors, Kelly. - Hello. - Hey, and JK, that's me. Yep, we're still working on a little time delay on the countdown to recording. - I think that's just how it is. - Yeah, apparently it is. I'd like a little beep action. - A beep would be nice, yeah. - Before a gym timer starts, that sort of thing. All right, what are we talking about today? Well, we are talking about courtesy weights, slash courtesy plates on a machine. If you have no idea what we're talking about, you'll learn very soon. I'm just curious to get Kelly's thoughts on courtesy plates. And then we are gonna talk about health maxing. And that is inspired by a clip that recently has gone viral from Stephen Bartlett, Diary of a CEO, where he talked about how one night of drinking ruined the next few days, and he was not, I think he even said he was not drinking again. So we're gonna utilize that as an inspiration for a conversation around health maxing the optimization of wellness in all things, just elite, 1% have gone too far. - All right, so before we get into that per the usual, we are gonna do updates. So Kelly, what do you have to share today? - Not much, everything is the same as it usually is. I do, by the time this comes out, I will have gone and gone back from Chicago. So there's that, I'm flying back, gonna see my favorite structure of the bean multiple times, again. - I should do like a, what's the app? Is it a polymarket or whatever it is, where you just bet on random things? - Oh yeah. - So it's like, yeah, what's the over under on number times Kelly's gonna go to the bean? - Yeah, this time won't be as much, 'cause I'm flying in, we're recording the sun, damn flying in early tomorrow, Monday. And then, I'll be there till Thursday, I fly out early Thursday. Monday's my rest day, so I won't be running, I probably won't go to the bean, oh, maybe I will go to the bean tomorrow, actually, afterward. - Do you change your rest days sometimes, depending on where you're gonna be? For example, you're gonna be traveling normally, that would be your rest day, but you're in a different environment, you're at, you know, when you're top to your running spots now. Does that change that for you? - It depends, in this case, no, 'cause I, as you know, like, morning runs, so like flying to Chicago on Monday, like I'm not gonna run after flying there, and then doing some work, you know, like in the afternoon, I wouldn't be going anyway. Yeah, so not really. I like traveling on rest days, 'cause then it's like, there's no pressure to fit it in anywhere, you know? 'Cause it's like traveling on a non-rest day, that I think a little bit more about when I want my flight to be. - Yeah, I gotcha. - Yeah. - Okay. - Yeah, but my flight out is very early on Thursday, so I probably won't run before I get back here, which cuts down on my bean trips. - That's so funny, okay. Well, I will once again miss you on that, and talk about that in my update, yeah. But yeah, lots of working running. I did lift twice this week. - Oh, congratulations. - I know, I made it happen, which is very exciting. And I had my highest running week in a couple months, so. - There we go. - Thanks for just going well, just, you know, tugging along. - Any nagging things going on, I can't remember if it was your, it was my heel. - It was my heel. - Your heel, that's what it was, yeah. - No, I never had any issues in my quad. This week is the best it's felt. - Okay. - Yeah, there was a little like, some questionable runs last week, not as questionable as like when it first started hurting, but some like, this is hurting more than it has been. But then this week has been fine, so. Fingers crossed. - Maybe because you also lifted. - I don't think that is. I've been lifting at least once a week. Like I haven't just stopped. - Sorry, while I was trying. - That was trying. - Well, and when my second lift was today, which is the end of my training week, so. - Oh, gotcha. - I don't think I had any influence. It was a very last activity I did. - Fair enough, fair enough. Fair enough. Gotcha, all right, anything else? - No, not really. So what's going on with you? - I have two updates on the list here. One is I am on, what is today? On the 14th, I started Tuesday. I'm on day six of the no complaining for 30 days challenge. - Wow. - Yeah, so what are you counting as a complaint? - Well, let me back up for a second. For a moment. This, I came across a YouTube video. Oh, it might have been the mindset, the mindset mentor podcast, I think is the name of the podcast. And it very easily could be, I'm not gonna say mistaken, it could very easily be labeled as one of those podcasts that is very manosphere adjacent. - Oh, okay. - Yeah. And also, from time to time, I do like to dabble in that particular podcast on YouTube. And I can't remember what the exact title was, however, I think it was something along the lines of do this for 30 days to change your life. And to make it clear, when I, generally, when I click on videos or content just generally about that, it's primarily so that I can figure out what's the actual message behind it, not specifically because I'm looking to change my life in the next 30 days. - Yeah. - I just understand what the marketing is. And also, then I'm like, hmm, I wonder what the content is going to be. So check this one out. And it was a challenge, that's basically what it was. It was a challenge to go 30 days without complaining about anything. And I wanna say that even in, with the way that he described the challenge, it was even not to have negative thoughts or something along those lines. - How can you control that though? - Yeah, that would be the challenge. I don't know, I can't explain, yeah, I can't explain for him, I can't remember his name. But I am reasonably certain the mindset mentor is the name of the podcast. So I had actually posted about this that morning, I think, on Instagram. So my first thought was, oh, it's, yeah, I think that's a good challenge for people to take on. And immediately was in denial, where I was like, well, I don't, I mean, I don't really need, need something like that, 'cause for the most part, I don't think that I initiate a lot of negativity in terms of complaining about things. And then, you don't have to agree or disagree, that's fine, Kelly. - I would say, you are, someone I do not view as a complainer. - Yeah, I would think so, and also, I'm okay being wrong about that too, you know. - Well, I'm comparing you to me and I am a complainer. - Oh, okay. - So I'm going to catch ya. So basically, I was feeling pretty good about myself and then you were like, yeah, but the bar's kind of low, so whatever the bar is low. - Basically, the bar is in hell. All right, so that morning, I walked, I did a little pre-workout walk to a gas station that is maybe about a four minute walk from our gym, just right down the street. So I walked out, walked there to go grab some gum. And as I put the gum on the counter, the cashier said something along the lines of, man, doesn't, doesn't suck, like how much just stuff costs these days. Remember when you used to be able to just go, you know, go to the store for candy and whatnot and you weren't spending like eight bucks? She's a woman that was likely in her 60s, let's say. And the first, like just reaction verbally, I go, yeah, and then I caught myself. And I was like, yeah, I really like gum, you know what? I'd be buying it either way. And so from that, from that moment on, I was like, I'm gonna go ahead and take this challenge because while I believe that for the most part, I don't, I don't proactively complain or not proactively, like I don't complain, I don't like start complaints or start whining. I put both of those things kind of the same realm. I also realized that it can be really, really easy to double down. or what I call like co-sign on when somebody invites you to join in their complaining, just like that cashier. So that's basically what I'm taking on. So for me, I mean, this is not some sort of like I have no checklist for this or anything like that. It's just okay, starting last Tuesday over the next 30 days. So basically around mid-July, being more aware and as much as possible, trying to redirect thoughts and more importantly words when the opportunity is there to complain. The two main scenarios would be like that scenario that I just talked about where you're being invited to join someone else in a complaint. And then the second one is more of the one I have a negative thought. I don't double down and say it out loud too. So somebody, here's one other one and then we'll get my other update and then we'll move on. This morning, I pulled up to, we're pulling up to the traffic light and there's one car in front of me and I am, I'm tight on my timeline between when I finish my workout, when I need to go home shower and then get to work this morning. So I noticed that it was taking a while for the light to turn green and there's one car in front of me and it's taking a while for this light to turn green so that we can take a left. And in my head, I immediately made up this story that because this person in front of me was so far back because they weren't up near the line, I've made this story up in my head that basically the traffic light doesn't sense that there's anybody there so it's taking longer. Which I'm gonna be straight up. I don't know if that's true or not at all. If there is a sensor, I think it is true. That's what I'm saying. I'm not educated enough to know. However, in that moment, in my head, I believed that that was the reason why this light was taking way longer than usual and I take this, I drive that route, I don't know, five times a week. So in my head, I was getting annoyed and I had a negative, like a negative complaint in my head and then I didn't say it out loud. So I didn't say it out loud and I tried to redirect the thought in my head just to like, well, hopefully, you know, hopefully they're having a good time and just chilling. Look, I couldn't, I just tried to make it more neutral just to be like, all right, well, you know, hopefully, hopefully, they're all right up there. I hope they're okay. I just left it at that. So yeah, 30 days, no complaining and we're gonna see, see how it continues to go. I have been not surprised. I have been, it's been interesting to be more aware of how many complaints you can get yourself invited to. Wow. Yeah. A lot, especially working in retail. Oh, yeah, I bet. Yeah, a lot. Yeah, like co-workers and things like that after you're dealing with working with customers. Yeah. I feel like there's any workplace though. Yeah, I believe so. And also, I think the environment's where you're working with the public. Yeah, at a, at a higher clip, a higher volume. There's even more of those opportunities. Because what you are trying to accomplish may be the opposite of what the customer wants to accomplish. Or it might, they, their mood might be completely different. So it's just, yeah, it's been, it's been interesting so far. So that's, that's the 30 day no complaint challenge. Then my other quick update, just you've got travel plans and I have travel plans. So this, this upcoming, what would it be Wednesday? Yeah, we're going Wednesday night. We're heading Omaha, Nebraska for a baseball tournament. And also it correlates with the college world series. So we'll actually be able to go catch one of those games. I think we're going to the Wednesday night game actually. Yeah. Nice. Mason, his team are in a tournament all, all weekend, actually, I think we're going to be there. We're going to have games Thursday, Friday, Saturday, maybe even Sunday. Wow. I think something like that. Yeah, they have a, yeah, they have a whole like system setup where they have two different sessions. And they have, I mean, I can't even count the number of teams. I think just in the division that he's in, like the 14 new division, I think it's 70 teams or something like that. Yeah. So it seems like they just use facilities around the area, like different high schools and yeah, all that stuff. So it would all be, yeah, it ought to be, ought to be an interesting experience, you know, especially last for him, like so far, we believe this will be his last year of travel baseball. Oh, really? Final opportunity for him and all that jazz. Is that is he started high school next year? Mm-hmm. Yeah, he's a, he's a high school freshman. Yeah. That's crazy. I know. Yeah. So yeah, those are, those are my updates. No complaints over the next 30 days or now we're at the next 24, 24 days. And heading to the college world series. Fun. So that's the haps. Ty was asking me if that's what that acronym meant, and I was like, I won't know until we do updates. He is correct. Yes, he is correct. Yeah, it should be an interesting, an interesting scene, an interesting scene for sure. So yeah. All right. Fun though. Yeah, he want to get into the topics. Yeah, so I'm trying to get pumpkin out of this room, but he's okay. Do you do you need a moment to eject? No. Okay, you've eject whichever wants. No, we can go to courtesy weights. Okay. I, in all of the years that I have worked out in multiple gyms and multiple environments, I, I had not, I had not heard this term. So I guess I'm not as much of a hardcore meat as I thought I was, but there's this, this is concept. Yeah, go ahead. That's gonna say things with people being lazy. Yeah, there's this, there's this concept called courtesy plates. Like is it okay to leave a courtesy plate or should you leave a courtesy plate? And basically where this would be most prevalent would be on the leg press. So the whole idea is that you leave one 45-pound plate on each side. Yeah. And in my neck of the threads woods, there have been people who have basically had the opinion that you have where it's like, stop calling it a courtesy plate, you're being lazy. Yeah, why would you want to rock every other example? Yeah. Now in the, in the, in the, in the real that I sent you, and to be transparent, I only found that real just from Googling like courtesy plate Instagram or something just to see if there was one so I could have you look at something so that I would be explaining it. And in the clip, what I, what kind of really sunk it for me though was when the guy was like, do you leave? It's, it's, I think it was Reagan Grimes and those who were like really, really into the bodybuilding space will recognize that name. And he says something along the lines, him, it's him and another dude. Jack to the gills. And he says something along the lines of like, ah, you don't leave a courtesy plate. It's like, because he's like, well, what, you know, there could be women working out. And the other guy's like, or a weak man. I'm like, oh, bro, what do we have to do? Why, we got to be like that. But yeah, I for one, I'm not, I'm not down with the courtesy plate thing. No, I don't, I don't see it. Even, yeah, I just, I just don't now. I will also say it doesn't bother me if there is a, especially on the leg press, if there already is at least one plate on there, because I know that I'm going to be doing that. Yeah. But, you know, no, I'm not. If anybody's listening who's like all about the, yeah, you always leave a courtesy plate and you do it because you're not lazy, please, you know, write in or whatever, let us know why. Yeah, I don't know. I can't think of one reason why that would be acceptable. I'm trying to think of any, any machine or gym, like any, anything that you would do that would set the next person up for, like, that is a courtesy for the next person. Like the first thing that comes to mind for me would be that there's different attachments for like a cable row, for instance. So you do or don't leave that on the machine. I don't know. I was trying to think, are there any machines where it does, where it is like, hey, go ahead and you leave that because it sets the next person up. I can't think of any. So I, the wide range of people that go to gyms. Yeah. No, I will say I think that it's pretty common to leave attachments on cable machines. Yeah, I've definitely done that almost every time. I generally try not to because I've worked out in gyms before, where over years of leaving a heavier attachment on it, it will actually slowly degrade the cable tension. And that is annoying as all get out when you're using like a dual handle system. And one of the handles is slightly less tension than the other. Yeah. So annoying. That's fair. Yeah. But rarely do people really think about that. But on like a lap pull down, a seated like pull down area, that actually is something that would really, really help as if people stopped leaving the wide grip handle on there because that's one of the heavier attachments in just about every gym. But rarely does somebody think about that. Yeah. Like at my gym, we don't, we don't leave it on there. But we tend to be more, we tend to take like way better care of our equipment than I think most barbell clubs for sure. For sure. Like all the people who do like actual like weight lifting and Olympic lifting and things like that, like they're like brushing off the barbell like the whole thing. Like we're very, yeah, very on top of that. And so that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We're hard, no. All right. All right. Let's talk about health maxing. Okay. So first, did you see the clip that I'm about to reference? I haven't seen the clip but I did here on one of my running podcasts. They were talking about it. Okay. Yeah. Let me see if I, yeah. I can find. I'm not going to read. I read that article. You sent me though. I'm pulling that article back up and then I found this other article that was pretty much about the same thing. What's interesting is it's back from 2025. So I'm not sure why it just resurfaced just now. Oh, that is weird. Yeah. I wouldn't, I have a, I have a theory on that but I'm going to put a pin in that. Okay. So back in 2025 on the podcast, the diary of, or diary of a CEO, the host Stephen Bartlett who is in his mid 30s commented that he had had his first alcoholic drink in over a year. So he's having a conversation and I think it was, I think it was with Chris Williamson, who if anybody's familiar in the podcasting space, he is one of the more popular, like fitness, health improvement, what not, like he's just, he's very popular in the space, like very, very popular in the space, not specifically just fitness, but he's, he's, yeah. And generally, I would say he's actually like pretty, pretty good at what he does. But they were having a conversation and in the clip, Stephen Bartlett, again, is talking about how, or he recounted, I'm going to read this from the article real quick. He recounted having his first alcoholic drink for a year and he says, I had a couple of glasses of wine, didn't get drunk, it ruined three days of my life because of the domino effect that it caused. So later on in the podcast, he had said he clarified the drink, three glasses of wine. So Bartlett, who had been sober for three years, added it meant that I got worse sleep that night. I wore poorly the next day because my dopamine system or the cortisol system or whatever was all messed up, then I podcasted worse and I didn't get to the gym the day after and I could track all of this on my whoop. And he even says, like in the clip, he says, like, you know, hashtag whoop, hashtag investor. He's an investor in the whoop. So after he had, is it Will Amit? I think is the was the founder after he had, I don't know if it's after, but very adjacent to Will Amit being on that podcast. Yeah. Last year, year before, whenever it was, Stephen Bartlett was not an original investor that I'm aware of. Okay. But he invested. That also is why I don't think it's coincidental that this clip is coming out, is resurfacing now when it was actually from like May of 2020 or it was back in 2025, this episode. Because I don't, I don't think it's coincidental that this is resurfacing right around the time that has or a ring gone, I think or a ring might have done their IPO already, too. I have no idea. So I don't think it's coincidental, just to answer. Yeah. I do know the five just came out is coming out. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. People are going crazy over that. So yeah. So I brought, I'm bringing this one to the conversation because there have been a number of people and you even talked about how you've heard it on podcasts. I've also noticed it on a couple of podcasts and some Instagram posts where folks are saying that this is an example of taking optimization just way too far because he's talking about how that one night of drinking completely ruined the next few days and that what's interesting, yeah, just I think there's some interesting takeaways, not specifically from what he talked about. I'm getting some interesting takeaways from the opinions that other people have. Before going into that, though, what's your, what's your take on, well, first let's talk about like that clip specifically or just that conversation specifically with how folks are reacting to that. Well, so the podcast I heard it on, they use it as a way to lead into their ad for Lagoon Pillows, which was pretty clever, I thought they were basically like by optimizing your sleep with Lagoon Pillows, you can offset any negative effects from one night of fun. That was the gist of it, yeah. I love the offset claim. Yeah, I don't know. I might be putting words in their mouth, but that was like the vibe because that's a separate like thing that I've gotten into some discussion on threads of people about, but we'll save that. We'll save that, yeah. Yeah, but they basically use it as a lead in to their Lagoon Pillow ad, it wasn't like a full section about it, it was just like some guy on a podcast said that he couldn't handle drinking through glasses of wine and everyone in his life. Yeah, it's because he didn't have that pillow, there we go. Yeah, I see where critics are coming from because the way that he talked about it makes it seem like sleep, working out, eating well, matter more than everything else in life. Yeah. Yeah, which I don't agree with, but I do share the sentiment. For me personally, I don't drink often and I know when I do drink the next day I will not feel great. Yeah. So then it does become like do I want to do this, even though like in the moment I'll be having fun. You know? Yeah, is the juice worth the squeeze? Yeah, so like from that perspective I understand what he's saying, but I do feel like the critics are right that like we kind of are taking, in my opinion, taking things a little too far. We've talked about this so many times on the podcast, like the wub or a garment, everything like we shouldn't need all of this data to know how we feel on a daily basis and like some things matter more than like the perfect sleep score or the perfect readiness score. I did enjoy your stories about the recovery time. I got it, I gotta update that today too because I in fact did not wait 36 hours or whatever it took me to wait for her to get out. Every Wednesday after our track workout, Garmin tells me I need like 30 some hours to recover on. I'm just like, I'm not gonna, I'll recover next Monday. You know this. Yeah, for those who are unfamiliar with what Kelly's referring to first, it means that you don't follow me on Instagram, which is probably why you're failing in life. Or maybe they just have their phone bricked and they missed it at 24 hours. That's true. That's true. I also made a text graphic inspired by that. So basically, yeah, I just posted in my stories a shot of my watch that was saying that I should have 35 hours of recovery time after finishing my Saturday workout, which was conditioning and cardio. And then I made a text graphic that said something along the lines of like, do you trust the recovery time on your watch as much as you trust the amount of calories that it says that you burned? Oh, I do see that. Yeah, because I will occasionally have folks who are all in on, well, you know, it's, I don't know if this is a great workout because it didn't hit 500 calories burned. It's like, okay, so you believe that. It also says that you should take a recovery day. I was like, "Ah, well, it doesn't really know me out that well." Oh, okay, gotcha. So that's the kind of energy we're bringing. Okay, so my take on this with the first, I think that this is a, and I'm not even mixing words, this is a piss poor example. If you are talking about the, like the health-maxing, the over-optimization of things, be taken too far. I think that this clip, I'm going to try not to get too into like semantics, which is easy for me to do, about like why he specifically is not a great, or this thing is specifically not a great example. And also, it's just a really bad example, an awful, an awful example. For a handful of reasons, in my opinion, not in any particular order, first, he is hands down one of the generally, like by general standards, from a financial and impact standpoint, some of the most successful people in the world. So when people talk about, like I was listening to a podcast and I didn't realize that I was listening to a dude who was basically like super alt-right white nationalist, didn't realize that until, yeah, I just looked at the title and the title was all about health-maxing. Okay. Yeah, a few minutes into it, I was like, whoa, we're going to move off of this guy. One of the things that was brought up, and I've heard other, I've seen other content bring up the same point where they were making fun of him when he was like, you know, it ruined a day of, I had a bad day of podcasting, and for those who aren't familiar with him, he, I don't know if he's relocated, but he would have times where he flies from the UK to New York City, and then he films his podcast for like, he'll film like four, two to three hour episodes from the entire day. Like when he films a podcast, it's not, I know that we represent the epitome of podcasting here, lifting, running, and living, but you all might be surprised to know that there are other folks who have a more intricate setup than we do. He had Michelle Obama, and Craig Robinson, is that her brother's name? Like he's had Michelle Obama on his podcast, so he doesn't, when, like I was listening to a couple of folks that were just like, you know, it's not that hard to just podcast, like you can do that. It's like, hmm, not if you're interviewing though, like interviewing is a skill that you need to be. Yeah, so I'm just like, it's just, it's a bad, so one, like if you're going to make the argument about taking optimization too far, try to pick someone who is not at that level. And I'm not even trying to, like, defend or say don't come for him, like I'm not like some massive, like fanboy, I'm just saying that I consider myself to be decent at like if I'm trying to make an argument for something, I'm going to try and pick an example that if you try to pick that one apart, you're going to have some difficulty trying to pick that example apart. So I wouldn't pick him as the person of the example. I try to pick some more, more like relatable person. The other thing too is I have a problem with utilizing not wanting to consume alcohol as an example of optimization. I feel like the critics, I think the fact that he brought whooping to it made it more about optimization. Okay, here's also for context, I don't drink and I haven't drank since it's been like 18, 19 years, like literally, haven't drank. So just to put that out there, just so people are understanding where I'm going to be coming from, because that's a very explicit bias that I have. And I have in the past for sure, where I think the argument is super flawed is just about most of the content that I've seen has skewed towards so you're saying you can't go out and have fun. Everyone has all the content that I've seen has all pointed towards that, all of it. And even I can't remember exactly what you said, but I think you even mentioned something along the lines of like we're basically saying like you can't ever go have fun and whatnot. Fun and alcohol don't have to be the same. Like I haven't seen any content at all, not a single person who has said so you can't go out and have a drink and enjoy yourself, they've just said you can't have fun. None of the content has been centered around the fact that he didn't say I can't go out with my friends, he said I'm not drinking. And that's the part that to me is more is is where I think the argument is lost because it's very, I say this again as somebody who also when I'm coaching people and we talk about eat well, sleep enough, exercise regularly. And when we're talking about being able to optimize your training, I'm like well one of the things I would recommend is that you take a look at your alcohol intake because clearly I mean it, I gotta be straight up, it's having an effect on your training, if you're talking about like feeling sluggish or whatever it might be or you're talking about the decisions that you make like when people talk about late night snacking, they're not talking about snacking on a charcuterie board like they're, you know, or a tray or whatever it is, right? So it's usually, I think I've talked about this on this pod before it's popcorn and wine, like wine and popcorn is an undefeated combo. Popcorn is so good. It's interesting. Yeah, wine and popcorn just seems to be an undefeated combo. So I remember, like, I've had similar combos with multiple people where I've been like, okay, well, what if we rethought combinations like this popcorn have to equal wine? Yeah. And they're like, oh, so you're saying like, well, at first they'd be like, so you're saying like, I can't have, like, I can't have a loan time with my partner or whatever. And I was like, one, I'm not saying that ever, but two, why hold on? Like since when is, since when is this like a pre-packaged bundle that you can't substitute for? Yeah. Like that, who, who said that? Yeah. And that's, that's where I, I see a lot of the content, again, centered around. I don't think that not drinking alcohol. It's, or let me rewind, it's interesting that it's very clear that sobriety is in many in our current culture, that's considered optimization. Not drinking alcohol is considered optimization based on the way that people respond to this. Because he specifically had talked about how the alcohol affected to your point, like his sleep score and all this other stuff, the alcohol affected that. Yeah. They're not talking about like, well, maybe he stayed up too late or anything like that. They're specifically going after the alcohol. And that's where I think it's clear that like we're still pretty, we're very skewed as a culture with how we look at certain things. Where it's like, there's those memes that are like, have we, like, we're so, I don't know, the world is so crazy now that when you drink water, people are like, oh, so you're dieting. It's like, really? I haven't seen that. Yeah. It's just stuff like that. Where it's like a world that's just so, like, we've become so unhealthy, and I'm not like going that far. It's memes that would basically like, so we've become so unhealthy that someone who brings their own lunch drinks water and goes for a walk is considered like that's considered optimization to some people, and it's like, really? For they must be dieting. I feel like it's always been that way though. Yeah. And I think that's a problem. Yeah. Yeah. I did like the line, one line that I saw in one of the articles that said the global wellness industry has turned bodily surveillance into a lifestyle. Yeah. I think it's very true. Yeah. So I saw a post on Threads today. Some guy was wearing an oar ring. I think it was a guy. I have no idea actually. I know what you're talking about. I already know what you're talking about. Threads is so amazing. Go ahead. Go ahead though. I don't remember it verbatim, but it was like, I just, he like went for a walk or something. He got a notification that his activity was being monitored, and he was like, guys were being monitored. And that's all I reply. which is probably what you saw too. That was like, you're choosing to wear a device that is known for monitoring. - I'm still looking this up 'cause I remember being like-- - Like, you can take it off. - You probably deleted it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. It says, the guy has a picture of his finger. It's very close up picture too. - It is, it's very good. - A picture of his finger. - Yeah, very, with the ordering on it, it says, "This ring is linked to my Apple Health." I'm dying. I put air in the tires of my new bicycle and rode down the street. The health app message me. Looks like you're doing an outdoor bike ride. It asks to continue to monitor. Hey y'all, we are monitored. My comment was, so you're saying it works? (laughing) - Great ad for ordering. - Yeah, the students get definitely getting a ratioed where he's got 447 comments and 160 likes. I am also noticing as I scroll unrelated, how many posts that I've put comments on and then they've deleted the post. (laughing) - That's funny. - Yeah, I now have other's particular posts. This is kind of going along with the no complaint challenge. There's particular posts where if they're negative, instead of like saying a negative comment back to the person, I'm commenting like, "This reminds me to be thankful for." - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, but anyways. - My personal favorite is when you respond, "Are you okay?" - So far, I would say that about conservatively, 70% of those posts end up getting deleted. - Did the one I saw was. (laughing) - Like, a woman, a woman who was like, "Oh my God, what was it about?" It was something like, "If we're in the gym, don't talk to me. Why would you ever think that's okay?" (laughing) And I was like the vibe of it even more. It was crazy. - Yeah, I think I can't remember exactly what it was, but I remember, it used much more colorful language. It was like, "Yeah, it was like a very specific situation too, where you would talk to people." - Yeah, I remember, yeah. And I'll usually just respond like, "Are you okay?" Usually I'll just do that to men for the most part. It's typically men, especially it's my self-aware, mental health awareness month. You know what I mean? Gotta check out my guys. - Yeah. - So yeah, I'm usually like, "Are you okay?" And then there's the one dude who decided to call me sassy. - Oh, yeah, yeah. - And I was like, "Oh, it's been such a long time." So I'd be called zesty or sassy or gay or something. Oh man, it's been a minute. It's been a while. Yeah, yeah, there's a few. But anyways, all right, so do you think that wearables and health metrics, overall, do you think they help us make better decisions or are they making us afraid to make the wrong decision? What do you think? - I think it's a combo. - To that left there. Yeah. I think it depends on the person's relationship to it, I think. - Yeah. - So like, there are some things I think it can be helpful. Like we've talked about for whatever reason, but where are UI, makes me want to get more steps. Who knows why? - I believe this is a good question for you, really. - Personally? - Yeah, I do, here's why, because you have a competitive spirit. Like a competitive, what am I, I'm not trying to say it a certain way 'cause we're good. What I'm saying is like, you have, - I want to be competitive. - Yeah, well, there's a piece of you that is also driven by the number. - Yeah, like performance. - Yeah, I'm not, I consider myself to be someone who is competitive. - Yeah. - I'm not driven by the number though. I'm driven by the effort and I don't care about the number. - I think that you're a combo of both. - Yeah. - Yeah, so that's the thing. So that's why I say, I think this is a good question to get your perspective on. Because the specifically thinking about like, the fact that these wearables and things like that are all about, I mean, their numbers, their metrics. - Yeah. - You know what I mean? - A lot of metrics. - Yeah, so helping us make better decisions or making us afraid of making the wrong ones or making imperfect ones was the suggestion that was given for the question. - I would skew more on the making us afraid. 'Cause like. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah, I just think back to like, which we talked about before, like in college, I didn't, smart watches didn't exist, you know? It was like something that could only track my time. When I was running, like I had no idea what distance, what pays, I mean, I could do the math and figure out my pace and distance 'cause I was mapping. But that's neither here nor there. Like I didn't have all these things when I was like running for college. And that's like luckily. 'Cause I, that was like an unhealthier time of my life. But like, I still performed really well. And I still like cared about my sleep and I knew when I was sleeping well versus not sleeping well. That kind of thing, like I didn't need my device to tell me that. And I feel like now it's, there's just so much. And just from like, with runners, you'll see it on Strava. People like run slightly slower on their easy run. And it's like, people freak out. And it's like, okay, but it's an easier, even workouts. And I've fallen into this trap too, like especially doing track workouts now. Like I know times I can hit. And like on certain days, if I don't feel as good and like the times feel harder to hit, then it's a little mental of like, oh no, it's my fitness gone. And it's like, no, you probably, it's six a.m. - Thank you. - You know? - And like maybe it's just an off week. The things like that, it's just like so in our face now. And I think luckily I don't care about like sleep score or readiness. Like I'm gonna do whatever training I'm gonna do. And like live the life I plan for the next day. But I know a lot of people do get hung up on that. And like what Garmin suggests you should do. Or like the Garmin, did your Garmin do this? Like tell you if you're unproductive or productive in your training. - It might, on that summary, I don't look at it. I think it's more for the endurance sports. - Yeah, there's something that will tell me what the load. It'll say like if the load is optimal or whatever. I truly don't, I don't even look at that. The recovery time, I just happen to look at it. - Yeah. - Just to be funny. Like it was honestly a joke in my head. That's how my ideas come through. Like literally, 'cause I can't remember however many calories it said that I burned. And I remember a covers multiple conversations that I've had with clients before, about like how much they watched the calories burned on a workout. And I remember it was at like 490 something. And I remember having this conversation with a client before who was like literally, I appreciate her openness. She openly was like, if a workout didn't say that it burned 500 calories, I assumed it wasn't a good workout. She's like, I'm gonna be honest with you. I just assume it wasn't good. I think that that's more, I'm not gonna say more common. If I think it happens a decent amount in people's heads, in people's heads for sure. - Yeah, and if it's not calories, it like runners and pace is pretty comparable. - Yeah, I could say that. - It's some metric that you lost yourself too, that is like tells you whether something was good or bad. - Yeah, so I use train heroic for my training now. And on train heroic, it gives you a readiness score. And you put in like before you start your workout, you can put in, you know, one through five, where you sleep, your energy, your recovery, your mood, maybe one other thing. Okay, I remember, and I like that it has that sort of feature. - Yeah. - And then at the end, it also has a feature where you can rate the workout like one through 10, like how hard it was, basically that sort of a thing. Like I'm all about stuff like that. I just don't, I think that now I believe that I'm so anti, like letting the numbers dictate those sorts of things that now even on my own tracking, I don't even, I track my calories three days a week, and then I input my sleep number, like how much I slept, not my score, my steps in my weight, and how much water I drank. Like I stopped even looking at RHR and HRV. - Yeah, I mean, I think I've gone so anti for myself, - Yeah, that's right. - I just gone so anti that I just, like yeah. - I feel like, um, oh my God, what was that thing I sent you? We can't get into it today. I also don't know much about it. that like HRV training that is popping up now? - Oh yes, yes, yes. Yeah, that marketing was just so awful that it was the AI marketing. I couldn't get past that almost. - I couldn't get past the, I started HRV training and now I can run them too for five hours or something. (laughing) - Yeah. - Without my heart rate, it's spiking to 180. - Yeah, it's, I mean it speaks, it does speak to a very specific segment. - Yeah. - Because, and I mean it makes sense because there was so much conversation around zone two and things like that. And then there's for sure a segment of the population, I'm actually part of that segment of the population where I'm not like right now, it would be very difficult for me to go for a zone two run because my heart rate spikes pretty quickly. Once I start doing any sort of jogging or whatnot, like could I work on it? Absolutely, I could. But that segment of the population, you know if you're somebody, if you're a guy in your mid to late 40s, I'm in late 40s now. Yeah, I'm mid, I'm late because I'll be 48 soon. So yeah, I'm considered late 40s, right? - Yeah. - Most sort of 50 that I am 45. - Yeah. - So your guy in his late 40s and you hear you should go on a do zone two or whatnot and then you're like, well, I remember back in the day when I weighed a little bit less, I went for runs. And maybe my knees aren't what they used to be. That's not me, I'm just the avatar. Then it's like, oh, but for some reason, I can't stay in that zone two and then you see that ad, you're gonna click and watch the ad because it's speaking directly to what you're talking about. Even though it's bad AI, but you probably can't tell, you know? - Yeah, it makes me question why I'm getting it now. - Who knows, who knows, I don't know. So let's see, how are we gonna round this out? - Yeah, what's your summary? - So my summary, I always like the actionable tips here. It's gonna be something similar that we have talked about before and I cannot take credit for this because it came from a former client who was also a coach and she talked about utilizing devices as like two-factor authentication. - Oh. - So always, yeah, she's like checking with yourself first before checking in with your devices. - I like that. - Like before checking with the devices. Other than outside of the wearables conversation, just really looking at the whole like, have we started to take optimization too far related to the specific, like my specific beef with, and I might be like a denial or self-projecting, but my specific beef with the whole like, not drinking is considered optimization thing. - Yeah. - Is that just like anything, what's standard and what's optimal are gonna be different for different people. A sign for me that I've taken optimization too far is that it's having a negative effect on things and/or people that I value and that I care about. - Yeah. - So if for the sake of, for example, I'm trying so hard to get optimal sleep to protect my sleep score, that I refuse to go on a date with my wife. I refuse to, like last night, Ava and I hung out and watched the next game until that was over and that was like 11 something our time. Like if I refuse to do that and in my, and there actually was a moment straight up, there was a moment where I looked at my watch and I was like, oh snap, it's late. - Yeah. - And I planned to work out tomorrow and I, it did not even, it wasn't even a, oh, should I stay up or shouldn't, that wasn't even, for me, that was the sign of progress because I can remember years ago where it wouldn't have been specifically to like hit a certain sleep score. It wouldn't have just been specifically like, I plan to get up at four tomorrow so. - Yeah, it's like preserving your routine. - Yeah, so to me, like a suggestion I would have for other folks would just be, if you are finding yourself making sacrifices, I'll say specifically that have a negative effect on people that you care about, then that potentially could be a sign that you are taking this whole optimization thing way too far, and really I think it's an opportunity to look at like, what do you consider standard? Because I think in that case, maybe what you consider standard is really skewed to do it that much you will, but like maybe, I don't know, you know what I mean? - Yeah. - Yeah, ooh, you just gave me an idea for content. - Oh, great. - Anyways, how about you? Any takeaways for you? Any suggestions such? - Nothing really different than what you just said. (laughing) - I mean, that tracks you pretty similar here. - Exactly. - I think, yeah, we're pretty similar there. So. - Yeah. - All right. Wait, do you want to tell the folks where to find this stuff? - I was waiting for you to ask the question. - Oh, well, can I put it, I'm gonna put it in a shameless plug. - Yeah. - You have less than three minutes. - Yeah, stay tuned. The Make Fitness Make Sense podcast will be launching soon. So stay tuned. - Perfect. You can find us on Instagram and lifting running living pod or you can email us at [email protected]. - All right. Thank you again for tuning into another episode of lifting running and living. We appreciate you. We'll talk to you next time. - Bye.