About Episode
In this episode I check in with Adam Bedford and David Dean, two members of my initial test group. We discuss their progress…several different Beachbody exercise programs like Power 90, P90X3, and the upcoming P90…standing workstations and how to request them…making small daily changes to increase activity…the benefits of Shakeology at the office…and much more!
Useful Links
About Guest
Transcript
Zack Arnold: Hello and welcome to the Fitness in Post podcast. Today I am joined by Adam Bedford and David Dean, who are members of my initial test group. So, hello, Adam and David.
Adam Bedford: Ah, thanks, Zack. Happy to be here. I’m
Zack Arnold: Glad you guys are here too. So, what I want to talk about today is essentially your progress from the beginning of the program, which was about eight or nine weeks ago. I’ve actually lost track. I think we’re nine weeks in, and you had both been on the show at week zero, right before we started the program, and now we’re nine weeks in, and you’re both working professionals on the job in front of a computer every single day. So I just wanted you to talk about how the program has progressed for both of you and where you are now.
Adam Bedford: As for me, my energy levels have spiked considerably. Like I, I’m, I’m like a different person, and considering I was primarily sedentary eight nine weeks ago, I’m moving around now. I, I feel like I, I’m walking on moon gravity. I’ve lost 12 pounds, which was a not not my primary goal, but it was it’s it’s great that it’s up there, and I’m I’m just loving it. I’m I’m challenging myself to to eat better and do more. The hardest part is just trying to work that into a regular schedule. So I’m I’m trying to find ways around that. And how
Zack Arnold: About you, David? What do how are you feeling so far?
David Dean: Well, so far so good. I’m. I’ve taken an approach that’s much less aggressive because I’ve I’ve done it in the past where I try to go whole hog and and dive into a totally different routine and it’s always failed miserably. So I’ve been kind of slow burning into it. But the main thing that I’ve done differently is getting in a lot of exercises. Which right now, I’m exercising probably five days out of seven, whereas I used to exercise one or two days out of seven, if that. And so that’s been the great thing to just kind of make that part of the regular routine, and to expect that of myself every day. Yeah, it makes makes me feel better about like I I physically feel better like when I see myself in the mirror and that’s good. I’m starting to eat better. That’s phase two for me. Is like I’m working on that now. But yeah, and the oh, and the standing desk thing is is awesome. I’m never going to go back.
Zack Arnold: So tell me how what what did you actually do to get a standing desk? Because I know that you just transitioned to a new job. So walk people through the process of how you made that happen.
David Dean: Well, basically, when I was starting, I found out when they’re going to be installing the the rental system in my bay, and made sure to show up that day so that I could ask them to set it up to my specs and and do the standing desk. But that was the correct height for my arms, and and yeah. So basically, just made it made it a point to to supervise the the room I’m going to be in before I started working.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, and one thing that I want to point out to anybody that works the type of job where you know, like for example, Adam goes from one facility to the next, and they basically you know have a full time room that he goes into. But if you work in scripted the way that we do, they essentially are setting up their bays each time a new show starts or each time a new season starts. So you’re starting from scratch. So what I tell people is that you don’t go in and say to them, “Well, can I get a standing desk? You just go in and say, “My desk needs to be standing. I don’t make it an option. I just tell them this is what needs to be set up and these are the specs because otherwise they’re just not going to listen. All these rental houses just want to make it as easy as possible to set up your bay, but you just tell them this is how it needs to be, and then eventually, after four or five tries, they finally figure it out.
Adam Bedford: Right. I have more control over my home bay. I’m trying to turn that into a standing desk, and the desk that I have has adjustable legs, but they don’t quite go all the way, so I’m thinking about doing in the short term, doing something like cinder blocks and just putting them up high enough on that. That should that should get me through, I think.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, and that’ll cost you about 897 to do that. About $8.97 So it’ll be two $2 a piece for four cinder blocks in your standing. Yeah, well,
Adam Bedford: Then that’s yeah. I think that’s what I’m doing this weekend then.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, exactly. So walk me through. I’ll first ask Adam this. You’ve actually switched your approach to exercise in your program. So walk me through where you had started when we began and where you are now, because I know you transitioned somewhere in the middle. So talk about that.
Adam Bedford: Yeah, I started out more or less doing my my own thing and creating my own program, which was which was working, but I felt I was starting to plateau. And luckily, at the time we started the the the show that I was on was like two minutes from my house. I was like two blocks from my gym, so I’m able. I was able until last week to sneak out on lunch breaks and work out and do my thing. But I feeling I feel like now at this point in in the game I need to sort of step it up a little bit. So I transitioned into P 90 as sorry Power 90, and didn’t go all hog on that. I I integrated that into what I was doing, so I was kind of like a slow trickle, and that. At the point now where I feel like it’s not burning enough, I feel like I’m ready to move up to something else. So I’m I’m looking at P 90 x3
Zack Arnold: And how about how about you, David? Tell me. I know you’ve pretty much been on Power 90 the whole nine weeks, correct?
David Dean: Yeah, I I think I did my first exercise of Power 90 the day after that initial podcast, and I stayed on one two for a while, probably like four or five weeks, just because I found that it was there was some allowance to push yourself harder or take a little easier, depending on what you were physically able to do that day. And then when I kicked it up to three four, that’s where there’s really a lot of of a room for growth in terms of you know how how hard you want to do it, and so I’m still kind of enjoying that that three four level where it’s challenging enough that I I haven’t plateaued yet, and I can I can still you know try to do a few more than I did last time kind of thing.
Zack Arnold: Right. Yeah, and I I think that you’ll probably hit that point fairly soon as well because and I hit that point as well with with Power 90. The way that it’s broken down for people that aren’t aware is that there’s two separate workouts and there’s two levels of each workout. So you have cardio and you have sculpt. And cardio is exactly what it sounds like. It’s you know a lot of a lot of exercises. You know like jumping jacks and you know like jumping lines and balance stuff, and it’s basically getting your heart rate up, but there’s not a lot of strength training. And then sculpt is a lot of body weight exercises and some band exercises or weight exercises. And then there’s two levels, so there’s sweat one and two, there’s sweat three and four, there’s sculpt one and two, there’s sculpt three and four. So there’s actually four options for workouts, but it’s the same workout that you’re going to get for what? What do they recommend? Is it six days a week? Was that the recommendation on the calendar? It’s been a while since I’ve done it. Right, six
Adam Bedford: Days a week and Sunday being the rest day.
Zack Arnold: So the the reason that I recommend that to start with, and I’m going to stop recommending it soon because they’ve actually developed a new version of Power 90 that’s essentially like pre 90x in a way, it comes out this fall, and that’s something I’m very interested in because it’s like entry level P90X, which is what Power 90 was. But Power 90 people don’t realize that it was actually designed like over a decade ago, but it’s just becoming really popular because P90X got so popular, and it’s a great way to get into the program. But it doesn’t have as much of the muscle confusion. It doesn’t have as much of the variety. Whereas P 90 x3 has like 15 or 16 different workouts, and they’re really really hard. But they’re also good if you have a basis of fitness and you want to challenge yourself. And it’s a really good next level to go to. And on top of it, they’re only 30 minutes apiece, so it’s it’s very realistic. Whereas with P 90x you need at least an hour six days a week, which is kind of a deal breaker for a lot of people, unless you have a lot of extra time. Right. So yeah, my my definite recommendation. I know that Adam and I have talked about it, and you know, David, if you decide you’re going to get to that point too, P 90 x3 I’m I’m just getting into it myself now, and I really, really like it. It’s very challenging, but it’s also very approachable with plenty of modifications. And they have a lot more stuff that requires no exercises, like entire workouts that are just-they call them like the hotel workout or the army base workout, where you’re on a an aircraft carrier in the middle of nowhere and you have no equipment. Here’s a 30-minute workout, and they’re hard. So that’s the kind of stuff where you know if you’re in an edited suite and you have some time, there’s no excuse. There are ways to get your exercise. So the only excuse is that you don’t want to
Adam Bedford: Do it. What what I like about P90X three is the 12 workouts. Like there there’s a a lot less of a danger of plateauing because your body you’re constantly throwing your body into different kinds of turmoil, and and it can’t really adapt. Oh, it takes longer for your body to adapt.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, and that that’s the way that all of those programs are designed. I’ve done P 90x and P 90 x2 all the way through, and I never had literally one day of plateau. Every single day, you do your workout, you’re tired, you’re a little bit sore, and the next day you do something else, and it’s always hard. So you’re never bored and you never plateau ever, and that that’s the thing that I really love about them is they’re they’re just so well designed.
David Dean: And so and so, what kind of extra equipment do you need for those programs?
Zack Arnold: I mean, it’s really simple. I have very little equipment myself. I have a pull-up bar. I have a couple of medicine balls, which I don’t even know if they have in P90X three. P90X2 uses medicine balls a lot, so I have a few of those. I have like two or three exercise bands that sometimes I use, sometimes I don’t, and then I have two dumbbells that are adjustable, like the kind of thing where you pull a thing out, and like I can have my dumbbell anywhere between three and 24 pounds with increments of three pounds, so I can make it 369, 12, and so on. But that’s it. That’s my entire home gym. That and athletic tape on the floor to mark up places for all the plyometrics exercises. But to have an entire home gym and literally be able to kick your own ass and sweat like crazy in 30 minutes requires almost no equipment except the DVDs. I mean, there’s really. Really, very little that’s required,
Adam Bedford: And the and the time and privacy to to do it as well. Yeah,
Zack Arnold: Exactly. But that’s another reason that I advocate these for people in our industry is because time is so precious to us that to go to a gym requires at least double the amount of time of the actual workout because you have to get in your car, you have to drive, you have to park, then you have to put your stuff in a locker, then you have to change. Then you have to work out. Then you have to do all of those steps in reverse. And by the time you get done, you’re like, God, that took forever. But with these, you can say, Oh, you know what? Oh, dinner’s not going to be ready for 45 minutes. Well, I’m just going to hop into my office, do 30 minute workout, come out. I’m done. That’s
David Dean: It. Yeah, I would. I would still. I occasionally pop out to the gym, probably one or two of the workouts a week just to get out of the house, yeah, and like kind of get on again and like stand on machines that I’m not used to standing on that kind of sure,
Zack Arnold: Yeah. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just if people feel that the only option they have out there to get exercise is to get a gym membership, I’m trying to make it very clear that you don’t need a gym membership to get healthy. But everybody on this call has young children, so if anybody’s listening to this and saying, “Oh, well, they don’t get it, I have young kids. Like I have a four and a half year old and a two year old, and I know that David has a four year old. And remind me how old your kids are, Adam?
Adam Bedford: Two, almost two, and almost five.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, exactly. So we’re all in the same boat where it’s daddy, daddy, daddy. I want this. I want that. Then it’s very hard to get away, and you know, all of us are able able to make this happen. And more importantly, everybody well not me, but the the other two people on this call right now are working full time jobs. So one thing I wanted to ask you, David, is you’ve gone through a transition where you were working on one job when we started. Then you were on hiatus. Now you’ve moved to a new job, which, as I understand, is really busy and lots of hours. So, talk me through how the transition worked with the new job and the program.
David Dean: It’s actually the hours have been pretty manageable. They just kind of vary, so I have to figure it out accordingly what I’m going to be doing. So, when we’re in dailies, I go into work a lot earlier, and so I’ll work out in the evenings, if I’m in the dailies phase, and then as we get towards directors cut and producers cut sessions, I’ll go into work like an hour or two later than normal. And so, as soon as I drop my daughter off at daycare, I’ll I’ll go get in a workout and then go to work.
Zack Arnold: And I’m assuming that that makes a big difference just in your energy levels and your productivity levels once you get to the office.
David Dean: Oh yeah, I mean, you just feel good when you get in if you know you’ve done your workout in the morning. That’s that’s kind of the bad thing about doing it at night is you you you see that at the end of the tunnel and it’s like oh your energy’s fading but you have
Zack Arnold: To do it right
David Dean: And and then I don’t do it once or twice a week whoops
Zack Arnold: Yeah but but it’s it’s all about doing things that are consistent not perfect right you know that’s why I keep saying the all or nothing approach just doesn’t work. So if you say to yourself, “Well, I was supposed to get in six workouts and I only got in four, so I’m done. I just quit. I can’t do it. Well, exactly
David Dean: That. That’s why, like I said earlier, I’ve been taking kind of the the soft entry approach to make it, you know, much more general part of my lifestyle as opposed to, you know, I’m doing the three week crash diet. This, you know, and I’m gonna commit to it, and because then you fail, and oh, I can’t do it after all, and you beat yourself up, and then you stop.
Zack Arnold: Exactly. So, Adam, you’re on the other end of the spectrum where you are kind of going from one relatively short term job to another relatively short term job. So, walk me through, and I say short term because usually, you know, we’ll be on a job for what like 345, weeks at a time? Isn’t that kind of your schedule?
Adam Bedford: Depends. Depends on the show. Like my last show was eight weeks, and now I’m on for this project for three weeks, and then yeah, it’s depends. I float between pilot and series.
Zack Arnold: Right. Yeah. And so for me, I’m used to doing something for at least seven to eight months at a time. So what you do, I consider short term. Some people might think that’s really long term. But walk me through just some of the strategies that you’re using to maintain your overall Fitness In Post program, jumping from job to job.
Adam Bedford: Well, well, this week is my first week on a new project in a completely different part of town, which means I’m in the car for almost an hour from my house in Burbank, as opposed to five minutes down the road, so that’s an adjustment in itself. So I am I’m walking. I’m trying to walk, whether it’s like walking in place while I’m watching watching string out or whatever. The building I’m in is like the 12th floor of a huge high rise. So I like I walk down the stairs twice a day. I would love to walk up, but the doors are locked, so I can’t get her back up under the floor. So that that’s a challenge. So today I was waiting, like for instance, for a graphic to be rendered so I could get this cut out. So I decided to walk down the stairs, walk outside, and then did a like a two mile walk around the area just just to sort of get a lay of the land, so like places where you can eat lunch, whatever. So I came back and I felt recharged for the rest of the afternoon.
Zack Arnold: And that’s great. I mean, you’re you’re doing a lot of step three, which is just making small changes and finding ways to get activity in your daily life, which anybody can do for free. That costs no money. It just you know takes an extra five or 10 minutes, but what what I really try to emphasize to people, and I just spoke at Editors Lounge in Burbank recently, and this came up where people are saying, well, how am I going to take 15 minutes out of my day to go for a walk around the block? That’s time that I’m losing, and what I’m trying to so heavily emphasize is that yes, if you take a walk for 15 minutes around the block, you are losing 15 minutes. But if you look at the next three hours of your day, you are going to become more active, more engaged, and more efficient. So you’re probably going to get your work done half an hour faster than you would have otherwise. So you’re actually gaining 15 minutes out of your day, and that’s something that’s hard to explain to people until they’ve experienced it.
Adam Bedford: That’s that’s what I found when I when I started on this, especially being that on my last job, being that close to the gym, I found I could take an hour hour and a half out of my day and go and do that and come back, and I felt like a new person. I I was working at twice the pace I was. I still managed to get everything out, everything done, and be out the door at 7o’clock Sometimes even earlier. So, if anything, it helps your time management skills as well. That’s how it worked for me. The biggest challenge I have is I’m supposed to be training for a 10k and the only times I have to do that now are early in the morning or late in the evening. So I have to plus do P90X workout and see my kids and everything. So that’s that’s the challenge I’m facing right now.
Zack Arnold: Right, and I think that the the best thing to do is to just fit in what makes the most sense and just take it slowly. And I mean, if you’re if you find that your 10K is saying you need to do something for I don’t know how what the program looks like, but let’s say that it’s four or five days a week. You know, you you try and fit in two, and then once you get into your new schedule and you get used to the the commute, and you know, you just start to shuffle things around to get it right. Then you start working in more. But again, I just am trying to emphasize to people that just because you can’t do all of it doesn’t mean that you can’t do any of it. That’s
Adam Bedford: It. Like I would take a lunch break and go and run, but when I come when I come back, I’m sweaty as all hell and there’s no shower. So that like from a from a hygiene perspective, that kind of yeah shuts me down.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, and that’s certainly not something I advocate. I don’t want to I don’t want to advocate stinky editors because producers are not going to like that.
Adam Bedford: We already have enough about enough reputation for that sort of stuff.
Zack Arnold: That is very true. There are a lot of stinky edit bays. That’s why all the all the editors like to use incense, right?
Adam Bedford: Some use weed, but not not me.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, exactly.
Adam Bedford: Yeah.
Zack Arnold: Okay. Well, then my next question is more. We’ve been talking a lot about activity and exercise, and I know that both of you are on Shakeology, and I just want to talk about that a little bit, and just diet more in general, and just what kind of changes that you’ve made in your diet, and what kind of improvements you’ve seen from it.
Adam Bedford: Well, the Shakeology thing has been the the biggest sole improvement for me. Just having that in the morning for breakfast. Normally, i i would have I would have eaten like a bowl of cereal, which would have been great for like an hour or two, and then would have made me go to sleep on the drive to work or something like that. But it’s given me a lot more energy. I feel like I can tackle the day, which is always a good start, and it’s helping me with my it’s helping me with my program.
Zack Arnold: And David, I know that we had talked about this right about the time we started, and you had actually tried it once. I guess it was what, like two, three years ago, and you stopped for some reason. So just walk through your initial experience with it, why you had stopped, and how things have worked for you so far, good or bad.
David Dean: Well, I think the first time I did it, the the most the biggest reason that I stopped was because it just the price tag of the bag, and I think I I was also falling off of my workout routine then as well. So I was losing the the supplement nature because I wasn’t working out. I didn’t have a reason to get the supplement. But so now that I’ve been getting into a more physical routine, it’s definitely helpful, especially in the morning. Like I like to have it very first thing when I wake up instead of the morning coffee. It’s now have the morning Shakeology and just throw in whatever extra fruits and vegetables I have later around the house into the mix.
Adam Bedford: Yeah, I love doing that with the NutriBullet. Just you just find whatever you can. Like this morning, like carrots, cucumber, apple, banana, whatever. Yeah, it’s better than that.
Adam Bedford: Yeah, just stick it all in with some peanut butter, some milk, and some Shakeology, and Bob’s your uncle.
David Dean: Oh yeah, yeah, and I find that because I used to start getting hungry and and crave the the lunch at about 1111 30, and now it’s it’s more like 1o’clock
Zack Arnold: Which is good because that’s probably about the time you eat your lunch, right?
David Dean: Right.
Zack Arnold: And then what what kind of effect are you seeing? Because you had mentioned specifically, or Adam had going waking up with a bowl of cereal. What are you noticing in the afternoon? Because I know that the biggest change that I see with it is, even though it’s a delayed reaction, I don’t have that crash around three or 4o’clock and I’m not craving the chips and the the cookies and the M and M’s and like all the. Barbs, I had those cravings are gone for me. I don’t even think about that stuff anymore, and it was essentially Shakeology that did that for me. But is that something you guys experience?
Adam Bedford: More or less, I still like I I bring my own snacks to work because I can control what that way. I know that if I brought it, I’m going to eat it and not rely on whatever they provide. I usually bring like a mojo. Not it’s not a Clif Bar, but it’s like a granola bar and some fruit or whatever. And so I’ll if I’m hungry, I’ll graze throughout the day. But yeah, if I’m taking Shakeology, I don’t normally feel like eating till about 11 or 12, and then I’ll just snack on something like that, and then I won’t eat lunch till maybe about two 2o’clock Sometimes like today, I didn’t eat lunch till like 3o’clock and then on the way home, I drove home about seven. I had my had a granola bar, and I was set, and have a small dinner, and I’m good.
David Dean: Yeah, I don’t I don’t know that it’s that it’s helped that that 230 3o’clock hour snack craving, but I’ve been trying to get in the good habit of bringing some like carrot sticks and sliced mini peppers and things like that, just just to get that crunch factor in the afternoon. But that, but that’s the ticket is bringing your own little thing and having a mini fridge in your room.
Zack Arnold: Right. Yeah, I used to bring a mini fridge to the the office just for that same reason, where everybody has their donuts and their ho hos and their Doritos and everything out in the main snack room. Yeah. And if you can avoid that and say, “Oh, I’m kind of hungry, rather than having to go into the fridge or the cupboard with all the junk in it, you have your own, and you can control what the food is. Yeah,
Adam Bedford: But it’s funny, Zack. After a while of changing your diet and being on the a more healthy regime, when you like for me, whenever I would see like a plate of donuts or something. It literally turns my stomach now. There’s no way I could eat it.
Zack Arnold: What I’ve trained myself to do, and it’s really not that hard to do, is that when you look at food, you don’t think about how it’s going to taste. You think about how am I going to feel for the next three hours. And when you start to judge food that way, and you actually rewire your brain to feel that way, then you make very, very different choices. Because when you look at a donut and you say, “Oh my God, that is going to taste good, but then you think about how do you feel right when you eat it, and then you pay attention and you’re very self-aware and you see the reaction that you have 10 minutes after, 20 minutes after, 30 minutes after, and you try to function; it’s very, very hard to function. And as you continue to do that, and just be aware-not even make the change yet-just be aware of the way that it’s affecting you. All of a sudden, you’re going to do like you said. You’re going to look at the donut, and your stomach’s going to kind of turn. You’re going to think, “Well, but I want to feel good for the next two or three hours, and I want to be able to focus and concentrate and have energy, and that’s going to ruin that.
Adam Bedford: I don’t know about everybody else, but I know with my own body, now that I’m eating better and I’m eating the right stuff, when those occasions where I don’t eat the right stuff, my body tells me right away in various different ways. It’s like, okay, you shouldn’t have eaten that, whether you feel sick or various other bodily functions happen. But yeah, it’s it’s it’s weird having your body that in tune. I’m not used to that, but I kind of like it.
Zack Arnold: What I find, and this is documented scientifically, but just from a more personal perspective, that if you’re eating junk all the time, you need that junk to refuel you because you’re essentially dependent on glucose. If you eat carbs all the time, and every two or three hours you find that you’re getting really agitated and you know just kind of really irritable, that’s because you’re low on glucose because you burn through it very quickly and you just need more. So you need the carbs, you need the carbs, you need the carbs. So if you’re eating that stuff, you actually are thinking, “Well, I’m feeling better because I’m eating this, but you don’t realize that your baseline is so low that you just kind of feel like crap all the time. But you feel you have different levels of feeling like crap. But as soon as you just eliminate it, and what I what I really advocate in these challenge groups is don’t make an overall life transformation at once. But as soon as you start taking small steps, take one big step and just spend like five to seven days and just eliminate everything processed and everything that has sugar in it. And the first two or three days really, really sucks if you’re dependent on it. But then all of a sudden the clouds lift and you say, “Oh my God, what is all this energy and what is this feeling that I have? Oh, this is what it feels like to feel normal and feel good, and have energy, and not be cloudy, and not have brain fog, and not be dependent on all this sugar all the time. And then, like you said, when you feel that way, as soon as you eat something that takes you back there, then you’re hyper aware of it, and you’re like, “Whoa, I feel like crap right now, because you came from a much higher place.
Adam Bedford: Exactly. Like last week, we I went to a user group meeting and we had a pizza event afterwards, and just one slice of pizza. I was like, oh, okay. It’s my body’s telling me maybe you should stop, but I was really hungry because I hadn’t eaten much that day. So after two slices, I was like, okay, that’s it. Got to go home, and and that was it until the next day where. My body had said it just basically shut down. I had to like I felt like a rock was in my stomach. I had to leave work early. I was feeling that ill, and it was just from two slices of pizza the night before. It’s strange. It was it really spooked me how that how that happened. But now looking back at it, now I understand.
Zack Arnold: And that-that’s a more extreme example of what I was just talking about. Where now, the next time that you look at a big, thick piece of pizza that has the sausage and the pepperoni and all the cheese melting off of it,
Adam Bedford: Now you’ve had the you’ve had the Santa Rosa at Palermo. You know how good it is. It’s the best pizza
Zack Arnold: On the planet. So yes, I know exactly what you’re talking about, but even then, what you would instead of just saying to yourself, “Man, that’s going to taste good, you actually bargain with yourself because now you’ve had that physical experience. You’ve rewired your brain in such a way that your brain is saying, “All right, I know what I’m going to go through when I eat this. Right? I know that I’m probably going to feel like crap, but then you look at the pizza and you’re like, ‘Oh, but it’s just so good. But you’re you’re at least bargaining and you’re negotiating, which is a huge step up from oh well, I’m just gonna eat this because it tastes so good, right? Yeah,
Adam Bedford: Yeah. It becomes a it becomes like sense memories, like as opposed to yeah, then taste memory. Because I as you’re talking about that, I’m having the war in my head of like oh my god, that was I remember how good that pizza was. But at the same time, my stomach is turning in in knots right now because I know what happened the day after.
Zack Arnold: Right.
David Dean: Yes, I’ve had the most success with the rewiring on the on the liquid front. Like all I drink now is water, except for the cup of coffee in the morning, and because everything else, the like the juices and the sodas and things. Just I get that feeling like you’re talking about with the food, like where you you know how it’s going to make you feel for the next couple hours, and so just kind of avoid
Zack Arnold: It. Yeah, and the other thing you notice too when you start to cut that stuff out is you realize how much sugar is actually in it because you taste it. Like if I were to drink a soda or drink even orange juice or you know whatever is out there. Yeah, it
David Dean: Tastes like pure concentrate. Yeah,
Zack Arnold: My face will literally pucker like I just sucked on a lemon, and it’s like whoa, that has a lot of sugar because I just my body is not used to it anymore, and I just have a really acute reaction to it,
Zack Arnold: And it’s just like I have no interest number one in the taste anymore. Like if I somebody gave me a glass of Diet Coke, I would take one swig and I would spit it out. I can’t even swallow it. But if if it were just some other kind of drink or something, I would rather go thirsty because I know how quickly my blood sugar would plummet and how horrible I would feel. And for me, I make all of my judgments now about all right. Well, what do I need to do for the next three hours? Do I need to function? Do I need to be with my kids? Do I need to be editing? Am I going to be in with a producer? Well, then I can’t eat crap. But if it’s Friday night and I know that on Saturday it’s going to be a leisurely day, you know, screw it. I’ll eat something bad. Like what? One thing that I’ll say. Full disclosure: I posted it on Twitter. But the day after my Spartan race, I trained my butt off for four months. Did my Spartan race, ran 13 miles, came home, and I ate an entire box of fruity pebbles, and I have no regrets. And it was amazing.
Adam Bedford: And you shouldn’t have to, considering what you did. It’s like you’ve got to have, you’ve got to give yourself a night off sometimes. Yeah,
Zack Arnold: But but what I didn’t do, and this is the mistake I’ve made in the past, where that was a gateway to just opening the floodgates, where I would do, I would do that after a race, and then the next day, oh, I still deserve it, and I still deserve it. And it’s like, well, I’m strong, I’m in shape, I don’t need to go back to my exercise routine. I’ll take a week off, and then you take two weeks off, and then it’s been three weeks, and you’re like, ugh, I feel kind of crappy. Yeah, I don’t, I don’t want to exercise today. And then, bam, three months later, you’ve gained all your weight back plus five pounds, and you’re like, “Crap! How did I get back in this position? So this time, what I did was instead of setting an ultimate goal, which was I’m going to run my Spartan race, I’m going to finish P90X two, and I’m going to be done. Now I’m just making benchmarks, and my benchmark is great. I finished the Spartan race, I finished P90X two, I’m going to take a week off. Had my fruity pebbles for one night. Had a couple other meals that were enjoyable, and then right after that, I was right into a new program with a new goal. Because that’s the biggest thing that people are worried about, even with our challenge groups, is well, this is fantastic and it’s making a bit difference. But what do I do when we’re done?
Adam Bedford: Hang on, hang on, back up. You ate an entire box of fruity pebbles.
Zack Arnold: Not just nope, not a bowl. I had like five bowls in a row, and it was amazing. And I don’t regret any of
Adam Bedford: It. Wow. Okay.
Zack Arnold: And I felt like garbage like half an hour afterwards, and I still didn’t care because it was so good. Like that’s my crack. Fruity pebbles is my favorite thing on the planet.
Adam Bedford: I think I just turned diabetic thinking about that.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, and it was. I trust me. My body felt it, and I knew it was coming. But I just sat there and reveled in the taste. And then I said, “That’s it. I’m done. I’ve got it out of my system, and I’ll do it again in four or six months. And that was it.
Adam Bedford: Fair enough.
Zack Arnold: And I went right back on my regimen the next day or the next two days after that, and I’ve been on it ever since. And I feel great. And I don’t have the urge to do it again. But that’s. One thing that’s really important that I advocate in one of my blogs that I want to bring up here is what’s called the 80/20 rule. I didn’t make this up. This comes from a guy named Mark Sisson, who is one of the leaders and foremost experts of the paleo diet movement, and he has a website called Mark Daly Apple that I have on the resources site. And the 80/20 rule basically says that 80% of the time, you want to stick religiously to whatever your diet regimen is, but then 20% of the time, just kind of do whatever you want. You want to do whatever you want within reason, like don’t start drinking battery acid. But they weren’t done
Adam Bedford: That.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, exactly. And when I say battery acid, I mean things like Red Bull and Coca Cola. So that that’s what I’m talking about. I wasn’t. Yeah. So you’ve actually had battery acid to drink. That’s interesting. Oh, it
Adam Bedford: Tasted like battery acid. Yeah, exactly.
Adam Bedford: You forget where I’m from.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, that’s true. But but the idea is that those the other 20% of the time you just you forget about willpower and you just do something you enjoy. But if you do the math, 20% of the time is you know two or three meals a week. As long as you’re spacing them out and you’re sticking to the 80% what you’re going to find is that the more you stick to the 80% the less you care about the 20% Because for me, it used to be, oh, I’m going to have a cheat meal and I’m going to have another cheat meal, and I would just kind of it would become a snowball where all of a sudden I had more cheat meals than I had regular meals. But then I said, I’m just going to stick to the 8020 thing for like three weeks. Well, first I stuck to the 100% rule for three weeks and cut out a bunch of stuff 100% and felt amazing. But then I said I’m gonna start introducing stuff back, and I did the 8020 And now I’m at the point where I don’t want to do the 20. Where I’m like, ah, maybe one night a week if I’m out with family, I’ll get something that’s a little bit on the spectrum of the 20% but I just don’t want to lose the way that I feel. So I’m not even interested in the 20% anymore because the 80% is so great. But people have to be willing to be patient to let that happen. I heard this amazing podcast recently that Dave Asprey did. Dave Asprey is the bulletproof executive. He does the number one rated podcast in the health section called the Bulletproof Executive Radio, and he did this great podcast with a guy named Peter Sage. And Peter Sage had this excellent analogy. And before I go any further, just to let you know, Dave Asprey is the guy that invented bulletproof coffee. He makes the MCT oil. He makes the brain octane oil.
Adam Bedford: I love I love his brain octane oil.
Zack Arnold: Oh, the brain octane oil. Literally, it’s it’s it. It reminds me of the Limitless drug from the Bradley Cooper film. It is. Yeah, you take it and you’re like, whoa! Like I am so focused and I just I feel smart. Like the whole reason Fitness In Post exists is brain octane oil because I started taking that stuff and like two or three weeks later I was like, wow, I have all these ideas and all these things that I want to do, and bam, here it is. So everybody can think brain octane oil for Fitness In Post even existing, but there there was a great analogy on this podcast where somebody had said when it comes to diet and exercise and making a change in your life, everybody expects that change to happen the way you drive a car, or if you’re driving your car and you steer the wheel to the left and you jerk it, your car is going to jerk to the left and you’re going to go in a different direction. But when it comes to diet and exercise, you have to think about it as you’re driving an oil freighter in the middle of the ocean. If you yank on the wheel to the left, it’s going to take like a mile and a half before the boat really even begins to turn in that direction. If you’re half a mile into that and you say, “Well, screw it, we’re not turning yet, I’m just going to turn the wheel in the other direction. You’re never going to get anywhere. So, if you want to make long-term lifestyle changes as opposed to a short-term fad diet, it requires patience, and you have to be willing to every once in a while take a step back. But as long as you’re taking two steps forward, you’re still going in the direction that you want to go. So I’m really trying to advocate that this is not a diet program; this is a lifestyle change program. But that requires patience. And nine weeks into it, it feels like you guys are finally clicking into those longer term effects.
Adam Bedford: Oh, absolutely! Yeah, feeling like a completely different person.
David Dean: Well, the thing the thing I like about having the group there too is that it helps kind of snap you in a little bit because you don’t want to be embarrassed that you’re not logging any stats.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, and that’s a great question that I was going to ask both of you guys. Where do you think you’d be right now if nine weeks ago you had said to yourselves, “I want to change my life, and I want to exercise, and I want to eat better, and I’m going to do by myself. Where do you guys think you would be right now?
Adam Bedford: I would be eating better, but the exercise aspect would probably be a lot more, a lot more lax than what it is now. Just relying on myself and knowing my schedule, I, I, I wouldn’t go out of my way to do it. But now knowing that everyone’s there and doing the same thing, like today, I I am gonna kick. I’m gonna kick someone’s butt on the Fitbit board this month. I I’ve got
David Dean: Oh yeah, I forgot. There’s a new new month starting. Yeah,
Adam Bedford: It’s like like Monica and Dan better watch out. I’m
David Dean: Coming. Those guys hurt. They hurt my feelings.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, it’s kind of crazy, right? They’re machines, and Monica made it very clear to me this morning. She said that NutriBullet is mine, so just just know that she’s coming after all of you.
Adam Bedford: Yeah, well, she and mr. Barubi have a nice big target on their back too. So
Zack Arnold: Yeah, but but that’s great. Like they’re they’re two other examples of people that started at zero, maybe even less than zero. When I had met with Monica initially to be part of the test group, she walked from her office to where we had lunch, and she barely made the walk. She showed up, and she was tired and a little bit out of breath, and had no energy whatsoever. And now she’s like spinning in circles all day long, doing two and three workouts, and you know, eating really well and losing weight. And you know, and Dan is an even more extreme story. So I really feel like with all the progress I’m seeing from all of you guys, that people in our industry just don’t have an excuse anymore. The excuse before was, well, I work long hours and I work in a dark room and I don’t really know what to do and there are no answers. And I feel like all that is now being provided with proof that it works from people that are doing it every day. Yeah, and
Adam Bedford: You have you have camaraderie while you do it, so and that’s the accountability factor. That’s that’s the key ingredient for me. That’s what that’s what keeps me going.
David Dean: Yeah, I’d probably have about half the workouts if I didn’t know that people were looking at it.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, it makes it makes a big difference that whole guilt factor, right?
David Dean: Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s definitely a motivator, and the Fitbit helps too. Like I get, I think I got the Fitbit around the time that we started doing this, and yeah, just having it there on your hip, and you look down and see how much you’ve been doing. You know, kind of puts your day in perspective, and whether you need to to get up and move around more or not.
Adam Bedford: Yeah, and like I have the one that goes on your wrist, the flex, and just looking looking at it, it’s just a constant reminder that I need to get up and do stuff.
Zack Arnold: And then the other constant reminder is me. Yes, just being on your butt all the time. So the the probably the last thing that I want to talk about, and this is something I brought up briefly in the previous podcast where I talked with Janice and Natalie, is the whole culture of it actually being difficult to quote unquote come out of the health closet. This is something that I’ve experienced, and I don’t know if you guys have experienced it or not, but for years I’ve been doing my best to experiment and find different ways to stay healthy in this industry. Way before Fitness In Post ever existed or started, this has been an ongoing battle for me for like a decade, and I found that there were a lot of situations, social situations and work situations, where it’s actually hard to stick to your regimen because of the people around you make it so much harder, and it’s almost embarrassing to say, “Well, I don’t want to go to the burger joint. I want to get something good for lunch. So, is that something that either of you have experienced since you move around from job to job so much?
Adam Bedford: I have noticed it. I guess in some ways I’ve experienced it, but I don’t let it bother me. I’m just saying, “Okay, I’ll I’m getting what I need to get, and I’ll meet you back there, or wherever, or if we’re all going out to lunch at some place, I’ll try and do my best to steer it towards a place that doesn’t serve total crap. And you just try and find the healthiest thing on the menu, and it’s like I’m doing it for me. It’s like I’m not doing it for them.
David Dean: I’ve actually found that it’s it’s over the past few years, especially, it’s gotten to be more that that’s what people around me in the office want to do as well. Like you almost feel like the outsider if you if you don’t want to try to you know have some accountability for for what you’re eating.
Zack Arnold: That’s funny because I don’t remember that experience at Glee, David.
Adam Bedford: Yeah, I’ve I’ve heard legends about this candy wall at Glee. Tell me what was on it.
Zack Arnold: Everything they had everything like a
David Dean: Jar of Starburst and Twizzlers and chocolate chip cookies and things like that,
Zack Arnold: And multiple versions of M and M’s. You could have the peanut M and M’s, you could have the regular M and M’s, you could have the pretzel M and M’s, which to me are just complete and absolute crack. I love pretzel M and M’s. I would have bowls of those every day. But they also have seven or eight different varieties of cereal. They had popcorn. They had ramen noodles. They had like eight different variations of Keurig coffee cups. I mean, it was just it was the gateway to absolute diet hell. Although the
David Dean: The real problem was that it wasn’t behind cabinet doors. It was right in your face every time you walked from your edit bay to the restroom or from your edit bay to the door, so you like constantly have that in your visual field.
Zack Arnold: I was only at Glee for five weeks, and I think I gained five or 10 pounds. And I was sitting the whole time because I was using somebody else’s office, so I couldn’t stand. I wasn’t going to rearrange their office, and it was when I was done with that. That’s kind of that was the start for me, where I said I’m never ever going to let this happen again, and I have to find a way around it. And that was when I had really got that. That’s when I got really aggressive, trying to figure out how to make this work long term, no matter where it was that I go. So, in that sense, the Glee snack wall was a really good thing. But man, it just destroyed me in less than five weeks.
Adam Bedford: It’s when the PA chooses the food as well. It’s like when a young 20-something PA, probably skinny as a right, chooses the food. It’s not a good thing either. So
Zack Arnold: Now, are you are do both of you get your lunches brought in? Like, do you just order on a menu and somebody brings it in for everybody?
Adam Bedford: Well, nine times out of 10, I will bring something from home just because it’s it’s cheaper. Like the gig I’m on now is across the street from. Trader Joe’s. So sometimes I’ll just go across the street and get a salad or something. At least the food there is reasonably healthy, and I can I can go and get some some fruit or some nuts or whatever. They’ve got plenty of stuff over there, but I very rarely get food ordered in. If I’m going to eat out, I will go out and get it myself just to get out of the office, whether I’m walking there or driving, or whatever.
David Dean: We’re all on our own at lunch where I’m working now, but it’s um, it’s kind of right in Taluka Lake, and there’s lots of great within a mile round trip places to walk to. So, oh,
Adam Bedford: Taluka Lake’s got some great stuff. Oh,
David Dean: It’s awesome. Yeah, in the first couple days, I just um, because I you know it was slow at the very very beginning, and I would just take a long walk. I’d like one day I’d go in one direction until I’d hit about three quarter mile, and then turn around, and then, you know, just go up all these different streets, and I found just all these great places, and nothing, you know, nothing that I feel too terrible about visiting once or twice a week.
Adam Bedford: Yeah, for like if it’s when I was in working in Toluca Lake, like I would eat at Sharkies maybe once a week. It’s it’s Mexican food, but it’s it’s good, healthy Mexican food as well as healthy as it can get. But
Zack Arnold: Yeah, it’s it’s healthier.
Adam Bedford: Healthier. I don’t know if
Zack Arnold: Healthy is the right word, but healthier. It
Adam Bedford: Has vegetables in it. Yeah, it depends what you pick.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, they have
David Dean: They have a power plate. Yeah,
Adam Bedford: There you go.
Zack Arnold: So the the last question that I will ask you guys before we go is: we have approximately four weeks left in our test group. What are you guys gonna do to get that that top monthly prize? Because it’s a new day.
Adam Bedford: Find a way to take out Barubi for one. Right. Yeah, he’s um he’s our top threat. So really, your your strategy is just go all Nancy Kerrigan on Dan Barubi and take him out. You’re not gonna get. You’re not gonna do anything for yourself. You’re just no no no no no no no. Don’t we’ll take take out when I say take out Barubi, I mean like take him off the leaderboard in a sense that we’re going to outperform
David Dean: Him. Maybe we can just hook him up with like a long hour high stress job that’ll we pull him away from the 18 mile hikes. Yeah, the ability to take those those uh yeah those 10 mile hikes and stuff. I love Dan. I just
Adam Bedford: Give him shit. I I think what Dan’s doing is great. It’s part of the. It’s part of this whole thing. We like I. I expect people to give me shit, and and I get to give it out too. So
Zack Arnold: Trash talk and be very healthy. Yeah. Yeah.
David Dean: I’m. I. I. My goal would be to get the amount of stats so that people start giving me a hard time like that.
Zack Arnold: There you go. That’s a good goal to have, right? You. You. You want to be doing well enough that you have the target on your back.
David Dean: Exactly.
Zack Arnold: Right.
Adam Bedford: I I want to be well into by the end of the. I want to be well into P 90 x3 I wouldn’t mind losing if I can lose a couple of extra pounds. If I can get down to 200 that would be great. Right now I’m at 208 and I started at 216 So actually no, no, I started 208 and 12, so 220 Yeah, I was at 220 Wow, I can’t do math after a certain time at night.
Zack Arnold: Well, I can tell you that P 90 x3 is going to get you the step count, and it’s going to burn the weight off because it is intense. Like just just doing 130 minute workout, I think I got four or 5000 steps. So it’s a fast way to get those steps in.
Adam Bedford: Cool. Watch out, Baruby! I’m coming off to
Zack Arnold: You. Yeah, there you go. So before we go, I just wanted to know if either of you have any questions for me, just as far as ways you can improve or things you can do.
David Dean: Well, I guess I’m interested in trying this brain fuel. Everybody’s been talking about it, so I’ll have to pick your brain about getting that. Maybe I’ll just go on the site and get that link and give it a shot.
Zack Arnold: No pun intended, right? You’re going to pick my brain about the brain octane oil.
David Dean: Yeah, yeah.
Zack Arnold: Well, for anybody that’s listening and is saying, “What the hell are they talking about? What is brain octane oil? This is a supplement product that was developed by Dave Asprey, the bulletproof executive that I had mentioned earlier. And I’m not going to pretend that I can explain exactly what it is, but essentially, it is an MCT oil, which stands for medium chain triglyceride, and that’s a version of a healthy fat. Everybody thinks that fat is bad for you. Listen to any of my other podcasts; you’ll know that I do not vilify fat, and actually, more than half of my daily diet is nothing but fat. You just have to make sure that you’re choosing healthy fats, and this is an incredibly healthy fat. And what it does is it essentially teaches your body and your brain to start burning ketones instead of glucose for energy. So essentially, what’s happening is you’re replacing the glucose that you think you need with ketones. So now you have more sustained energy that lasts for hours. So if you were eating a granola bar and a bowl of cereal and a bagel for breakfast, that’s going to give you energy for half an hour, 40-five minutes, maybe even an hour, and then you’re going to crash and you’re going to crave more. But if you put two tablespoons of brain octane oil in a morning smoothie, you’re going to have the energy that you need for hours, and it’s going to fill you up because it’s very highly calorically dense. There’s a lot of calories in it because it’s fat. It’s pure dense fat, but it’s an eight-chain MCT, which is a medium-chain triglyceride, like I said, and the effect is pretty astounding. I remember the first day that I did just one tablespoon. I thought I could fly. I was like, “Oh my God, I am glowing with energy, and I just want to go and I want to move. And then you start to add more, and I’m probably up to about three or four tablespoons.
Adam Bedford: Spoons a day total, where I’ll do two in the morning, and then I use like one at lunch or in the afternoon, and then another at dinner, and I use it to cook. Like I’ll put it when I cook vegetables. I’ll use it, you know, like on top as a dressing for a salad, and it just really gives you long hours of sustained, focused energy, and it feels nothing like the energy you get from carbohydrates. So it’s it’s pretty astounding stuff. I’m not being facetious when I say that this program exists because of brain octane oil. Because it was when I started taking that that everything started to click for me. Yeah, I’ve I’ve noticed the benefits in focus. Like I’m able to concentrate more in terms of the energy. It’s in a way sometimes it’s having too much energy becomes counterproductive when you’re working because I can’t sit still for too long when I’m editing now, which is why I need a stand-up desk really badly. I’ll get up and pace the room, or I’ll almost like a kid on like ADHD. It’s it’s kind of weird, but in a good way. If that makes any sense. Well,
David Dean: I’ll give that brain oil a try, and I can report back as the as the suspicious guy who hasn’t tried it yet.
Adam Bedford: If I had a question, I would talk about. I would ask you about the the nutrition breakdown. Like when when we have MyFitnessPal and it and it defaults to like the amount of carbs, fats, and proteins per day, and it’s it says 50% 40% carbs, I think 20% protein, and the rest fat. Now, is is that the right way to go? What I’m curious to find what your breakdown is, Zack.
Zack Arnold: I don’t do the breakdown so much on a daily basis anymore, just because I’ve done it for so long that now I’m more intuitive just about the way that I feel and my level of hunger and whatnot. But the breakdown that I use, if I were to sit down and you know be mathematical about and track for a full day. I try to get about 50% healthy fats, 50 to 60% So at least half my diet is now coming from healthy fats. Okay. Then I’m trying to get 25 to 30% protein and then roughly 20% carbohydrates. And that may sound like it’s not that bad, but to get your diet to the point where it’s 20% carbohydrates is really difficult if you’ve never done it before because you don’t realize how much of the food in the standard American diet is loaded with carbohydrates. But I got it to the point where I mean I like I said I don’t track it, but I probably have 15 to 20% carbs per day, and you know about half is healthy fats, but I’m very, very conscious not only about the types of fats, but the source of them. Like I’ve been reading a lot about the quality of meat lately, and it’s something I’ve talked about on past shows. But when people say red meat is bad for you, well, there are so many different classifications of what red meat, quote unquote, actually is that you can’t make a blanket statement like that. So for me, I am very, very conscious of the source of my ingredients, where they come from, how they’re raised, and if all of those things make sense, then I don’t worry about the cal. I don’t worry about calories at all, unless I’m eating crap. If I’m eating garbage, then I watch my calories because they add up fast. But if I’m eating the diet that I have now, I don’t pay attention to calories, and I just make sure that the source of my food is from you know a whole source. Any animal, I make sure that it’s only eating natural grass-fed feed, so no corn, no byproducts, no hormones. And in that case, I just worry about the quality of it, and I don’t count anything. And once you do that, it’s very liberating because you don’t feel like it’s a lot of work. You don’t feel like that you’re fighting willpower. And I have no desire to go back to a specific type of diet. Like I remember trying to do diet programs in the past, and after a couple of months, you’re thinking, “Oh, okay, I’m almost done. I just have to do this for four more weeks, and then I can go back to what I was doing before,
Adam Bedford: Yeah. That’s that’s the recipe for disaster. Yeah,
Zack Arnold: And where I am now is like this is just my diet now. Like this is not a temporary fix. I have found a lasting change that is just my new diet. So I’m not thinking to myself I only have to do this for a certain period of time, and then I’m going back to the way things were. I don’t want to go back to the way things were because this works for me. So this is just my new lifestyle. This is just what I eat now, and I feel great, and I have no desire to do anything else. So it’s just it’s just what I do now. So I’m not trying to you know do anything to force myself into it. It just is. Yeah,
Adam Bedford: And it’s and it for me it’s it’s it’s it’s really quick. It it’s really amazing to see how quickly it just becomes part of your routine, and you don’t even think about how life was before.
Zack Arnold: As long as it’s making you feel good, it’s very easy to get into it, which is why most diets don’t work. Because the the cornerstone of almost any diet program that’s out there is eat less and exercise more. And guess what happens? You’re hungry, and do you know why? Because you’re eating less and you’re exercising more. That doesn’t work. That’s why I don’t advocate that at all. I don’t advocate counting calories. I try to educate people about the quality of their food, where it’s coming from, and what’s going to make you feel better when you eat it, as opposed to what’s going to be great for the three minutes that it’s in your mouth.
Adam Bedford: Now you have you have a family, two small kids. How. Do you find your diet affects them? Are you educating them with the and showing them the right foods to eat, or do you eat a completely different diet to the rest of your family?
Zack Arnold: That’s a difficult question to answer. As far as my kids are concerned, I’ve done a lot of changes to their diet. I’ve phased out a lot of the things that once I become more educated, I’ve realized that they’re really not good for them, even though you think they are. They’re not, so I’ve started phasing those things out. I’ve been cooking more for them, making different things for breakfast and for lunch, and they’re still going out to dinner a fair share of the time, just because I’m working at home during the day, and they’ll end up going out with family or with friends. And I just I try to educate my wife about better choices for them. When it comes to our kids, I’m pretty firm in my stance that with the knowledge I have now from all the things I’ve learned, there are things I just don’t want in our house. Like for example, one rule is no corn syrup. Like period. There’s just nothing that’s going to have that ingredient in our house. But if they go to a birthday party and kids have cake and they have fruit roll-ups, like whatever, they’re kids. Like I’m not going to sit there and deprive them of life, but I just want to make sure that they’re building their regular habits based on sound information. Because I grew up on fruity pebbles and Fruit Loops and Fruit by the Foot and all the crap that the kids of the ’80s ate, thinking that it was all good for us because it said it was high in vitamin C. So there’s just so much misinformation and so much that happened over the last 30 or 40 years, and we’re now realizing that all of it was really bad information. So it took me a long time to deprogram myself, and I don’t want my kids to have to go through that. But I’m I’m still fairly lenient because they’re kids, and I just I don’t want them to be walking around having kale salads all day long because that’s good for them. And I I see that, like you know, we live in Southern California, and you go to these parties, and there are kids where mommy made them a kale and carrot salad, and that’s what they have at the birthday party. And you’re like, really, really, do you have to do that to your kid? So I just I don’t want to be that parent. I’m having
Adam Bedford: That same discussion with my wife right now about just trying to make sure that certain foods don’t get on the kids’ menu, right? And and she’s pretty good about it too. We we pretty much eat the same thing, and the foods that she makes are like they’re they’re in the wheelhouse of healthy, right? But she didn’t even realize about like she was brought up like we were, like fats were bad, and it’s like showing her all all this new material. It’s like well, some fats are good, so now we’re introducing more things like avocado into our diet, and also the the kids love it. So we’ll put avocado on on toast or something like that. And yeah, I feel like they’re at least on the road.
Zack Arnold: I’ve I’ve definitely had that experience the last three months where I’ve been cooking something either for my family or like at the in laws or something. They’re like, oh my god, you’re putting butter in that, I’m like, yep, I’m putting butter in it. I’m putting a lot of it in it. They’re like, well, aren’t we all going to die of a heart attack? And I’m like, nope. All that information that you’ve gotten for the last 50 years is dead wrong. And if you don’t believe me, look at the cover of Time magazine. It’s not just me spouting it from the middle of the corner of nowhere. Like the information is now out there in public.
Adam Bedford: I I take my my wife’s grandmother as an example. She is almost 90, and she is still going strong. And the the foods that she would cook growing up were full of butter. Some had sugar, but but it it wasn’t the diet we’re all used to. It’s like the foods were great, but they were loaded with things like butter and fats and this, and they all turned out okay. She and she’s almost 90. So what can you do?
Episode Credits
This episode was edited by Kristin Martin (@KristinCMartin), show notes were written by Maciek Kaliski (@MaciekKaliski), and the show was executive produced by Kanen Flowers (@iamkanen). We are a member of the THAT STUDIO podcast network.