Mind Muscle with Simon de Veer
Mind Muscle with Simon de Veer
Oprah on Ozempic
Imagine the power of a single voice influencing your health decisions—this is the world we navigate when Oprah Winfrey speaks on wellness. Weight loss, a subject close to the hearts of many, including my wife, gains a new dimension through Oprah's lens. In the latest special, her discussion on weight loss medications ripples through the public consciousness, bringing both inspiration and a hefty dose of skepticism. As a fitness professional, I've seen the fallout of celebrity-endorsed health advice, and this episode peels back the layers on the good, the bad, and the questionable.
Celebrity clout in healthcare is a minefield, with TV icons like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz guiding viewers through a maze of pseudo-scientific advice that often leads to dead ends. We break down the precarious pedestal we've placed these personalities on, examining their endorsements and the unsettling traction they gain, such as the anti-vax movement's rise to infamy. Through anecdotes and expert insights, we scrutinize the tangled web woven by fame and health, urging a path of discernment amidst a sea of influential but potentially misleading wellness narratives.
At the core of this discussion is the human struggle with willpower and the notion of obesity as a disease—a dichotomy that pervades our collective mindset. We share intimate stories of personal battles with temptation and the societal tug-of-war between self-acceptance and the pursuit of health. Reflecting on Oprah's own journey, we ponder the role of values and the strange comfort found in the judgment of strangers. This episode is an invitation to tread thoughtfully through the landscape of wellness, armed not with the latest fad, but with the integrity of informed choice.
Producer: Thor Benander
Editor: Luke Morey
Intro Theme: Ajax Benander
Intro: Timothy Durant
For more, visit Simon at The Antagonist
Welcome to the Mind Muscle Podcast. Here's your host, simon Devere, and welcome back to Mind Muscle, the place we study the history, science and philosophy, everything in health and fitness. Today I am Simon Devere and there is nothing new except all that has been forgotten. All right, so I'll date myself, I don't mind. I'm recording this on a Tuesday afternoon and last night Oprah the Oprah aired a weight loss special. It was called Oprah's Blame Shame Weight Loss Special and yeah, so I actually, admittedly, I was already preparing to talk about Oprah in a separate context, so I had a different set of material prepared. This happened and it was topical, so, anyway, I actually abandoned the direction I was going to go in a little bit and I actually wanted to focus more on kind of the latest health trend that Oprah is waiting into. All of the work I was previously preparing was kind of a history of some of the health and fitness claims she has made on the show. So, before we do dive into the latest episode that I watched last night, I do actually still want to run down a brief history. Admittedly, I actually had to edit out a bunch, otherwise we wouldn't have had time to talk about last night's show, but yeah, so I actually I had a lot of this stuff ready to go and actually couldn't fit all of that Because obviously just the show she's had for I believe since 1986, she has covered a lot of ideas in the health and fitness space and even though now we have this term influencer, I think it would be almost inarguable that in the health and fitness space, I believe she has influenced more people to make choices. That I may or may not agree with, and we'll touch on that later, but I think, in fairness to her, that she probably is, objectively, the most successful health influencer possibly in the history. We've talked about a lot of them and if we're just talking dollars, units, products, moved, she might be the best ever to do it. So, yeah, I was already preparing to talk about Oprah, just because she has had just an undeniable massive impact on at least what modern Americans think about health and fitness and in that regard she's kind of a very, very important figure in the health and fitness space. But yeah, so objective today I do.
Speaker 1:Mostly our goal is going to be to actually break down horror latest special that mostly focuses on the new weight loss drugs. We've covered that topic here already. So again, we're going to mostly look at what Oprah was presenting last night and where that sits with the current body of knowledge that we are seeing elsewhere, not on Oprah's show. So we'll try to place that in a larger context. But yeah, we've already talked weight loss drugs, so we're not going to talk about the mechanisms, how they work, stuff like that. I just don't think we need to go back over that ground again today.
Speaker 1:But again, I do think that actually, before I get into last night's episode, that we do have to have an honest account of some not a complete list, but of some of Oprah's health and fitness advice over many, many years of being an incredibly influential person in pretty much every facet of our culture. I am going to be saying a lot of. It's going to say mean, but they're not mean. I'm going to say a lot of critical things. So before I get into that, I want to say some good things.
Speaker 1:One this is like a personal hero of my wife's, so certainly not unfamiliar with how many people she has inspired my wife growing up being able to see that show. She was able to see herself and ultimately had a show of her own. So it's not lost on me the positive impact that Oprah has had. In many ways. She's obviously an incredibly talented person. She's got to be one of the most successful marketers, investors the Oprah effect is very, very real. So one upfront let's just give credit where credit is due. She is an insanely talented person that has inspired a lot of people for a lot of good reasons.
Speaker 1:That being said, now we can get to the part where I can be honest. Well, that was honest. This is now me, though, not other people. She has particularly given bad advice in the context of health and fitness almost consistently for decades. So this actually was always one of the running, not a beef, because obviously we're married and it's fine.
Speaker 1:But me and my wife have not always seen eye to eye on the value of Oprah's show and as a trainer, I'm not a television host. My wife was. I'm a trainer, so I do see it a little bit differently and I completely understand all of the things she has done well as a television host. That is not lost on me for one second. Just keep in mind, I'm a trainer and I work with real people on health problems and so from my standpoint, to be quite honest, her show and people she has brought out have created a lot of baggage and a lot of things for me that have made my day to day harder and actually makes it more difficult for me to get the people I'm working with good results, because they're carrying priors and baggage that I could trace back to Oprah's show. So, anyway, I'm going to be a little bit more specific, though, about what types of ideas that have really been frustrating Couple I didn't deal with at all, but I just want to point out, if you guys remember the satanic panic back in the 80s, oprah did run a lot of segments on that that never panned out, and if you go back and look at the people who were reporting on it, that this was actually one of those things where the journalists and people bringing this out were not vetting anything.
Speaker 1:There was no there there. Similarly, because these aren't health issues, but obviously there were a lot of segments on 2012. You guys might remember the Mayan prophecies and all of the things that were supposed to change. That came and went. So, yeah, not just in the health space, but just in general.
Speaker 1:I think it's fair to point out that there has been a pattern, again, not only on. She's not the only one. She's just the most popular, so we're only attacking the winners. That's how it goes. But yeah, she has shown a pattern over many years of not vetting sources, sensationalizing and going with things that will get attention but that won't necessarily hold up under the test of time. That can get problematic if people don't go back and look and they're still anchored to bad priors. And again, this one's not exactly health. It does tie in, though.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the gurus that was promoted on the show many times was a man by the name of John of God. So now you can find that he is currently arrested and I believe he is serving a sentence of 370 years. Charges stemming from homicide, money laundering, tax evasion, legal possessions of guns, hundreds of rape victims aging from the age of nine to 67. The victims also include his own daughter and granddaughter. I bring him up because he was brought on by Oprah multiple times and went largely unchallenged during multiple segments. Obviously, other things came to light as time went on, but even in real time there were things that were failed to be mentioned on air. John of God was a healer, but obviously if you came for healing and you were on like doctor prescribed medication, he would make sure that you would continue taking your medication. He literally didn't promise success in cases and as he became a very prominent celebrity, largely on the back of his appearances on the Oprah Winfrey show, you know, just in 2014, he earned over $10 million he started to attract some very serious people, oprah, who, in spite of her lapses in judgment from time to time, it is still considered a very serious person. She got her friends like Bill Clinton, naomi Campbell as well. So anyway, she has shown a pattern of not vetting, particularly F scan.
Speaker 1:You know claims that people have about being able to improve health, fitness, wellness. It's a nebulous set of claims, but this is an area that her show was very, very good at amplifying some of the worst voices. We could do an entire episode and I promise not to get too bogged down. But Dr Phil, he's not a doctor, but you wouldn't even know him as America's favorite non-doctor. Well, first he I think he was a consultant on a lawsuit. The beef industry was suing Oprah for some stuff. She said which separate point. But even Oprah wasn't big enough to tell you guys to eat less meat. You can't say eat less anything. That'll step on lobbyist groups, even Oprah. But she actually did win that lawsuit and I think it was in part at least this is what the story. Dr Phil he's not a doctor helped her out with that lawsuit and then she started bringing him out on the show and then actually America seemed to like the no-nonsense, non-doctor.
Speaker 1:But again, recounting all of Dr Phil's scandals would literally take its own episode. So you guys probably saw more of these play-outs than I even did. But he crashed Britney Spears in the hospital room to cash in on one of her breakdowns. He aired a special that was exploiting Shelley DeVall's mental health issues, used a clip of her insisting that Robin Williams, who was dead, was shape-shifting. Again, he's not a doctor, but he continues to promote himself that way. He's promoted diabetes, drugs that the FDA wasn't recommending. Yeah, oh, one other account, totally responsible especially for Guy Marx himself as a doctor there was allegedly vodka and Xanax in the dressing rooms and I think he was actually presenting to a guest that had substance abuse issues for that show. But it'd be bad TV if they went on there and not strung out. So make sure you get the green room right, I guess.
Speaker 1:But yeah, quite simply and this is a danger, I guess, in talking about people that are more popular than myself, but the facts do speak for themselves. His little pop psychology stick is generally not regarded well by anybody with degrees. It's performed well on television, but, yeah, we could do an entire episode on just bullshit stuff that Dr Phil promoted. Similarly, we could do another full episode and we kind of touched on this guy and one called the doctors, but Dr Oz that. That is another television character that we can thank Oprah almost exclusively for. So Oz also gave his seal of approval to John of God. He's promoted homeopathy.
Speaker 1:He has warned that genetically modified food is toxic. I know that's also going to be popular in some crowds, but you're going to have to do a little bit more with defining your terms If you really understand what encompasses the bin or the set of things that are genetically modified foods. Just that marker alone, gmo is frankly not that meaningful and incriminating as people like Dr Oz made people believe it was. There's definitely valid concerns, but we do have to be a little bit better and less languid lazy with language if we're trying to actually get in there. In 2014, he was literally brought in front of a Senate committee on consumer protection and this was kind of to answer for his shilling of a miracle belly blaster and a mega metabolism booster. There was actually a study done on I guess it was like 40 episodes of his show and fewer than half of the recommendations had any scientific backing. Again, that would almost be enough damage done in the health and fitness space. But Oprah also gave Jenny McCarthy a very large platform when she was discovering the work of Andrew Wakefield and then amplifying and popularizing anti-vax. I guess we do have to do this because this now still touches on kind of modern culture before.
Speaker 1:It's not far enough in the past that I can just move through it without establishing some basic facts. Dr Wakefield is the godfather of the anti-vax movement. He was actually recruited by an attorney and this was in England. They give inoculations there for measles, mumps or belligest, as we do. But they actually have a program set up to pay for anybody any of the side effects. There are side effects to any vaccine. If it can be proven that you have suffered side effects from the vaccine, then there was a program that had money to award damages to those people. A lawyer comes to then Dr Wakefield and asks him to devise a test so that he can identify potential plaintiffs. My philosophy of science, nerds, you're already there. But this isn't how science works. You can't work back from a conclusion that you want to be true. That's exactly what Wakefield did. He came up with this test. They identified some plaintiffs. They won a lawsuit Again.
Speaker 1:This is funny because a lot of times in the anti-vax world you'll hear people say well, follow the money. What I find is that they don't do that after saying that. You'll notice I'm going to do this on Oprah a little bit later too. But this is a good thing to actually do. Don't just say follow the money and then point out abstractions. A lot of these moves are going to be public, particularly talking about a publicly traded company. There's going to be SEC filings. There's going to be a trail Again, because whatever, let's just do it right into it. I even had anti-vax friends that would say follow the money, a big pharma, but then they wouldn't actually go and produce the contracts. A lot of times that's actually where the devil is, in the detail, as they say.
Speaker 1:Big irony to me in the anti-vax issue of people saying follow the money, one of the actors that seemed to have the biggest financial benefit was actually Dr Wakefield. Anyway, dr Wakefield didn't stop there. He ironically came out to California, where I live. He went and started pitching to venture capital companies something to replace the current vaccine regiment in the United States. Unfortunately, told you, we like to do that follow the money thing. Well, they signed NDAs. So we can't find out which people gave him cash to go and work, but we know the location. It's just interesting that we know that Wakefield came to Silicon Valley, got some funding. We don't know who his funding was but if, like me, you were alive and in coastal California before, anti-vax was a COVID identity marker. It was actually a marker of being an elite left-coast person.
Speaker 1:The two areas that I would encounter anti-vaxing the most tended to be Marin County and the West Side of Los Angeles. These were almost always neighborhoods that had walking distance to a Whole Foods. This was actually just something that I thought was funny and watched. Flip during the pandemic was that the previous anti-vax crowd was predominantly coastal California, very well-educated, very wealthy. During the pandemic it obviously flipped into a less educated cohort, but also just because of how much those two particular cohorts don't like each other. I've also lived in coastal California and rural America and I hear the things that those respective groups say about one another. I do wish they had more touch points than me, because I think it would have helped them at least see some of the weaknesses in their argument when they started seeing themselves sound exactly like each other but at different points. I just think it would have given people pause.
Speaker 1:Anyway, all of this from McCarthy, I got a little sidetracked. But anyway, jenny McCarthy, she is the one who really popularized all of Wakefield's work, that whole scheme on replacing the MMR thing. It fell apart because basically people ran, his study got redacted, his medical license got pulled. He is no longer Dr Wakefield, he's just Andrew Wakefield. Now, again, we got a slightly different iteration and a slightly different cast of characters. That switched the pitch up slightly.
Speaker 1:In COVID, all of the throughlines of anti-vaxxing really really started with Jenny McCarthy popularizing it on the Oprah Winfrey Show. And then I did actually pull one exchange from. I think this was her first appearance and I am pulling this because I don't know if I'm going to find a bit of dialogue that I hate more than what I am about to read. So here we go. Jenny McCarthy First thing, I did Google, I put in autism and then I started my research. Winfrey, thank God for Google McCarthy. I'm telling you, winfrey, thank God for Google McCarthy.
Speaker 1:The University of Google is where I got my degree from and I put an autism and something came up and that changed my life, that led me on the road to recovery, which said autism who's in the corner of the screen is reversible and treatable. And I said what? That has to be an ad for a hocus pocus thing, because autism is reversible and treatable. But then it would be on Oprah. So again, there are so many levels, but the first thing I want to highlight is back then, I guess doing your own research and University of Google had not become pejoratives. That would get you made fun of for citing. So yeah, that's annoying seeing that met with encouragement. And then, just, I think the last line also sums up at least what I think the public perception of health and the fitness space is. Is that well, if this was real, then it would be on Oprah. And again, I'm nowhere near as popular. I don't have a podcast that is producing anywhere near as much. So this might sound like sour grapes, but it's not. It's just wrong. Much of the health advice that appears on Oprah has been directly wrong the idea that something appeared on Oprah so it must be good. I believe that's popularly accepted, but as I'm going to keep trying to demonstrate, that's not a good signal.
Speaker 1:In 2004, oprah was promoting the thread lift. She had a guest, a dermatologist, and called it the closest thing you can get to a facelift without cutting. The procedure actually involved poking of holes in the skin, pulling threads through them and lifting the tissue up. Doctors had warned that the threads might cause irreversible damage but, in classic Oprah style, none of those people were brought onto the show to discuss any of those things. There was no discussion of any concerning side effects. There was no follow-up, warning or retraction on the episode.
Speaker 1:Again, still similar concern in health and beauty wrinkles Thermage. It was a $30,000 machine that promised to smooth wrinkles using radio waves. Again, same model Didn't talk about side effects, potential downsides. Any experts that didn't have the same opinion didn't discuss the burning, the scars, the agonizing pain. Even the CEO of Thermage, five years later, when interviewed in Newsweek, said that he was actually uncomfortable with how Oprah marketed it on the show. That's not even coming from detractors. All right, this might be two parts here. This might be the most annoying thing to me personally that Oprah made popular First.
Speaker 1:Anybody out there remember James Arthur Ray? He is now most famous for participants in one of his little workshops, three of them dying in a sweat lodge with him. Ray appeared multiple times on the Oprah Winfrey show. She has endorsed his thinking multiple times. His thinking, in a way, actually isn't even that controversial. I think this is very well accepted. But he really pushes that idea of the law of attraction. He was the narrator for the movie the Secret, then second part, the Secret Quick Diatribe.
Speaker 1:It seems like so many people today, when they get into their decadence narratives or what went wrong with my generation, the stock answer is always postmodernism. I've actually asked a lot of my friends like, hey, have you read Foucault or Derrida? And they're like what the fuck is that? Again, I don't actually think there's any real evidence that my generation millennials just got all hopped up on postmodernism and that's what created the modern culture that we're in. That everybody seems to agree kind of sucks. No, I think it's unfair to blame it on those philosophers that I've read and I don't know anybody else in my generation who has.
Speaker 1:When I was actually in college it got so annoying to me that it seemed like every single girl I met had read a book called the Secret. The Secret was pushing this idea that basically just anything that you wanted in life you could just basically manifest. Think about it. Maybe we got some secret readers and I'm probably not doing it justice, but it's not far off of that. Anyway, I honestly think that if, when you combine the Secret and then this book that they gave me in the business department this was a marketing text when I was coming through, but it was called Brand you and it foretold of this era and the future, this coming utopia, where we would all have individual brands, we'd all market ourselves and all the world's problems would be gone, anyway, brand you, the individual brand, marketing plus the Secret, this idea that you can just manifest, any idea that you have in your head, at least in my opinion, I think those two books are far more representative of where we actually are at in modern culture, what people are actually doing with their time and their personal strivings. But yeah, that's not a very popular theory, like most of the ones that I have, but I can prove that far more people alive today have actually read those books. One of the ways I can prove it was. That was one of Oprah's biggest successes on Oprah's book club. Millions of people have read the Secret and I was probably going to do this later, but let's just do it now.
Speaker 1:While I'm trashing the Secret, a friend of mine recently asked me do I believe in manifesting? Because we had lived together at one point, I was almost shocked that that question had to be asked, but I said, obviously no, I do not. I'm like you had a front row seat and you kind of got to see how I you know good, bad, indifferent how I got whatever results I got, and I'm like I didn't manifest anything, dude, like I worked my ass off. And so, yeah, I'm not throwing like my results as the best in the world, but it's just anything I got. It came from like actually getting up and doing things.
Speaker 1:There wasn't a lot of vision boards and, yeah, we got some Law of Attraction devotees. Now, that's my mistake. Right, that's where it went wrong. I'll counter that too, though. If you guys were right on the Law of Attraction, wouldn't a lot more people be married to people whose names they scrolled down in their notebooks in elementary school? It seems like everybody tries manifesting like before they even get out of elementary school and I also think most people move on from it, you know, in about the same time kind of realizing that it doesn't actually work.
Speaker 1:I think you're going to find far more examples of vision boarding and manifesting not working than it working and frankly, I know you got examples of it doing it too. But I could also show you placebo effect and people being convinced that a medicine was going to do something. It didn't do anything and then it quote unquote worked. So you don't need to convince me that positive thinking is good. But I think where we're disagreeing if you believe in things like the Law of Attraction or the Secret is on the limits, and I probably have the limits being way lower than you if that's something that you found attractive. But anyway, this was admittedly one of my least favorite ideas that was ever promoted, and let's just flag it because I think this is actually going to circle back into a little bit of my critique of where Oprah now finds herself on weight loss drugs. But anyways, just to sum all that up, I actually did edit some of those out.
Speaker 1:I want to jump into the next section, otherwise we're not going to have time to get there today. But, in short, oprah's show comes on in what? 86? I am trying to be honest and not thrown to the bus by any stretch. Incredibly successful building the show, but she repeatedly has showed a blindness or weakness for crackpots and quack medical theories. She has been one of the biggest and most powerful enablers of bad ideas in my lifetime when she is promoting a pseudoscientific practice. There's just a general pattern brought it up here and I think we might circle back to it a little bit later. So basically it's the old snake oil salesman from the West. That's nothing new that we haven't talked about. But she promises an effect that seems too good to be true. She'll bring out an expert air quotes to confirm the effect. What you're not going to hear is any experts that don't share that opinion. You're probably going to see some anecdotes or some real life viewers like you claiming to feel rejuvenated 40 years or whatever the product is claiming. That to me, is the pattern that is shown in every single one of the things that we mentioned and countless others that I don't think we have time to jump into today. So anyway, we're going to speed it up now and then get up to her current weight loss special that just aired last night.
Speaker 1:But I did have to consult my wife on this. She's up on other aspects of the story that I'm not, so anyway, my authority is my wife. She told me that rumors had started swirling that Oprah had been using some weight loss medications. I guess she denied that. So now I was actually able to find that denial. So yeah, she was actually somewhat recently on a panel for Oprah Daily. That's one of her shows. But for an Oprah Daily, the life you want class the state of weight. So quote that came out from that show was that shouldn't we all just be more accepting of whatever body you choose to be in no disagreement here. That should be your choice. I totally agree.
Speaker 1:Even when I started hearing about the weight loss drugs, at the same time I was going through knee surgery and I felt I've got to do this on my own Because if I take the drug, that's the easy way out. So, yeah, that, I think, was where she caught a little bit of flak, probably from people who were using the drug, with her saying they're taking the easy way out. Maybe they didn't feel that way. But then also people start noticing that it looks like Oprah is losing weight. And then I want to be careful when I talk about this because I don't want to pile on the way other people have discussed Oprah's weight in the past. I actually think that's a really, really fair criticism she throws at people that talk about her weight. So I'm going to rake her over for not vetting the people she's brought on her show, but I don't really want to echo some of the bullshit that she has dealt with and I think, kind of informs her position on this in ways. So Please keep your direction. Thank you, yeah, but just the idea.
Speaker 1:I think it was probably taking people off, the idea that they were taking the easy way out if they had chosen to use weight loss drugs. And then again, with just available pictures of her losing weight and people just constantly analyzing and taking interest in that, I guess there was suspicion starting to rise that she was actually taking the weight loss drugs herself. And then, yeah, so I didn't track down exactly what the event was, but then I guess you know, smoke, there's fire. She just decided to get out in front of it and confirm that, yes, I have been taking them and that has been helpful in the weight loss that she currently has One point of order before we dive into the show and this again, or into her show. We're 30 minutes into my show, but no.
Speaker 1:So one thing she actually said when she was promoting this episode that just dropped last night before it came out. But she mentioned that she was divesting from Weight Watchers because she wanted to be able to speak plainly and openly in this special and she didn't want there to be any idea of a conflict of interest out there. And again, I'm a jerk, but it's like when you say something like that, you're actually just begging me to check. So when she said, I'm divesting my shares, there's no conflict of interest. Translation to me, unfortunately, was Simon, you should go check this and see if you can identify a conflict of interest. So anyway, what I did find was that she took a 10% stake in Weight Watchers, which is Weight Watchers International. That's going to be WW if you guys want to trade on that.
Speaker 1:But anyway, she took her position in 2015. She became a 10% shareholder in the company and she was on the board. So when she took the position, the shares were valued at roughly $6 a share. When she is selling the position today, the shares are valued at roughly $2.88. Since yesterday the position maybe was already liquidated, I don't know. But what I can tell you from what I know about that is that's a loss. And I don't really bring that up because when you sell a position that's down, that's actually a tax write-off. It's March, taxes are coming in April. Right, everybody does that and, yeah, at least in my world. Sometimes you sell well, not in my world. I like to trade, something that's smart to do at the end of the year.
Speaker 1:If you're down on a position, it's tax loss harvesting. You might as well realize a loss so you can reduce your taxable liability. And if you have some gains or some winners particularly if you're a big trader like Oprah you don't sell those, you should actually take out a loan against that equity position to get income off of that. As long as you don't sell it, you're never going to realize a gain, so there's no taxable footprint there. And then let's say that you took out a loan based on that stake. You can actually get paid by a bank and then any interest if you have any. That's all tax deductible.
Speaker 1:So anyway, a lot of this to me actually doesn't look like this just completely nullifies any conflict of interest. It just looks like tax loss harvesting to me and then, in typical Oprah style, getting to put a really nice spin on that, like while you're saving yourself millions in taxes and then so not only she's selling the shares but now she's going to donate them to a charitable organization, because that again nullifies any idea that there could be a conflict of interest with Oprah at all, and it's a great charity and I'm sure they need the money. But then I also did look and I found that the contribution she is giving is roughly 0.6, less than 1%. 0.6% of her net worth is the size of the donation. And then again, not an accountant, but I bet she's got a good one. And when you sell off a position at a loss and then donate the proceeds, I'm pretty sure that gets you out of a few million dollars in taxable income. But again, maybe we have an accountant listening in who could weigh in. I could just be too jaded. That is a very, very legitimate possibility in this. But yeah, I'll be honest, I think that potentially there could still be some conflicts of interest. But yeah, with that out of the way, I am now actually ready to start talking about what was actually in the show.
Speaker 1:So the short version. It was an hour long infomercial for Ozempic. Well, not necessarily Ozempic wasn't named Weight loss drugs in general, so let's see Oprah in her words. So I decided to do this because this special was really important to me and I wanted to be able to talk about whatever I wanted to talk about, and Weight Watchers is now in the business of being a weight health company that also administers drug medications for weight. I did not want to have any appearance of conflict of interest. So, yeah, anyway, we already addressed that up front.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure that I buy into that. It seems a little bit more likely that the public just caught on to the fact that she was using these drugs. The Weight Watchers position wasn't doing well anyway and there's a lot of other opportunities. Obviously, they're even getting pushed back on their program, so it was potentially just a good time to step away. She also said I've been in the storm of losing the weight, gaining it back, losing the weight, gaining it back, and what I've realized when I listened to what the doctor said, that you're always going to put it back on and it's like holding your breath underwater, trying not to rise. You are always going to rise.
Speaker 1:I actually feel a lot of sympathy for this bit here, because that is essentially it and this is what I have seen so many of my clients struggle with and talk about. So, again, I find this actually to be something that is probably going to strike a chord with anybody who has struggled hard against trying to lose weight. Again, some of the ideas that Oprah has promoted certainly didn't help them in that goal and might have led to that frustration, but at least I can very much agree with the sentiment Oprah goes on. It's a very personal topic for me and the hundreds of millions of people impacted around the globe who have for years struggled with weight and obesity. This special will bring together medical experts, leaders in the space and people in the data stage struggle to talk about health, equity and obesity with the intention of ultimately to release the shame, the judgment and the stigma surrounding weight. All right, so here's the bit that I want to highlight in there, because she said that they're going to bring together medical experts, leaders in the space and people.
Speaker 1:Can I just bring you guys back to the model earlier? She did not bring in medical experts on multiple perspectives on this issue. She brought in one perspective and then she brought in anecdotes supporting that perspective, unfortunately, but yeah, so again, I do think that all of these anecdotes are really going to resonate and again, while I really feel what she's going through in terms of the stress, the strain and how frustrating it all is, I lack the sympathy that I have for my own clients personally. Again, getting back to that, she is literally the person who promoted so many of these bad ideas that have made people feel that way about their weight loss take. I still hold on to that. There's multiple doctors, but two doctors that were not skeptical at all of the weight loss drugs. If you've already heard my take on it, I'm not in possession of any knowledge. No one else has, but I'm just pointing out that was not a balanced take. If she's advertising that she is bringing out experts, she should really do that on both ends of the issue and let the audience decide for themselves, not kind of talking about leading the horse to water. It's like she's just pushing them in. Then, admittedly, my judgments are coming out a little bit and trying not to, but no, I just kind of noticed that she kind of again, others did too but she's had an evolving take, if you will, on weight loss drugs. We've got the statement a while back how that would be taking the easy way out. Now she is adapting it.
Speaker 1:She said that all these years I thought all the people who never had to diet and were just using their willpower and they were for some reason stronger than me. Now I realized that you all weren't even thinking about the food. It's not that you had the willpower, you weren't obsessing about it. So this is where I'm going to go off on my willpower rant. But I've literally been doing this for over 10 years.
Speaker 1:I actually like what Oprah's saying, but it still makes me mad. Here's why, for literally over a decade, I've been telling all my clients that I don't believe in willpower. A lot of times people look at me and think that I possess this amazing willpower, and I've told people again and again I don't have that thing. That thing you think I have. I don't have it. What I am good at is setting up systems, practices and protocols. The reason I say I'm good at that is I am good at setting up systems that don't require willpower. When I say that I have a good system, or this one's better than that one, that's essentially what I'm meaning is, if a program requires less willpower, it's a better program in my book.
Speaker 1:If a program relies on willpower or hype or motivation Beast Mode or your favorite song or anything admittedly, I would actually expect that to fail. I would be pleasantly surprised if it worked, but I would never be disappointed when it didn't, because I actually expect programs that rely on hype, motivation, willpower, inspiration. This is why I'm never going to be as popular as Oprah, and I know it. But I'm not saying things in a way that makes people feel good about it. But it's true it's a lot better to make people feel that or give them false hope. I don't really like to do that. Obviously, it's weird.
Speaker 1:It can seem like more of a downer to say that you don't believe in willpower, because I think people take that as like I'm not believing in agency or autonomy. It isn't that. More accurately, it's not that I literally don't believe in willpower. I just almost think of willpower as like anything else, like a muscle or something that can get fatigued or a resource that can get used up.
Speaker 1:Actually, this was something that I feel I learned from listening to one of my clients many years ago, but a director that I work with was beating himself up, doing the blame and shame and all that stuff over a donut that he ate at craft service. When we talked about how the day went, it kind of emerged that he had walked by that table like 20 times and on the 21st trip he finally grabbed the donut. Then, like a lightning bolt had just kind of hit me and I was like dude, it wasn't your willpower that failed, it was your catering service. At first he didn't quite get what I was saying and I was like dude, you're the director. Why the fuck are donuts on your set if you're not trying to eat them? Obviously, I know how the set goes. It's not there for him explicitly, it's there to make people happy. Whatever. The point wasn't lost that you got to control what you can control Again in his situation, when you walk past first 20 times, when you walk past craft service, willpower worked just fine. You know what I mean. The problem wasn't actually willpower, the problem was that he was actually just in a program or a system that required using it too much.
Speaker 1:Anyway, that is what I've kind of thought my superpower actually is. It is not what people think it is. I'm not a monk. I don't really have that going on in my life. What I am good at is setting up plans, setting up protocols and practices where I don't have to use my finite energy, if you will. That's what I actually think. I'm not good at not eating tasty food. What I am good at is not buying tasty food. I'm really good at not bringing it into my house, but if you come over to my house with tasty food, I'm going to eat it. If I go over to your house, I'm going to eat all your tasty food. I don't have that ability. I know exactly how to set up plans when you don't think that you have willpower. That's my whole game, believe it or not.
Speaker 1:Anyway, one other point that I want to point out that I think is coming out of Oprah's statements from the show. He is now starting to talk about obesity as a disease. I think for some people's ears this is going to sound new. That's certainly not what they were talking about over at Weight Watchers. That was obviously the personal responsibility, that angle. Obviously, I just want to stay up real quick. That obviously works to some extent, but I honestly think and I'm going to circle back to this when I finish up.
Speaker 1:Let's say again that somebody came to you not for fitness advice, but they came for finance advice and they're like hey, how do I get rich? The advice I gave you was okay, listen up, pay attention, here's what you're going to do End less than you make. I don't think many people actually need that advice, and that to me is like the same advice for weight loss as saying eat fewer calories than you burn. Again, the devil's in the detail there. I think most people actually kind of already got that basic, banal, mundane-ass observation. So, yeah, that's like my only critique. It's like well, of course it works, but was that really what people were hung up on? I've seen some debates in weird corners of the internet, but I don't think that's actually the big hang up. I honestly think most people already knew that. I think the reason that strategy didn't work is it didn't tell people how to get that done in spite of the modern world. That is actually going to be a lot more meaningful than just like oh thanks, eat less. God, I didn't know. Yeah, that's, it's dumb to think that that's what people were missing, quite frankly. But anyway, I get it that my responsibility crowd.
Speaker 1:They kind of react real hard against this framing of obesity as a disease, but also want to remind you guys, that's not me, that was the American Medical Association in 2013. They totally voted to define obesity as a disease. So that's what it is. They were not alone, not the only medical organization to signify it as such the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology, the Endocrine Society, american College of Cardiology, american Heart Association so these are all different groups that have said that obesity is a disease. The more intelligent counter to that is not like some people that are like, ah, this is just culture gone soft or whatever like, and they're just doing culture war, takes for everything. That's a non-intelligent way to critique obesity as disease.
Speaker 1:I think a more thoughtful and well-placed counter would be that you know that there are, and some people have argued that it shouldn't be considered a disease simply, or their rationale being rather that because it's actually possible to be obese and healthy at the same time, so that it doesn't because somebody is obese doesn't mean they're unhealthy. There's some criticism of that claim that does get into different health markers and just stating that, well, actually obesity is a pretty good predictor of a lot of the markers. I don't think that there is. I actually don't think it is obvious whether obesity is or is not a disease, because even the term disease itself is going to be a little bit nebulous in definition.
Speaker 1:The part that I actually think is useful in this why I'm not one of those personal responsibility guys that bitches about this distinction is that, you know, this language actually doesn't matter that much to us, but the party that it matters a lot to is insurance companies. So when obesity is a disease, it allows obviously for different money to be able to come in and finance and subsidize. So again, just being totally honest, this in a way could open a door where people might be able to get training that was through health insurance or other things like that. So again, you know what I do for a job. I am a personal trainer. So this could be me like everybody else, with a microphone, just speaking my agenda and speaking my book. That would be good for me if I could bill people's insurance instead of pulling it out of their bank account whenever we train. But yeah, I don't mind.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's just my professional bias speaking, but I also do actually believe there are a lot of health problems where one of the first stops should actually be exercise or some form of training. So if reclassifying obesity as a disease opens up certain types of treatment, namely training, that I am supporting, obviously I don't think that's a bad thing. Where I do want to express just a little bit of hesitation is that obviously. The other thing is I see this opening up the ability for people to prescribe drugs that that's the more likely outcome than people getting into training with the existing lobby groups the way they are. The reason this was probably classified as such in that medical language is so that we can start to subsidize these drugs that we find ourselves talking about today. Yeah, that being said, my full thoughts are in another episode. But I'm also not dog-medically against the weight loss drugs in any way, shape or form. I think there are some populations that would be better than others candidates for using, but it doesn't bother me that people are going to have access to weight loss drugs and potentially get these covered through their insurance. I just hope that we also consider other things besides drugs worthy of subsidizing, quite frankly.
Speaker 1:But anyway, last thing I want to finish on because I did say a number of critical things about Oprah's show, at the same time that I am critical of her show and the health and fitness information she's put out there. I also think in one sense she very much is a victim of a lot of these bad ideas herself. I also actually have a great deal of sympathy and stuff like this. She said for 25 years making fun of my weight was national sport. In an effort to combat all the shame, I starved myself for nearly five months and then I wheeled out that wagon of fat and the internet will never let me forget. After losing 67 pounds on a liquid diet the next day y'all the very next day I started to gain it back.
Speaker 1:When I hear her saying things like this, I honestly have absolutely nothing but compassion and sympathy. Well, believe it or not, I actually have empathy for what she's describing because it's been a really long time since anybody made fun of my weight. No one does that anymore, but it totally did happen. So oftentimes people look at me now and think, oh, he doesn't know what that's like, he's never experienced any of that. But no, just so you know, it was sport in my family to line everybody up by height and, lucky me, I was the shortest but not the youngest and, as everybody else told me, the fattest. I also didn't eat the food that everybody else in my family ate, so that also made me stick out, and so, basically, from the time I was a child, my eating and my body were constant sources of conversation and mockery from other people. And so, no, the part that really resonates with me and the truth is a lot of that mocking. I'll be honest, that has a lot to do with who I am today.
Speaker 1:I didn't always have positive thoughts about it and, yeah, it sucks for you if you were one of those people that was mocking me, but I have literally broken down exactly how I would kick your ass in the boxing gym. The only problem is and this just sucks if you ever get into training, none of those people ever talk to me that way again and they pretend like it didn't even happen. Now, but, yeah, so it sucks because I prepared for this little fight where I was going to kick the shit out of them for years and then, once I showed up out of their weight class, nobody wanted any smoke anymore. So, anyway, it's annoying, but again, I've had many, many years to think about those feelings, think about the way those people made me feel, think about the choices that I made and, yeah, so I won. I don't think I did it right. I just think that I learned going through that.
Speaker 1:And one thing that I just want to remind anybody if you have people that are talking to you the way the internet talks at Oprah, or you got people talking to you the way people talked to me when I was younger a new kid, shortest dude in the family Again, this didn't help me when I was going through it and I think people probably even told me this, but I didn't really get it until a lot later. But it really is true that whatever people say to you are actually just projections of their own values, if you will and I know that sounds trite and it sounds, but I'm telling you it's actually true. What they're really saying is I would feel this way if X happened to me. They're not actually commenting on your situation. They're commenting on basically how they would feel if they were in that situation.
Speaker 1:As I've gotten older, one of the things that I've actually just gotten more certain of is my own values, and so that's why, in a way, people haven't stopped judging the way I look. It's just a different conversation now. When I was a kid, I was too fat, I didn't eat the right foods or whatever, and now I'm in shape. So I'm too in shape. Or you should eat this or come on, you can have that. People have never stopped having opinions about what I should or shouldn't do with my food and with my body. So, believe it or not, I know exactly what Oprah's talking about there, but what I can say is honestly changed in me and I'm not trying to be funny, but it's in caring what people say and there's a very, very short list of people that I actually care what they think about me and might only be my daughter. She's definitely number one and I don't know where the rest to anyone else falls, but maybe there's other people on that list, but no, just for me.
Speaker 1:As I've gotten older, I care less and less, particularly about what people who don't have my values think about what I'm doing. I've never been in that situation that Oprah's, in having strangers online take an interest in me, but on that token, I do go online and the algorithm definitely serves me up the thoughts of everybody that hates my demographic on a daily basis. I know all the things that boomers who hate millennials say. I know all the things that Gen Z hates about millennials or if they're the type of people who are pined on that. I know all the cringy things that I do as a parent. I know all the styles. I know everything that people say is stupid and awful about me. I don't really care, even though the internet keeps begging me to care about what strangers think about me. In one sense, I just want to remind people that nobody can shame you if you don't share their values. Whatever they're saying to you is probably just a sad reflection of their own.
Speaker 1:I guess I just finished it up with a David Foster. Wallace thought you'd never worry what people think about you if you realize how seldom they do. Particularly for Oprah's situation, where these are strangers online. I take her at face value that she has been made to feel that way. It's unnatural why she cares about what those people are saying. That's what I'd be talking about if she ever wanted to hear from somebody like me. I would also get her off all those bullshit fad diets and all that other crap. But no, first thing I would talk about is why the hell do you care about what people who obviously don't share your values think about you? I wouldn't only tell that to her. I would tell that to everybody. Last bit, I'm going to finish up on this. I'm actually glad the Oprah has evolved in this way.
Speaker 1:I briefly touched on this, but I do want to finish here. It's not necessarily a positive point to close on, but if you look at a least common denominator in pretty much all of the advice that Oprah has given to her fans and the people who had invested time in her over the years, she's always telling her audience that they need to change something about themselves. She's never looked at any systemic causes. Again, let's flip it. We're not talking fitness. She's done a lot of fitness advice, but she doesn't only do that. What if we took the fitness advice that she really liked to give? Again, we put it into the financial world. Sorry, we're going to flip it. I already did that one for you guys. We're going to take Oprah's fitness goal and I'm going to give her the financial advice that she gave everybody for years on her own show. If I were to use the secret, the James Earl Ray, the Oprah approved methods and she told me what her fitness goal was. Well, I would tell her.
Speaker 1:Of course, put a picture of the body you want up on a wall, set some intentions, think about it the right way, though Don't do it the wrong way. You got to think about it the right way, then it's coming. Those gains are coming for you. If it doesn't work well, you didn't want it enough, or maybe you didn't say the intention's right or whatever. Again, I'm actually glad to see that Oprah is evolving on this issue, because for many years I think that was one of the things that was so frustrating for Oprah and anybody else that was struggling with it is that they were constantly being told that if you haven't gotten have, you haven't lost the weight by now. It's just that you don't want it bad enough. You're just not prioritizing. I think those people living it feeling it could actually feel how stupid that was and how there was something missing in the advice they were getting. It wasn't wrong, but it just somehow wasn't applicable or didn't matter to their situation.
Speaker 1:Again, I think it's fair to say that that's what the secret sounds like to somebody who's working 40 hours a week and has a kid, or if you have wages that just barely cover living expenses. There's nothing wrong with positive thinking, but we do need to be balanced and be a little bit more honest about the limitations. No matter what you're doing, think positive while you're doing it, but if you really think that's going to control the result, honestly you're setting yourself up for a lot of disappointment. Anyway, just the fact that she has now realized that in the realm of weight loss that herself and many others like or have been experiencing, dare I say, some systemic or structural challenges, I think her realizing that in the realm of fitness is a powerful realization that I hope she can put into other aspects Because, again, her show already is crazy popular. She will continue to be so. So, anyway, I know that this has been something that's been very trying for her over the years.
Speaker 1:No matter what people feel about weight loss drugs I'm not really caring to opine on that right now I think in her articulating that there are some stomach challenges and things that can make it different for different people, actually, because I said a lot of critical things, I want to applaud just that general direction and I really hope that we see more of that in other realms. Last thing I want to say is that just because I've covered Osempic and now I've talked about Oprah covering, I really and again not trying to disparage Oprah anyway, but when I got into making a podcast, I honestly one of my goals has truly to be like the anti Oprah Gwyneth Paltrow, joe Rogan and I'm not saying they're bad people. I'm trying to approach these issues in a very different way than they do with their platforms and their shows. So, all that to say, I really wouldn't want somebody to walk away from this discussion thinking that you know everything you need to know about Osempic. I hope that this is just a piece of what you're using to inform your choices. I did one episode earlier and this one. Even if you listen to both of those, I just think that that's a good place for you to start gathering information.
Speaker 1:I don't want to ever put out the information that I'm sharing with you guys as an end all be all or push myself into some guru status. I really, really don't see myself that way. If I have a call of action for you today, I would just say continue to inform yourself on the issue. If you know anybody who you've been having this discussion with, by all means make sure to share this episode, the last one we did. But again, I'm nobody's prophet, I'm nobody's guru. That was a line that Tony Robbins, of all people, took into selling a book. So, anyway, I actually mean it. There ain't going to be no bait and switch guys. There's still no discount code, no, nothing to throw out there.
Speaker 1:I really hope, though, that the stuff that we are putting out is helping you guys get a more balanced perspective on the issues that are turning out there in health and fitness, and I really hope that our show, our little time here together, can be very, very different from how the health and fitness space has been, at least for my lifetime, and, as we've talked about here, it was going that way a lot before. So, anyway, I know we're up against. I don't have delusions of grandeur or anything, but anyway, if you guys are getting value out of this, make sure to share, comment like do all that stuff Just in a small way. Let's just try to make the fitness space just a little bit smarter place. That's what we're here for. Anyway, guys, with that, remember, mind and muscle are inseparably intertwined. There are no gains without brains. Keep lifting and learning. I'll do the same.
