Sports Science Dudes

Katie Vasenina PhD and Brandi Antonio MS Skewer Silly New Year's Resolutions

• Jose Antonio PhD

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We skewer extreme New Year’s resolutions and swap them for simple, sustainable habits that actually build fitness. From 75 Hard to detoxes and no-days-off myths, we cut through noise and focus on recovery, progression, and realistic goals.

• Why 75 Hard and streaks fail on sustainability and purpose
• Why coffee and moderate caffeine can support health and training
• how to build from 5K consistency before marathons and Ironman
• the role of recovery, easy sessions, and strength work
• why detoxes and “hormone resets” mislead without diagnostics
• how to replace fads with weekly training standards that stick
• practical race goals, injury risk, and smarter progression
• a lighthearted Russian “money jump” tradition to close


SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to the Sports Science Foods. I'm your host, Dr. Jose Antonio. And today we're going to have a very low-key podcast, not really anything to do specifically with science. However, my guests, Dr. Katie Vassanina, recently hired by the University of Tampa. We're still wondering why. But apparently she's loving it for now. And then Brandy Antonio, a doctoral student at UCF, which is where Katie went to school. So today we are going to talk about, I don't know if it'll be the top 10 lists or top five lists, but a list of silly New Year's resolutions, and we're going to make fun of them, perhaps even give real advice. So do you guys have 10?

SPEAKER_04:

I have five. I've got five too. Okay. Well then we're five plus five equals ten.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, then we're going to alternate. Okay. Katie, you're going to start first. We'll go. How about this? The order will be five, four, three, two, one. So number one will be either, I guess, the best or worst New Year's resolution. I guess you could decide that.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

So let's start with number your number five. And then we'll go to Brandy and then back and forth, back and forth. So what do you get?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Let's do it. So I think this one, I might be hated for saying this, but um it's a 75 hard. And I've seen a lot of people who are actually in our field do it, but I think it's the most ridiculous thing. So you're supposed to do two workouts a day. One of them is supposed to be outside for 75 days, no alcohol, strict diet, gallon of water a day, daily photos, and then you have to read 10 pages of nonfiction.

SPEAKER_02:

Wait, who came up with this?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh, that's a good question. I'm not really sure. But with 75 Hard, they post on social media every single day. And I wonder if social media was not a thing, would they still be doing it? Because they might be doing it a little bit for attention as well.

SPEAKER_02:

So I I take it you're not doing this, Katie.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, not this year, no.

SPEAKER_02:

Not this year, not any year.

SPEAKER_00:

Not ever. But I mean two workouts a day. I just don't see a really good point in that with zero days off for 75 days.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's pretty dumb, actually.

SPEAKER_00:

It is pretty dumb.

SPEAKER_02:

And I guess it depends what they consider a workout. What a workout be you go to the gym, lift, and then in the afternoon you walk your dog. Is that two workouts?

SPEAKER_00:

That's a good question. I don't think walking your dog is considered a workout because the people that I've seen on my social media do it, they go lift weights and then they go for a run and they do it, you know, morning and evening, no days off, and um yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

75 days, two workouts a day, no alcohol for 75 days. No alcohol, a gallon of water a day.

SPEAKER_00:

You gotta drink a gallon of water.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, first I don't drink a gallon of water a day ever. Um and the no alcohol, that just you know, there are the group of people who say one one drop is poison, right? One drink a day is oh my gosh, yeah. And they get really uh what's the word? They get very uh morally superior about it.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, same as people who go on very strict diets because it's their identity.

SPEAKER_02:

It's crazy. Okay, Brandy, what's your number five?

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, I'm gonna go with a similar theme to 75 hard. I think a really annoying goal that people have is when they try to keep a streak of any sort. So like I'm gonna this is like at a lot of runners, they try to get a run streak. Like I know people who have gotten run streaks of like 1200 days, and I just I feel like it doesn't make sense because at some point the streak has to end, and like you're probably gonna get injured. So I think to make the resolution better, it should just be to aim for like consistent training rather than one million days in a row of the stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, streaks are kind of goofy because yeah, you're right, eventually they have to end, and it's not even a real goal.

SPEAKER_04:

It's so because there's not a performance goal, there's not like any real metric.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, there's nothing there. It's sort of like would running one mile be part of a streak if you're a trained runner?

SPEAKER_04:

People have that I know people like from underrad who are still doing their streaks in like their off day as they run one mile, but I'm like at that point just just like take an off day.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's that's not even worthwhile. Um Katie, are you a fan of these streaks? They're kind of goofy.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I have a Duolingua streak for 25 days.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, they said on the app it tells you you did it like a hundred something days straight or something goofy like that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and then I missed the day and it froze my streak, so I was very happy with that.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh my god. Okay, Duolingo streak. So Katie does Duolingua. Okay, number four, Katie. What do you got?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, no caffeine January.

SPEAKER_02:

No, no caffeine, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

For hormone reset and better sleep.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, what happens in February?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, your hormones are reset and then you go back to coffee or energy drinks.

SPEAKER_02:

You reset your hormones.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's very important. You didn't know that? Resetting your hormones is extremely important. It's it's it's what we all should strive to do here.

SPEAKER_02:

So in January, the your hormones are very much not set. That's the problem.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they're not set, especially after the whole year of you know, unsetting them. So yeah, so in January you start and you set reset them, and then you just you're ready to go for a year. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

If you're a coffee drinker or energy drink drinker, this is a dumb one because you're it's stupid. But we all know that, right? We all know that.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think no cuffeen for some reason, um, with a lot of like health-focused people, and by health-focused, I mean, you know, the ones who say like, no seed oils, no processed foods, no things like that. For some reason, it's kind of like demonized and it's associated with something bad and unhealthy, and they just feel like they're doing something for their body when they get rid of it, which I don't understand at all.

SPEAKER_02:

Especially since like coffee is probably one of the healthiest beverages you can consume.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

So and the data is on caffeinated coffee, not decaf. So that's a silly one. Okay, we'll go to Brandy's number four.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay. Um, I have two that are sort of similar, so I'll go with the first one next. So one thing that really irks me is when people set a goal to run a marathon or like a really long race. This is also sort of at Katie in her Spartan race. I know you're gonna do it. And they haven't even really trained for like a fast 5k. So I don't know what makes them think they should be racing 26.2 miles. So I think instead of that resolution, they could just make a goal to like run three times a week and see where it goes.

SPEAKER_02:

Is Katie planning to run a marathon?

SPEAKER_00:

Not this year. She wanted to do like a marathon Spartan race, I think an ultra marathon spartan race.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, that's right, which is even worse than a marathon because it's longer.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yeah, it was supposed to be 30 30 miles, I think. But I did a half marathon Spartan race before, and it was easy, so I decided to go for an Ultramon, and then I got hurt.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, no, you understand I I know you understand that that kind of training volume will injure most people, you know.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah, so Kitty's still injured.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, on that marathon thing, a lot of a lot of untrained people or people who don't run will always ask, are you a marathon runner? Even though, like for people who run, it's like what you think everyone who trains in running wants to run 26.2 miles? It's kind of silly. So not everyone's a marathon runner. And it's probably for most people not a good goal to to not a good goal to have if you're planning to run like a five or six hour marathon, which is really a walk. I mean, just say you're walking a long distance, and and if you're gonna walk 26 miles, go to the Grand Canyon and walk. Like someone pretty. So all right, we'll go to number three, Katie. What's your number three?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Um, so I know some people who did that too. Okay, so this is this might be a little bit targeted, but um, no day solved for a year. So you have to work out kind of like along what Brandy was saying, but this is just for one year, and you have to work out every single day.

SPEAKER_02:

Wait, no, no, what for a year?

SPEAKER_00:

No days off. So you have to work out for a year. Yeah. 365 days. You have to work out every single day. No matter whether you're sick or injured or anything like that, you have to do a workout. It can be cardio, lifting, yoga session, anything like that, but no day off. And it's supposed to create a discipline um in you and make you, you know, not skip a workout.

SPEAKER_02:

Ah, so people who work out six days a week are very undisciplined.

SPEAKER_00:

Very indisciplined, yeah. Because why would you ever want to take a day off?

SPEAKER_02:

Is uh skydiving considered working out?

SPEAKER_00:

It should.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Although, well, you're probably holding a position isometrically, right?

SPEAKER_00:

You know that I get really sore after skydiving, actually.

SPEAKER_02:

Back.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh well, my neck, my shoulders. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, because you're in that hyperextended position.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Yeah. So I'm not sure what's happening over there.

SPEAKER_02:

All I see is Christmas trees. Okay, Brandy, let's go to your number three.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, my next one is similar to the last one, but I think it's even worse. It's so there's like a trend of people wanting to do Iron Man's or half Ironmans, but they've never even done a triathlon. They don't even own a bike, but somehow they sign up for like a race that's gonna cost a thousand dollars and they haven't even trained. So I think that that's a really bad resolution, especially because their goal becomes to just like finish and like not really care about time or performance, they're just like slowly jogging and biking just to get it done.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so yeah, and also they gotta swim and get their face kicked while they're swimming. Yeah. The swim part. Yeah, the uh hey, I think I'll do a triathlon. I'm like, you mean like uh a half or a full? And they can't even do a sprint. Sprint. It's yeah, that's that that goes hand in hand with I, you know, the first race. I think I'll run, I think I'll do the Miami Marathon where it's you know, where it's 75 degrees and you're gonna be dying of heat stress. So yeah, yeah, the Iron Man, that's I think so people can say, hey, I did a try, or I ran a marathon, but it's really kind of stupid because it's it's not really a it's a goal, but it's one that no one really will maintain unless you're a serious triathlete or serious runner. So, Katie, what's your we at number two or number three? We're at number two.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh we are on number three. Two, right? Three, two, two, two. Okay. So starting a it's kind of more related to January again, not to the whole year, but um doing a detox. So like a juice cleanse.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh the detox.

SPEAKER_00:

The detox. Haven't you done one of those? Detox. I have not done a detox. A juice cleanse? Listen, Buddha, I've tried a lot of things, but not that. But yeah, so you're supposed to um just drink juices.

SPEAKER_02:

Um different orange juice, grape juice, juice.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm actually not sure which type. Oh, sugar, basically. Well, yes, because you remove the fiber and you just drink the sugar, but that's that's a really you know great source to cleanse your body of all the toxins that you that you've accumulated over a year. Because why would you want to take the toxins into the new year? You know, yeah, your body knows that it's like January and you got it. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then you have to detox, and actually, you need to detox pretty often because you have to, you know, cleanse your body, it's really important.

SPEAKER_02:

Ah, so the liver, apparently, liver's not good enough.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, no, no, no. Liver, come on, it doesn't do anything. Juice is better than the liver. Yeah, you've got to drink the juice.

SPEAKER_02:

So detox. What if you want to detox? Does that include no caffeine? So you're detoxing and no caffeine?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_02:

And doing a streak of 365 days of exercise?

SPEAKER_00:

You just combine everything together and then two workouts a day, though.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. And then, like in month three, you're like dying.

SPEAKER_00:

So and then a gallon of water on top of your juice cleanse.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, exactly. So you get hypotenutria. All right, Brandy, number two.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, my next one, I think this might not be necessarily a resolution. It may just more be people like don't know anything about training, but people that only decide to like do really hard training, whether that be like training to fill your lifting, or like only doing sprints or something, if they're training for running, they don't know anything about like balancing the intensity, and especially if they're not recovering or focusing on recovery, or they don't know anything about it, they're probably gonna get injured if they're just trying to do like a really hard workout every day.

SPEAKER_02:

That's like uh some of these social media people saying, especially for women, you gotta do HIIT training, high intensity interval training. Yeah, because the the steady state lower intensity stuff, that's a waste of time for women.

SPEAKER_04:

So you gotta bust your butt, or to increase your VO2 max.

SPEAKER_02:

You have to definitely want to increase your max VO2 because that's that's the best predictor of longevity. Because and here's the thing, how many people have you either of you met who have said my main goal with training is to is one increase my max VO2? I mean, who says that? And two, to live longer. I don't think I've ever met a single person who trains to live longer because how do you measure that? Well, you measure it what by death? Oh, well, I guess I guess I died after what's the average age in American males? 76 or 7, and women eight 80-ish, I think. So once you get past those ages, you're like, hey, my training program worked. I live long.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you post it on social media, right?

SPEAKER_02:

And then you die the next day. So all right, number one, Katie, give me your funniest, goofiest, silliest New Year's resolution that that you're doing.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I have two. So I think I will mention them both, and they're kind of like very similar and it's diet related. Um, so you probably have heard about a whole 30 diet.

SPEAKER_02:

I've never heard of it.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, okay. You're in the fruit tree. So it's a 30-day elimination diet that's focused on eating real food, which is unprocessed food, you know, like meat, veggies, uh, fruit, healthy fat, healthy fats. And then you have to cut out sugar, alcohol, grains, grains.

SPEAKER_02:

There's whey pro whey protein allowed, that's processed.

SPEAKER_00:

That's processed now, yeah. You have to cut out grains, dairy, um, legumes, and of course, processed things. Um, and it's supposed to kind of you eliminate those foods, and then you you know slowly go into reintroduction phase. But whole 30 is you get rid of all of that stuff for 30 days.

SPEAKER_02:

You said legumes too? Yes. So no peanut butter?

SPEAKER_00:

No good for you. No.

SPEAKER_02:

Wait, so what can you eat?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, you eat meat, fruit, veggies.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, fruit, veggies.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Unprofitable.

SPEAKER_02:

So it's like the carnivore diet, but with fruits and vegetables.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

What was the other one? You said you had two.

SPEAKER_00:

It's uh it's kind of along the similar lines. Uh it's a hormone reset diet, but the funny thing, it's never prescribed by a doctor. It's always self-prescribed or prescribed by some kind of social influencer. And they tell you to cut out, you know, gluten, dairy, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, uh, soy, and seed oils. But of course, you don't do labs, you don't have any medical guidance, and you just kind of like do it for yourself, you prescribe it to yourself, and then you, you know, see all of this amazing results after a month.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. I you know, I see a common theme here about resetting hormones.

unknown:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

What the hell?

SPEAKER_00:

But do you check the hormones? Do you see, you know, do you check them before? Do you see if something is wrong with your hormones? No, you you you just feel that.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

You just know that there is something wrong.

SPEAKER_02:

So go by feel.

SPEAKER_00:

You gotta feel exactly okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, Brandy, what's your number one or one A, one B? Sort of like Katie.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, I think this is just an overall hot take of New Year's resolutions. Um, deciding to have a New Year's resolution, I don't think is even a good idea necessarily. Because if you have a goal in the first place, you probably had the goal in like October or something. You don't need to wait until January 1st to start and sign up for the gym or go run, whatever you want to do. You could just start it when you feel the desire to start it. So I think, yeah, I don't really even set years resolutions.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, well, January 1 is a magical day for many people, apparently.

SPEAKER_04:

For the hormones too.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, hormones resetting, cleansing, detoxing. That actually is a really good one because I find New Year's resolutions really annoying because you're right. If you can do it Jan 1, you can do it October 1, you can do it March 1, you can do it February, you could do it. It's like, okay, so you're waiting until next week. Well, I guess next week. No, we still got a week and a half until January 1. So waiting 10 days before you do your whatever. And it's always a gym thing or a detox thing or a diet thing. And all these diets, how many, how long do you think any of these people stick to the diet? What a month? A week.

SPEAKER_04:

Not even a month. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow, a week. So they stick to it a week, and then what? They have pumpkin pine or like screw the diet and let's just get fat?

SPEAKER_00:

Probably. And they start over again and then they just keep starting over, and it's just this horrible cycle that never works. Because none of the stuff is sustainable, all of this stuff is temporary, and a lot of the stuff is done for attention, too, honestly.

SPEAKER_02:

So, are there any resolutions that are worthwhile that don't actually fit those patterns? But then again, Brandy, you said, well, if you can do it in October, why wait till January, right? So the whole concept is kind of goofy. It's maybe it's just meant for people who who who know they can't stick to anything. So they post on social media all the things they plan to do, but come February 1, you know, you know they're done trying.

SPEAKER_00:

So exactly. So kind of like when you go to the gym on January 1st and it's flooded with people, and then by what March, you kind of get to a good number, maybe even before that.

SPEAKER_04:

Probably like after like three weeks, it's like normal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So before I let you both go, Katie and Brandy, Katie, are you training for anything in the next few weeks, months? Brandy, same question. Katie?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, not at the moment.

SPEAKER_02:

Don't say skydiving either.

SPEAKER_00:

He wants to set a world record. I am trying to be better at skydiving. I want to get to him flying head down. But no, I'm I'm not training for anything. I'm just, you know, trying to lift heavy. My hip is pretty much recovered, so I'm slowly starting to reintroduce running as well. So that feels good. But outside of that, nothing crazy, sadly.

SPEAKER_02:

Um so no measurable goal, you're just training.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, for now.

SPEAKER_02:

No, if you can run any running races, maybe I don't know. What do they have in the spring? What running? There's gotta be like a 5k in Tampa you could do. Doesn't University of Tampa host races, like the the Tampa 5K or something silly?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know. I'm actually supposed to be, well, I am an advisor for a riding class. Club. Do I know what they're doing? No, I don't.

SPEAKER_01:

Great advisor, you are. Randy, what do you got?

SPEAKER_04:

Um nothing like that soon. Well, I've been doing the Track Shack series. So it's like six races throughout the year in Orlando. So there's three more in January, February, March. So I've those, it's like 5K, four mile, and then 10K. And then in March, I'm also doing a 15K in Jacksonville, which is a race I did this year too. So I guess my goal is to like TR a 15K question mark.

SPEAKER_02:

15k is far.

SPEAKER_04:

It's not even 10 miles. It's not horrible.

SPEAKER_02:

It's not horrible. That's that's a ringing endorsement. So all right. Any other final words? Uh I like Brandy's last one. New Year's resolutions as a concept is kind of goofy. Um, so Katie says don't detox, don't do these silly streaks and these crazy, the you know, crazy goals of exercise. Anything else?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, there is something important that you have to do right before New Year's, though it's a Russian tradition. Oh, so if you want to make more money in New Year, you take cash and you stand up on a couch, okay? And then once the clock starts to count down to New Year's, you get ready. And right before it's New Year's, like a second before, you jump off. So you jump off into the new year with money, and that's just gonna make you really rich next year. How much money do you need to be holding? Well, it doesn't really matter. I was holding a hundred dollars last year. Oh, you can you give me a hundred dollars to hold? You can you can come jump with us.

SPEAKER_02:

Wait, so this is a Russian tradition?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. It works really well. You should try it.

SPEAKER_02:

Is that why Russia has a smaller GDP than Texas?

SPEAKER_00:

They just don't jump with a lot of money, that's why they need to jump in.

SPEAKER_02:

We should do it in Texas. Texas has a is a bigger economy than Russia. There should be like a Texas like you know, jump.