00:00SPEAKERI had Del Taco for the first time the other day.
00:02SPEAKEREver?
00:03SPEAKEREver.
00:03SPEAKERYou know how I know that you never did the drive to E3 down I-5?
00:08SPEAKERDid you all always stop at Del Taco?
00:10SPEAKERThat's Santa Nella Del Taco, I think is the only Del Taco I've ever been to.
00:15SPEAKERThey did open one downtown San Francisco subsequently that I might have gone in,
00:19SPEAKERbut then again, why would you go into a Del Taco voluntarily?
00:22SPEAKERI feel like Del Tacos in the valley are like, with a sample size of one,
00:27SPEAKERDel Tacos in the desert much better than other Del Tacos.
00:30SPEAKERWait, what is the valley? You're not in the valley, right?
00:33SPEAKERNo, I'm in the desert, the Sonoran Desert south of the valley, I think.
00:37SPEAKERThe valley is like halfway?
00:38SPEAKERThe valley, I feel like the valley ends south of Bakersfield,
00:42SPEAKERand then you go over a mountain and then you're in another valley,
00:45SPEAKERand then there's another valley after that. That's where I am.
00:48SPEAKERIt's kind of the mid-point between the Bay Area and SoCal, would you say?
00:51SPEAKERBakersfield?
00:52SPEAKEROr no?
00:53SPEAKEROh no, Bakersfield's a homestretch.
00:54SPEAKEROnce you get to Bakersfield, you're like two hours from LA.
00:56SPEAKEROh, okay, okay. That's the valley?
00:59SPEAKERThat's the valley.
01:00SPEAKERSo, the Valley Del Tacos, good or bad?
01:02SPEAKERI mean, I'm in a different valley, so I can't say. Maybe it's all valleys,
01:05SPEAKERmaybe it's just this one, I'll find out. But the tacos, pretty good, I'm gonna say.
01:09SPEAKERSo, I mean, the whole point of the Del Taco is they have tacos and, right?
01:13SPEAKERYeah, we got some chili cheese fries, some fry business that was pretty good,
01:17SPEAKERnacho fries, whatever they were.
01:19SPEAKERDo they have hamburgers?
01:21SPEAKERApparently the hamburgers are good, I did not get hamburgers.
01:23SPEAKEROh, what?
01:24SPEAKERBut I'll tell you what I did do is I got a quesadilla that was wrapped around a taco
01:29SPEAKERand then they put cheese in between the taco shell, the crunchy taco shell and the flour tortilla.
01:34SPEAKERSo, it was like an extra cheesy taco.
01:36SPEAKERThat's almost like the vaunted double decker taco of Taco Bell yore.
01:42SPEAKERIt's no chicken chalupa though.
01:43SPEAKERMan, how did you not get a hamburger? Like that's the, I think, I feel like when you go
01:46SPEAKERto a combo restaurant like that, you have got to experience both sides of the combo in equal
01:50SPEAKERmeasure if you're going to get the full look, the full effect.
01:53SPEAKERWhen I ordered it online, it told me how many calories were in the quesadilla tacos.
01:59SPEAKERYou don't never, as we will find out soon in the midst of this episode,
02:04SPEAKERdon't look at the numbers.
02:06SPEAKERDon't look at the numbers.
02:08SPEAKERI'm going to order a burger next.
02:09SPEAKERThe fries were the high point, I think.
02:10SPEAKERReally?
02:10SPEAKERThe taco was pretty good, the fries were exceptional.
02:13SPEAKERWow, high praise for a restaurant that is splitting its competency between two halves.
02:20SPEAKERYou want to talk about splitting competency between two halves?
02:21SPEAKEROur other fast food find is the Wiener Schnitzel, which I'd never been to either.
02:26SPEAKERI have not either.
02:28SPEAKERIt's a hot dog place. They also sell corn dogs.
02:31SPEAKERThe corn dogs, pretty good. Like they're fried, they're crunchy on the outside,
02:36SPEAKERthey're a hot dog inside. It's everything you want from a corn dog.
02:38SPEAKERDo you want, do you like a Swedish corn dog batter?
02:42SPEAKERI like a little bit of a, I like the, like the primary thing I'm looking for is crunch,
02:47SPEAKERbut yeah, you want the corn bread to be a sweeter corn bread, I think.
02:50SPEAKERA little mustard on there, get some tart.
02:51SPEAKERI put a mustard on there. You know, if you ask them at Wiener Schnitzel,
02:54SPEAKERthey'll give you nacho cheese sauce.
02:56SPEAKERI just loaded their website, they sell it by the can.
02:59SPEAKERYeah, you can get all sorts, but like splitting the competency,
03:02SPEAKERthe Wiener Schnitzel here also is a Tasty Freeze, which I didn't think existed anymore.
03:06SPEAKERWhoa.
03:07SPEAKERYeah. I haven't been to a Tasty Freeze since I was like a little kid.
03:10SPEAKERThere was one on Route 50 near my grandparents' house outside DC.
03:14SPEAKERAnd like, it was one that my parents both went to independently with their parents when they were
03:18SPEAKERkids and so they took me when I was like five and we went there and sweated in the drive-thru
03:25SPEAKERand then sat outside and ate some ice cream ice cream I just I just navigated to the tasty free
03:29SPEAKERsection of the Wiener Schnitzel I cannot believe I just said it in German style I believe it's
03:34SPEAKERwe it's pronounced Wiener Schnitzel Brad excuse me the Wiener Schnitzel's website I found the tasty
03:39SPEAKERfreeze section uh-huh I don't like the way they spell freeze I'm sorry f-r-e-e-z-e no e on the end
03:46SPEAKERf-r-e-z-e monstrous that's bad it's almost as monstrous as the fact that that one Del Taco I've
03:52SPEAKERbeen to is also a truck stop so not only is it half fast food Mexican food half fast food hamburgers
03:59SPEAKERit's also half truck stop I mean the nice thing about that is it means your beverage choices expand
04:04SPEAKERdramatically it's like the real problem with Taco Bell is that it's a Pepsi brand so you got to hope
04:09SPEAKERthat they have Dr Pepper when you hit the door there sure or you go all in on that Baja Blast
04:14SPEAKERright yeah but but if you have a truck stop adjacent to a Taco Bell that means the whole
04:18SPEAKERworld of possibilities open you get a Red Bull you get a zero calorie no alcohol beer you could get
04:27SPEAKERlike a Arizona iced tea you want to eat a taco and a hamburger and then chase it with a pound
04:33SPEAKERof beef jerky you can do that god that sounds really good
05:03SPEAKERwelcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod I'm Will I'm Brad we Brad are joined today by
05:13SPEAKERCasey Johnston who is a tech health science editor who recently started a newsletter called
05:18SPEAKERShe's a Beast about getting strong being strong physically mentally and emotionally Casey welcome
05:25SPEAKERhello it's so thank you it's so nice to be here um you have well okay so full disclosure we've
05:32SPEAKERknown each other for a kind of long time at this point I know it's been so long you you've you've
05:38SPEAKERgone on this fitness journey over the last like you like the rest of the tech journalists have
05:43SPEAKERbeen over here just getting larger and larger as time goes on and and and like what like 10
05:49SPEAKER8 or 10 years ago now it seems like a long time ago you you kind of got serious about fitness in
05:54SPEAKERa way that very few tech journalists usually do and and it's been really fun to watch and learn
05:59SPEAKERfrom you well thank you um yeah should I tell that that story in brief is that is this a good
06:06SPEAKERtime for that yeah that's like your primer like like were you were you just doing tech
06:09SPEAKERtech and then you transitioned into fitness and tech like was there tech before the fitness
06:14SPEAKERpretty much just tech tech um I started working at Wirecutter and I was doing more health
06:19SPEAKERtype stuff um around this time but yeah I started lifting weights a little over seven years ago
06:27SPEAKERum it was very transformative for me for somebody who had always been focused on cardio and losing
06:34SPEAKERweight and uh you know trying to eat as little as possible the mentality around strength training
06:42SPEAKERwas very different which I'm sure will I think sounds it seems like we're going to talk about
06:46SPEAKERa lot of aspects of that but um it was really transformative for me and very exciting couldn't
06:52SPEAKERstop talking about it eventually um the editor at the hairpin at the time Sylvia Killingsworth asked
06:59SPEAKERme to write start writing an advice column for the hairpin about lifting weights um and that turned
07:05SPEAKERout to be pretty popular so I kept doing it I've been doing that for about five years now and um
07:11SPEAKERyeah I'm just very passionate about it I like have religion about it I think is like what keeps me in
07:16SPEAKERit and what what draws other people to it so it's funny do you remember what was the spark that
07:21SPEAKERturned you on to it was it just I mean I'm sure it could be as simple as just like you read a column
07:25SPEAKERthat got you interested in it but like did something kick off this passion for yes I've
07:31SPEAKERwritten about it and talked about it here and there but it's like not my I don't think it's
07:35SPEAKERthat well known of a story but and it's not even that good of a story but it was like I saw a reddit
07:39SPEAKERpost of a woman who uh posted her six-month weightlifting progress on um I think the r/fitness
07:47SPEAKERsubreddit and it went fairly viral I think it got reposted on like whatever the sites were at the
07:53SPEAKERtime I think dig was was on its comeback at that or third second comeback um and I was like very
08:03SPEAKERblown away by the fact that she didn't get bulky the workouts were not that hard or long or intense
08:10SPEAKERshe was eating a lot of food um she was only working out three times a week and she had just
08:16SPEAKERsort of like she'd really enjoyed it and it had not done to her body what I thought weightlifting
08:22SPEAKERdid so I was like I feel like everything I know about this is wrong and this is shocking this is
08:27SPEAKERlike exactly how I would like to be living and I've never sort of heard of weightlifting in these
08:32SPEAKERterms ever before so that got me into that subreddit and then an adjacent subreddit that's
08:37SPEAKERxx fitness that's like more oriented more more oriented toward women um and at the time I got
08:44SPEAKERinto it was very about strength training um so that was that was it that was like the big the
08:50SPEAKERbig moment for me it's kind of it's kind of like it sounds like almost like an anybody can do this
08:54SPEAKERright it's like oh it's not actually like you don't have to be like a full-time bodybuilder
08:58SPEAKERto benefit from this right right that was my understanding was that you were sort of like
09:04SPEAKERreally all about it it was like ironically it's my life now but it was like it either had to be
09:09SPEAKERyour life or you were more of if you were a casual you were doing just like you know the elliptical
09:15SPEAKERfor for 20 minutes and that was never the twain shall meet but this whole that community sort of
09:24SPEAKERallowed me to realize that like there's a lot of people who have a much more casual involvement
09:28SPEAKERwith lifting weights and that it does it did exactly like what I was looking for exercise
09:33SPEAKERto do in my life so that was very uh very watershed transformative moment I was gonna say
09:40SPEAKERone of the things that you talked about a lot in the column at least um was like being being able
09:45SPEAKERto see the results and and having that feedback like you know I've run and done just like distance
09:52SPEAKERrunning for years and it turns out I really hate distance running right like it's boring it hurts
10:00SPEAKERlike it's gotten harder when I've gotten older instead of easier and like it doesn't I feel nice
10:06SPEAKERat the end of a run but then I really hurt the next day and like I don't feel like it does
10:11SPEAKERanything I mean my heart's probably in a little bit better shape than it would have been otherwise
10:14SPEAKERbut other than that like like I don't feel great about myself every time I go for a run
10:19SPEAKERand and I kind of like it's I think part of my challenge has always been finding the thing that
10:24SPEAKERI like to do enough that I'm willing to do it like for three hours or you know 30 minutes a day three
10:31SPEAKERhours three times a week or four times a week or something like that right yeah I mean I used to be
10:35SPEAKERa runner before I was a lifter I was a runner and I had sort of a similar issue where I never liked
10:40SPEAKERrunning in my entire life hated it I used to I played sports in high school I hated it so much
10:46SPEAKERhated to run a mile even though that's like you know 10 minutes of running um but I think that's
10:53SPEAKERanother sort of reason that I am out here talking about this stuff is that I feel like the the
11:01SPEAKERgeneral conversation around exercise is very impoverished by not having a strong component of
11:09SPEAKERof strength training or resistance training as it's sometimes called um and I think a lot more
11:14SPEAKERpeople would like it and get I'm sorry my cat's screaming at me it's okay cats are welcome here
11:21SPEAKERcats also also very passionate about strength training I know truly my hype squad the um yeah
11:27SPEAKERI think a lot of people would get a lot out of it they just don't know very much about it or
11:33SPEAKERlike how to get started and like I would allow that it's a little bit more complex than just like
11:40SPEAKERgetting on some shoes and going outside which is what I liked about running um but it was um
11:50SPEAKERvery cool to realize that it had like unique things to offer that were also accessible to
11:55SPEAKERme as somebody who didn't want to be like a football player or a bodybuilder you know
12:00SPEAKERactually like that's that's an interesting point like yes going out and running is literally just
12:04SPEAKERputting on shoes and going right and like that's that is actually the learning curve of strength
12:08SPEAKERtraining that I find intimidating and I assume a lot of people do is like like is my form right
12:14SPEAKERam I doing enough reps too many reps like like am I even mixing the muscle groups proper you
12:18SPEAKERknow what I mean like it seems like there's a lot of technical questions to answer like
12:21SPEAKERhow do you how do you recommend somebody climb that hill and start getting into that stuff
12:26SPEAKERthere is a learning curve to it that I wish we had more sort of literacy about built into
12:34SPEAKERyou know when we're growing up I feel like we are taught to run and taught to do certain strength
12:38SPEAKERthings like most people um maybe at some point in their childhood like learned to do a pull-up or
12:45SPEAKERpull-ups were something that they were expected to do at some point but like no one's really expected
12:48SPEAKERto do basic strength training I've actually heard or seen evidence of parents talking about their
12:55SPEAKERkids and gym classes being taught now to like squat or deadlift and that's very exciting to me
13:02SPEAKERbut when we're adults and we've already been through that phase when we're playing catch-up
13:07SPEAKERit's not that easy I actually started working on a program for this specifically just because
13:14SPEAKERI feel like it's such an issue there's a lot of starting strength training programs out there
13:20SPEAKERbut a lot of them assume you can already lift a barbell they'll they they hand hold pretty well
13:26SPEAKERin terms of like what what's good form for a squat or for benching or whatever but they presume a
13:34SPEAKERcertain level of strength and like ability and willingness and and comfort with using a barbell
13:39SPEAKERwhereas most people I know are literally too afraid to enter a weight room don't really know
13:45SPEAKERwhat a barbell is versus like a dumbbell or you know why is different from weight machines all
13:50SPEAKERof these kinds of things um so I don't really have a perfect answer for how one gets into it
13:57SPEAKERfrom like absolute zero but that's like what I'm working on now I hope to put forward a solution in
14:03SPEAKERthe very near future I was gonna say that's that's often the problem with things that are like high
14:09SPEAKERskill or high knowledge like high barrier to entry is that typically this is why I'm excited about
14:14SPEAKERthis one of the things I liked about your column over the years and and your work in this space but
14:18SPEAKERlike you you if the person who's doing it can't break it down all the way to the bare minimums
14:26SPEAKERthen you you it's much much harder for somebody to get in because like if you if you don't like you
14:30SPEAKERsaid if you don't know there's a dumbbell and a barbell then how do you know which one you're
14:33SPEAKERwhether you're picking up the right one in the right way at the right time yes it it does require
14:38SPEAKERa little bit of investment but I also like to say like if I add up all of the time in my life that I
14:44SPEAKERspent like stud like in my in my youth workouts came in the form of like in the backs of like
14:53SPEAKERwomen's magazines there would be um little workouts you know three sets of 20 like chair
14:59SPEAKERdips and modified push-ups and like these all these little like Russian twists these kinds of
15:05SPEAKERthings if I ladies home journal kind of fitness guide right exactly if I add up all of the time
15:11SPEAKERthat I spent looking at those workouts and like trying to understand them and do them and then
15:16SPEAKERabandon them and like uh if I had just put that into doing strength training instead it would have
15:26SPEAKERadded up in favor of just learning basic regular strength training instead of all of these little
15:32SPEAKERfoovy programs I didn't really understand even the point of ex they were like to lose weight
15:38SPEAKERwhereas this was much more straightforward and I wish I had just I wish someone had just put this
15:43SPEAKERin my hands way earlier on like even when I was teen and I'm very sad that no one did but I like
15:50SPEAKERwant that for other people well so um one of the things that so okay I have I have a this is we're
15:57SPEAKERgoing to skip forward to the the future of the conversation here um one of the things that I love
16:02SPEAKERabout what you do is use science-based information and and like like there's there's a focus on like
16:07SPEAKERthings that actually work versus the fud that kind of lives around all of these like a lot of fitness
16:13SPEAKERspaces there's a lot of there's a lot of quick fixes and like you know five simple hacks that will
16:18SPEAKERcharge turbo charge your fat burn or whatever it is pseudoscience type stuff yeah pseudoscience
16:24SPEAKERtypes up thanks brad um how do you well first off how do you separate that stuff as a journalist and
16:31SPEAKERlike like you have you built a panel of experts you can consult at this point or are you you know
16:37SPEAKERwhat's what's your what's your process like for that I'm kind of curious as a former journalist
16:41SPEAKERI would say I don't have like live people who I reach out to piecemeal I'm like hey is this real
16:47SPEAKERlike I've I've just done a lot of reading of my own um I have been a science journalist since I
16:57SPEAKERgot out of college and I went to college for science so I consider myself like a pretty good
17:01SPEAKERevaluator of experiments and papers and studies and these sorts of things um and I've read a lot
17:11SPEAKERof books now about strength training and I I feel like I have a pretty good barometer I think and
17:21SPEAKERand then it also helps that like most stuff trends that you hear about are not necessarily bullshit
17:31SPEAKERbut they are kind of the the icing or the cherry on the cake of health like there's stuff that's
17:39SPEAKERthat like you're you're going to get what's it's it's a Pareto principle situation where
17:46SPEAKERfrom 20 of what you do you're going to get 80 of the results and then the opposite for the
17:50SPEAKERrest of it most of the things you hear about and you know you read on I don't even want to name
17:57SPEAKERany sites yeah don't don't name the news tends to be more of this the like kind of fiddly stuff that
18:04SPEAKERyou can play around with once you have the basics down but I think most people don't have the basic
18:09SPEAKERsounds so that's like more what I focus on I feel like are there any like popular misconceptions
18:14SPEAKERout there that just really bugged the hell out of you like I don't know why this is the one I wrote
18:17SPEAKERdown but like I've I've heard for years from different people like oh you shouldn't eat late
18:21SPEAKERat night you know no it doesn't matter when you eat it's just how many calories you get like maybe
18:25SPEAKERthat's too revealing of my snacking habits but like like is there anything like that out there
18:29SPEAKERthat you want to correct the record on that just bugs you hmm I mean that's that one that you're
18:36SPEAKERquoting is definitely one of those things where it's like that's not make or break to your health
18:40SPEAKERwhether you eat late at night or not you know it's like are you eating roughly in balance with your
18:49SPEAKERphysical activity and are you are you getting your physical activity is what you're eating like
18:56SPEAKERbasically decently healthy those things matter way more than like when you're eating even like
19:03SPEAKERwhen it comes to a lot of people and lifting and strength training to like talk about nutrient
19:10SPEAKERtiming as it's called when when you eat certain things in relation to when you work out when you
19:15SPEAKERget up but that's one of the sort of things that the return is is 10 percent 10 percent like once
19:23SPEAKERyou're trying to get the last priority pyramid yeah if you will it sounds like kind of oh I'm
19:29SPEAKERsorry go ahead I was just going to say is there anything like that that bugs me normally I I mean
19:35SPEAKERwe I've touched on this a bit already but just the idea that like weight loss is the solution to all
19:42SPEAKERhealth problems um it's really not I think there's like quite a lot of science that's emerging and
19:51SPEAKERthis is something that I don't I don't talk a ton about because there's like a lot of a lot of
19:56SPEAKERmovement in the um research space around the role of like body weight specifically in health but
20:07SPEAKERI think there is way too much focus on it as a measure of health or as
20:15SPEAKERwhat the sort of point of working out or taking care of oneself should be most people I know who
20:22SPEAKERwork out do it because they're like trying to lose weight trying to lose just a little bit more
20:28SPEAKERto be a little bit more toned or like and they do it they're doing it usually via
20:35SPEAKERthe activities that have been touted as the calorie burning activities which is
20:43SPEAKERvery it's very short-term thinking in a way that a lot of people aren't familiar with and this is
20:47SPEAKERlike a kind of complex topic that I could go on forever about but it's it's one of those very
20:54SPEAKERvery deeply embedded things that I think is very wrong very misplaced and needs way more debunking
21:02SPEAKERI think I'm starting to see it more see more people talk about even the New York Times well
21:07SPEAKERblog which is sometimes my enemy but has lately run some more sound articles on strength training
21:14SPEAKERand that's been like exciting to me well it's funny because the like the the thing like my
21:19SPEAKERgrandfather was a weightlifter in in Brooklyn in the in his teens and 20s and 30s and um the thing
21:27SPEAKERthat my grandmother told me after he passed was like look he probably would live longer if he'd
21:30SPEAKERdone more cardio and and she was a very pragmatic woman but also that was the perception I always
21:37SPEAKERhad was the strength training was something you did to make yourself look the way you wanted and
21:40SPEAKERthat cardio is something you did if you wanted to you know defeat the imminent specter of death and
21:45SPEAKERand it seems like the science isn't all the way like it seems like that's one of those things like
21:50SPEAKERlike hey maybe eating spinach is really good for you or carrots give you good vision that's a
21:55SPEAKERremnant of some like deeply seeded assumptions from like the 20s and 30s that just got codified
22:00SPEAKERinto into into fitness law right right yes so like I don't want to overstate
22:08SPEAKERlike the only right thing is strength training and cardio can only be wrong that's not true cardio
22:14SPEAKERhas lots of things to offer our general state of health but if people are going to exercise they
22:21SPEAKERtend to beeline for the cardio and like don't think about the strength training as you say
22:26SPEAKERlike another another sort of frame of mind about it is often like it's about it's about aesthetics
22:32SPEAKERalmost strictly about aesthetics and only like a particular kind of aesthetic a big you know
22:39SPEAKERmuscular man aesthetic hello kitty but strength training has a lot of health benefits to offer
22:50SPEAKERthat I think people are only sort of starting I say people like scientists people are studying
22:54SPEAKERthis like trying to capture in studies and it's tricky because I think as we know generally
23:01SPEAKERstudying humans is not very easy because things like your training background and your genetics
23:07SPEAKERand like that kind of stuff can really muddy results but generally speaking strength training
23:13SPEAKERhas to offer it's great for bone density it's really great for maintaining a lean your lean
23:23SPEAKERbody mass that's like a really big thing that I did this very beloved among my followers instagram
23:30SPEAKERpost that was sort of trying to explain the principles of body mass and like how it relates to
23:36SPEAKERdieting too much and how it relates to strength training which is that when you diet especially
23:41SPEAKERover and over in a cyclical aggressive way you tend to diet away your muscle mass
23:48SPEAKERwhen you strength train you build your muscle mass back up so like strength training sort of runs in
23:52SPEAKERreverse the damage that too much dieting does so that's a big one especially for a culture where
23:59SPEAKERpeople are so frequently kind of like dieting aggressively on and off and not working out very
24:06SPEAKERmuch in general their lean body mass tends to be lower and we're only sort of like starting to
24:13SPEAKERintegrate this into our overall thinking about health and you know lifestyle maintenance type of
24:24SPEAKERtype of health specifically is it accurate like my my perception has been that having more muscle
24:29SPEAKERmass helps with metabolic rate like it actually helps kind of burn fat faster that's generally
24:35SPEAKERtrue is that accurate okay yes so like this was a big thing that held me back from strength training
24:41SPEAKERum earlier on in my life was that I had read that it doesn't burn as many calories as like running
24:46SPEAKERdoes but yes when you have more muscle mass you burn more calories all of the time because it's
24:56SPEAKERit's like in the way you in the way you move like you're a little bit more your body's like a little
25:01SPEAKERbit more efficient i think um i don't want to say too much because i'm not quite sure of the exact
25:07SPEAKERprocess but that's generally true that like the benefits of maintaining your health with strength
25:16SPEAKERtraining are not restricted to like how many calories you burn during the session that you're
25:22SPEAKERlifting if that makes sense sure yeah so so what what are for you with your kind of more strength
25:29SPEAKERfocused regimen like what are the metrics of success because like you know you implied that
25:33SPEAKERwe've kind of been conditioned by society to just look at the number on the scale right and like that
25:37SPEAKERnumber i know that number is reductive if not like straight up deceptive at times right so like for
25:42SPEAKERyou is it more is it more body fat percentage or is it like is it more based on like how much you
25:47SPEAKERcan lift like what what are the what are the like the numbers the the the progress trackers that you
25:51SPEAKERlook at um i am a former disordered eater so i try not to like think too much about how much i weigh
26:01SPEAKERor even lately specifically like how much i eat um if i had more specific like body composition
26:09SPEAKERgoals or if i were really trying deliberately to get stronger um i would i would sort of home in on
26:18SPEAKERthat a little bit more and i have in the past like um tracked my food mostly to make sure i was
26:24SPEAKEReating enough because i tend to be like oh no i don't need to eat dessert or the whole sandwich
26:30SPEAKERor all of these things and then tracking food actually allowed me to realize oh i like short
26:36SPEAKERon calories should have eaten that whole sandwich need to eat some cookies these sorts of things have
26:40SPEAKERa protein shake um but the metrics of success for me right now are basically am i am i having fun
26:50SPEAKERtraining when i do it most of the time am i doing it you know at least three days a week is what i'm
26:57SPEAKERgoing for right now i'm on a i just started a five day a week program where like the workouts
27:01SPEAKERare a little shorter but more frequent um and i think once i'm once i sort of do a few months
27:10SPEAKERof that program i'll probably move to a program that's a little bit more achievement or pr
27:16SPEAKERoriented i would love to like finally hit a 300 pound deadlift ideally more than that um i would
27:25SPEAKERlove to let's see i think my all-time bench is like 142 pounds i would love to like hit 150 these
27:32SPEAKERare like you you only get progress in these little amounts when you when you've been lifting for a
27:37SPEAKERreally long time and i'm not even i could probably get more if i tried harder but um but it's about
27:44SPEAKERit's funny about finding a balance of what you're comfortable with and like what what is personally
27:48SPEAKERgratifying right yes you don't want to spend all your time in the gym because you have other stuff
27:53SPEAKERgoing on right right it's like my my metric of success now is can i can it sort of occupy a
27:59SPEAKERlimited place in my life in terms of i don't feel like i'm thinking about my programming or what
28:05SPEAKERi'm eating all of the time that i can sort of this was my goal all along when i started strength
28:11SPEAKERtraining and even when i was running i was like i don't want to have to worry or feel guilty about
28:18SPEAKERabout eating food or that i'm not working out enough and this ecosystem works much better for
28:24SPEAKERthat in my experience it's funny because this is kind of the problem like one of the beautiful
28:30SPEAKERthings about the internet is it exposes you to the deep end of every community and subculture and
28:35SPEAKEReverything on that's available everywhere and so you go in and you look at our fitness and you see
28:40SPEAKERthe people who's for whom fitness is like their hobby and maybe their job and like the thing that
28:45SPEAKERthey enjoy doing more than anything else in the world and man that is never going to be me right
28:50SPEAKERlike realistically i'm probably pretty good with with like your theory of hey let's put the fitness
28:55SPEAKERoff in the minimal place possible and like build a nice little house over here where it can do its
29:00SPEAKERthing but but like i feel like that reddit effect is kind of dangerous sometimes because it does
29:06SPEAKERlike i look at i look at somebody on on one of the fitness subroads i'm like oh man i'm never
29:10SPEAKERgonna be able to do that like i don't i don't even want to do that i'll just do nothing instead let
29:15SPEAKERme go have another bag of cheetos and call it a call it an evening i mean yes that's like um i've
29:24SPEAKERsort of clocked this as well about the internet in general which is that it's hard to find role
29:30SPEAKERmodels who are in that in-between space of like not super accomplished but also
29:38SPEAKERare into something i try so like i kind of try to be that person
29:43SPEAKERyeah that's what i like about your that's why that's why that's one of the things that it that
29:47SPEAKERattracted me to your columns like that is it's a good place to be i think yeah like that's that's
29:51SPEAKERkind of that's the vibe i got when you when you talked about like you're not chasing numbers
29:55SPEAKERnecessarily so much like it sounds like it sounds like you're emphasizing more of a qualitative
29:59SPEAKERkind of measurement than a quantitative one of like right the goal is like do i feel good about
30:05SPEAKERmyself and how strong i am and am i enjoying life good yes fine done like that sounds like way a way
30:11SPEAKERhealthier relationship than staring at numbers all the time yes i mean it's i would say it's
30:17SPEAKERlike so far not that successful of an enterprise because it's hard to express a journey of the mind
30:26SPEAKERon instagram for instance it's like someone with abs who's like here's how to get my abs plays much
30:33SPEAKERbetter on these platforms than me being like i feel so good about myself and the way that i
30:40SPEAKERdon't have to think about working out that much but i still enjoy it when i do um so yeah i i try
30:47SPEAKERto be that person and i a few times like i think people have posted my account on reddit being like
30:55SPEAKERum this is a normal person who has a normal involvement with exercise and it's like not like
31:02SPEAKERthey're a trainer and they have all the time in the world and they're like why doesn't everybody
31:07SPEAKERelse you know spend hours and hours in the gym or like learn how to do this new exercise or movement
31:14SPEAKERthat seems very complicated and maybe unnecessary but i don't know because i'm just a normal person
31:20SPEAKERwho doesn't know fitness stuff that well um but it's i wish there were more a better resource for
31:28SPEAKERthat sort of like we really are about accomplishment and excellence in uh america here i guess and
31:38SPEAKERit makes it a little difficult especially with the internet now to find um more sustainable
31:46SPEAKERfeelings yeah yeah kind of a guidance um i was gonna say let's i want to talk a little bit about
31:53SPEAKERlike the state of digital journalism in the 21st century but before we get to that i have food
31:59SPEAKERquestions okay um i i this is a place like you talked about food tracking a little bit before
32:08SPEAKERi guess i guess the real question is let's take a step back where do you where to start like if
32:15SPEAKERyou're sitting here and you're like this this all sounds great casey seems like she knows what's
32:20SPEAKERgoing on and has a view for this that i haven't really heard before like how how should i get
32:25SPEAKERstarted do i need to talk to my doctor should i hire a personal trainer do i need to join a gym
32:30SPEAKERor can i just go like empty out some milk jugs and fill them with sand or something and go out
32:34SPEAKERthe backyard and start knocking them around well i think i would ask first what what is your goal
32:39SPEAKERspecifically i i just want to live forever it's really simple okay okay interesting me too that
32:45SPEAKERsounds good oh boy i'm not a billionaire either which is i know this puts me at an immediate
32:51SPEAKERdeficit it turns out i think if this is like a hypothetical specific person i were talking to
32:57SPEAKERi would have a lot more questions about like okay what does this really look like for you practically
33:04SPEAKERlike and what does your life look like now but okay i mean i can do some specific answers here
33:11SPEAKERcasey i'm a 46 year old dad i have very little free time i'm really really lazy and i've grown
33:19SPEAKERan enormous beard during the quarantine so yeah it's not a great place where i was started um well
33:26SPEAKERbecause this is my thing but also because i truly did find it so transformative i think a lot of
33:33SPEAKERpeople when they're talking about how to get started with health it's a lot of like pay
33:39SPEAKERattention to what you eat which i think is like a fine a fine tip and like trying i don't know
33:45SPEAKERtrying to get like a serving of vegetables with every meal that that sort of thing and i think
33:50SPEAKERthat's all well and good i kind of like to advocate for it's not quite the opposite end
33:55SPEAKERof the spectrum but another angle which is like um try getting working out in there first i think
34:05SPEAKERit would make a big difference for a lot of people especially if they gave strength training a try
34:11SPEAKERum i could probably give you some starting programs to link in the show notes oh that
34:18SPEAKERwould be awesome um yeah but i think there's a few basics that it's good to get familiar with and
34:27SPEAKERit's not just about you know how how your body looks but i like strength training because like
34:35SPEAKERto go back to the sort of overall goal of things is that i like to feel like i can move well in my
34:42SPEAKERlife and when it comes time to like pick up a box of cat litter or carry my laundry downstairs or
34:48SPEAKERwhatever then i'm not like struggling and strength training really is like night and day difference
34:53SPEAKERwith that um and i think more people if they tried it could experience that difference for themselves
35:01SPEAKERso and it's it's not just about like being as strong as you possibly can but building a
35:07SPEAKERfunctional amount of strength for your daily life and not just strength but for instance to
35:15SPEAKERsquat to depth as we say deep enough that requires a decent amount of mobility that i think a lot of
35:21SPEAKERpeople don't have same with deadlifting uh same with a few of the other movements so
35:28SPEAKERi'm i i think give it a try even just learning how to do the movements without weight you'll
35:33SPEAKERget something out of when you start adding adding in weight you'd be surprised how quickly you can
35:39SPEAKERget quite a bit stronger just by adding a little bit of weight every session like you can do it
35:46SPEAKERit's i think people would be shocked if they tried it how sort of low hanging the fruit is of
35:52SPEAKERstrength from like absolutely zero to let's say deadlifting 135 pounds i think like everybody
36:00SPEAKERcould do that more or less some you know like health injuries or whatever yeah yeah i i can
36:06SPEAKERi can attest to that a little bit i mean i'm the most amateur novice on the planet but like i've
36:09SPEAKERbeen doing some really basic just like squats um presses i guess they're called like i don't even
36:14SPEAKERknow what they're called right like tricep lifts just some basic stuff like that after doing
36:18SPEAKERliterally nothing for a year of the pandemic right like literally like i didn't understand how much
36:22SPEAKERmy commute like i would you know i'd walk to a bus stop get off the bus walk another like eight
36:27SPEAKERblocks to an office you know back every day like walk around to get lunch and so like i didn't
36:31SPEAKERrealize how much that is exercise right until it wasn't in my life anymore and then after a year of
36:36SPEAKERnot doing anything it's like i can't walk up the stairs to my apartment without being winded right
36:40SPEAKERit was terrible so just after like three four months of just some basic stuff like i can stand
36:45SPEAKERup off the floor with ease you know like this sounds pathetic but like it really is like such
36:51SPEAKERa quality of life thing to just realize like oh like my shoulder doesn't hurt it like these joint
36:55SPEAKERpains i had are gone you know it's like i can lift i can lift this chair and move it without like
37:01SPEAKERstruggling with it you know like it really just makes your life better i'm picturing you just with
37:05SPEAKERthe chair leg up on one hand now brad oh not quite charles atlas over here but i don't want to sell
37:12SPEAKERmy my partner out too much but one thing he complains of sometimes is like he's very tall
37:17SPEAKERso like not being able to bend over like bending over to like get things on the floor or a low
37:23SPEAKERshelf is difficult for him and i'm kind of like you know if we can't bend over that sounds very
37:29SPEAKERmuch like being you know 70 years old like we should get you a nursing home if you're my roughly
37:36SPEAKERmy age you can't bend down so things like that it's like stuff like that sometimes i still
37:42SPEAKERsurprise myself that i can just sort of move around in certain ways where i'm expecting it to be
37:47SPEAKERi'm expecting to be stiffer or like uh have it be harder and stuff like that is much more
37:56SPEAKERit really smooths that groove i guess yeah really it was especially an epiphany for me because i'm
38:00SPEAKER42 and a lot of the like aches and pains joint issues like lack of strength and stuff i was
38:05SPEAKERhaving i was just chalk it up to being old i was like oh i guess this is what for being 40 it's
38:08SPEAKERlike right but like yeah oh no like i put the effort in and all of a sudden it's like all that
38:13SPEAKERstuff is gone it's like oh wait you're not you're not just like a trapped by your age right like you
38:18SPEAKERcan push back against that stuff that's another thing that i think i wish we had more sort of data
38:24SPEAKERon was um how big of a difference this would make for people who are who are getting a little bit
38:30SPEAKERolder like i have peers now who complain of back pain shoulder pain neck pain sometimes they get
38:36SPEAKERthese like spasms that they have to lie down for an entire day and they're 31 and i'm like oh man
38:45SPEAKERlike this i feel like i know it takes initiative and it's not exercises like not everyone's want
38:51SPEAKERone true passion in life but i truly think the time investment is so minimal and the
38:58SPEAKERpayoffs are so great like minimal compared to you know how much time we have in a day
39:04SPEAKERand how much time can be taken up by say a back spasm that lays you out for a week
39:10SPEAKERunpredictably how much of that could be managed through a little bit more uh deliberate training
39:18SPEAKERlike this um casey we've reached the portion of the show where we talk about the apps
39:25SPEAKERare are we're we're bound to talk about apps sooner like we got to talk about something
39:30SPEAKERtechnology here um is there tech stuff that you like or tech stuff that you don't like i know
39:37SPEAKERlike everything from like your fitness trackers to your smart watches to your your it seems like the
39:42SPEAKERfood tracking apps are probably good for limited time but i'm also curious like what you think
39:47SPEAKERabout stuff like ring fit and and like the weird gamification of fitness stuff that happens and
39:53SPEAKERhow you feel about that stuff you know hmm i feel like the gamification if it works for someone i'm
40:02SPEAKERlike do it i i feel like i rarely see it be the thing that keeps people in working out long term
40:13SPEAKERit might help them get started or sort of like understand where they're at that seems to be really
40:17SPEAKERbig especially when it's like you know you get an apple watch and you're like oh i only walk 500
40:23SPEAKERsteps a day like that's me sometimes a lot of the time but so like it's good for that i don't think
40:30SPEAKERit's great for like as a personal trainer would say long-term adherence um but if it helps you
40:40SPEAKERwith the we call in my in my community discord someone came up with this calling just getting
40:46SPEAKERoff the couch the hardest lift if it helps you with the hardest lift oh my god then by all means
40:52SPEAKERyou know now we have an fso title but um i don't know like there's there's good apps that are tools
41:02SPEAKERif if we want to talk about that as well um i always used my my fitness pal for food tracking
41:07SPEAKERyou have to like deliberately turn some of the weight loss features off and make them stop but
41:13SPEAKERit just has like the biggest food database that's like very complete and like generally accurate
41:18SPEAKERi think chronometer is another one that's popular with some of the folks in my discord
41:23SPEAKERum i personally want to make an app that just tracks the protein content of food this has been
41:29SPEAKERlike a major request of our audience that like it's like you know calories are a little bit
41:36SPEAKERwhatever or like how much how much carbs versus fat you just kind of want to know protein i'm like
41:41SPEAKERthat's i want to make that app i want it in the world um and then there's i was just actually
41:48SPEAKERasking them about tracking workouts what apps they use for that earlier today discord yeah i
41:57SPEAKERdon't think i got any really good answers but i've only ever used like a notebook and google sheets
42:05SPEAKERfor workouts um and a lot of i think maybe even most um coaches strength training coaches personal
42:16SPEAKERtrainers uh who will give you programs that especially if they're writing them for you
42:22SPEAKERspecifically will give them in the form of a of a google sheet it's it's sort of like the currency
42:27SPEAKERum other than that i've used the app strong a bit to like put in workouts um and i think the strong
42:34SPEAKERlifts app is also quite good if you're like at the level of being able to handle a barbell i think it
42:39SPEAKERstarts you with the barbell but it's like it sort of automates certain things about the workouts i
42:45SPEAKERthink which is like i took a deload week as we say or like i went on vacation like how much
42:51SPEAKERweight should i take off of my um squat that i'm attempting to do now that i'm back at it and it'll
42:58SPEAKERsort of do that for you well one of the things that i thought was really interesting as you were
43:01SPEAKERgetting started was when you were when you were learning about like bulking weeks and and and all
43:06SPEAKERthat stuff because yeah like i think my perception of fitness and i know i said we're going to change
43:11SPEAKERsubjects here a minute ago but um like it was cool because you were like look i'm i'm eating
43:17SPEAKERlike a ton which seems nice and then you'd like you you well you you tell you you should explain
43:26SPEAKERthis not me yeah i mean this is something that i had to yet another aspect of lifting that i
43:31SPEAKERthink i had to really intensively study in order to get and i sort of like didn't even really know
43:36SPEAKERwhat the terms meant cut in bulk i think they're slightly more familiar to men because like a lot
43:42SPEAKERof sports um wait uh if you were in the football wrestling football yeah wrestling like anything
43:50SPEAKERwith weight classes it would it would uh figure more heavily in there um but yeah bulking was
44:00SPEAKERwhen or is when um you take what we call your maintenance calories which is like if you're
44:07SPEAKERworking out and eating basically your body weight is not changing you're just sort of like where
44:14SPEAKERyou're at when you're bulking you add 20 more calories or so to like your caloric budget in
44:21SPEAKERthe interest of building muscle so you can build the the rule of thumb is you can build about a
44:27SPEAKERpound of muscle per month for women two pounds for men you build it really slowly but a 20 calorie
44:34SPEAKERbump is about where you need to be at least in the stage that i was at which was like pretty pretty
44:41SPEAKERnoob-ish uh level of bulking but you eat more and it really gives you you feel in the gym you just
44:51SPEAKERlike feel so strong and like your numbers are going up and you it's very validating and i've
44:57SPEAKERlike never felt better about my body than what i was like you know done bulking i was like i feel
45:04SPEAKERso good i feel so capable i feel great and like you have you're like i don't want to promise
45:11SPEAKERstrength trainings like the magic fix to everything but um you have your bad days when
45:16SPEAKERyou're bulking you feel so good basically every day and it's incredible i drew i'm sorry i was
45:23SPEAKERgoing to get you to expand on that because you mentioned protein content and tracking that
45:26SPEAKERearlier um could you talk about just like general do's and don'ts for what to eat or not eat before
45:31SPEAKERand after the workout like resistance type workout not for like you know not not necessarily like
45:35SPEAKERarnold schwarzenegger bodybuilder style but just like regular people doing like 13 eggs strength
45:42SPEAKERwell here's the thing it doesn't matter that much okay you don't want to make yourself sick like if
45:49SPEAKERyou eat a full meal and immediately go work out that rubs some people the wrong way i actually
45:55SPEAKERfind for strength training that's okay it'd be problem if i were running for strength training
45:59SPEAKERit's actually just from like you feel like you're gonna throw up the entire time and be uncomfortable
46:04SPEAKERnot right right so for some people yes um so be aware of that but in terms of talking about the
46:11SPEAKERsort of pyramid of of priorities in terms of your health it makes a much bigger difference to be
46:18SPEAKERsort of like adequately fed throughout the day okay what you eat specifically before or during
46:24SPEAKERor after okay um the more specific answer is generally the advice for more so for like athletes
46:35SPEAKERwho are really trying to optimize their performance they'll tend to cluster their simple carbs around
46:42SPEAKERtheir workouts so like candy bread i know one guy whose pre-workout meal sort of was two pockets of
46:51SPEAKERramen um so you tend to want to concentrate fats especially away from before immediately before
47:01SPEAKERafter your workout um a little bit of protein is good but you don't want to you know have your
47:07SPEAKERyour stomach full like trying to i think another thing is like it draws the blood away from the
47:12SPEAKERrest of your body if you're like trying to digest a lot of food stuff like that but yeah simple
47:18SPEAKERcarbs are a are not only um encouraged but necessary in lifting it really helps it can
47:27SPEAKERreally help uh fuel your workout especially if you like haven't for whatever reason had a lot
47:33SPEAKERof carbs during the day to have like uh something sugary before or during and particularly for me
47:40SPEAKERespecially after if i don't have like a good dose of carbs i will fall asleep after i work out very
47:46SPEAKERconsistently it's it's it's incredible i won't even like feel that tired immediately after but
47:52SPEAKERan hour or so after i will just shut down sitting on the couch and just talk right now yes um this
47:58SPEAKERis fabulous casey uh before we move on to the talk about how journalism is going in the 21st century
48:03SPEAKERlike i think this is let's let's you should plug your newsletter and let people know where to find
48:07SPEAKERyou on instagram and twitter and wherever else yes so i um moved the home of my column which
48:14SPEAKERi've been doing for five years now i think i mentioned that already uh ask a small woman was
48:19SPEAKERmy advice column now i'm uh bringing it to a newsletter format the newsletter is she's a beast
48:25SPEAKERit's a little bit of a expansion of the remit of my columns so i'm talking about like you know links
48:34SPEAKERto news articles that are relevant to this space um some analysis of the fitness community more
48:42SPEAKERbroadly general thoughts unprompted thoughts that i might have about about things that are going on
48:49SPEAKERor um about sort of softer subjects around around lifting like i just wrote one that was about
48:56SPEAKERwhy it's hard to form a fitness goal for instance um so yeah i think subscribe to that as i was
49:05SPEAKERsaying before we started recording i am not yet making very wise money by any stretch so can you
49:10SPEAKERreally use any support for this for this newsletter that's out there it's um it's she's a beast sub
49:17SPEAKERstack.com that's correct let's talk about digital journalism um but like how did things evolve for
49:24SPEAKERyou over the last few years like are you feeling like things are going well with digital journalism
49:28SPEAKERare we like through the disastrous pivot to video years and into some new disaster like what what's
49:35SPEAKERlike what's the yeah what what do you feel like is the state of the union as a new york working
49:41SPEAKERnew york journalist wait are you asking me you asking brad no i was asking you brad's not working
49:48SPEAKERme oh yeah i was like you said new york and that working journalist i was like uh is that me okay
49:53SPEAKERyeah i mean that's you right yes um well just claiming any anything that one might say about
50:03SPEAKERmy former employer to be very clear this is not about them but i think the video question in
50:11SPEAKERparticular is tough because i know exactly what draws media companies to that it's like just the
50:17SPEAKERpayout for it's cpms are way higher production yes the cpms are so much higher and they look at them
50:23SPEAKERand they're like how hard can it be to make a video not 10 times harder than writing an article
50:29SPEAKERsurely not 10 times more um time investment when really it's like i think the equation works out
50:38SPEAKERsuch that it's i i mean obviously this is not my actual business but i know i sort of know where
50:43SPEAKERit comes from and i think it's been true for as long as i've been doing this companies have been
50:50SPEAKERlike trying to get into video um i did some videos for ours technica i think like roughly on this
50:57SPEAKERbasis where it was just like the cpms are great and it was i was sort of making these videos
51:02SPEAKERentirely myself and like filming them and setting up the lights and editing them and all the stuff
51:08SPEAKERand it was like a lot of work i didn't even know i i didn't know what the things were to like
51:14SPEAKERask for or whatever um when i was 23 and making videos in my apartment but they were very funny
51:24SPEAKERvideos for thank you it was yeah i like to think they were cute but i don't know like what's what's
51:31SPEAKERthe state now i think i am less i'm gonna say i'm less pessimistic than i feel like most people that
51:39SPEAKERi know about media um i think people have been like there's obviously a real difficulty with
51:50SPEAKERlike where the money is concentrated and the companies that sort of have control like i was
51:59SPEAKERjust yelling at some friends about this at a birthday party the other day where i was like
52:06SPEAKERthe biggest mistake anyone made in media was letting google and facebook and these companies
52:12SPEAKERsort of insert themselves between the audience and the publications and turning that into metrics and
52:20SPEAKERlike what it really quote unquote means for someone to like see an ad and like whether
52:25SPEAKERthey not even that the process that they have for assessing whether showing somebody an ad translates
52:32SPEAKERto a sale is necessarily true but they really sold it to everyone as being true and it just like
52:37SPEAKERcratered all of the money from digital articles it's like and now i don't know if that's ever
52:44SPEAKERcoming back like to the web i mean the ad revenue from from like when i was working at ours to now
52:55SPEAKERlike you'd think that would be higher but it turns out it's a like the cost the cost per thousand
52:59SPEAKERusers the cpm is a fraction now of what it was in 2000 when we were writing celeron 300 overclocking
53:08SPEAKERguy nonsense like that and like in my opinion i am not a scholar of this but i think i have informed
53:14SPEAKERthoughts which is that like that's directly a result of of allowing these people to insert
53:20SPEAKERthemselves in the middle and like i saw an article a few weeks ago that was like wow tv revenue is
53:29SPEAKERhigher than ever despite that fewer people are logging fewer minutes than ever of watching tv
53:35SPEAKERand it's like do you know why that is there's no one in there saying actually showing an ad on hulu
53:41SPEAKERhas like this precise dollar translation to a sale therefore like it's like hulu has that information
53:48SPEAKERbut like there's no independent intermediary whose business motivation is to take money from
53:54SPEAKERboth sides yeah in order to make it like in order to make themselves money there's hulu selling ads
54:00SPEAKERi think as far as i know and a journalist kind of did a thanks dot text the other day when he
54:05SPEAKERwas leaving game spot i saw where he did a thread of all the things that he's learned working in
54:10SPEAKERmedia over the last however many years oh i think i saw this but didn't read it i wanted i want to
54:14SPEAKERlook it up it went it went pretty viral it was pretty good but the the the big thing that i think
54:19SPEAKERhe struck on that i had that people don't talk about is the kind of reversion to the mean that
54:25SPEAKERthat like if you're like i've been lucky enough that i've been in businesses where we didn't write
54:29SPEAKERfor algorithms necessarily like by the time i left maximum pc facebook wasn't really relevant
54:34SPEAKERand it tested we had a mandate to not have to worry about that so um but but if you're in a
54:40SPEAKERplace where you need that facebook traffic and the google traffic to to drive your business then
54:45SPEAKERyou're you're basically either you're looking for all those subcultures that we talked about earlier
54:51SPEAKERand you're trying to either target each one with the most appealing thing or you're just writing
54:56SPEAKERthe most oatmeal generic mash to try to capture as many of the the the vast range of humanity
55:04SPEAKERand and it means that you're basically at that point then writing for nobody
55:07SPEAKERyes which which is an unfortunate um it doesn't feel good and and you're stuck trying to read
55:14SPEAKERthe tea leaves of of the people who control algorithms because the visibility into how
55:20SPEAKERthe algorithms work is completely opaque right and it changes every week so like you're just
55:24SPEAKERsort of trying to divine you know what you should be doing and how you should get it to people who
55:29SPEAKERyou want to see it right right and it's also like the stated value of algorithms is very
55:36SPEAKERnot nebulous necessarily but i think means a more specific thing than
55:40SPEAKERthan a lot of like audience development people or like people at facebook would like you to think
55:45SPEAKERwhich is like it got people to click on it well look did it like like is it gonna draw them back
55:53SPEAKERto the publication there's metrics for that but like you know i i feel like this could this would
56:00SPEAKERbe a whole tangent but there's a lot of like panic about misinformation on facebook that's not
56:05SPEAKERnecessarily unwarranted but i'm like someone likes seeing something and believing it and having it
56:11SPEAKERlike inform their world view versus like looking at it out of curiosity or like scrolling past it
56:16SPEAKERare like three very different things and facebook doesn't have a great way of like showing the
56:24SPEAKERdifference between all those things and i think that's true of when you when you're like trying
56:29SPEAKERto get facebook traffic as a way of building your audience or publication you don't really have
56:35SPEAKERaccess to the things that would really meaningfully do that you're like getting
56:39SPEAKEReyeballs that's kind of it well but there those those folks yeah to your point those folks are
56:44SPEAKERnot making that connection with with you as a writer or your publication as a as a source of
56:50SPEAKERvalued information and and look nothing ever went wrong by optimizing for the minutes spent on a
56:56SPEAKERpiece of content that's always worked out great you know i i've learned a lot of really useful
57:00SPEAKERthings from youtube where they do that aggressively like jet fuel can't melt still
57:06SPEAKERand the chem trails are how they control us you know it's it's yeah it's it's it's a little grim
57:13SPEAKERsometimes but um but yeah and the newsletter life has as i mean you're what a couple weeks into this
57:18SPEAKERnow i guess maybe a month yeah i think i started maybe it's been three weeks now but yeah i'm i'm
57:23SPEAKERvery excited about the prospect of it i mean like i've really loved the sort of substack content
57:30SPEAKERrenaissance like i think it's important to think about the difference between people who like
57:38SPEAKERread for fun and pleasure and people who read for like i don't know information or like boredom
57:45SPEAKERyou know like i think substack has been great for people who read because they want to read
57:51SPEAKERsomething interesting and for people who want to write something because they're excited about it
57:55SPEAKERand not because like there's a news peg about it or there's discourse about it they're just like
58:00SPEAKERi love this thing and like i want to talk about it i want to talk about it to people who are also
58:04SPEAKERinterested in it the internet allows us to find that community however small it might be hope but
58:10SPEAKERhopefully it's like big enough to sustain the ongoing conversation um it gives us that direct
58:18SPEAKERrelationship we don't have to like worry about scaling things like it's it feels more possible
58:26SPEAKERthan ever to like have a small business kind of presence as a writer and connect with your
58:34SPEAKERaudience corny though that is and not have to be like we gotta have like i need to make every even
58:41SPEAKERthough like i would like to make everybody talk about strength training the impetus is not as
58:49SPEAKERsevere maybe when when we're talking about um a substack audience i'm excited to just be in a
58:54SPEAKERplace where that's realistic for me i like hope it stays realistic or like become slightly more
59:01SPEAKERrealistic frankly but um i think it's really awesome and like there's so many subsets that i
59:08SPEAKERlove reading and like open every time i get them um and i think it's just been great well it's
59:15SPEAKERit's um i was talking to a friend a few months ago and we were talking about it was right when
59:20SPEAKERclubhouse was starting to take off and before it stopped taking off and started doing the other
59:24SPEAKERthing oh yes and we had this um like we were talking about it and kind of had this epiphany
59:33SPEAKERthat you know the social networks you always think about them as like facebook people and
59:37SPEAKERinstagram people and twitter people or whatever but in realist realistically it's twitter is the
59:42SPEAKERone for people who are like readers and instagram is the one for people who are visually oriented
59:47SPEAKERand just want pictures or video tick tock takes the video thing and just kind of cranks that up to
59:51SPEAKER11 and like the idea that there's an audience on substack and there's an audience on instagram and
59:58SPEAKERthere's an audience for podcasts and there's an audience for video and like all of these different
1:00:04SPEAKERlike you you probably like the thing that took me a long time to realize is that there are people
1:00:10SPEAKERwho are interested in the podcast who probably are never going to consume a podcast and we need to be
1:00:15SPEAKERfiguring out how to reach out to people who would be interested in what we make that are newsletter
1:00:19SPEAKERreaders or are i mean i don't know how we engage with visual thinkers because those people are
1:00:24SPEAKERnightmares but um anyway uh no i think you're right it's like the all of these things feel very
1:00:32SPEAKERdifferent niches in my life like i'm not going to sit down on the couch and listen to a podcast
1:00:37SPEAKERnecessarily but like if i'm going on a walk if i'm cleaning my house working out i'll listen to
1:00:41SPEAKERa podcast and there's like different and if i'm reading like we used to have live blogs remember
1:00:47SPEAKERlive blogs i loved it i loved live blogging was so much fun i thought it was great and it was very
1:00:53SPEAKERspecifically for people who like yeah i think either couldn't load a video feed frankly and
1:00:57SPEAKERobviously like there weren't video feeds of a lot of these things but like people who wanted to keep
1:01:01SPEAKERup with something and they were like at work and could i mean like that was sort of the later
1:01:06SPEAKERiteration of it was like you could yeah you could follow the event without having like a video feed
1:01:12SPEAKERobviously open on your computer so you know different formats are are meaningful depending on
1:01:20SPEAKEReven like within a single person what they're doing and what their sort of availability is
1:01:25SPEAKERwhether they have both hands or not or both eyeballs so uh casey bring back live blogs
1:01:30SPEAKERthat's what i'm saying yes ten we got 45 minutes until the next uh next opportunity we should fire
1:01:35SPEAKERthat thing up there's an apple yeah totally is it today yes it is very soon i'm so out of this loop
1:01:41SPEAKERbut i need to get back into it maybe maybe i'll live tweet it for old time's sake but it's it's
1:01:47SPEAKERkind of cool to be out of the loop right like i'm enjoying just consuming that stuff as a normal
1:01:50SPEAKERhuman being instead of as somebody who like has to care about it for every moment it's also like
1:01:55SPEAKERit's not it's not like it was like 10 years ago like the improvements that are happening to phones
1:02:00SPEAKERare not yeah i i like to think they don't matter as much and like my iphone that i'm good this
1:02:06SPEAKERiphone that i'm gonna get now in a couple weeks is basically the same one is that i'm the one
1:02:10SPEAKERi'm probably gonna trade in um sometimes good enough is good enough yeah that's my message
1:02:16SPEAKERalso for like everything yeah it's a good philosophy you know your healthy philosophy
1:02:22SPEAKERyeah former wire cutter editor casey johnston uh thank you no uh casey uh the newsletter again
1:02:30SPEAKERif you have forgotten is she's a beast you can find it at she's a beast dot substack dot com
1:02:36SPEAKERcasey thank you so so much for coming by this has been fabulous and good luck thank you thank you
1:02:40SPEAKERfor having me as always this is the portion of the show where we thank our patrons thank
1:02:49SPEAKERyou patrons thank you thank you thank you thank you where do you think the comma should go thank
1:02:54SPEAKERyou patrons thank you patrons or thank you patrons and then a pregnant pause what about no comma just
1:03:01SPEAKERthank you patrons thank you patrons i think there needs to be like a little comma there anyway uh we
1:03:06SPEAKERreally appreciate our patrons because as always uh brad and will made a tech pod is a 100 listener
1:03:11SPEAKERsupported show it's true uh the commas it turns out do not pay the bills no free-loading commas
1:03:17SPEAKERaround here i mean when as a comment what does a comma ever done for you brad they just hold the
1:03:21SPEAKERthing up you know they just make it take too long yeah they used to get me in trouble because i put
1:03:25SPEAKERthem in the wrong place i always put them before the end instead of after the end or maybe after
1:03:28SPEAKERthe end instead of before i can't remember yes the oxford rule will get you every time yeah
1:03:32SPEAKERox smarty brits anyway uh we really appreciate uh everybody who supports the show whether it's
1:03:40SPEAKERas a patron or by just by telling your friends we had a couple of tweets this week that made me
1:03:44SPEAKERsmile because people were very creative in how they promoted the podcast to their friends and
1:03:48SPEAKERand social circles which i love yeah um and as always if you want to support the show
1:03:53SPEAKERfinancially that gets you access to the fabulous tech pod patreon uh where you can talk about such
1:03:58SPEAKERthings discord discord discord shit as always if you choose to support the show that gets you
1:04:05SPEAKERaccess to the fabulous tech pod discord which is full of beautiful smart nerdy delightful human
1:04:10SPEAKERbeings who have a variety of conversations including uh well like i started a thread
1:04:16SPEAKERfor death loop spoilers this morning that i then accidentally stayed in oops oops um that's the
1:04:22SPEAKERproblem when you make a quarantine you need to not be in the quarantine if you want to avoid the thing
1:04:26SPEAKERyou're quarantining i mean it is it is it is true we made an isolation ward um we we are i think i'm
1:04:32SPEAKERstarting to embrace the threads in discord i think the discord implementation of threads is maybe the
1:04:36SPEAKERbest i've seen so it's not bad i was very anti-thread uh from my experience with slack
1:04:42SPEAKERbecause i don't like the way that slack handles threads but discord is it's okay it's tolerable
1:04:47SPEAKERyeah slack threads are a pox on the earth yes discord threads seem okay there's a place for
1:04:51SPEAKERthem um but yeah if you would like to support the show you can find out how by going to patreon.com
1:04:56SPEAKERslash tech pod that's patreon.com slash tech pod again page patreon.com slash tech pod i heard if
1:05:04SPEAKERyou say things three times that's that's what you're supposed to do i heard if you say three
1:05:07SPEAKERthings three times people will remember them better what did you say things three times people
1:05:12SPEAKERremember them better and as always every episode we like to thank our executive producer tier
1:05:17SPEAKERpatrons including paddle creek games the fractured veil video game people or something andrew
1:05:25SPEAKERslosky the bunny fiend jacob chapel joel krauska twinkle twinkie david allen and james kamek
1:05:31SPEAKERuh thank you all so much for your support yes yes yes yes um and like i said if you if you can't
1:05:36SPEAKERsupport the pod financially we totally get it just tell a friend yeah friends are good spread
1:05:41SPEAKERthe word that helps that's how new people find the show it turns i mean i don't know about you
1:05:45SPEAKERbut i hate self-promotion so far if our glorious wonderful generous kind listeners want to spread
1:05:52SPEAKERthe word for us i will not be opposed yeah no i'm terrible at self-promotion it's the worst
1:05:57SPEAKERgives me the creeping heebie jeebies just to say you know something like patreon.com slash tech
1:06:01SPEAKERpod three or four times in an episode i know like it's just grating as hell patreon.com slash tech
1:06:06SPEAKERpod man oh god i just i just i just but you know i can't i can't stop saying it at this point who
1:06:12SPEAKERwould say a thing like patreon.com slash tech pod did you did you mean patreon.com slash tech pod
1:06:18SPEAKERunfortunately yes uh that'll do it for us this week thank you all so so much
1:06:22SPEAKERfor your support we appreciate it and we will see you all next sunday
1:06:32SPEAKERthe hey i got high and um to see if weed would help me work out one is especially good case
1:06:39SPEAKERwait how did we not talk about that oh my god we still talk about it we i mean we can still talk
1:06:44SPEAKERabout it okay fine yeah okay all right okay we lied we were going to talk about we still are
1:06:50SPEAKERgoing to talk about digital journalism in the 21st century but first uh you got the high and worked
1:06:55SPEAKERout i understand is that correct yeah yeah how did that go so recently weed was legalized in
1:07:03SPEAKERnew york very big for us i'm in brooklyn um congratulations yes thank you i thought it would
1:07:08SPEAKERbe nice to sort of celebrate that it was like closely timed also with 420 so i was like
1:07:14SPEAKERthe column before that was running immediately before that i was like you know it'd be a fun
1:07:18SPEAKERthing to do is trying this sort of um you know thing that for science for science yes i've always
1:07:24SPEAKERbeen sort of curious and like i think you were talking about how boring running is earlier
1:07:33SPEAKERweed use is very popular with like really long-distance runners and many of them reached
1:07:37SPEAKERout to me after this that they were like i can't do like a long a long long run without being high
1:07:43SPEAKERthat's bad what yeah it's baffling to be like it then sends you out a little it makes it less
1:07:50SPEAKERboring they say well it also helps if you have like pain it also helps with the pain stuff
1:07:55SPEAKERthat too the stereotype is just of you know stoner just flopped on the couch not wanting to move you
1:08:00SPEAKERknow so i mean similarly i was like this is you know how i sort of understand weed and i pretty
1:08:07SPEAKERmuch only have it when i'm looking to relax but maybe what elements could it bring to a workout
1:08:15SPEAKERtime to find out um so i tried it uh some some vaping of flour and some edibles um i tried going
1:08:24SPEAKERfor a run as well in this article and it was good it sort of it it makes it hard it makes it very
1:08:32SPEAKERhard to like if you're trying to figure out like okay i need to the an order in which to do things
1:08:40SPEAKERor like where should i set up my deadlift that's impossible if you're high but if you already have
1:08:47SPEAKERthe sort of logistics figured out and like you have to very deliberately write out your program
1:08:52SPEAKERand like how much weight you're lifting and how the sets and reps you can't be like oh should i
1:08:57SPEAKERdo a little bit less or a little bit more today it's like you gotta figure that out before you
1:09:00SPEAKERactually have the weed but then once you do it you really feel sort of like very dialed into
1:09:06SPEAKERthe physical sensations of it um when i was when i was doing it i sort of didn't want the workouts
1:09:14SPEAKERto end because i was just like having it sounds corny but like having fun and it like felt good
1:09:20SPEAKERum and you just kind of want to try all the ways in which it might feel good and like do some
1:09:25SPEAKERstretching and like just lean lean into it and it's it was nice i enjoyed it i have i've like
1:09:31SPEAKERdone it since like not every time but um you know if you feel like today i'm not so into working out
1:09:40SPEAKERwhat if i have some weed and see if it just gets me over the hump and then i had a ton of people
1:09:45SPEAKERreach out afterward who were like oh yeah i'm like doing bong rips between deadlifts and i was like
1:09:52SPEAKERi love that for you yeah um that's cool okay