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News Topic:
What It Will Really Take to Restore Trust in the CDC
Paul Offit (72) is not getting a booster and neither should any healthy person who had COVID
The most important lesson of the 1918 influenza pandemic: Tell the damn truth
Show Notes:
How to Sleep Like Your Life Depends On it!
Questions:
What to prioritize?
Lacy writes:
Hi Robb and Nicki! I 1st want to thank you for all that you do, you are truly changing the world! I am a mom of 3 kids, ages 4, 3 and 5 months and I work full time. As you can imagine, I have a lot on my plate but am trying my hardest to be as healthy as possible: I do the best that I can with sleep (as best one can do with young children), usually infrared light, attempt to eat healthy/get sufficient protein, workout, etc. but feel like I am spinning my wheels getting nowhere. Each pregnancy has added pounds and with each additional child I find less and less time to get quality workouts in. I guess my question is, as parents who have “been there” what would you recommend prioritizing? I am currently at my heaviest weight but am breastfeeding (VERY successfully partly due to LMNT) and find that my milk supply suffers everytime I try to lose weight and I’m sure my hormones are absolutely jacked up due to being pregnant and/or breastfeeding for the past 5 years (&counting). Should i focus on protein? Sleep? Hormones?What’s a mom to do?! Thanks for the insight.
Masking
Mari writes:
Hi, long time listener here. Thanks for keeping on. Not a health related question-
I’m going to be attending massage school in CA in January. I’ve been living in Idaho and haven’t been paying attention to much but I heard on one of your recent podcasts that certain schools in CA are implementing ridiculous bullshit again. I called the massage school to confirm- they told me they will be following CDC guidelines (mask mandates if the CDC recommends). Is this still….legal? If I say no can they kick me out?
I would go elsewhere but other circumstances make this particular location and school the best option. Thanks for any advice if there’s any to give. – Mari
DEXA scan reliability
Cassie writes:
Robb & Nicki,
I hope your move is going well for your family!
First off I wanted to thank you both for having a significant impact on my health and wellness. I started training bjj over 10 years ago (when I still had braces) and it wasn’t until our gym started following you and the Paleo lifestyle that all the wounds in my mouth started magically healing and I could finally sleep through the night. I am amazed by how undereducated our society is about the importance of the food (and poison) we put into our bodies. I really appreciate the effort you two put forth to make better humans.
I recently started getting into podcasts so I apologize if you’ve already covered this: How reliable are DEXA scans? I just got one done and the results were shocking to say the least. I am a 34y/o female, 5’2, never had a child, I weighed in at 112 lbs, wear size 0 jeans and this thing marked me at 32% body fat. According to their chart, that puts me in the category of obese. Is this exactly what they mean by skinny fat? Like I’m just fat and bones, no muscle? *Mind blown emoji*
I will admit, in the past year I haven’t been training. I am active duty military, got promoted just about 12 months ago, and I feel like I have no time for myself in my life anymore. Do I cook, sleep, do laundry or finish my homework in my limited spare time? I would say, if anything, that I am definitely calorie restricted unintentionally, which worries me about training if I barely have time to eat as it is. I guess the other part of my question is how do I start over? Eating sufficiently? Training? Destressing? I have 4 more years before I retire, but until then I need to find small successes so that I don’t wreck my body in the meantime.
Thank you again! You’re my favorite podcast every week.
P.S. Are there any plans for flavored LMNT without sweeteners? I don’t consume added sweeteners during my anti-inflammatory elimination diet resets so I can only have raw. Now my bf forever refers to LMNT as “sweat water.”
Sponsor:
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Transcript:
Nicki: It’s time to make your health an act of rebellion. We’re tackling personalized nutrition, metabolic flexibility, resilient aging, and answering your diet and lifestyle questions. This is the only show with the bold aim to help one million people liberate themselves from the sick care system. You’re listening to The Healthy Rebellion Radio.
The contents of this show are for entertainment and educational purposes only. Nothing in this podcast should be considered medical advice. Please consult your licensed and credentialed functional medicine practitioner before embarking on any health, dietary, or fitness change. Warning: when Robb gets passionate, he’s been known to use the occasional expletive. If foul language is not your thing, if it gets your britches in a bunch, well, there’s always Disney+.
Robb: Welcome back friends, neighbors, loved ones.
Nicki: Good morning, good day, good afternoon, good evening. This is Episode 166 of The Healthy Rebellion Radio. We’re back.
Robb: The microphone picks it up in the front.
Nicki: I normally have it the way I had it and you just changed it. So now I’m-
Robb: We’re changing variables-
Nicki: We’re changing lots of things.
Robb: … all over the place.
Nicki: Hopefully, this audio doesn’t sound too terrible. Robb got a new computer and when we do our test and play it back, it sounds very, very different than what it normally did on your old laptop. We did it both ways and I think it’s just the speaker on this computer is playing it back differently, but hopefully…
Robb: Hopefully, it doesn’t suck-
Nicki: Hopefully, it doesn’t suck.
Robb: … or at least suck worse than it usually does, yes.
Nicki: Anyway, thank you everyone who submitted or emailed us suggestions for our crowdsourced question last week for the dilemma we’ve been having with giving our girls access to music without giving them access to-
Robb: Everything.
Nicki: … all the things on a device. So we’ve got some really, really good ideas. I think one of my favorite ones, or I think the one that we’re kind of leaning towards, came from Wahlid about using a smartwatch. So we’re still kind of noodling through all of those options, but thank you. That was helpful.
Robb: Wahlid is kind of Johnny-on-the-spot with stuff. He hooked me up with my favorite pair of shoes and it’s just a gato about town when it comes to figuring out all the things.
Nicki: He is, he is. A gato about Bahrain.
Robb: That too.
Nicki: Okay, I think that’s it for our upfront stuff. We’ve just been, I know this episode’s coming out a little later than normal, just been kind of hair on fire, getting settled in, getting the school routine going. Girls are doing gymnastics and just all the things, so appreciate your patience. We’ll just move on to the news topic, cubs.
Robb: Cool, cool. So it’s kind of a three-parter. The first part is from, is it WebMD? MedPage Today, similar deal. “What Will It Really Take to Restore Trust in the CDC?” And then the tagline, “The singular narrative, consistency, and relatability are paramount” and it goes on from there. And…
Nicki: A singular narrative? That’s an interesting, interesting tagline.
Robb: Well, consistency. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, there has been a singular narrative.
Nicki: I know, that’s what I’m saying. Why would a singular narrative change the lack-of-trust situation that we find ourselves in now? I think nuance would be a better approach.
Robb: Yeah. Well, consistency would’ve been nice, but really, what would’ve been super, super helpful is truth. And that, actually, I have three pieces here, and so there’s nothing in here that talks about being truthful, which is fascinating.
Nicki: When I just read that subheading, “A singular narrative,” I’m like, “We’ve been facing… We’ve had a singular narrative.”
Robb: We’ve had a singular narrative. Mask as hard as you can, vaccine harder.
Nicki: All the boosters.
Robb: All the boost. Don’t ask any questions, follow the science.
Nicki: Cancel anybody that has a question.
Robb: Yeah. And so I was thinking about several different pieces on this. And the third one that I had actually is this piece from Vox, which funny enough, we talked about this ages ago and I want to go dig up the old show notes for this one.
Nicki: Yeah, because I feel like you linked to this back in 2020.
Robb: We’ve linked to this before. It is different now. So, “The Most Important Lesson from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic: Tell the Damn Truth.” This thing is completely different now.
Nicki: The article says it’s-
Robb: If you notice, it says, “Updated 2020.”
Nicki: … updated April 10th of 2020.
Robb: Yeah. And what they took out of this is now it’s like a back and forth between a bunch of scientists and doctors about the current situation, and it tells almost nothing about what actually happened then.
So I want to go… I didn’t have the time with this, but the whole point to this is that in the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, you could look at large cities almost like city states, more so than today. There was a telegraph and newspaper and all that type of stuff, but it was pretty nascent, like Philadelphia relative to Berkeley was very, very isolated. They did largely their own things. And what they found is that the places that did well told the truth, sometimes even the hard truth, and if they got something wrong, they said, “Hey, we got this wrong. Here’s an update.” And they were transparent and it was shockingly more effective.
There is none of that discussion in this Vox piece now. It’s gone.
Nicki: Interesting.
Robb: It’s been expunged out of this thing, which I was wanting to use it.
Nicki: How can you dig back there?
Robb: So I have no doubt that they have changed the URL for this, and we will have this URL in a previous show. And then worst case scenario, you go to the Wayback Machine and pull it up from there. But it’s fascinating what has disappeared out of this thing. But the fundamental piece was the government lied. They lied about everything, a historian on what went wrong in 1918. So again, they dug into this stuff much more thoroughly. And then-
Nicki: Wouldn’t it be amazing if even news pieces were on the blockchain and any edits you could see that you could see-
Robb: Were transparent and see, yeah.
Nicki: … every change that was made to a particular record?
Robb: You know, that would be valuable probably, yeah.
Nicki: It would be in establishing trust with our-
Robb: And consistency, yeah.
Nicki: And consistency with our journalists and politicians.
Robb: The final piece is a Vinay Prasad Substack. Paul Offit at 72 is not getting a booster and neither should any healthy person who had COVID, which is effectively everyone at this point. One could make the case, particularly when you have an R-naught that was greater than measles, everybody’s had this.
Nicki: I want to read Vinay’s subheading too. He says, “Boycott is the only way to make companies run randomized controlled trials because the FDA works for Bourla, who is the CEO of Pfizer.”
Robb: Right. And so Paul Offit is interesting. His piece, he’s a pediatrician from Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, sits on the FDA’s own Vaccine Advisory Group, has strongly opposed the broad recommendation for previous boosters, and says it makes even less sense now.
Nicki: And this is a guy who was so pro-vaccine, pro-booster, pro-all the things in the height of COVID.
Robb: Yeah, he went hard into the paint for everybody.
Nicki: Hard for kids, hard for everybody.
Robb: And what’s been interesting is this guy has really walked back his position, not walked it back, but he has modified his position on who should and shouldn’t get the vaccine. And he’s 72, so ostensibly, because he’s older, this should be a thing. Well, everybody forgot about this stuff, natural immunity and leaky vaccines and known unknown ratios of risk analysis and whatnot, it is just fascinating that Paul Offit has modified his position to the degree that he has.
So I think all three of these are interesting. I think they’re important, particularly important within the context of the CDC and the powers that be fully understand that they have destroyed trust. Absolutely nuked it. There’s still a few people out there that are going to believe and adhere to whatever the CDC, WHO, whatever, whatever alphabet organization-
Nicki: Whatever three-letter organization.
Robb: … that you want to talk about. But I think better than 51% of people are now pretty suspicious about the whole narrative around a host of things.
Nicki: The whole singular narrative?
Robb: The whole singular narrative. And I’ve really tried to not be in a spot where I’m, “Hey, do this, hey do that,” but I do think that we’re at a spot where we need to wholesale push back against this. And if you individually want to boost and do all that stuff, that’s great. I don’t think that… There is no data. I posted a piece on this on Instagram yesterday. The new round of mRNA therapies, I’m not going to call them vaccines because they modified the definition of vaccine to fit this whole new narrative so I’m not going to play into that game, but the governor of New York got on TV and did this complete fear campaign basically insinuating to people that if they don’t get their infants mRNA jabbed that they’re going to die when there’s absolutely no data to support that.
This stuff has only gotten more benign over time, still benign within kids. It didn’t do the evolutionary hip switch of like, oh, here’s this whole subsection of meat bots that I could get into kids and modify itself to be deadly there, although being deadly isn’t actually an evolutionary advantage for these things. So there wasn’t an impetus to do that, but it was a possibility and it didn’t happen. But the audacity of this woman to make the suggestions that she did, because the current round of vaccines were tested in 20 rodents. That’s it. There’s no human trials.
Nicki: Wow.
Robb: That’s it. That’s the extent of this new round of therapeutics and it’s coined safe and effective. We have no, literally not a… We have more data on the safety and efficacy of the old vaccines now. We at least have two or three years of data on that. And there’s a whole interesting thing that emerged that the CDC’s information around vaccination for people under the age of, I believe it was 25, you need to vaccinate X-number of millions of people to save one life, and then you could expect something like 2 million adverse events within that.
So it’s definitely time to push back on this. And I don’t say that lightly because somebody posted in that thread, they’re like, “Robb, you really helped me navigate this thing. I decided not to vaccinate my kids.” And it kind of was a gut punch. It was like, “Fuck, you better know what you’re talking about when you do this.” And I’ve done the best job that I can to present what I understand to be the data at hand and not be this ham-handed cheerleader on this stuff because it’s kind of heavy when somebody’s like, “Oh, I made a major decision for my family and you were the vector for it.”
So I take it seriously, but I think that we stand on pretty firm ground with this stuff. As always, do your own research, do your own analysis, and think about the risks, both known and unknown, with all this stuff.
Nicki: It’s a pretty bold statement for Vinay to make that the FDA works for Bourla. I feel like there’s more and more of that being shared by a lot of people, a lot of very high-profile individuals. And that has to make people question, like, “Really?”
So I mean, we’ve talked about the pharmaceutical industry being captured or all of this corporate capture-type stuff, the FDA being captured by pharma. I guess my question is, and I know there’s not really an answer, but when, at what point do we say, “We want more visibility into how the FDA is making these decisions. We want to make sure that it can’t be captured by a large player in the pharmaceutical industry. We need some change”? We don’t trust our institutions because of this track record. How can we get to a spot where people can trust what recommendations our government is giving us?
Robb: Yeah, I don’t know entirely, and this gets out in the weeds a little bit, but there was a bit of a meme floating around about Elizabeth Warren. I’m not making this political. People always lose their fucking minds when you mention Trump, and then immediately, you have a criticism and then you have Trump derangement syndrome and everything. We have to be more nuanced than that. But the whole gist of this was Elizabeth Warren has been in this governmental position for a long time. She makes about $170,000 a year, which is a non-trivial salary. But in the time that she has been in her position, she’s accrued a net worth of $38 million. How the fuck does that happen? That is some damn good betting at the-
Nicki: That happens with two plus two equals five.
Robb: I guess so because it multiplies pretty goddamn quick, for sure. And I only bring that up, at some point… There were some people like Ron Paul that suggested that we need term limits. And if anybody in government pushes back against term limits, then they’re suspect. Clearly they’re suspect because they have attached themself to the teat and there you go.
And I’ve heard arguments, sort of like the revolving door of FDA to industry, industry to FDA, and I’ve heard the argument that the people who are in a sector, like people in agriculture and cattle, let’s say, would plug into the FDA because they actually understand that vertical. And there’s argument for that. You can’t grab a school teacher who does ceramics and plug them into the… But this is one of these things that if everything was Web 3.0 And every single transaction, one, maybe while you’re in government service, you can’t increase your net worth at all. It’s frozen. You’re literally… You can maintain what you have.
Nicki: Well, just like investments need… I think even if it was just all transparent-
Robb: Absolutely transparent.
Nicki: Yeah, it’d have to be completely transparent. I wouldn’t say that you can’t increase your net worth. Maybe you’re doing something else, but it needs to be transparent so that if there is something that’s worth being critical of, it’s completely visible to the world.
Robb: Right, at a minimum. And nobody, again, the light of truth should shine on everything, and we should be kind of cool with that, and particularly for government officials in particularly at this point.
So I don’t know. I have a good friend, Vasco, who’s in-
Nicki: Portugal?
Robb: … Portugal. And he’s really concerned about Europe just going tits-up for a host of reasons, and I don’t think the US is far behind in some regards with that, but the social fabric has been so frayed and belief in institutions has been so damaged, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe this is kind of like the anarchists’ dream that people actually turn around and believe in themselves and they find small groups and communities that they lean into, kind of like The Healthy Rebellion, to get some sound check, to get some reality check, but also that just doesn’t fit into the captured narrative.
Nicki: I like it. Okay, moving on.
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Robb: Outstanding.
Nicki: Okay, three questions for you all this week. The first one’s from Lacey, wanting to know what should be her priority.
“Hi, Robb and Nicki. I first want to thank you for all that you do. You are truly changing the world. I’m a mom of three kids, ages four, three, and five months, and I work full-time. As you can imagine, I have a lot on my plate, but I’m trying my hardest to be as healthy as possible. I do the best that I can with sleep, as best one can do with young children, and usually infrared light, attempt to eat healthy and get sufficient protein, workout, et cetera, but I feel like I’m spinning my wheels and getting nowhere. Each pregnancy has added pounds, and with each additional child, I find less and less time to get quality workouts in.
“I guess my question is, as parents who have been there, what would you recommend prioritizing? I’m currently at my heaviest weight, but I am breastfeeding very successfully, partly due to LMNT, and find that my milk supply suffers every time I try to lose weight and I’m sure my hormones are absolutely jacked up due to being pregnant and/or breastfeeding for the past five years and counting. Should I focus on protein, sleep, hormones? What’s a mom to do? Thanks for the insight.”
Robb: Mom, do you want to tackle this one first?
Nicki: I will, yeah. First, I’ll just say I sympathize with your situation, and I’m sure every mom out there listening does as well. It’s a tough spot to be in, right? You’ve got three little ones that all need you. You’ve got a boss and coworkers that need you, you have a husband that needs you. You have all the things that need you, and you also need to do some things for yourself. So it’s definitely a challenging spot to be in.
I think the first thing that I would do would be definitely focus on… I mean, can you pick one, right? What’s the one? I feel like sleep is sort of a challenging one. You can say you’re focusing on it, but depending on the night and depending on how your kids sleep or if someone’s sick or whatever, that one can be sort of outside of your control. You can certainly do all your sleep hygiene things to set yourself up.
Robb: To improve whatever sleep you get the best you can.
Nicki: Yeah, to set yourself up for the best night’s sleep, but it’s sort of like a random variable when you have three young ones.
I think the thing that you can, that is absolutely within your control and that you can absolutely focus on is the protein. Again, it’s the most satiating of the macronutrients. And if you are making sure you’re hitting your protein target every day, the cravings that come along with not having enough protein or eating too many carbs tend to not be there. So I think out of the gate, that’s number one. Focus on the protein.
If you have the resources or the ability or any family nearby, maybe if there’s somebody that can help you, just so that it frees up a little bit of time to do some exercise, even if it’s just 30 minutes in the garage with some dumbbells and some free weight, just body weight exercises like lunges or squats or whatever, pushups, that would be awesome. But I know that that’s not… It’s certainly not accessible to everyone.
Robb: I will throw in really quickly this is where CrossFit-esque circuit training really shines, and it doesn’t have to be a bloodletting, but just getting your heart rate up while doing some mixed-modal cardio and strength, 20 minutes, in, out, you usually feel better. And again, it shouldn’t be white buffalo in the sky. It should just be moving. And you can mainly breathe through your nose, maybe a little bit of breathing through your mouth. You get up a little bit beyond that. This is not the time to cook yourself, but this is also not the period of your life where you’re going to have a split routine, scientifically periodized, optimized strength and-
Nicki: You’re not going to hitting performance PRS, yeah.
Robb: Yeah, yeah. This is just getting something moving.
Nicki: Walks are great. You can put the little one in a carrier and maybe the other one, maybe the four-year-old could walk and the three-year-old in the stroller, I don’t know, but depending on what your neighborhood looks like, trying to squeeze that in. You can also do some of this when kiddos are napping, but I know it’s hard, the nap, it’s always like, “Yeah, do it when they’re napping,” But like you have-
Robb: And then that’s oftentimes when you get to nap.
Nicki: You have 50 things that you need to do during their naps, so it’s really hard to prioritize that. So I guess Lacey, I’m just saying totally sympathize with your situation. I would definitely focus on protein, really work on that sleep hygiene routine. So get the kiddos in bed earlier, wind down, low lights, blue blockers, make sure there’s no, what do you call it, just other light in your room that could be interfering with the darkness in your room.
Wait, what am I missing on the sleep hygiene checklist?
Robb: No, I’m there. I’m there. And we have our Sleep Hygiene Guide. We should just make that available.
Nicki: I think it is, but I’ll find it and maybe stick it in the show notes.
And then just kind of… Here’s another thing to do with all the free time that you have. I want to say meditate, but I know that that’s a big ask given your very, very full plate. So instead, I would say when you wake up in the morning, before you get out of bed, lay there and just think of three things that you’re grateful for. Do the same thing when you lay in bed at night. And just like that 30 seconds of gratitude morning and night helps frame both the day and your sleep, and that takes 30 seconds so I know that’s completely doable.
It can be pretty life-changing. I went to a talk once and this very successful person, he didn’t talk about meditation at all, but he said the thing that really turned things around for him is before he would get out of bed in the morning, he would wake up and he would just lay there and he’d be like, “I’m thankful that I’m healthy. I’m thankful my son is healthy. I am thankful for…” It can be, even if you feel totally overwhelmed and you can’t think of something, I’m thankful that I have clean air to breathe and clean water, whatever it is, but it really helps. And then as things get a little more under control, your kids get a little older, I definitely recommend throwing in meditation, but I know right now at this stage that you’re in, that’s a huge ask.
I think that’s all I’ve got.
Robb: I think that’s great, yeah.
Nicki: And then, yeah, I’ll try to find that Sleep Hygiene Checklist and put that in the show notes for you, Lacey, and good luck. Know that this is only temporary. They grow very quickly, as I’m sure you know and everybody always says, but it’s not until you have your little one is now nine years old and 11 years old-
Robb: Looking you squarely in the eye.
Nicki: … that it really hits home. So, anyway.
Robb: And, I’ll just throw out there, you’re doing the most important job in the world.
Nicki: Yep. Okay, next question is from Mari on masking.
She says, “Hi, I am a longtime listener here. Thanks for keeping on. This is not a health-related question, but I am going to be attending massage school in California in January. I’ve been living in Idaho and haven’t been paying attention to much, but I heard on one of your recent podcasts that certain schools in California are implementing ridiculous bullshit again. I called the massage school to confirm, and they told me they will be following CDC guidelines, mask mandates if the CDC recommends. Is this still legal? If I say no, can they kick me out? I would go elsewhere, but other circumstances make this particular location and school the best option. Thanks for any advice if there’s any to give.”
Robb: Mari, there was just, and this is different, but in New York of all places, teachers who were fired for not complying with vaccine mandates just got reinstated, back pay. Now the state is appealing this, so who knows, maybe they will end up weaseling out of the responsibility on this.
But I do think, and I say this in the nicest possible way, but there are a lot of bottom-feeding lawyers out there generally, and there’s a lot of them who are looking at COVID as a way of cashing in, and some of them both see it as a way of cashing in and for actually doing good. And I don’t know what type of position this would put you in, probably not the best position, but the threat of litigation around this could be pretty powerful. So you might poke around and see if anybody is doing some sort of a class action-type suit around students being forced to comply with non-scientific positions. That’s a pretty big swing.
The interesting thing is that massage schools oftentimes end up in these places that have a lot of blue hair and a lot of hard into the paint for masking and vaccines and all the rest of it.
Nicki: Are you trying to say that massage school… Well, actually, okay, this isn’t going to come out right but…
Robb: Massage schools tend to be-
Nicki: Spit it out, Nicki.
Robb: … in kind of more hippie, left-leaning areas.
Nicki: Kind of like more hippie areas?
Robb: Yeah.
Nicki: Yeah, yeah. But I will also say that there are quite a few people that I know that I would generally consider hippie that have not bought into the narrative.
Robb: Absolutely, absolutely. But it’s…
Nicki: Yeah. We’re talking California, so California definitely is on that far side of things.
Robb: Yeah, yeah. And I don’t know if this is good advice. Probably somebody smarter than myself would have better advice, but there are places that are getting into this. I think that this is something that, even getting to the point, I’ve never done the anonymous account deal to burn different things down or what have you, but this could definitely be a scenario where you create an anonymous account on social and you call these people out like, “Are you guys really going to do this? And the CDC, okay, fine, they’re the CDC, but has all of their advice been good? They also recommend all kinds of absolute bullshit around dietary practices. Do you guys support that too? Do you support, in totality, all recommendations by the CDC, or are you just picking and choosing and why are you picking and choosing this? And are you all willing to take on the liability of forcing me or others to wear a mask, like the titanium dioxide, the hypercapnia, on and on and on? Are you willing-“
Nicki: It feels like you could make a case that you have some sort of health condition that is exacerbated by wearing a mask.
Robb: Yeah, it’s called living.
Nicki: Yes. And so then their requirement is putting you in an adverse situation for your health. And if they choose not to allow you to come to class, then that’s discriminating you based off of…
Robb: You could try. And again, I think that this is where we have to push back hard and early and not let any forward progress go on this. This is horrible. But you remember early, early in COVID when these mask mandates started coming out, there were women who popped up and they were like, “Hey, I was raped and part of the rape was having a pillow or something held over my face and this puts me into absolute-“
Nicki: Reliving that trauma.
Robb: “… anxiety, relived trauma,” and it was basically like, “Go fuck yourself. Yeah, sorry. You are going to do this for the greater good,” which it’s always for the greater good with this Neo-Marxist clap trap. So I think this is where we have to unite and link arms and be willing to take some heat upfront. And so again, Mari, if you’re trying to get into this school, you probably don’t want to use your real name doing this, but maybe you do a fake name and you just ask some questions, very Socratic in nature.
Nicki: I did see something regarding lawsuits, which again, is like a big… It’s a big move if you go that direction, but I can’t remember where I read this, but it was, and maybe it was The Bad Gato, but basically if somebody is going to sue an organization, don’t just list that name of the organization; list all of the executive team. You name a lot of individuals, because once most people, companies can be used to being sued, big companies, but individuals typically are not. So then when they see their name on there, it’s like, “Oh, shit.” And it can have more impact.
Robb: Much more impact, yeah. I guess it’s doxxing to a degree, but at the end of the day, there is an-
Nicki: It’s not doxxing. You’re not saying where they live. You’re just… Bob Smith is on the board of directors of this massage school and he’s getting named because he’s part of the decision-making of how this thing is…
Robb: I’m just trying to give it a little nod. But at the end of the day, there is an individual that makes a decision on behalf of this organization, whether it’s government or private company. Mari, keep us posted.
Nicki: Okay. Mari, you asked for advice if there’s any to give. I’m not sure if that was any good.
Robb: It was probably dog shit, but that’s what we’ve got.
Nicki: Yeah, okay. Final question this week is from Cassie. She wants to know if DEXA scans are reliable.
“Hi, Robb and Nicki, I hope your move is going well for your family. First off, I want to thank you both for having a significant impact on my health and wellness. I started training BJJ over 10 years ago when I still had braces, and it wasn’t until our gym started following you and the paleo lifestyle that all the wounds in my mouth started magically healing and I could finally sleep through the night. I’m amazed by how undereducated our society is about the importance of food and poison we put into our bodies. I really appreciate the effort you two put forth to make better humans.
“I recently started getting into podcasts, so I apologize if you’ve already covered this, but how reliable are DEXA scans? I just got one done and the results were shocking to say the least. I’m a 34-year-old female, 5’2”, have never had a child, and I weighed in at 112 pounds. I wear size zero jeans, and this thing marked me at 32% body fat. According to their chart, that puts me in the category of obese. Is this exactly what they mean by skinny fat, like I’m just fat and bones and no muscle?
“I will admit, in the past year I haven’t been training. I am active duty military, got promoted about 12 months ago, and I feel like I have no time for myself in my life anymore. Do I cook, sleep, do laundry, or finish my homework in my limited spare time? I would say, if anything, that I’m definitely calorie-restricted unintentionally, which worries me about training if I barely have time to eat as it is. I guess the other part of my question is how do I start over with eating sufficiently, training, de-stressing? I have four more years before I retire, but until then, I need to find small successes so that I don’t wreck my body in the meantime. Thank you again. You’re my favorite podcast every week.
“P.S. Are there any plans for flavored LMNT without sweeteners? I don’t consume added sweeteners during my anti-inflammatory elimination diet resets, so I can only have raw, and now my BF forever refers to LMNT as sweat water.”
Robb: So I’ll answer that last one first. And I don’t see any move towards a unsweetened-yet-flavored version, but there are things out there that you can add yourself either to the raw, or like you do our home-brew guide and tinker with some unsweetened options around that.
The other part, yeah, this is… One, DEXA is pretty darn accurate. It has about a 2.5 to 3.5% variability one way or the other, which is not a lot. It’s pretty accurate. There’s not the potential for a lot of human error in it. And yeah, this is kind of the classic scenario of you’re probably just an itty-bitty wee bit of fluff, but there may not be a lot of muscle mass lurking there. What to do about that? To the degree you can eat, emphasize nutrient-dense, whole foods, get protein. Maybe this is a case for a protein shake thrown in the mix here and there. And clearly, carving out time to do additional things is going to be tough, and this might be a case where a grease-the-groove model of… I don’t know what type of-
Nicki: Lots of movement snacks whenever you can fit them in.
Robb: Yeah, whenever you can do them. And folks will get the pull-up and dip stands and put them in their office, put them in their home. You can get good but reasonably inexpensive ones for like $50 bucks and maybe you have one at your office, one at your home.
Nicki: You can get one of those doorway pull-up bars that go into the doorframe.
Robb: Yeah, something like that. But you get a little bit of gear, maybe a little bit of dumbbells, maybe some kettlebells. And again, maybe you’ve got a home kit and an office kit and you just knock this stuff out wherever and whenever you can get a couple of reps in.
Nicki: And I would set yourself some kind of performance goal. I don’t know how many pull-ups you can do currently, but maybe shoot for 10 pull-ups, shoot for… I mean, you’re light, so once you have that muscle, it’ll be-
Robb: Easy to do.
Nicki: You should be cooking on that. Shoot for a specific target on the number of pushups you can do.
Robb: Weighted walking lunges.
Nicki: Weighted lunges, even with dumbbells, and just work towards increasing those numbers. And that performance, chasing that performance goal is a pretty tangible thing to do. And then just by extension, you’re going to get some muscle mass on there.
Robb: That’s it. Yep. And thank you for your service. Keep us posted on how you’re doing.
Nicki: I would also, the same thing that I mentioned up above for Lacey, it sounds like you are short on time given all that you have going on, but that morning gratitude, evening gratitude thing that takes 30 seconds. You’re just laying in bed, you’re already there because you mentioned the de-stressing piece and it definitely, definitely helps.
Robb: I like it.
Nicki: Okay. Folks, that is our episode for this week. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Get some sun if you have anywhere you are. Be sure to check out our show sponsor LMNT for all of your electrolyte needs. Remember, grapefruit salt is back. It has been by far and away the favorite flavor by our customers, so it’s now year-round so get your hands on some of that at drinkLMNT.com/robb. That’s drinkLMNT.com/robb. And can I tease out the winter stuff or not yet?
Robb: I think you can. What are they going to do to us?
Nicki: Well, I will say that caramel salt is making a comeback in its own 30-count box here shortly, within a couple of months. And then we also have a new chocolate medley coming out in a couple of months that will have mint chocolate salt in it, in addition to two new amazing winter flavors. So you guys can look forward to that.
Robb: Cool.
Nicki: Awesome, everyone. We’ll see you next week.
Robb: Bye, everybody.
Nicki: Bye.
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