Hey, Athletes! Do you have your phone with you when you train? What do you do between sets? Do you scroll through social media or are you fully present when training? Tune in to find out how scrolling might mess with your gains!
Episode 107 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!
The Science of Social Media and Clamping Your Mouth Shut
For this week’s episode we have Jerred, Ashley, and Kyle on the podcast! The team dives into this week’s study which is on social media while training. It shows that it brings mental fatigue and can affect your training! The team give their takeaways for this one and share how you can kill comfort! The topic for this week is about a new weight loss product that locks your mouth in order for you to not eat solid food. The team give their opinions on this and better advice on how to lose weight. For this week’s Meet Yourself Saturday workout you have Backbone! Make sure to listen in for tips, tricks, and challenges on this one!
If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast either on Stitcher, iTunes, or Google Play by using the link below:
IN THIS 58-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
- Weight Loss
- Social Media While Training
- Mental Fatigue
- Backbone
- Locking Your Mouth Shut
- Tips For MYS
- Updates and Announcements
- And A LOT MORE!!
Diving Deeper
If you want to go a little bit deeper on this episode, here are some links for you:
Study of the Week
- Mental Fatigue From Smartphone Use Reduces Volume-Load in Resistance Training: A Randomized, Single-Blinded Cross-Over Study
- Researchers develop world-first weight loss device
Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week
Be sure to listen to this week’s episode:
Related Resources at End of Three Fitness:
- The Art of Weight Loss (what no one talks about)
- S2 Ep. 17: What it ACTUALLY Takes to Lose 150 pounds
—
Thanks for listening to the podcast, and if you have any questions be sure to add it to the comments below!
To becoming better!
Jerred
Transcript:
Jerred Moon 00:03
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage gym athlete Podcast. I am here with Ashley Hicks and Kyle Shrum.
Kyle Shrum 00:11
I guess I guess we don’t need your name anymore, right?
Jerred Moon 00:15
I just tried to gloss right over it. I forgot to use context clues. The coach formerly known as Jerred. Moon. Oh, no. Just, I’m changing my name to the concurrent training symbol that we have created. That’ll be my name. You can refer to me as that.
Kyle Shrum 00:37
I’m gonna need your pro Nice.
Jerred Moon 00:40
Yeah. Let me think about it.
Kyle Shrum 00:43
Yeah. All right. Well, welcome
Jerred Moon 00:47
to the garage mathlete podcast, we are going over some fun study today. Sounds gonna say studies, but it’s really just one about social media usage and how that can either help or hinder your training, you have to stick around and find out. And we’ll get into a topic. Very interesting topic about a new device, a weight loss device that is, don’t give it away, basically, wiring your jaw shut in or give it away. Get into it. No, you have to. I had to tell people that one is so you, you’ll make it to the middle and hear about this thing. If you think we’re kidding. I had to do a lot of research to find out if this thing was a joke. Like, that was hard for me. I had to like, Am I getting punked here? Like, is this not a real thing? And as far as I can tell it is someone knows something. I don’t let us know what the team know. Because we all think it’s real. And it seems very real. And that’s very anyway, it does matter. And then we’ll get into a workout. backbone, that that really sucks. And so let’s get into it. I think we all not all, but a lot of people probably use social media on a regular basis. I know we all do. It’s part of the job to some degree to at least get into the Facebook group and answer questions and help people out. And I think that there’s a lot of good with social media. But there’s also a lot of bad with social media. And I think it depends on the person and how you attack it and how you feel about it and how you curate your own experience. But the study that we’re looking at today is mental fatigue from smartphone use reduces volume, load and resistance training, a randomized single blinded crossover study. And so the purpose of the study was, was to examine if 30 minutes of smartphone based social media use affected mental fatigue, squat performance, motivation to train perception of effort in blood lactate and recreationally trained men and women. So there were 16 recreationally trained men and women who participated. And the researchers hypothesize that pre training social media use would increase mental fatigue perception of effort, and blood lactate while decreasing squat volume and motivation to train versus the control condition. So they had, I think, four total sessions that they had to come work out on a Smith machine, they’re doing Smith, Smith, Smith, machine squats for 15 rep max, which is might as well be like 1000 rep max of a back squat. So it was it is what it is they used, they use what they had to to keep things controlled. I won’t give him too much of a hard time on the Smith machine thing. But the only difference between the conditions were there was a phone condition where they had to spend 30 minutes of continuous activity engaging in social media networks, either Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or something like that through smartphone apps. And the other group would only do a documentary. It was like NASA is very specific, like NASA. Season One, Episode Five of
Ashley Hicks 04:15
NASA. Yeah,
Jerred Moon 04:16
there you go. And so anyway, I thought that was pretty interesting. You either watch documentary, and you or you watched, or you participated in social media use social media for 30 minutes before a training session. And that’s the basics of the study. And then they just looked at a bunch of different parameters, which we can get into as far as performance. But I, if I have this correct, everyone served as their own control, right. People did both. And so there was it wasn’t necessarily two groups. It was just a condition. And even the researchers were blinded to the conditions so they didn’t know who was doing what. Anyway, we’ll get into it. So we did a study not that long ago on mental fatigue, reduced squat, total volume by 15 815 point 8%. I also put that in my killing comfort book, because it just talks about mental fatigue and how it can screw up your training. But they are doing a stroop test in that study, which is whatever use is another one where you see I say the color, but it’s a word and like all in you have to switch back and forth. And it’s just mentally demanding. This is very real world with getting into just using social media for 30 minutes before you hit a training session. And we can get into some of the results. But I don’t think people will be surprised to find out that social media pre training is not a good thing. So what did what did you to think of this study?
Ashley Hicks 05:49
Um, so again, mental fatigue was more when you use social media. First to me, they so they tested the it was three sets at 80% to failure before they either looked at social media or the documentary. And then they wait, I guess the 30 minutes waited and then did it again. So first, I was like, well, wouldn’t they be, you know, taxed to begin with, because they just did the three sets to failure prior to, but then you looked at the results. And social media was significantly more, their volume decreased, and they weren’t able to get in as much rep and as many reps to as the people who were just watching the NASA documentary. They couldn’t do any The thing that I thought that was interesting. They couldn’t do any other activity, the three hours prior. And so I just was like, wondering, like, were they meditating? Were they maybe they could read a book or something. But they were trying like to avoid them from looking at other things. So that way, they were mentally fatigued three hours prior. So it just makes me wonder, like, what, what each of those athletes did? I don’t know. I just I’m just like, well, what what would I choose to do probably read. But I don’t know if that’s considered mentally taxing. Listen
Jerred Moon 07:11
to the garage mathlete podcast.
Ashley Hicks 07:15
If they were smart, or
07:18
that’s true,
Jerred Moon 07:18
that is a cognitive task. Not allowed. No, you can definitely listen to garage gym athlete pre training, and it will only increase your performance. Yeah. I’m gonna sneak the science on that one.
Ashley Hicks 07:34
So my little killing comfort is, if that’s okay, if I give it right away, go for it. I just don’t bring your phone into your workout session. I’ve Jared and I have talked about this small. I mean, we both have journals from years past, like, Yes, I have my stuff on team builder. But one of my favorite things to do is Sunday night, when or it’s Sunday night or Sunday morning, whenever the workouts drop. I bring my journal, and I literally write out my workouts for the week, what am I doing, and then that is what I bring into my workout session. Now obviously, if you have to use your phone for tunes, totally get it, set it on silent mode, you can still do that or have it do not disturb you while you are working out. So that way, you don’t get text messages. Like that’s what I love about I think the Apple Watch. And I think your phone, if you’re doing your Apple Watch, I don’t know how Garmin works with you. But it sets everything to silent. So I don’t get any notifications while I’m working out. And I really enjoy that. Because to me if it’s going to tax you beforehand, right? If it’s going to do that, like what’s it doing in the middle, if you’re using it in between sets? You know, I see a lot of people if you go to like a Globo gym or whatever. So when I’m traveling and I go to different gyms, that’s like the one I see people do their sets, you know, get done immediately on their phone, you know, and then getting back and then doing that again. So it’s like, well, the science is showing that it’s actually hindering your training. Like beforehand, it’s probably doing the same thing in the middle of your training. So
09:13
Chi Kyle.
Kyle Shrum 09:15
So I think this is just kind of a comment on just the way that we live today. Just kind of being distracted all the time. And I think it’s I mean, haven’t been in ministry and stuff we talked about social media use a lot, just because I mean for different reasons, then we’re talking about now, but but not totally different reasons. Because I mean, this mental fatigue that we’re talking about that social media was causing in this study, it’s not just related to training like it that social media that social media use was causing mental fatigue, regardless of what it was what you were going to be doing afterwards. You know what I mean? So if you’re going to be training afterwards, then you’re going to be dealing with the fatigue there. If you’re going to be working afterwards. If you’re going Gonna be interacting with other people afterwards, you know, spending time with your family, whatever, like you’re, you’re, you’re draining your mental acuity for whatever task is coming next. And so I just think that’s, that’s something that we, we have to keep in mind. And it’s not just related to training, it’s related to just life in general. And so I mean, there’s, there’s not really a whole lot more, you know, to take from the study here. It’s like, I mean, it was a significant difference, there was a significant drop from, you know, from people who were using the social media versus people who are watching the documentary, maybe some people listening are like, man, if I had to watch a documentary before training, I would be like, just wiped, you know, like, No, thank you. No, but, but it was, it was, it was significant. And I think most documentaries are probably gonna make you think a little bit, you know, whether you even if you’re like thinking about ways to disagree with what you see, in what I mean, you’re still gonna be thinking a little bit. And social media is just kind of mindless. And so you’re just kind of whatever. But I would just say, just set some boundaries for that, just in your general life, not just the way that it relates to training, because you’re talking about making better humans, right. And one way that we make better humans here is through training. But we talk about all this other stuff, because it relates to being a human being. And I think that’s the biggest thing that this study pointed out to me was, this is just a comment on how human beings function today is we, we actively engage in something that’s mentally fatiguing us, and making us perform worse on the things that we actually need to be doing. So I think that’s, that’s the biggest thing that I took away from it.
Ashley Hicks 11:45
I will say, I thought about too, when you talked about your whole social media, like, documentary thing for me, if I’m watching, like, like, let’s say, you know, secrets of NASA, that’s a documentary, I may not have too much interest in it. So I may be able to zone easier, versus I feel like social media, the whole point of it is to like, engage you. Right? So you’re scrolling and you find something that you like, and so I don’t I don’t know, like, the differences between that, like, you know, it’d be cool if you could, like, see, like, what parts of the brain lights up or whatnot. I know, they talk about like dopamine hits, when you see the likes and stuff like that, and the different colors.
Kyle Shrum 12:26
Yeah, anyways, well, this relates to your training, because like, this is what we talk about pretty much every podcast and just what we talk about and everything that we do, you need to be engaged with your training session, you know what I mean? You need to be mindful, you need to be intentional, you need to be moving with intention, you need to be thinking about what it is that you’re doing, we’ve done that we’ve covered studies on that as well, you know, of just are you bringing the intensity, you know, what I mean? Are you bringing the intensity to your to your training session Are you just kind of, you know, just kind of moving through going through the motions, you know, and you know, some days, it’s a day to kind of go through the motions, you’ve got other things that have happened to you that day, and you need to get the training done. But to get the most out of your training, you need to be mindful, and you need to be moving intentionally. And so this is it’s not just about oh, well, don’t be scrolling through your phone. It’s like, no, it’s actually going to hinder your training, because you won’t be as mentally acute and you won’t be paying attention and you won’t be as intentional with your movements. And so it’s it’s going to impair you.
13:30
Totally agree.
Jerred Moon 13:33
Yeah, I think this question, this study, led to more questions than it did answers for me because the Okay, we got 30 minutes of continuous activity engaging in social media networks before training, and it made your training worse, right? See velocity and power decreased. RP increased, so you just feel like the training session is harder than it was previously. And you are actually affecting velocity and your power, but other things that weren’t affected heart rate variability, perceived recovery, and blood lactate were not different between conditions at the time points tested. I think that that part is maybe good news. Because what’s not happening is there’s not like the like, internal health problems or physiological issues with social media that would be more alarming, right? It’s like your heart rate variability was suppressed and you can’t recover blood lactate increase, if these like blood markers and actual like cardiovascular markers were suppressed or, you know, that would just that would be way worse. So it goes a lot into just this mental fatigue state. But then, that the questions that pop up for me is okay. But what if, like, why does social media mentally fatigue someone? And that’s the bigger question because the there’s so many different things like I think the researchers were trying not to figure out what you were doing. Like they weren’t recording any of that data. Because how someone uses social media, I guess supposed to be private, which is hilarious, because Facebook knows, like, every single swipe that you do from like, what you like, to how long you look at a picture, and like, all these things, but the researchers, you know, didn’t want to go into that. But I think that that matters, because I think how you use social media is very important. And I think it can be negative and draining for some people. And I think that’s for a lot of people, I hear that. And that’s why I always encourage people to curate their own experience, like if you have if you’re following someone on Instagram, and they post about something that makes you jealous, or makes you feel worse about yourself or whatever, I don’t care if they’re your friend from five years ago, or your friend of today, stop following them, like, unfollow the person. And same with all the Facebook stuff, and Instagram, everything is like, you need to curate a better experience, because I don’t I mean, social media is not going anywhere. But there are a lot of problems with it. And I don’t think abstinence is always the answer to a problem. You know, like, Oh, well, I just don’t do social media, I’m going to not do that. And I don’t think that’s the I feel like that shows a lack of self discipline of self control. So that I want more answers about what specifically why social media is more mentally demanding than a documentary because if you did ask me before I read this study, which one is more mentally demanding? I don’t know what I would have said, but I would have listened to them either at least being equal, or possibly even the documentary being more mentally taxing, if I was actually trying to think and learn because I don’t learn shit from social media, you know, but I do learn a lot from a documentary. And so I don’t know, see how many questions I have with no answers. It’s just this is where, where it leads me because I’m just like, curious. Ultimately, the big takeaway is, yeah, you’ve probably shouldn’t use your phone as a pre workout supplement. Right? It seems like that’s gonna affect things. But I also wonder if you’re using social media in a more positive way, if it wouldn’t have had the same effect. But I don’t think most people use social media in a positive way. So I think it’s all negative.
Ashley Hicks 17:33
Especially right now with everybody’s you know, I feel like mental health is like a huge thing going on right now because of Corona. And just again, the usage of social media, but I going back and from my experience, when I had postpartum depression, I could not look at Instagram, or Facebook or anything. And it was it had nothing to do with like, comparing myself. I don’t know what it was, but it was a bad trigger. And so I just knew I couldn’t do that. But if I needed to just mind brain dump, like, I could watch, it’s not a documentary, but like Star Trek, Star Trek was like our go to show and I could just sit there and kind of engage and engage makes me think of card anyways. I don’t know. So I don’t know what the difference is. of like, like, what what does it do? Again, I would want to like, have those little you know, they have all these studies of like, what lights up and what your brain does when you’re doing stuff? I would really like something like that, that shows like what social media is really doing to you. Mentally, I guess, and not just the whole comparison thing. Like why why does it hook you in so bad?
Jerred Moon 18:46
That’s what I’m saying. Like, I I don’t think I use social media in a negative way at all. But I used to like I feel like I used to have those tendencies. But I did what I said I like curated my experience. unfriend, unfollow what anyone who is the slightest bit of I’m not, I don’t like that. I’m gonna get rid of it. Like I just cut cut throat with all that stuff. And now I get on Instagram, I only see things that I like to see, you know. And also, I don’t know if I ever spend a straight 30 minute time period on a social media network, right? I do check Facebook. And that’s primarily for garage mathlete stuff. I check it frequently. But I don’t sit in the group for 30 straight minutes of doing stuff. And then same with like Instagram. I’m not I don’t think I’m on the platform for 30 straight minutes. I might accumulate that much time over the course of the day, but it’s normally like, check, move on, you know, and so I think how people use social media is the biggest thing and if you want to just sit down at the end of the day and like spend 30 minutes to an hour on social media and it has no repercussions mentally for you, then I don’t see a problem. Without like, go for it. I don’t see it’s like no different than, than watching TV or anything else. You don’t have anything mentally demanding less left to do in the day. And that’s the last thing you do. I, I don’t really care, you know. But I think the bigger issue might be just the smartphone in general, and not even the social media. Because I started using you guys know, a dumb phone on the weekends, I have a weekend phone, that can’t do anything. And text messaging even sucks. It’s a dumb phone. I mean, it can’t do anything. And
Kyle Shrum 20:31
it gives you that
Jerred Moon 20:33
that’s, you know, it doesn’t have maps, it keeps coming in maps is not there. So I can do nothing on it except for you can text me and then I’ll either text you like one or two words, or I’ll call you because texting on it is awful. But if you want a complete break from your smartphone, you can do that. And I do know that when I first started my first like one to two weekends that it did feel weird, which I didn’t like that it felt weird. And now it’s just normal. It’s a guy will actually, it’s funny because it’s like we go somewhere on the weekend, I’ll have my weekend phone and like, you know how when you, you sit somewhere like maybe take your car for an oil change. I’m just staring at the wall. And because this phone can entertain you for 16 seconds, I can only check the settings so many times, I can’t what’s the ringer volume at, because that’s like, all all it can do. And then I’m done looking at that thing. It doesn’t do anything. It’s not even in color. But it’s great, because it’s a good break on the weekends. So if you want to do something like that, you could. But overall, I think the big takeaway here is, you know, I just recently had a post on Instagram about social media usage. And I think it’s fine our phone usage in general, but you have to set your rules around it. And I think that’s the biggest thing is, yeah, if you’re checking Instagram in between sets. And I do this to not Instagram, but slack. Like if one of you messaged me, I’m like, it’s a 5050 shot that you’re gonna get ahold of me some days, I’m like, I’m not checking the phone today while I’m training. And then other days, like I might get a message, and I’ll tell you that I’m training and I’ll get back to you. But really, I shouldn’t even look at it in the first place. And so these things are intrusive, and there have to be rules around it. So I think no pre training, no pre are during the workout. But also this I think goes a little bit further if if social media is proving to be mentally fatiguing, and you have any sort of job that demands mental attention, you just need to be thinking about these things. Maybe you’re about to take an exam maybe you have to fly an airplane you know does it whatever you’re about to do. Maybe stay away from social media right before right so I know we have some surgeons who listen the podcast Come on guys no social media presurgery please God your life is in your hands so yeah, I think I think that’s my biggest takeaway is you guys have anything else on on this one is a pretty interesting study very real world and they don’t normally get this real world but this one is very real world.
Kyle Shrum 23:09
What was your kill comfort?
Jerred Moon 23:11
Yeah, my kill comfort is the rules. Sorry, I kind of like mentioned it. I think it’s hard. Because we feel like we’re adults, we can basically do whatever the hell we want. So long as we don’t infringe on someone else’s freedom. That’s how you go to jail. But we can do basically whatever we want. So we feel like I’m an adult. I can use this phone however I want. Yeah, you can eat whatever you want to just see how that works out. Right. So the that’s Miko comfort is actually set some damn rules and stick to them. So I have the weekend phone rule. I don’t use it on the on the weekends. I keep it on on gray scale most of the time unless I need to see color. I find that that happens quite a bit. I’m like, like for work, whatever. I actually need to know what color this is. Like if you guys send a picture or something like that, um, like the the context helps. So keeping on grayscale makes phone super boring. I do the weekend phone thing. I’m trying to think there’s anything else? I mean, I just tried to limit the phone usage over all but I don’t have like a number. I’m shooting for anything like that. I don’t. I don’t really use my phone during the day. Yeah, standard rule. So I don’t I don’t use my phone during the work day. And anyone who text messages me, you now know why I don’t ever respond to anything that you said. Because my phone is in my desk drawer basically the whole day, except for when I go to train to do take it with me for the music actually mentioned. That’s the primary reason and
Ashley Hicks 24:39
yeah, we have a running joke on slack that if you are dying, you do not call her textured. You will slack me, you will die
Kyle Shrum 24:50
on my computer, like my buddy has to be this computer for him to see it.
Ashley Hicks 24:55
Yeah, it’ll say that his notifications are off and he’ll see it later I guess actually well before Shingo
Kyle Shrum 25:01
so um, you know, it’s
Jerred Moon 25:02
funny. I was gonna say you mentioned the like your Apple Watch. Notification shut off. So my Garmin, it can do a bunch of notifications. It doesn’t I don’t allow it to notify me of anything like Peridot, no notifications. Okay, cool. And then the my computer, you can schedule Do Not Disturb on Mac, my Do Not Disturb is scheduled from 7:30am to 4:30pm. So I can’t get notifications on my computer during the work day. So that’s, these are things that I do. Because I’m not interested in what anyone else wants to talk about, I only really want to do what I want to do. I mean,
Ashley Hicks 25:45
I just, I’m just like thinking of your family, like, if there’s like an emergency does Emily have to call you twice,
Jerred Moon 25:50
you don’t know how to get a hold of me. She knows I’m not telling you the secret. And she knows. Okay, so
Kyle Shrum 25:57
if the customer knows what it is, yeah, that also shows up in the daytime, I’m gonna piggyback off that a little bit and say, you can also track your screen time on your phone, at least, you came with Apple. Yeah, and it will, it will tell you all kinds of stuff. They don’t tell you, you know, when you’re on your phone, what you were doing, what kinds of apps you’re using during that time. So that’s something that I try to do as well, I try to compete against myself like to see like, it’ll update me on Sundays, Sunday mornings, it’ll update me, your screen time was, you know, up or lower, you know, than the previous week, you know. So I try to I try to game it out like that, as well. And you can also with screen time, sit at limits, and you can set, you know, do not disturb hours, and you can set bedtime hours and all that constant like my phone shuts down at a certain time every night, like all the apps shut down. You know, I have to actually like make the decision. If I want to use that app, it says, ignore app limit, you know, and you can ignore it for 15 minutes, or you can ignore it for the whole day. You know, like you can just turn the appointment off if you want. So I have to like, I have to make that decision. Like, do I want to turn the app off? You know what I mean? Even if it’s self control. It’s like, it’s just a little reminder of I have to make this conscious decision to turn this app limit off. If I’m gonna do it. Yeah.
Jerred Moon 27:22
You’re basically hitting I suck. Yeah. So no offense to anybody out there. But I’ve done the app limit thing before, and I have that decision when it pops up. I’m like, Oh, I can keep using this app. Or I can hit the iseq button or Okay, yeah, I’m done with the app like I want it to be originally.
Ashley Hicks 27:43
Well, speaking of self control, should we transition to
Jerred Moon 27:47
a new one? One thing I want to talk about on the screen time thing is I get this a lot when we talk about screen time on the podcast, people are like, yeah, I have a lot of screen time, but my phone has to be on to play YouTube, or like whatever. So my screen times really high. Okay, it breaks it down by app. Ladies and gentlemen, go subtract that if you really want that accurate thing. So like Don’t, don’t give me any excuses. If you’re trying to limit your screen time. And your YouTubes on to listen to this podcast for an hour, that’s fine, subtract the hour, or if you listen to multiple podcasts, whatever the hours from YouTube, knowing that that’s what you were doing. And then see what it is this stuff is really easy. Like that started happening to me recently because I started using audibles car feature. I don’t know if you guys know that like little car button. And so it keeps your screen on. And so you can do like a quick 32nd rewind, or you can bookmark a spot. And my screen time shot up after I started doing that. And I was like, What is like, what did I do? And I’m, I’m on Audible too much. Because if your phone is actually off and you’re listening to audible doesn’t count toward your screen time, which is how I used to do it. And now I use that feature. So it went up but I’m like, okay, so just subtract the 45 minutes from audible. And now I know my actual screen time for the week. So anyway, no excuses. But getting to self control is insane. Other
Ashley Hicks 29:11
I suck.
Jerred Moon 29:13
Yeah, yeah, I
Kyle Shrum 29:14
don’t even know. I don’t even know what read this to
Ashley Hicks 29:17
Scott. And he, I’ll tell you what he said. But why don’t
Jerred Moon 29:21
you Well, yeah, I want to read at least part of the article. This is actually a news media release from the university that created this device and I may mispronounce lots of things. I do apologize it’s University of Otago I believe in New Zealand. Does that sound right to you guys? Oh t agio. Otago, okay. The media releases researchers developed world first weight loss device. University of Otago and UK researchers have developed a world a world first weight loss device to help fight the global obesity epidemic. dentils slim diet Control is a an intra Oral Device fitted by a dental professional to the upper and lower back teeth. It uses magnetic devices with unique custom manufactured locking bolts and allows the wearer to open their mouth only about two millimeters, restricting them to a liquid diet, but it allows free speech and doesn’t restrict breathing. Participants in a Dunedin based trial lost an average of 6.36 kilograms in two weeks and were motivated to continue with their weight loss journey. Lead research, lead researcher University of Otago health science pro Vice Chancellor Professor Paul Brunton says the device will be an effective, safe and affordable tool for people battling obesity. It is fitted by a dentist can be released by the user in the case of an emergency and can be repeatedly fitted and removed. And then he said the main barrier for people for Successful Weight Loss is compliance. And this helps them establish new habits allowing them to comply with a low calorie diet for a period of time. It really kick starts the process. It’s a non invasive, reversible, economical and attractive alternative to surgical procedure. The fact is, there are no adverse consequences with this device. And I’m not gonna read the whole thing because it is a bit longer. But I just want to read where we’re at in the obesity epidemic, because that’s kind of what the article call gets into after here. And it says recent studies revealed 1.9 billion adults worldwide are overweight, and 650 million are obese. And being overweight or obese, or obese results in about 2.8 million deaths per year, it is estimated about 57% of the world’s adult population will be overweight or obese by 2030. So this is where we’re at Ladies and gentlemen, we are locking our mouths shut to prevent people from eating so we can lose weight. And apparently, if you did read the rest of the article, this came about first in 1980s. They were people were surgically wiring people’s jaw shut in the 80s. But this way, it wasn’t there was like no way to release it. It was like once you did it, your jaw was wired shut. And then I guess if someone vomited, they would die. They would be choking on their their own vomit because they couldn’t open their mouth to get it out. And anyway, that sounds awful. And then I don’t know if anyone actually died. But that was the biggest thing that whatever. And then also nine to 12 minutes after most patients with develop gum disease who did the jaw wiring shut version in the 1980s. And then last thing, there were continuing issues with restriction jaw movement in some developed acute psychiatric conditions. Yeah, from wiring their jaw shut. Now we’re doing it in a much better way you can open your your jaw by two millimeters, and you have a safety device to be able to release it. Alright, I’ll just stop now and see what the two of you think about wiring your mouth shut to lose weight. And here’s what I don’t want to do. We’re not gonna do any fat shaming, okay, like, that’s not what we’re making sure. I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to the listeners. Like that’s not where we’re headed to this. We’re not trying to be, we’re not making fun of fat people in this new like, that’s not what’s happening right now. We are just talking more about the mental side of like, where we’re at and how crazy this is in the world. So I don’t want anybody to be offended by what we’re covering. if maybe you have a family member who just found out about this, and they’re considering it or whatever. Like we’re not getting into that we’re just getting into this is a bit crazy and our reasons for why we think that
Ashley Hicks 33:54
you can go I went first for the
Kyle Shrum 33:56
study, you go first. I don’t even I don’t even know where to get from here. Oh, man, okay. Yeah, this one, this one really just kind of threw me for a loop, you know? And I’m absolutely with you, Jared. We’re not here to make fun of anybody. We’re not here to fat shame anyone. That’s not why this podcast exists or why we’re covering this at all. To me, it’s just it’s just like with the social media before training in the mental fatigue. To me, this is a comment on our society. This is a comment on where we are as people were these people like we know that we know that people need help losing weight, okay, let’s wire their jaw shut so they can’t eat. And it’s like, No, no, like, we will have to eat to survive. So it’s like, we need to still eat so let’s let’s throw that one out. But opening two millimeters. It says that it you know doesn’t prohibit Free Speech, I don’t understand how you can still talk. If you can only open your mouth to millimeters.
Jerred Moon 35:07
I don’t even workplace think about that, you know?
Kyle Shrum 35:11
Yeah, I mean, I mean, what do you what do you do in a workplace when you can, you know, you have to keep your mouth closed while you talk. Like, I don’t know, there’s so many other. There’s so many other, you know, factors of just being a human being that this would affect, you know what I mean that I just don’t understand how this is even an option for people or how people I’m with you. I thought this was a joke. You said, You sent us this thing. We’re like, Hey, we should cover this on the podcast. I was like, is this a Babylon? Is this a joke is a satire I don’t understand. But it’s still even though it’s, even though it’s not like actually wiring someone’s it’s like two really strong magnets that are attached to your teeth, in the back of your mouth that just clamp you shut. It’s not actual wire. So like, it’s still like, if you look at this device, it just looks, it looks medieval. It looks like a like a torture device is what it looks like to me. And it just seems to me like we as a society are kind of just moving backwards. And we’re not progressing. And I just I don’t, I don’t like it. I just don’t understand where this even comes from? Or how it can be a legitimate option that people consider. Anyway, that’s it. That’s not it. But I’ll just I’ll stop No.
Ashley Hicks 36:33
No, I I agree with you I’m you don’t have enough self control, or you’re not willing to maybe get the correct help. I like what you put in you didn’t talk about this as it was in your notes, you said, potentially get a coach and then a therapist. If you’re having like such a negative, like a food is negatively affecting you that bad like you need there’s also a mental side of this. For me, I have control issues. And so if I had this in my mouth and couldn’t like control what was happening, I don’t know, I This was
Jerred Moon 37:06
when I would die. It would attack seriously. I’m good liquid diets. But if I couldn’t open my mouth, I’d freak out.
Ashley Hicks 37:14
Yes, like I was having a panic attack. Yeah. Um, so what I said is it kind of shows me like just how lazy people are that they don’t want to put in the hard work to, you know, set the good habits that we talked about that could potentially like lead you to even more success and other good things, and you can enjoy the goodness of food, and the Leno. And the good tastes out there. And you I don’t know that just, we’re just in trouble. If we have so many people this overweight, that they’re, you know that they need to lose all control so that way, they can not be obese anymore. And just reading those statistics out loud, Jared, like that, just really put it like concrete in my mind, like how bad like this is getting. And also, the thing that the article you sent us talked about is like it was originally I guess, meant for people who are so overweight, that they couldn’t have, like a surgery they needed, whether that be like, I don’t know, a surgery to help them. You know, like bariatric surgery, right? Or like maybe it was, you know, something for heart surgery or something they need. They were so overweight, they couldn’t do it. I mean, I, I don’t know, I don’t know if I even see that as a reason for this as well. Like you could potentially go on a broth smoothie diet or something like that if you needed to, or you know,
Jerred Moon 38:43
I mean, that’s ultimately what’s crazy about it is because this doesn’t change anything about the strategy, the strategy is going on a liquid diet. So either consuming fruit and vegetable juices or smoothies, or broth, like you’re saying, you can do all that without wiring your mouth shut. That’s that’s the problem here. That’s the the craziest thing about it is the you know, you could do this without it. But the self control has gotten so out of control that this is a solution, an actual solution. We’ll see if it catches on to I don’t know, hopefully it doesn’t. I want to I want to win for the human column here. And this doesn’t catch on. I hope it fails. And I’m sorry, the inventor,
Ashley Hicks 39:29
for sure. I feel like too as like someone who’s worked in the dental wall before like, if you wire your mouth shut, and if anything goes wrong, or like you have anxiety or something like that, I feel like you’re gonna grind the bejesus out of your teeth. Like I can just imagine like these people are just going to, I don’t know, like you couldn’t even get a math garden here with two millimeters of space. So anyways, there’s a lot of things that can go wrong.
Kyle Shrum 39:57
There’s so many things here like we Talk about it we’ve talked about, even recently, we talked about one of the first things that we hear a garage mathlete when we’re coaching somebody, especially if coaching on nutrition. One of the first things that we talk about is like, let’s talk about your liquid calories, you know, like, they’re, they’re, they’re things that you’re draining their calories that you’re drinking, that are keeping you from losing weight, you know what I mean? Right? But now, we’re gonna, are people’s mouths shut clamp people’s mouths shut, where they have to ingest all of their calories, like in liquid form. And so I’m like, okay,
Jerred Moon 40:32
I would hope that they are doing it how I would say and not like, Dr. Pepper guy. Yeah.
Kyle Shrum 40:38
And then, and then it reported the study the, which I want to, I want to like, I really feel sorry for people who I honestly feel genuinely pity for people who are in such a mental state where they would volunteer for this experimental treatment, you know, or would would consider this as something to help them with their problem, you know, because this is really going to cause more more issues, in my opinion, but the people that they that they cited as they did a study with this to see if it would actually help people lose weight. Okay, so they did two weeks, with this thing, clamping their mouth shut. And I lost 6.3 kilograms, which for those of us not on the metric system, that’s about 14 pounds, they lost 14 pounds in two weeks, okay? That sounds really great for somebody who needs to lose a lot of weight. But for me, as a coach, I cringe when I hear that, because I’m like, that doesn’t sound sustainable. I really don’t think you can keep that that up losing seven pounds per week, for a long time. Like, as soon as you take that that device off, how quickly it might like, my guess is, or my the thing that I’m trying to figure out is, how quickly is that weight going to come back? As soon as you take that device off? Are you just gonna wear it for the rest of your life and drink smoothies the rest of your life, you know what I mean? So it’s just like all of these other things that we talked about as coaches as well of what are strategies that we can do used to help people just live a better life just make better choices, as opposed to taking an easy route? You know what I mean? And I just, also, I just kind of hate that this guy. These people were just like touting This is, oh, it’s affordable. Oh, it’s, you know, you’re not paying $24,000 for a surgery. You know, it’s like, it’s a dental procedure. Those are still not, you know, incredibly cheap. But let’s talk about all of the other things that come with that is just what amount of money is, is affordable enough to bring all of these other negatives that are going to come along with this and not actually see sustainable change? So I don’t know.
Jerred Moon 42:46
Yeah, that’s what this professor he was like, at the I guess, the end of the study, I can’t see where I quoted it. But he was like, at the end, everyone lost all these weight, and all this weight, and oh, where it was, and were motivated to continue with their weight loss journey. So that was probably just a questionnaire at the end of the study was like, Alright, you’ve lost 1415 pounds, congratulations. Now fill out this questionnaire, are you motivated to keep losing weight? And they’re like, yes. And that’s all he’s got for the continuation of the removal of this device. And what people are going to do after the fact he also goes on to say, this teaches helps him with compliance and establishing new habits. No, sir. What kind of habits are we creating here that you’ve only created the habit of locking your jaw shut, and having someone else hit the easy button for you when it’s hard? You know, that’s, that’s all this has done. So the device is absolute trash won’t do anything for the weight loss world because the at the end of the day, it has to go back to behavior change. I mean, if you just look at studies on people who’ve lost a lot of weight, they almost always gain it back. And I’m not trying to discourage anyone. But the reason that happens is, if you did it too aggressively, you did it in a crazy way you did it in a way that wasn’t your choice. Through just lifestyle habits and decent diet changes. It’s gonna come back and it will always come back and it will come back after you use this device. You will just think about how hard that is to okay. Like, I feel like I could not do this. I like doing hard things for this. I’m like, huh? No, I don’t, I don’t even want to try. I don’t even want to experiment with that. But people are willing to do this is a hard thing, but they’re willing to do it for the result, but there are a lot other easier hard things like just moving a little bit more eating a little bit less. So this was eye opening to me because I guess as a person who is not obese and never really has been. I do not understand the mental state that people are in 201 To make a decision like this, so that is overall alarming for me. And then my big takeaway, I put this, I wrote this in killing comfort. And I talk about comfort being this baby lion. And it’s like, it’s all cute, and it’s cuddly. And yeah, I’m just sitting in the chair. Today, I’m watching on Netflix, because I had a hard day. And it’s fine, right? comfort, all these comfort decisions start as this tiny little baby lion. But the more comfortable decisions you make, that baby lion turns into an adult lion. And this lion is one hell of a beast that you cannot get rid of, you can’t feed it enough anymore, it just wants to kill you. And for you to actually be able to kill it is very, very, very difficult because it’s a giant lion. Now, you know, I don’t want to get too lost in the in the metaphor here. But it’s, I see it in people, when you’ve made that easy decisions for decades, you have this giant you have like a herd of lions, that you have to kill to be able to get back. So if we can keep our comfort, because we’re going to be comfortable decisions every day. But if we can keep it to like baby lion set status, where I can still just slap the thing, and, you know, get it to sock growling at me or whatever, you’re okay, you’re in, you’re in a comfort zone where you’ve selected enough comfort where it’s okay. But when you get into this, you’ve made so many comfortable decisions, you hat you’re inside of a lion’s den, you’re never gonna get out of it. And the only way to get out of it is going to be inch by inch of hard decisions. And that’s what I get into the actual if you the solution I already wrote. All right, it’s in the book. It’s right here on my on my desk. It’s called killing comfort. But that I this is what I wrote about because I I know how hard it is for people to get out of these bad spots, just having worked with a lot of people. But you have to make these tiny little decisions. I call it a VA. It’s just we’re not worrying about your goals. We’re not worrying about like, what’s what you’re trying to achieve. We’re just trying to make a small good decision every single day. Let’s do that for 100 days, and then we can move on from there. And if that gets you somewhere awesome. Yeah, daily over decades that and that’s what you have to do. It has to be mental. If you want long term results, you have to make hard choices. You can’t wire your jaw shut and expect things to work. So this is I’m a little upset about it. I always I’m in the health and fitness industry sometimes, you know, we see a lot of this information. Sometimes I feel like we’re moving in the right direction. And then I always get reminded that in no way shape or form is the world moving in the right direction. Our community might be doing awesome. We’re doing awesome things. And that’s what I like to stay focused on. But we are not beating the obesity epidemic. It’s going to break world economic systems. It’s going to kill lots of people like it already kills more than Coronavirus ever will probably on a monthly basis to what Coronavirus did, you know, and it’s a worry, we don’t care about it as much right? We’re not trying to get an obesity vaccine, and we’re not doing anything to and and I’ve talked about it on the podcast before the main reason being is because you can’t cough up obesity on to someone. So I can’t give you obesity. That’s why no one cares about I can only give that to myself. And so that’s why people take you know, a viral thing a little bit more seriously, because you can cough it on somebody else. And that’s not your choice. But anyway. It’s a sad state of affairs. And if you’re listening to podcasts, you’re most likely not in the situation. If you have a family member who is or you are in the situation, you have to make the hard choices to get out of it. You can’t you don’t do this. I’m just telling you don’t do it. You know, it’s you got to make the hard choices to get out of the spot that you’re in.
Ashley Hicks 48:43
Great
Jerred Moon 48:47
question, what do you guys think about that? We don’t have to open up the whole can of worms but like bariatric surgery versus this? People do it right? Do you think that we should always just go with hard choices for everyone? Or do we think that this is a good alternative to something that aggressive?
Ashley Hicks 49:09
I have. I have family members who have done this. And what I find is that they may have the surgery and can’t eat as much as they normally could. But it doesn’t restrict them. Again, not restrict them, but it doesn’t help them necessarily eat the right things that they need to eat. And so in fact, like because of the surgery, like I know, my step mom couldn’t have like leafy greens because it was too intense for her stomach at the time. So, you know, it would have she’d eat like a small potato or you know, stuff like that. So, you know certain vegetables were off limits and I don’t know It definitely helped her. But again, like, you still have that, like, you can still eat what you want, you know, and I’ve, I’ve even seen friends who have done this and, you know, go back to drinking their doctor peppers and eating a quarter candy bar. But you know what I mean? Like it doesn’t necessarily fix the bad habits. It just is that easy fix at the moment. But then, you know, I’ve seen people gain the weight right back after paying all that money for that surgery. And so I don’t necessarily agree with it.
Kyle Shrum 50:35
I feel I feel the exact same way. Even with, even with having family members that have done it, I just, it it’s a temporary fix. It’s a it’s a patch is what it is. But it’s a patch that prints out and causes a bigger issue. It really does. And I, having been overweight for most of my life, have a small inkling of like the mindset that someone would need to be in in order to consider something like this. I have a small inkling of that. But I get it. You know what I mean? I get, and that’s why I said I feel sorry for these people. I feel I feel pity for them, that they that they’re insane to me. Yeah, that they’re in such a mental state that they would consider something like this, but like, but logic doesn’t typically work. When you’re in a mental state like that, you know what I mean? when you’re when you’re at that point, I’m and we’re getting pretty deep here. But I just, it’s I have a small inkling of what it would take mentally for somebody to consider this as an option. And so I get it, but I just I know that it’s not the option. And I didn’t choose that route. Right. I chose this sustainable route. And it did take time. And it was hard. It was difficult. And there were times where I really didn’t like it. I wanted to get, you know, give it away. I wanted to just stop, you know what I mean? And just go back to whatever I was doing. But now there’s no chance. There’s no chance, I’m going back to that, you know what I mean? And I don’t want that for my kids either. You know, and it’s just like, it’s just sustainable change. It’s just the hard thing, the things that are worth doing are the hard things. Nine times out of 10, the thing that is worth that is worth doing is the hard choice. And it’s it’s not the easy choice. It’s the hard choice. And I don’t I don’t really support the surgery, either. I haven’t seen it work for somebody long term, just like what I actually said. It’s like, Yeah, well, I can’t have the whole candy bar. Now I can only have half of it. You know, I mean, it’s like, the candy is still bad for you, you know what I mean? It’s like, the surgery is not helping you with that. And this is just, this is even worse to me than a surgery. Like, it’s just, I can’t I just I can’t get there. And I don’t understand how I also don’t understand how someone could legitimately suggest to another person. Yeah, good idea for you. I don’t understand how someone could actually invent this device. Like, let’s just clamp people’s mouths shut, then they then they’ll lose weight. And it’s like, and they think it’s a good idea. And I just I that’s the mental state that I don’t understand.
Jerred Moon 53:14
I understand the robot in charge of solving the problem. And the robots like okay, well, how do you get the calories in there? It gets the mouth like, okay, shut the mouth down. Like that’s such a computer based robotic answer solution to a problem like I’ve ever seen.
Kyle Shrum 53:30
Yeah, and they’re already doing the marketing for it, right? It’s like, Oh, it’s more affordable than bariatric surgery. It’s like,
Jerred Moon 53:35
this is a better look just marketed the hell out of it. I know where it Canada anti it. But there are a lot of people listening this podcast, I guarantee there might be like, at least five people who are interested or might reference it to a family member, like we may have done a little bit of damage there To be honest, but I agree with you, like, you have to do the hard work. Emily and I talked about this, or we’ve talked about it in our finances a lot because Emily and I were $100,000 in debt, and a lot of that being student loan debt and and people you know, they’re talking about student loan forgiveness and like all these other things, and in no way am I getting political or anything like that. But if you have all of your loans forgiven you you haven’t you still haven’t developed any financial discipline. So what I trade what we had for having just paid monthly payments for this entire time and then someone forgave my loans like absolutely not we developed a level of financial discipline that most people are just not capable of like we could right now go to living on a small, much smaller percentage of our income if we wanted to. And that that makes me comfortable because I know neither one of us are irrational spenders are doing stupid stuff. But we weren’t. Not that we ever were but we weren’t we wouldn’t be near as well off as we are now if we hadn’t made the hard financial decisions and paid off all this debt and everything. It made us really robust and we had to make all the hard decisions. So no, I don’t care if people get their student loans forgiven because they’re just gonna continue to make poor financial decisions over the next, like, oh, that $2,000 a month I was paying towards my student loan, I can just go buy more beer and getting more expensive car. Like, that’s the choices people were gonna make. And it’s no different here like that’s those are the choices you’re gonna make once that thing gets released or whatever, you’re not going to start making all these good decisions because you had someone do something for you. You got to do it yourself. All right, well, we could talk all day, let’s get into the workout.
Ashley Hicks 55:29
Yeah, the workouts backbone, I believe coach Joe brought this meet yourself Saturday workout to to the group, so you can thank him for that. So it’s five rounds of 1000 meter row with two minutes rest after you’ve done the 1000 meter row. And then after your fifth round, you get to finish it out with 50 thrusters. Poof, and the RX for men would be 135 and 95 for females, and scale down from there. So like 135 9575 for guys, and then 9575 45 for females. Sorry, I think about that. Alright, tips, tricks, challenges. So
Jerred Moon 56:16
5000 meters worth of rowing, you have running, and then two minutes rest in there. And then the crusher part is the backbone part. Right? That’s the that’s the true backbone part is like, how do you how do you handle this, and it’s, uh, I don’t think there’s work out gets enough respect. In the meet yourself, Saturday world, because one, we haven’t programmed a lot. And two, I mentioned to you guys, before we started, this one’s only as hard as you want it to be. And that can either it’s either gonna be good or bad. Like if you need to go a little slower, you can but we don’t have pacing in there or anything. Or you know, like they should be at 90% or whatever. It’s just do it. It’s for time. And we’d like to see sustainability and repeatability. But I would just say push yourself as the only it’s not even like I could talk about sustainability or peak repeatability and give you time, but I would just say push yourself and not worry as much about the sustainability and repeatability because I don’t consider this a training workout. Like when you’re training, I want you to sustainable and repeatable when you’re trying to push yourself or you’re going all out in the competition or something like that. That’s that’s when sustainability and repeatability do not matter as much like you will be if you can sustain a repeat at a higher pace. When you’re in some sort of competition and performance thing, that’s great. But I would just say push yourself here. I wouldn’t empty the tank on the first 1000. But I you know, I would push myself each and every single time to go really hard. And then after those two minutes, hit those thrusters and do have a plan for going in. Are you going to do 10 at a time 25 at a time 15 at a time? What is it that you’re going to do to end up with 50 barbell thrusters? So that’s kind of all i have on that one, it’s you, you determine how hard this one’s going to be. More so than any other meetup Saturday workout we really have.
Kyle Shrum 58:12
I would say when it comes to rest period, pick your pick your recovery position of choice. We covered a study that talked about recovery positions, way back in the day back in Episode 48. Yes, I went back and tracked it down Episode 48. And the study proved that hands on knees was a better recovery position than hands on head. And so if you want to find out when you can search, while your coaches were wrong about breathing, because we talked about that, that we were always told to put your hand on your head and not to put your hands on your knees. But it turns out hands on knees is better. So that’s what I would say during your rest period. Pick a good recovery method and, and recover properly. So you can go back and go hard on each one.
Ashley Hicks 59:07
All you got to say about this is the thrusters at the end are brutal coming from a person who thrusters are probably one of my favorite movements do I know I’m weird. I love thrusters, but it’s brutal. So make sure that you pick the appropriate weights, even if that means an empty barbell. Like who cares? Like just to pick the correct weight and get that done? Yeah, and I had kind of a similar challenge to Kyle. He talks about recovery position and I just talked about breathing. And just trying to get that heart rate down a little bit and focus that so that way when you come back at it, you can do exactly what Jared said and get right back after that 1000 meters. And if you have a rower row, this was meant for you to row right that push off with your legs. So that way those thrusters are brutal at the end of the workout, right. So If you can row this one row, don’t run it. But if obviously you don’t have a machine you do you booboo.
Kyle Shrum 1:00:10
Awesome, though, all right? Look, social media within 30 minutes of good
Jerred Moon 1:00:16
turnout found I’m just gonna put that in the team builder app, maybe even as one of the elements like, no 30 minute continuous social media use pre training. But that’s it. I think we’ll we’ll wrap it up here. For everyone who is a part of the community, thank you so much for being a part of the community. You really are awesome. You’re making the hard choices, you’re killing comfort, you’re doing all the things that you should just keep doing it. Alright, life is long, hopefully. And so just keep making those hard choices over and over and over again. And don’t ever let that little tiny baby lion get big and kill you. Because it’s very hard to fight a lion. That’s it if you’re if you’re not one of our athletes, and you want to make hard choices for decades and do hard things and never have anything handed to you or like be easy. You should sign up to be a garage gym athlete. Hopefully I sold it to you pretty well there. So 14 day free trial you can follow really effective programming will push you mentally physically, and we’ll get you a lot of results in the process. But but that’s it for my weekly reminder. For real, if you don’t feel comfort, comfort will kill you