Ep. 353: Jiu-Jitsu Fitness Myths, feat. Dr. Kristi Charish & Dr. Christle Guevarra

Speaker 1: Have you ever wanted to know more about the hidden history of Jiu-Jitsu in America, including details even most experts don't know? If so, you should sign up for BJJ Mental Models Premium. Hi, I'm Jeff Shaw, I'm a professor at Western Washington University where I teach a history of martial arts class, and I'm also the head instructor at Bellingham BJJ. BJJ Mental Models Premium will give you access to my course, This Is Why We Fight: A History of Jiu-Jitsu in America, which is 12 classes including a bunch of research that you can't get anywhere else. You can get it for free for the first week and start learning right away, plus you'll get access to a bunch of other amazing courses by people like Emily Kwok, Dominyka Obelenyte, Stephan Kesting, and other experts that I learn a ton from. So, if you are interested, BJJ Mental Models Premium is your way to go. Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to BJJ Mental Models, episode 353. I'm Steve Kwan. BJJ Mental Models is your guide to a conceptual and intelligent jiu-jitsu approach, and I am excited here today because I got a panel of some smarty-pantses. We're going to bust some myths in the uh nutrition and fitness space in jiu-jitsu. I've got Kristy Charish and Crystal Guevara on the line here. Maybe I'll introduce both of you briefly here. How are you doing, Kristy? Want to say hi and introduce yourself? Speaker 3: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me back, Steve. So, my background is PhD in cell biology genetics. I used to push flies. So, I used to do lots of microscopy work and lots of genetic manipulation and cellular biology stuff. I also kind of got into this tangent. I used to do figure competitions and stuff like that way back in my college days, university days. So, I was always really interested in the myth concepts and some of the bad information that was out there when it came to, you know, putting on muscle, bodybuilding, cutting down, all that kind of stuff. And now, I am a fiction author. I've had a weird career. So, I'm a a fiction author. I've got a sci-fi book coming out next year that I can sort of kind of talk about, and then I work in the beauty and health industry doing some myth busting now. So, I work for a YouTube channel and um a prominent YouTube channel and part of what I do is research for them, and helping with scripts, and helping with the blogs, and just that concept of telling people what educating people about, yes, there's cool science, but some of it just doesn't work. Speaker 2: That's what they tell me. We're going to get into that today, but uh next person to introduce, I've also got Crystal Guevara on the line. Crystal, we've been uh interacting online for a long time back and forth, but I'm glad we got finally got you on here. Why don't you give yourself a quick intro? Speaker 4: Oh man. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I too am a doctor. I'm a physician, board-certified family medicine, uh sports medicine physician, so non- nonoperative. So, I handle all the stuff that uh comes up that doesn't involve like a bone breaking, and I do wear a couple different hats. I mainly work on the back end of the RP Strength YouTube channel, so I do all the I'm the operations manager for that, so I am also, you know, married and and work with my husband, Dr. Mike Israetel, who's PhD, and I also maintain a private telehealth telemedicine practice, and every now and again, I do event coverage. I volunteer with US Figure Skating, so I do get to travel internationally as a team physician. So, I think that covers most of my major roles in life. And then uh, recently co-authored Bodybuilding Anatomy, the 3rd edition, with Human Kinetics, so busy bee. Speaker 2: Exciting. Well, I will put links to everyone's stuff in the show notes here, but I'm excited to have this conversation today, because you know, although I do have a sports podcast, like, you know, I guess that makes me an expert, right? Having a sports podcast, that's a very high bar to clear. There's a lot of bad information, especially in the sports and the circles that we run in. In jiu-jitsu, specifically, there is a ton of bad information, and the challenge is, it's very hard to actually find good information when it comes to fitness, nutrition, health. It really feels like the people with the loudest voices are often the people with the the worst information. And the thing that I love about both of your channels is that you two have always focused on a science-first, evidence-based approach to getting good information out there, and that is very rare in jiu-jitsu. I mean, there's a variety of reasons why this can be. I mean, part of it, of course, is that a lot of the sponsorships that people get in sports like jiu-jitsu, it's for barely-proven supplements and and services that aren't really borne out to actually deliver on what they say. But also, it's the kind of culture where people tend to get their info from podcasters and from friends and their you know, their instructor at the jiu-jitsu school. And it's not always the best source of information. I have had so many misconceptions about fitness and nutrition busted since I started jiu-jitsu, because there was so much bad info that was floating around, and things that I just took as the gospel truth, because I'd heard it so many times. And then, just talking to the right person at the right time, someone mentioned to me, you know, "Steve, you know that's all BS, right?" And I'd go, and I think, "No, that's definitely true. I've I'm sure this is true. Everyone told me it's true. I've been doing it for 10 years." And then I look it up, and I find out, "Man, you know what? This is a myth that I had thought was true, but actually was not," probably to my detriment. Sometimes, these kinds of myths can be mostly harmless and benign. Sometimes, they can be extremely harmful. And I'd love to maybe run through some of the most common myths that we see in sports like bodybuilding, jiu-jitsu, anything of those lines. Crystal, maybe I'll go with you first, because this is an area that you um I know you had a lot of hot thoughts in. What are some of the big myths that you think are prevalent in sports like jiu-jitsu when it comes to like, how to build muscle, get in shape, get active, stay in shape, increase your cardio? What are some of the problems that you've been talking about recently? And yes, I know this is a big question. Speaker 4: That is I think the the hard part is, and I think I still struggle with this every now and again, is trying to find out where to start because that You just threw a whole list of goals of like, "Got to learn technique. Got to get stronger. Got to build muscle." I think, for a lot of people, unless you are at the pro level, you need to think about what is the priority. What's the priority now? What's the priority 3 months from now? What's your priority 6 months from now? Where do you see yourself in a year? And kind of going from there, working your way backwards as far as, you know, what that's going to look like, as far as what your training's going to look like, what your lifting is going to look like. And if you, you know, the priority is, "I really want to compete in jiu-jitsu," then planning out being really smart and planning out like, maybe I'm going to have to deprioritize lifting and and building muscle until post-competition. And then maybe taking of, you know, a mesocycle or two um afterwards to like, "Hey, like, I'm going to prioritize building muscle. I'm going to make sure my nutrition is on point, so I am not losing weight, so I'm actually gaining, you know, some weight, cuz you do Most of the time, you're going to have to gain a little bit of weight in order to put on some muscle." There are exceptions to that rule, but far and few between. And kind of going from there. So, I think a lot of people that I see on social media really want to do everything all at once, and I am guilty of feeling that way as well, but in order to stay in a sport long-term, there's got to be some sort of hierarchy of, you know, some priorities and then kind of going from there instead of trying to do everything all at once. That has always been a recipe for disaster. I've seen it happen way too many times where somebody wants to like, cut a bunch of weight leading into a competition, thinking they're going to get stronger and like, look leaner, but look amazing, and then they do terribly in competition, and then they end up frustrated and pretty burnt out or injured. Speaker 2: Yeah, well said. I mean, and weight cutting, man, there's a whole discussion to be had around that, and whether it's good or bad or both, you know. It's it's a very difficult discussion to have. But I just wanted to ask, because I, again, my doctorate in jiu-jitsu podcasting, unfortunately, does not qualify me for all of these discussions. I wanted to ask, just for for the audience's sake, not for my sake, of course. I know everything, but what is a mesocycle? Speaker 4: Oh, I'm sorry. When you're thinking about resistance training, you kind of break it up in So, there's a macrocycle, which can extend into, you know, a year or very longer period long period of time, like 6 months to a year. And that's where you plan out, like, this is the goal. This is the end goal or a season, right? And so, that's a macrocycle. Mesocycle is where you sort of break up those that macrocycle into, you know, somewhere between four to even I've seen 8 weeks, where it's, you know, when you're building your training program, it's like, "I'm going to take 8 weeks to do X exercises, or focus on this particular goal." And then furthermore, microcycle is sort of week to week. What does that What does my training look like this week? What does it look like next week? The week afterwards, I'm going to probably start pushing the weight a little bit, maybe think about adding a set or two, or maybe increasing the number of reps. But it's just a nice way to sort of organize your training, and and kind of help to not get confused or to keep track of your progress. Speaker 2: I see. I see. I just ask, because this is jiu-jitsu, so when you hear someone say the word "cycle," immediately, they think, "Okay, what steroids are we talking about here? Are these the ones that Rogan takes? Where can I buy them? Can I find them on the internet?" And so, I just wanted to better understand. And that is a topic that maybe we can we can touch on a bit in a little bit. But Kristy, I'd love to hear you maybe riff on this as well. You have a very interesting background, in addition to your science and myth busting work. Like you mentioned, um I know that you did competitive figure for years. You've, of course, also trained martial arts like jiu-jitsu and capoeira, I believe. What are your thoughts on some of the the fitness routines that have worked for you in this space? And do you have any idea in terms of where maybe people in the jiu-jitsu space are going wrong when it comes to how they build mass or don't build mass and what they're generally doing, from what you've observed? Speaker 3: Yeah. So, I've been out of the competitive figure for uh for a number of years, so I don't know what the trends are right now, and they they change. What I do remember, and one of the things that that I found really impressed on me was that there's a lot of ritual that tends to seep its way into the idea of, you know, when you're getting ready for competition, when you're training for a competition. And again, putting an objective um head on, you know, my my sort of objective hat on, I was really lucky. I was very athletic, so I look at weights and I put on muscle. It's so it's obviously not exactly. And I think this it's you know, I'm sort of going going on a bit here, but and being a little bit facetious, but, you know, I see a lot of influencers, and I think the beauty industry and influencing and that idea of of physiques that are out there, and you see a lot of these influencing stars who IFBB pros and and such, people who are they're making a living off off their physiques, and they have their routines they're showing you, and they're doing their weights, they're doing their routines, they've got their various supplements that they may be be selling, and, you know, they've got that. In a lot of cases, what they're not really talking about, you know, what what we tend not to talk about is that there is a genetic component that you need to take into consideration. It's it's never saying that somebody can't get to that point. There's nothing that absolutely, if you don't say, necessarily have the the right genetics for or not the right genetics, but you don't have the ideal genetics for bodybuilding, for physique, for things like that, you can get around it. You are absolutely able to come up with a training program There's so much science out there now that you're able to come up with a a training program, a diet program. You can figure out what's going to work for your body, and that there's been huge leaps and bounds in the sports medicine area, um sports science. But one of the problems I notice is that the people who are the most vocal about, you know, their physiques, and how they've cut weight, and things like that, they're not disclosing, or, you know, in some cases, they're not disclosing pharmaceuticals that they're using, which can be problematic, but, in other cases, you know, there are very few people who make it to that level who don't have a very good genetic predisposition to having just that kind of a physique. Some of the big body some of the the younger influencers that that I'm thinking of right now. So, it's understanding that what works for somebody who puts on muscle really easily, who keeps a really lean body mass naturally, isn't necessarily going to work for everyone. And I I wish there was more transparency about that. You know, I I think there's that bit of a mythology of, "Oh, well, you know, if you just follow my routine, you're going to be able to look like, you know, look like me, or you're going to be able to have this kind of physique, or you're going to have this kind of, you're just do what I do, and that's that's my program. I've developed it." And, obviously, they're going to the gym. They're watching their diet. They're doing all of those things, but they're not taking into consideration that they've got a really good genetic base for that kind of thing. So, so yeah, so that's that's something that I think it's a very subtle, and it's nuanced, but it leads to a lot of misinformation because then people go, "Well, what am I doing wrong? Am I not doing enough cardio? Am I not doing, you know, am I not taking the right supplements? Maybe I need more." And it's it's they're taking the wrong approach. Speaker 2: So, I love that you said that, Kristy, and I'd love to hear both of you riff on this a lot because we don't talk enough about genetic background, and what that actually means for the sport that you're in. Now, in the context of jiu-jitsu, there is maybe an argument to be made that genetics are a bit less important than in other sports, like say, basketball, where look, if you don't have the height to play basketball, or if you don't have the the limb length to kickbox, you're going to really struggle, right? In jiu-jitsu, one of the cool things about it is you can tailor the type of jiu-jitsu you do around your body type, so you will see tall, lanky people have a a degree of success, but you will also see short, stocky people come up with a totally different game and get results as well, right? I mean, uh I am one of those short, stocky guys, and there's a lot of stuff people try to show me, and uh I keep telling them like, "Look, my legs are physically not long enough to do what you're doing. They just don't bend the way that yours do, and it's cool that yours do, but mine don't." I would love to maybe, Dr. Crystal, pass this over to you to hear, when we talk about genetics, like what does that really mean? Because this is something that people use as both an explanation and also as also an excuse a lot of the time, but I never hear anyone go one level deeper to say, "Okay, what does that actually mean? And what are the What are the places where that really does impact us? And is it something that can actually be overcome, and how do we do that?" Speaker 4: Yeah. For the record, uh I am 4'11". 4'11" white belt, and 43 years old, so. Speaker 2: The optimal height: 4'11". Speaker 4: My volleyball uh career was shattered at in like the sixth grade, so I've already experienced that disappointment. But uh yeah, I was just you know, definitely as far as the genetic component goes, and thinking about bodybuilding, one of the things that I really wanted to also bring to the light is people's responses to steroids are is also genetic, because I competed in powerlifting in med school before I switched over to jiu-jitsu, and because of the plate I lived in Southern California, there was no untested The US USA Powerlifting was the big like Natty Federation at the time, and there were no competitions in my area. So, I went with USPA, which was untested. And so, I competed with girls who we all started Natty at one point, and then I noticed some very notable virilization effects with some of my competitors. Like, no shame, like but you know, it's very clear. There are some very distinct features that come with females, particularly, who are taking steroids. And so, the thing that I noticed was, you know, people's uh response in terms of the virilization component, but then also comparing their results, like as far as strength goes. Cuz, I mean, powerlifting is a pretty easy sport. Like it just measures strength, how, you know, how strong you are in these three lifts: the squat, the bench, the deadlift. Like there is some technique, but it's it pales in comparison to something like jiu-jitsu. And so, not everybody gets that. Not everybody gets to like People think that steroids is this magical thing that's going to make you amazing. It's only going to take your genetics. I want to say Greg Nuckols did a study on this, and it was like maybe 10% better than where you're at. So, if you didn't have great genetics to squat, you're not going to get amazing genetics. On Steroids aren't going to help you. In particular, I remember this person's squat went from like 225 to maybe 350. And then to give you an idea of like what that the top-level uh female natural powerlifters uh you know, are lifting these days, there's a 52-kilo girl out of Singapore who just deadlifted like almost 450-plus pounds. Something outrageous. So, like we weren't you aren't even close. So, and I think that's what really helped me realize that maybe the the risk-benefit-reward just isn't worth it. The trade-off just isn't worth it for me. I mean, it wasn't worth it for a bunch of other different reasons, but that really got to me, more so than like, "Oh, I'm going to be a doctor. I probably shouldn't do this. Oh, it's illegal. I probably shouldn't do that either." It was really like, "I'm not going to be Like, I'm not at the top of my game. I'm not even close. Why would I, you know, risk hair growth on my face, all sorts of other, you know, my jaw widening for, you know, what? Maybe a couple 50 pounds max?" And so, in sports, you want to think about, you know, your genetics, like sport performance, like how strong you are, how much power you can deliver, um how quick you are, learning techniques and practicing techniques. Um all of that comes into play when you are thinking about, you know, genetics. Also, height, limb length, all of that factors in. So. Speaker 2: So, something I'd love to ask both of you, touching on this topic, as we were talking about earlier, I think before we hit the record button, the fitness and the martial arts space are full of this this weird attitude and mindset that you hear out of a lot of coaches. On one hand, they will speak very aspirationally about living your goals and living your best life, and how I will help you get to to, you know, achieve success. But on the other hand, they also have a very narrowly prescribed vision about how they want to see that done. And if you deviate from that, then they will be extremely judgy about how you've done that. And I'm not talking about steroids or PEDs here, that's maybe something we can dig into in a bit. But even just things like, I mean, the example that I saw you post recently about Crystal was um Ozempic, talking about um Ozempic and how the fitness industry is appears to be almost entirely unified against it because it's not, in their opinion, the right way to do things. And I mean, I'm not saying that this opinion is without merit, but there is a very widely-held belief in the fitness space that like, if you need medicine to do this, then you're not doing it right somehow. I'd love to hear you folks maybe riff on that, because this is something that's going to become up a lot over the next few years, about things like Ozempic and, you know, medically-assisted weight loss. What does the real science behind this tell us right now about whether people can or should be using this? Like is there are there downsides? And is it fair for people to be so judgy about something like this? Do they have a valid point or is this actually relatively safe to use? And um maybe, Kristy, I'll give you the floor on that one first and then we'll go to Crystal. Speaker 3: I so yeah, no, I was going to say I'd I'd love to jump in first if if that's okay, Crystal, and it's um Crystal's got the MD background, so she's going to be able to talk more about the medicine and she's going to be able to talk about it from more of a clinical perspective. My interest is almost the psychological things that are going on, and the failure of logic on a very large scale. So, one of the things I see in sort of uh popular science, when science makes it into popular culture and the beast takes a hold of it, it's very fashion fashion-based, you know. There are fashionable things that people want to take. Peptides right now are really fashionable, you know, peptides are okay, and supplements that don't necessarily have any real research behind them are fashionable because they're natural or they're able to put a natural spin on it. In that same community, you Again, and I'm thinking aesthetics, fitness community, but sunscreen is really unpopular right now, and the actual science isn't coming into play at all. Another time in his Well, it happens in cycles in sort of history, you know, in sort of our our Western culture, history and medicine. Victorians were very much went through a phase when it came to their diets, when it came to, you know, how they sort of viewed natural, but their version of natural wasn't necessarily natural. You have sort of these trends where people are like, "Oh, I don't want to take," you know, when I was in the '90s, cuz I'm that old, in high school, there was and it's not really talked about now, but I remember because I was in high school at the time, there was a real sort of, are vaccines unnatural? Because we were at that time, we were in this category where, all of a sudden, everybody had to get their booster for measles, because it was something that had come up because of the one we had gotten. So, people, all of a sudden, were like, "Well, wait a minute, is this natural? We're all getting lined up in a gym to get our our vaccine boost." And there were lots of people who were like, "Well, I don't want to get a vaccine." You know, it's it's But it wasn't that It wasn't the science. It was the visual. It was, "I don't like being put into a gymnasium with all these other kids, and having," you know, something put into So, there's a lot more psychology behind it. And so, I feel like we've got this weird thing right now where there's a lot of things out there where we don't have good data on the side effects, and that's because nobody's testing it to see if there's a side effect because they don't have to. And the supplement industry is the biggest problem. And there are serious side effects to some of these supplements, especially some of these novel or exotic food substances. Like some seed that gets ground up from the Amazon Amazon, and it's, you know, being put into a pill form. Well, a lot of those are very toxic to your liver because they were never intended to be consumed that way. And if you are taking too much or you have a particular genetic predisposition, you could be putting yourself into a liver failure situation, and it does happen. Uh green tea is one of the worst offenders, green tea capsules, where a lot of heptologists are saying, "Don't take this. This is I've had people who've had to have a liver transplant because of this." We don't talk about those potential side effects. What people talk about are the really well-documented ones. And if there's one thing I can get across, it's that when we know the profile of a drug, when it's gone through three phases of drug trials, they know everything that this drug could possibly do to you, and they know how to treat it. They know when to take you off. They know what to look for. People get really scared of that, and that's a shame. It's they want the thing that their buddy says, "Oh, it's got no side effects." Some of these popular peptides that are coming out, they've been uh that are are popular in the bodybuilding and also the fitness communities now, you know, and they're getting into skincare and things like that. We have ideas about how they work in cell culture, on rats or in horses or in a veterinary sense, but there's no real data on what these things do long-term. Are they effective? Is it anecdotal? Is it a placebo effect? Is it causing toxic Is it toxic in some individuals at certain doses or combined with other substances? We have none of that information because these things haven't been tested. And that's, you know, Ozempic's a phenomenal drug because we know what it does. It's been around for a long time. We know all the potential side effects. Your doctor monitors it. It's they can figure out if you have a side effect, they know what to do. If something goes wrong with a supplement you're taking that you bought off Amazon, and is contaminated with heavy metals, for example, you could be out of luck. Yeah, so I'm I'm going to pass it off to to Crystal. Speaker 2: Well, first, one one thing I just want to jump in just to make sure you don't get clipped out of context here, Kristy. Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 2: What does the science say about sunscreen and about vaccination? Speaker 3: Oh, my god, yeah. Sunscreen is amazing. I've worn it every day of my life since I've be- since I was 12. I adore sunscreen. It is perfectly safe and, best part, it can greatly decrease your risk of getting a whole slew of cancers, skin cancers. It's one of the few cosmetics on the planet that will prevent aging in your skin. And they have been able to show that definitively in various trials because it is considered a drug in North America. And uh as far as vaccines go, I love vaccines. Vaccines are wonderful. Not having to get, you know, measles and chicken pox and all of these horrible diseases that have wider effects on your body that we're now aware of. You know, we know now things like measles can wipe out your entire immune system if you catch the disease. And isn't that great? You get a vaccine and you're probably not going to get that virus. Yeah. So no, it's a much gentler way to get like this I This whole movement of, get a you know, "Oh, well, just get measles." It's like, no. You don't want measles. Get the vaccine. It's way gentler on your body. You know, if you're somebody who's interested in fitness, you're interested in long-term health, then take you know, get that vaccine, because you get the immunity, but not all the immune system reactions. It's a win-win. But yeah, I like you I use them as an example from the psychological aspect. It's that fear. It's that unlogical fear. Speaker 2: Yeah. There's this old diagram that you hear when you when you hear people talk about survivorship bias, there's this classic diagram that you'll see on the internet of a fighter plane with bullet holes drawn on it. And the the lore is that, at some point, the, I guess, the military was analyzing, you know, where do they need to armor plate the planes to prevent, you know, these things from getting shot down out of the sky. And so, they mapped where all of the, you know, for all of the planes that they had and that came back, where, "Okay, where are the bullet holes? Let's map these and find these." And their first thought once they looked at this was they noticed like, "Oh, there's a lot of bullet holes in these areas of the plane." And so, intuitively, you think, "Well, maybe we should reinforce those areas." But what they actually did was they wound up reinforcing the areas where there were no bullet holes in the plane. Why? Because if a bullet hole was recorded by their data, that means the plane actually came back, right? If If someone shoots you a hole in your wing and the plane comes back, well, it's not good that a hole got shot through the wing, but it also says that that's a survivable thing. If a bullet goes through the engine, then the plane's going down, right? So, but now that might not show up in the data because, when you look at the data, those planes never make it back home. They get shot down. So, if you're just analyzing where did the bullet holes get shot in this plane, you're going to be measuring the wrong thing. And so, when you talk about survivorship bias and and what data points to measure, this is where a lot of the bad decision making comes up with how people interpret medicine. And Kristy, you brought this up extremely well. People are very skeptical of things like vaccines, for example. And that, you know, part of that is probably because, look, there will always be that one-in-a-million story of someone who had an adverse reaction. And those do happen, right? There is no such thing as zero side effects. Water has a side effect, right? Everything that you put into your body has side effects. It's a matter of risk-reward calculation. The problem with a lot of the supplements that people take is there is no data. So, you don't get those stories of someone who, you know, took this weird, ancient mushroom extract and got sick off of it, because no one is studying and recording this. So, to a layperson, it looks like, "Well, this must be safe because you're not hearing any of these stories." Whereas, in reality, many of these supplements are being sold out of someone's basement, right? They're very small scale. So, they're Of course, there's no data on it. As soon as the data starts coming out, these people get sued and shut down, and then another supplement company pops up in their place. Um but I just wanted to put that in there, just to clarify so that people didn't misconstrue the stance. Crystal, I'll turn this over to you, though. We were talking about Ozempic and kind of the the psychology around taking these kinds of medicines. Speaker 4: Yeah. For the record, right now, GLP-1 agonists, which is a class of drugs Ozempic falls under, is on the WADA monitoring list, so it's not a banned substance yet. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up on the banned list. And for me, who competes in a weight-based class sport, I I fully support this drug going onto the list, and me making the decision to either jump to another federation or, you know, get the go through the hoops of getting a TUE and hope it gets approved, and all all of that good stuff. This drug has been around for 20 years. Like this class of drugs has been in the United States for to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity for over 20 years, and we've had multiple iterations of these drugs that just keep getting better and better. So, the first drug that came out was literally in 2005. It was a daily injection. The A1C, you know, the help with diabetes was fine. The weight lot The studies where they talked about weight loss were not that impressive. It was like somewhere in the order of like 6 to 8 pounds uh that people had lost weight, so nothing to scream about. The first drug that was approved in the United States for weight management was liraglutide, and that was in 2014. So, we've also had the data to have this approved and had it around for a while. And it wasn't until 2017 that semaglutide semaglutide, Ozempic, Wegovy had hit the market finally. And a couple of things really struck out with that were noticeable this time around. One, in all phases of the clinical trials, the weight loss was just insane compared to the studies beforehand. I think liraglutide was also like, "Meh, not really impressive." Like 10 to 15 pounds, like, ah, it wasn't anything to scream out about. But when you get people who start losing, you know, on the order of like 20% of their starting body weight, 30% of their starting body weight, then then people start to really take notice. And additionally, it was a once a week Now, it's a once-a-week injection instead of a daily injection, which really lowers that barrier for patients because, you know, nobody wants to poke themselves every day. It can be a really also a psychologically taxing process. I mean, you're, you know, kind of sticking a needle in. Yes, it's a tiny insulin needle, but, again, it's not with, you know, get a little blood, you know, and it hurts. So, but the hunger signaling The satiety part works in a couple of different ways with this drug. It not only So, it slows down digestion. So, transit times, so that is uh by design. Uh that helps with the feeling of fullness. But then there are also receptors in the hypothalamus in our brain, which is kind of the control center for hunger, and it really it So, it'll you know, we have receptor It'll cross the blood-brain barrier, hit those receptors in the hypothalamus, and actually shut those off. Shuts off the neurons that actually stimulate the hunger and then turns on the neurons that actually promote satiety. So, as well as a whole host of other parts of the brain that it act that it'll have an effect, but you know, the end goal is like, "I don't feel hungry. I don't have this hedonic need to finish my plate, and then order seconds and thirds." So, for a lot of people, the way they describe it, or at least the way I've described it, because I am uh I've been on this medication since 2022, it's uh the struggle and the the whole willpower thing is now just instead of my hunger being at an 11, it's now at like a four. It's like it's actually manageable. So, I can actually live my life and have a nice dinner with friends, and actually focus on the conversation and not think about how hungry I am, and then pretend like everything's okay, and then mind my portions. Um I got to, you know, drink a glass of water with every bite, do all whatever little tricks that a lot of fitness people seem to, you know, promote, like, "Oh, make sure you chew 30 times. To make sure you chew everything thoroughly and then swallow, and then take a you know, take a glass sip of water, and then make sure that you are mindful and do some reflection before you eh chow down on your meal." I It just I can't tell you, for a lot of people who aren't, you know, high-level athletes Like, the even so, I'm sure there are plenty of high-level athletes who still who might be struggling with this. And the it doesn't have to I guess I'm very I don't know why people feel some type Like, they really think that diet and exercise still needs to be hard, and I think the myth here that needs to be busted is that it's still hard. It's really still You still have to meal prep. You still have to mind your calories. You still have to show up at the gym and do your best every day. You still have to be mindful of recovery. That all All of that stuff still applies. But like now, I just don't have this like innate urge to, you know, shovel whatever food you know, is in the fridge. And it doesn't have to be like, "Oh, a lot of people seem to think that I'm out Like, people who are on this are just shoveling Oreo cookies, you know, into their face." There are plenty of people who even if you gave me and others like a very clean like boring, bland bodybuilder diet of chicken breast, broccoli, and rice, I will eat my way through it, and my stomach will be expanded, and I will still be hungry. Like, I it's the worst feeling in the world being incredibly bloated with three cups of broccoli, rice, and dried chicken breast, and still feeling like I my hunger is out of control. It is the worst feeling in the world. Steve, let me tell tell you. So, this yeah, it it just It's wild to me you know, and people who don't struggle with hunger or who haven't failed a diet or haven't had any weight issues, it's hard for them to put imagine what that's like, and it's understandable. I can see why people would feel some type of way about it. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a tough one, because on one hand, I mean, look, in a perfect world, everyone would just eat healthy and lift weights and everyone would just live their life perfectly, and we'd all be jacked out of our minds. But the the thing that I observed with a lot of fitness people, both in jiu-jitsu and out, is that for a job that is supposed to require a lot of empathy with your customers, many of them have very little empathy, and seem unable to imagine what life would be like if you're not a young, jacked 20-year-old who lives in the gym all day. I mean, a lot of the people that I know in our community do not fit that demographic, you know. They may have medical ailments or conditions that make it very hard for them to just go and do CrossFit all day long. One of my buddies, Mike Mahaffey, the uh the Old Bastard Jiu-Jitsu guy, I mean, he's got rheumatoid arthritis. He's been dealing with it for years. Like, if you take a picture of him and look at his feet, they look like they're AI-generated, because they just they don't is like his toes aren't going in the right direction, you know. Stuff like that, medical conditions like that can render it very difficult for people to just eat their fruits and veggies and and lift and get yolked out of their minds. But, at the same time, I find that many experts in the space Well, I guess experts isn't the right word. I find that many sports coaches in the space will oversimplify this, and say, "Well, it's just calories in, calories out. Just lift a lot." And if you fail to do it, the judgment is there's something wrong with you if you can't do it, cuz I did it. So, why can't you do it? Is it your willpower? Do you not have the discipline? Do you not have the drive? And that level of judgment is always just kind of one level underneath there. I'd love to hear maybe you guys riff on that. Kristy, I mean, you deal with this a lot too, because I know that you work, some of the myth busting that you do has to do with beauty and cosmetics and and skin. What are your thoughts on that, on the kind of judgment that these people sometimes bring into this? Speaker 3: What it really reminds me of, I think it's it's quite true, and I think it's positive that the fitness industry is starting to reckon with this. Women, for the most part, go through way more hormonal dances and dynamics than men do. So, I can see Crystal like we Nobody else could see her, but I can see Crystal shaking her head. Yes. First off, we all go through puberty, which you have this whole dance of hormones that has to do all of these things. And, you know, it's changing how your body works. It changes how your body is what tissues are growing, your reproductive system, oil glands, all sorts of things are happening. And so, we think of some of the hallmarks as, you know, boys will go undergo their voice changes, you start seeing muscle, and you start seeing hair, and you start seeing breasts, and you start seeing acne, and it's it's absolutely And then all the things going on your own in in your mind, because of course, puberty does affect how the brain works as well. Now, when you take women, every month, their body is going through after puberty, their body is going through a hormonal dance, because you've got these balances and shifts of hormones that are allowing for the reproductive cycle. Just when you think you've gotten a hold of that, and it's like, "Okay, I know how this is working. I can control, you know If I have symptoms that go with my cycle," you just get a hold of that, and then you hit perimenopause where all of your hormones are going to start shifting again. And a lot of the things, not all, but many of the things that happened during puberty, such as acne, how your body deals with weight, how it heals, how it things like brain fog, how your brain is working, all of these things can start happening again. And for the longest time, it was very much this shrugging of, "Well, it doesn't happen to me, so it must not be happening to you." And that's very much how older women were or it's not even older women, because it's perimenopause can start in your 30s. These hormonal changes can absolutely start in your 30s. But there was this perception of, "Oh, well, that must just be an older woman thing, you know. It must be all in their head," you know. And we're now understanding that no, absolutely not. These are serious hormonal things. And some people go through puberty and perimenopause, and everything just works in concert, and they have no side effects, and everything's awesome, but the vast majority of people, that is not the case. The vast majority of people notice something, whether it's, you know, hot flashes, or whether it's I my weight is changing. A lot of women, when their hormones start shifting during or getting close to perimenopause, all of a sudden, you know, you went for a walk, you went to the gym, you lifted some weights, and you looked great. And then, all of a sudden, your body's changing. And that's where I sort of see a lot of this is you've got you know, they're you know, everything is changing and they have no control over it. And it has nothing to do with the diet plan or the workout routine or that they're not trying hard. They're doing everything they were before. It's that there is something going on in their body that they don't have control over. And there is absolutely no shame in finding pharmaceutical, well-researched solutions and researching those solutions to help people maintain a healthier, more active, and just just not to have all of that extra stress on top of it. And and female athletes notice it as well. Like you you have athletes who who are they're able to do jiu-jitsu or or whatever sport they're doing, then, all of a sudden, it's like, "Whoa, wait a minute, my shoulder's frozen," or, "My joints aren't working properly." Why wouldn't you find a solution for that? If your joints aren't working or if your knees aren't working and you can't go to your HIIT class or your jiu-jitsu class because everything is seizing up and it's hormonally or based on those types of perimenopause or menopausal changes, why wouldn't you find a pharmaceutical solution to fix that so you can get on with your life, and doing all these things that we know extend your quality of life and, you know, just make your quality of life that much better. It's almost like this penance that women are expected to pay. And I think there's sort of a very it's Again, it's a bit snarky, but, you know, it's like, "God, if if men had menopause, this would not be an issue. This would be on every," you know, "all the research and medical" type thing, you know, "medical um" you know, "institutes looking at these hormonal changes and how to fix them." But because it's women, it's like, "Oh, you know, that's a woman thing." And I think that that trickles down when you've got a 20-year-old influencer who is doesn't have a hot flash, and has no concept of what a hot flash is or brain fog, you know, or frozen shoulder, it's like, "Oh, well, that's that's not a me problem." That's a shame. Yeah. Speaker 2: Very well said. And you actually opened the door here to something that one of my most requested topics, which is talking about perimenopause. Again, I think I've said that in jiu-jitsu, I think the 40-plus female demographic is the most criminally underserved demographic in the sport. It is rapidly growing. A huge percentage of our listenership are plus-40 women. And that Honestly, I think that is where the growth is that you're going to see in jiu-jitsu. I mean, there's only there's only so many jacked, young, 20-year-old gym bros in the world, right? At some point, we're going to grow this sport elsewhere. And I think that where we see a lot of older hobbyists come in, uh and especially older women, that is where we see a lot of growth in the sport. So, I have had many people ask me to talk about perimenopause, and what it is, and how that impacts jiu-jitsu. And I, I mean, I'm not an expert, but I am well aware that this is one of those like your-mileage-may-vary things, where like you said, Kristy, it's different for everyone. But Crystal, I'd love your thoughts on this, if this is something that you have any any wisdom or insight into as well. Speaker 4: Yeah. Speaker 2: Maybe we should explain what it is actually, cuz I'm guessing a lot of the especially people who are, you know, on on the male side of the spectrum here, are probably not even sure what perimenopause is. So, maybe just a quick explanation of what it is would be helpful. Speaker 4: Yeah, so I guess starting from menopause, and then kind of a work my way backwards. So, females usually get a period once a month. And in order to get that period once a month, there has to be a concert of hormones: estrogen, uh LH, FSH, estrogen, progesterone. To be honest, the female cycle in medical school was probably the bane of my existence. Things that I hated learning, I yeah. So, I am coming back to this as a 43-year-old who is now retaking a course on menopause uh, you know, from Dr. Rachel Rubin. Uh Kristy, your quote about men and, you know, if this was a male problem, really reminded me of the Dr. Rachel Rubin interview uh on Peter Attia's uh podcast not that long ago. And so, basically, you know, you have so many eggs in reserve in your ovaries and they stop being released. Your hormones that are once all in concert start to get, you know, end up stopping. Like you just end up having very low estrogen, progesterone because there's no need, right? You know, you don't need to The body's telling us we don't need to have babies anymore, so let's just call it a day and live your best old life as best as you can. Perimenopause is like right before, you know, your periods stop and your all of your hormones take a total crap. So, the problem with perimenopause is that it's not a laboratory diagnosis, right? So, because the hormones are fluctuating kind of intermittently, rapidly, so you can't necessarily It's not practical to go to the lab and like time it to like when you're having a symptom or a hot flash, be like, "Okay, see? You see the the progesterone is like abnormal." Um so, many times women who are experiencing symptoms such as hot flashes, insomnia is very common, frozen shoulder, low libido to no libido, anxiety, brain fog, vaginal dryness, you know, vaginal irritation, like uh urinary tract infections. All of that is just like a a wide constellation of symptoms that, you know, sometimes uh gets overlooked. Like people will just take a look at the anxiety component and then just offer like a medication for anxiety or take a look at like the the urinary tract infection and just hand you an antibiotic, right, versus like thinking like, "What else could this be? What else could actually explain all these different sort of symptoms that a person is having?" And so, perimenopause can start maybe, you know, somewhere between 5 and 10 years before menopause truly hits, before everything officially stops. But it's that up and down of the hormones that really causes symptoms and can cause some real psychological distress. Personally, the last year Was it earlier this year, I competed in my first jiu-jitsu competition, and I had a nervous breakdown afterwards and really got very emotional a week later, and just started crying because I had the joint pain, I had the brain fog, my skin was like I had eczema in places I didn't understand, I had hot flashes, I had insomnia, like I couldn't sleep, and every morning, I would wake up with this worsening dread of life, when objectively, my life is actually amazing. Like, and the amount of energy that I had was so low that in my 30s, I could work a 24-hour shift in the hospital, I was still lifting 4 days a week, I was still getting stuff done. The exhaustion was just unreal and like Yeah. So, you know, turns out perimenopause. Sought uh three different providers for an opinion on how to get it treated, but uh yeah, it's a a real thing and I I think the pendulum is go starting to swing in the opposite direction. Physicians, female physicians are now really starting to come out. Um there was recently two at least two urologists, female urologists who went to the FDA to start one to remove the uh warning label on estrogen, which was amazing cuz that's also a a huge part of like why people sort of are afraid to talk about hormones in in women, is because there's this black box warning, higher risk of cancer, I I believe. And turns out that data was just uh a couple things wrong with that with that interpretation of that data. And so, um there's that. And then also in the United States, there's no FDA-approved product for women. So, if you are prescribed testosterone for women for replacement therapy, what they do is they prescribe you the male equivalent, and then they adjust the dosage for females, which is about a tenth of the like gel-like dose, or people have gotten it through a compounding pharmacy. But, yeah, it can be a real life changer for people for women, and I would say please go talk to somebody about it because these are real symptoms. And there are plenty of providers on who are certified through the Menopause Society who are very pro, "Let's take a look at this from a clinical and a holistic standpoint and let's talk about your quality of life," because so many women have suffered and so many relationships have been affected by Man, that anxiety and depression, it's real and it it has a huge impact on the way you show up to training, the way you show up to your family, your friends, your spouse, all of it. Speaker 2: This is a a really profound way to maybe tie this up, and it's a big topic. Uh I want to use this to maybe get into this whole discussion around the perception and the the ethics of altering your hormones medically. I am old enough that I remember in the '80s, in the '90s, when I was a kid, you know, there was the steroid scandal in bodybuilding and professional wrestling, and steroids were sold to me as a child as just the absolute worst thing. Any- Anything like that. I remember going into school, and they had this gigantic poster in the school gym that showed like all of the things that's going to happen to you if you ever take this stuff, right? And like you know, your testicles are going to shrink, and your hair's going to fall out, and you're going to get acne, and you're going to turn into this rage monster. And look, a lot of that is true. Like these are side effects that happen. But it was very much that kind of fear-based marketing that was very prevalent in terms of how we educated children in the '80s, like the Just Say No campaign and all of that stuff, right? And on one hand, I think it's good to in- you know, to discourage kids from getting loaded up on this stuff. But, of course, I think there is also an argument to be made that, look, if you are a 55-year-old man, and you are suffering from low testosterone, and it is legitimately altering the quality of your life for the worse, there shouldn't be a stigma around going to a doctor and getting a legitimate therapeutic prescription to resolve that. I have friends who are older guys, you know, they're they're not trying to win Masters 3 or anything. They're just they want to have a higher quality of life, and so they take a doctor-prescribed regiment, and all the power to them. I've got a friend who um had a thyroid procedure, which completely killed his ability to produce this stuff naturally. So, of course, for him, it makes sense to take this stuff. My concern now, though, is that, and I'm talking from the male perspective here, I feel like in our sport, and really maybe the broader culture as a whole, the pendulum is shifting way too far now from the avoidance perspective into the acceptance perspective, where you've got kids who aren't even 20 now who are trying to sort out the you know, the best gear they can take so that they can win world championships, right, for jiu-jitsu, or just even perform well. You've got folks like Gordon Ryan talking about how, you know, "I'm okay dying in my 50s because I'd rather live a remarkable life and die at 50 than live a regular life and die at 80." Well, he's well on track to do that, unfortunately. And I really worry about this, because this is the kind of mistake that once you make, it's very hard to undo. You know, if you create a a dependency on synthetic test- testosterone when you're in your teens or your early 20s, you can't just Ctrl+Z that and undo that later in life. But again, for me, I am someone who has seen the emotional conditioning here on both sides. I came up in a time where testosterone was very, very taboo, and it was just a universal no. And now I see that the popular culture for the youth today is moving very much in the other direction. I'm probably not the best person to have a an evidence-based conversation on this, so I would love to turn it over to you two to talk about really what should, and not just men, but also women, you talked about this as well, what are your feelings on hormone therapy and how it should be used safely, if at all? Kristy, maybe I'll start with you, uh just to give you a chance to talk about this. Speaker 3: Of course, because my background's not MD, and Crystal Crystal's the one who's going to be able to talk about about how it actually works clinically, but Speaker 2: See, this is why talking to doctors is so annoying. If you were a podcaster, Speaker 4: I'd be like, "Oh dude, this is the stack you want to take." Speaker 3: No, oh gosh. Oh, my gosh. Speaker 2: If you were a podcaster, you would have a whole rant about here's where you take, and you'd have sponsors lined up, and you would tell me which mushrooms I need to put in my ears or whatever to- But anyway, okay. Give me the boring science. Speaker 4: Oh man. Speaker 3: Well, the mushrooms Don't go into the mushrooms. I see them all the time on Instagram. I don't want to drink mushrooms in my coffee. Speaker 4: Oh, no. I want coffee. Speaker 3: The um I know what caffeine does to me and I'm totally okay with that. The what the aspect I think of, and and again, I was thinking about this when Crystal was talking about hormone replacement therapy for women, so with the estrogen and the '90s, where, all of a sudden, it was like, "Oh, my gosh, it's going to cause breast cancer." And then, all of a sudden, everybody stopped prescribing it. And there is Again, being a a story uh being in sort of the entertainment media side and storytelling, you can see in television, especially in the UK. So, if you look at stuff that was right around the '90s, so before that paper came out, you had in these stories, you know, you like murder mysteries and things like that, the older woman is taking estrogen because it's helping all of her sy- because that's what they were doing. It's like, "Oh, my gosh, this is an amazing therapy. It's it's fixing all these symptoms," and then it was gone again from TV, and I I find that very very profound, how you had one paper And as Crystal pointed out, it is very well known for having some flaws. And one of the things it did is it didn't when you're looking at populations, you want to understand the age of the people, especially with something like uh age-dependent hormonal shifts. You want to understand who you're studying. And so, the last time I was looking this up, and Crystal can correct me if I'm wrong on this, because again, with her MD background, she's going to be more up-to-date, but if you start taking hormone replacement therapy before I believe it's the I believe it's, you know, sort of 40s, 50s, when the symptoms first start, that cancer the sort the breast cancer the cancer risk, pretty well gone. It's when you start taking hormone replacement therapy later in life that you can see that increase in breast cancer. Uh but again, it's not huge. It was made out to be this big thing, but the actual increase wasn't really that significant when you consider some of the other medications and therapies and risk factors that are out there. But with something You know, the reason I mention that is, I think we've been, and coming out of the '80s, '90s, and even now, we're really bad at educating people and talking about these controversial subjects. So, understanding the good stuff is just as important as understanding the bad stuff, because it gives you that ability to get a full picture of what you're doing. So, you know, if you're really struggling and um you think that testosterone, whether or not you're a young guy or an older guy, you're like, "Oh, my gosh, I want to take this." It's really good to know, understand what what the effects can be on things like cholesterol, your blood pressure, you know, other other, you know, aspects of your body, and get a full picture and understand if that's really worth the risk for you. Um there was a great This is getting more to steroids and performance performance-enhancing anabolic steroids, but I was reading a little while ago about a an event that happened in Vegas a little while ago. And starting off with Vegas, you know it's going to be a be a spectacle. But it was uh sort of this idea of, you know, performance-enhancing-friendly sporting event. So, like the steroid Olympics, and the Enhanced Games, which is a very interesting concept, because it sort of releases into that question, well, do they enhance all sports? Do they enhance all athletes, as as Crystal, you know, touched on earlier? And the one that I read was I didn't follow the whole Games, I didn't follow, but there was one instance where it was an Olympic swimmer. So, he went, "I'm going to do this. I want to see if I can break my if I can how well I can perform on steroids in in this event." And um it's anecdotal, but I believe he gassed out. Lots of muscle mass, but ended up gassing out because it didn't necessarily enhance his performance. And again, it's that idea of just uh talking about that I think is really important. If you've got a young guy who's thinking about doing steroids for, you know, a sporting event, for swimming, for something like that, and just say, "Well, having access to that information and talking about it, you know, it's if you take steroids, you're probably going to get a lot more muscular. Like, we know that. But to what degree You know, knowing the details, I think, are really important. And I think that whole thing from the '80s of, "Oh, let's just say it's bad. Don't do it. This is what it's going to do to everybody." Well, it's not true. And so, then you're losing trust with an entire group of people. It's way better to understand, you know, and then if somebody does go through with taking something like that, you know, uh health and science is meant on educa- you know, our our goal is always to educate and help improve people's lives. Like, that's that's sort of the tenets of science and medicine. So, if somebody is taking steroids, it's really good to know that you might want to be checking your cholesterol levels. You might want to be keeping an eye out for some of these things so that your health can be maintained. It's um And if you don't know, if you don't know that, that could be problematic. So, yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. Awesome. Crystal, how about you? Speaker 4: Yeah. So, as a physician and being sort of in the fitness space, I was always very interested in, you know, steroids, like people who are on steroids. And so, at one point, I did hire a coach for a consult from and I kind of phrased it as, "I'm in med school and I'm going to be probably interacting with a lot of bodybuilders or powerlifters who are taking steroids. Like, what are some medical things, you know, from a family medicine perspective, can I do to kind of help, you know, what you see out there in the world?" And uh like Kristy touched upon, you know, high blood pressure, messed-up cholesterol, HDL, the good cholesterol, tanks and your LDL or the bad cholesterol goes up. And those are like the two big things that like, you know, and then if you're taking diuretics to pee out to dehydrate yourself on purpose, you can get some electrolyte imbalances that can be problematic. But, I feel like blood pressure and cholesterol, like pretty bread-and-butter standard things. And so, I've seen and I do treat a lot of people who are in sports, who are in untested federations, who need some blood pressure medication and I'm happy to give it to them. We really did The medical community really did themselves a disservice in the '80s by saying that They actually came out saying that these drugs don't work, that per- steroids don't work, because that was on like I was reading like some manifesto, like one of those underground steroid books from the '80s or '90s, and like it started out as such. And it was just like, "Haha! Like these doctors are idiots. And, you know, they do work. And like, let me tell you how they're going to work and and all that those protocols." So, I think that's one of the big things is making sure that you have a physician that you're working with, because they can check your blood pressure. And with chronic high blood pressure, that's when you see the cascade of things, you know, failing. Your kidneys start to fail, you know, all of your blood vessels will start to harden up, and so that can lead to heart attacks, that can lead to strokes, all those things that you don't want to see, and then cardiac problems. So, heart failure, and that all, you know, and this is my hypothesis, I really feel like most of the people who end up with some sort of problem down the line from steroid use has been due to unchecked chronic high blood pressure. Whether or not, you know, and that's just me sort of anecdotally from everything that I've kind of seen and witnessed, people will push the gear too high, people won't bother getting their labs done or getting their blood pressure checked, and then, boom. But I really wish that, at some point, the kind of safer use model and kind of the education on steroids kind of makes its way to the jiu-jitsu crowd. I know it's around in the bodybuilding space, there are people who do talk about pros and cons, side effects, the whole like you know, mechanism of action of all of these drugs, what the studies are, you know, "Do we have good human trials? Do we just have rodent data? Why would you use this compound versus that compound?" It Because the Yeah, you're right. The once you start, it's some of the side effects don't go away. I had a consult where a female had uh was wondering about, you know, "What's going on? You know, I'm on hormone replacement therapy for perimenopause, but my voice is starting to change a little and I sing, and I'm a singer, and it's really," you know, and then you come to find out that the dose is just so high, it's higher than what I have seen people take for the Z competition. So, I think that as long as you are being mindful of, you know, and working with a doctor and not trying to experiment with yourself with these things, um I think is a really great first step. And to not necessarily be overly afraid of it. The dosage matters, because the other thing that I do see in the medical community is that there's a lot of people who are pro using these hormones for, you know, gender-affirming therapy, and then, but all of a sudden, you know, perimenopause, we like testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone are like the devil. So, I I don't understand where some of uh my physician colleagues' biases come from. But you really have to adjust dosages. You have to make sure you're not You're doing the You're giving somebody the minimum amount that is going to help with their quality of life and their symptoms. Speaker 2: Got it. Got it. Well, one closing thought for both of you. This is a great transition here. I'd love to talk about how just regular folks can maybe shed some of those biases and learn to make smarter decisions when it comes to their health and their their knowledge of these treatments in jiu-jitsu. The example I often give is, I mean, you will hear people rail about the evils of big pharma, and they'll use that as an excuse to avoid vaccination. But then, they will also take, you know, unproven remedies or because they heard about it on a podcast that is made by the same big pharma. And you also brought up that when it comes to hormone therapy, there's a lot of mixed signals that you get, where people will, you know, they will be pro performance-enhancing drugs in one place, but something like Ozempic is like, "Oh, no, we can't have that." And it's more of a a vibes-based decision than anything that is actually grounded in science. And I am sympathetic because it is really hard to learn this stuff. There's a reason why I'm not a doctor in this stuff and you guys are, because it takes a lot of effort and a lot of time to learn this, and people are busy. So, it is really hard to kind of overcome those biases that people put in your head from from media about what's good and what's bad, and how to question this stuff. What And maybe Kristy, I'll lead off with you. What would you like to see just general pop do when it comes to how they assess these things? How can we take the emotion out of our decision making and just learn to get better scientific facts and take better care of our health using a an evidence-based practice, instead of a I guess, what you would call a podcast-based practice? Speaker 3: The fashionable mode, yes. The fashion set, what's fashionable this week. Yeah, I like to use I I'm going to switch back to the beauty industry on this one, and um it's sort of the layback skeptic hat. I'd love to see people put back on when they're evaluating this stuff. In the beauty industry, there are three things that work exceptionally well. Well, four, but three things you could do at home that constantly come up for people who are often women, but a lot more men now, who are concerned about how they're aging and wanting to look great as they age. That's one of the biggest things that we run into on the the show. And the three things that work really well are sunscreen, that's been around since the 1930s. I want to say zinc oxide. They came out the zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, they started in the 1930s. That may be wrong, so don't quote me on that, but that's been around for almost a 100 years now. Uh we know it works really, really well. Retin- uh So, the brand name, so retinoic acids that people use on their skin. Also, prescription, mostly, in North America still, works incredibly well and there's a lot of scientific data that shows that it can help with a lot of sun damage, skin stuff, wrinkles. Uh and the third thing that's been coming out quite a bit is um for collagen is not taking a collagen supplement, it is lifting weights at the gym and lifting heavy. If you want to increase the collagen in your skin, facial skin, skin in general, get a gym membership. You know, that is going to be the biggest bang for your buck and lift some weights because there's enough robust medical research now that shows that not just in your, you know, your bones, your connective tissue, it also increases collagen in in your skin. They're relatively inexpensive things to do. Those are the top three. It's not taking a supplement. Uh even vitamin C serums that cost hundreds of dollars are not really going to do much at all. You know, all of these new ingredients that are always popping up that, you know, what they're doing is they're draining your wallet. So, the sort of next direction that you go after that is things like surgery. Not everyone wants to do that, and that's not a, you know, endorsement at all, but it's very limited. And so, people often don't like that kind of nuance of, "This is what we can do, but you're still going to age. This is what we can do to make you look pretty phenomenal, but some of it's going to require some work and, really, it's two things. Really, two things you put on your skin." And people often don't like that and it goes, "See, but I want a quick fix." And so, if you can put that nice skeptic's hat on of, "Wait a minute, it does it sound like I'm being sold a quick fix here?" I think that would put a stop to a lot. Even just that pause of, "Okay, before I jump in on this, is this a quick fix? Is this a supplement? Is this Is this something that really can't do anything for me before I open my wallet?" I think that would help with just the at-home education. I'm curious to hear what you think, Crystal. Speaker 4: You know, uh uh Kristy, you know, it's hard because I don't, you know, person like we can't have buy-in and trust with every single person, and I really feel for people out there who may not have a very supportive environment, whether it's their gym, whether it's their social circle. To be quite honest, I would say if, you know, you don't feel like you have somebody to turn to, I honestly feel like ChatGPT or some sort of AI tool, like, "Hey, I'm having some feelings about Ozempic. Can you help me construct like white hat argument and a red team argument for the pros and cons, or help me sort this out?" And that's a great place to start, because at least you it can kind of do the some of the work for you, and it and it'll also give you a balanced approach. It will give you the pros and cons of using the drug versus not using the drug, and then it'll help you kind of create, you know, an argument that seems fair and balanced. So, honestly, I I would start there because it can also it can pull anything off from the internet. So, it can pull up studies, PubMed studies, if there are some available. It can do all of that. So, honestly, I would start there and then work my way and try and find maybe look at social media to kind of see who is using terms, who isn't speaking in absolutes, who kind of tries to put a little bit of nuance to everything and isn't trying to sell you like immediately sell you a bunch of stuff. Yes, I understand that some people do need to make a living because you can't always I the monetization on Instagram is not all that great, but you can after a while, you start to realize like who is just saying some stuff because they're sponsored, who's saying nice things about the product because they're a sponsored athlete versus somebody who truly sort of believes like, "This is it," or, "This is full disclosure," like, "I am indirectly tied to, you know, a a protein shot. So, every now and again, I will say, 'Hey, this is like really important,' but also food's important." Speaker 2: Very well said, both of you. Yeah, and god, that is something I can relate very hard to, the uh the trustworthiness of sponsors in the podcast space. I mean, BJJ Mental Models has never run a sponsor. We're completely funded by our our premium subscribers, and it's not that I'm against sponsorships. I mean, I will happily plug any service that I believe in, but the challenge I have is so many of the the sponsors that float around, especially in the jiu-jitsu space, I I mean, I wouldn't trust them to hold my bag, let alone promote something that people put in their bodies. I mean, I I won't name names, but one of the most famous jiu-jitsu black belts in the whole world, his company reached out to me and they wanted to be They wanted me to promote his product and uh I said, "No." And they replied and said, "Why? I mean, don't you want to work with this person?" And I basically replied and said, "Look, I'm a big fan of this person. I'm a big fan of you. I love it, but a 50-second Google search revealed to me that this product that you're selling doesn't work. It just doesn't. It's not based on science at all, and even I can tell that, and I'm not comfortable putting my name behind it." I never heard back from them again. [laughter] But that is, unfortunately, podcasts, I mean, this is It's a hard industry to make money in, right? And especially in jiu-jitsu, where you're going to be dealing with a lot of kind of weird, skeezy companies at the best of times. I always say you've got Like you said, if you're getting advice from an influencer, you have to really pressure-test their trustworthiness and what are they really in it for. There's so many people who have YouTube channels or podcasts that are really using it as kind of like a marketing vehicle and and what they're really selling, I mean, they probably believe in it, but it might be vibes-based more than evidence-based and you just got to be really, really careful. So, that's I mean, for both of you, that's why I'm a big fan of the work that both of you do, because I know that it can be tracked back to to evidence. I know that you guys wouldn't promote something that is just complete BS. And maybe that's as good a time as any to to do those promotions. So, I guess going again from uh left to right, uh Kristy, if people want to learn more about you, I mean, you actually have published fiction, so if people want to learn about that, or actually maybe work with you, how can they find you and how can they contact you? Don't forget to plug the science stuff as well, cuz I know that you're doing a lot of really interesting work in that space. Speaker 3: They can find me at my website, kristycharish.com. K-R-I-S-T-I-C-H-A-R-I-S-H.com. I'm also on Instagram and Bluesky and Twitter and so you can and Facebook, and so you can reach out to me there as well. If people want to explore working with me as a myth buster, blog writer or for various other writing services and content curation, they can reach out to me there. Uh I'm easy to find. And if you want to keep up to date on my novels and what I've got coming out in the future and and find out about the super secret sci-fi that's coming out next summer, you can sign up for my newsletter, and uh my Substack and you'll be one of the first people to find out. Speaker 2: Awesome. Amazing. And Crystal, how about you? Speaker 4: Um you know, mostly, I'm front My front-facing stuff is mostly on Instagram and uh yeah. The RP YouTube channel, all of that organizational backend stuff, you know, is all me. I Mike's in front of the camera, and then we have Scott the video guy uh working behind the camera, but all that scheduling stuff and budget and all the boring stuff that people are just like, "Uh, these are details I don't wish to care about," uh that's all me. So, but every now and again, I'll pop in and uh make an appearance. I think yeah, the protein powder review video uh that recently came out last week, I gave my special input. Speaker 2: I am super curious to to learn about that. I could do a whole episode just on protein powders. That is a fascinating topic. Speaker 4: Oh man. Yeah, uh the yeah. Yeah, you should just watch it. It is my unscientific opinion um of all of the stuff, so. [laughter] You You'll just have to see it. Speaker 2: I will take a look. But thank you both of you. I will put links to everyone's stuff in the show notes, so if you want to reach out to to the Kristy or Crystal collective here, I'll put the Instagram links and the contact info in the show notes. I always tell people, you know, the most important thing is to find a few voices that you can trust and get info from them. Most folks on Instagram are pretty good at responding, so I'll put your links there if anyone wants to reach out and ask questions, or maybe get some further guidance. I'll also put links to everything that we make. It's easy to find, though. It's all at bjjmentalmodels.com. Our podcast is completely free. We've got long-form chats like this plus the mini-episodes that give you a quick-hit concept that helps your jiu-jitsu. We've got one of those every week. All of that's free, and I always tell people to get on our newsletter as well, also free. If you do want to level up with us, BJJ Mental Models Premium is the way that you do that. It is the world's largest library of audio courses on jiu-jitsu concepts, mental models, strategy, tactics, mindset, um the kind of stuff that generally doesn't get covered well in other instructionals. I always tell people if you like Audible and if you like MasterClass, and you wish someone made something like that, but about jiu-jitsu, well, there's good news, that exists. And if you go up to our higher tiers, we also offer direct coaching from some of the best black belts in the world. We've been getting a lot of requests for reviews from Amanda Bruse and Josh McKinney recently. They're both on our coaching team. So, if you're fans of them, uh you can get direct coaching from them. And we also have opened up a business tier for people who run gyms or other jiu-jitsu businesses. We've built a pretty successful funnel and process for helping people get their marketing and their reputation management off the ground in a a very tricky sport to do that in. So, if you're interested in that, all of that is at bjjmentalmodels.com. Again, I'll put a link in the show notes. But Kristy and Crystal, thank you so much. I'm so glad we got a chance to do this one. This is a really great chat. Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having us on. Speaker 3: Thank you very much, Steve. Speaker 2: Most welcome. Thank you both of you and thank you to the listeners, too. We will talk to you in the next one. See you then.