ramble [Music] at the start of every new year about half of americans say they want to lose weight despite the overwhelming evidence that dieters regain in the long term today we ask the question did new year’s resolution diets really work this is a hot dog as a sandwich ketchup is a smoothie yeah i put ice in my cereal so what that makes no sense hot dog is a sandwich a hot dog is a sandwich welcome to our podcast of hot dogs as a sandwich the show we break down the world’s biggest food debates i’m your host josh air and i’m your host nicole inaudible and today we are very excited to be joined by casey johnston casey’s a writer editor and a lifter of very heavyweights since 2016 she’s been writing the column ask a small woman published by the hairpin vice himself and she currently authors an incredibly lovely and insightful sub stacked newsletter called she’s a beast welcome casey hello casey thank you thank you for having me i’m so happy to be here yeah thanks so much uh again i am a personal fan of ask see that’s why i had to move away from that name no one including me can say it it’s tough it’s a small woman ask a small woman ask a swollen ask a sword woman ask a swollen i did it wow nicole you’re better than all of us congratulations you win you win uh but now the the official name of the subsequent newsletter is she’s a beast a newsletter by a swole woman yeah it’s a swole woman’s newsletter this all went very off the cuff so i’m like any combination of those words i feel i feel fine about it it makes sense it makes sense uh but as i said you know i’m a personal fan i read the newsletter uh every week and what i love about the way that you communicate about diet and exercise is that it it brings more people in as opposed to keeping people out which you know i grew up on the worst place on the internet the bodybuilding.com forums wow yeah nicole i was in the trenches oh i was in the trenches people like if you eat fruit you’re ruining your diet you need to take these nine kinds of creatine also here’s some radical right a 15 year politics but no you speak about diet and exercise in such an empathetic way that takes into account mental health and that’s something i really appreciate and i think something that our listeners would really appreciate as we absolutely hurdle into the new year where 48 of people consistently year in and year out say they want to lose weight yes i mean i think i mean how do i follow that up i i really try to um think about what brought me into like i lift i lift weights but it was a long journey to getting to lift weights i think you josh you just said you uh started lifting weights i think you you played sports in high school i think i’ve read high school being in a weight room and you were doing lots of stuff like basically from when you were a child yeah i mean since i was like 12 years old it was like here’s here’s a bench press figure it out and so i’ve been lifting consistently for like 17 years which is weird to think about that’s a long time so yeah i’ve only been lifting weights for like seven years i came to it pretty late even though i played sports in high school and like theoretically i think should have been doing some strength training back then like i look back now and i’m like i would have been way better at these sports if i had gotten into strength training but they didn’t really do that for girls they had us doing lots of like intensity intervals like i don’t think we did burpees but like push-ups and crunches and stuff like that and it was just it was miserable but also i don’t think helped us very much at our sport i would say yeah what sport if i can ask uh this was i played field hockey in the fall and then lacrosse oh hell yeah spring and i did a little bit of swimming too so um all stuff that would have really been helped by some upper body strength i would say yeah i’ll say but yeah i started off being a runner and like really focused on weight loss and really focused on dieting and just like if i can just be smaller and smaller and smaller i’ll be happier and happier and happier but it was like sort of going the opposite but i also didn’t know what else to do with my body like or working out like those things that venn diagram of working out and dieting and losing weight we’re like a circle and then when i finally found the right sort of way into strength training i was like oh these things are like a positive feedback loop and build on each other instead of just various guilt cycles of breaking myself down with exercise and dieting so now i try to sort of espouse that world view to everybody and i think overall i think lots of exercise different kinds of exercise can work for everybody but strength training has a particularly good kind of lifestyle element to it that i’ve really attached to i think not enough people know about or give a chance especially women so that’s what i’m about now yeah it’s really interesting the the thing you talked about with the guilt cycle in becoming like more miserable you had this idea in your head of like i want to lose weight and the way to lose weight is to run and starve myself and that will lead to happiness and i think it’s something that a lot of people overthink they think that the losing of the weight is what leads to happiness whereas if you could just skip the losing weight part and go straight to how do i make myself happy right yeah it’s like you think you need to go from a to b to get to c and it’s like there’s a way to go from a to c while not hitting that just really crappy guilt cycle at all so i mean like how did you kind of find that sense of happiness and self-esteem uh through the powerlifting it kind of helped that i went to sort of the very bottom of that hole of like where the happiness should have ostensibly been and sure looked and looked couldn’t find sometimes i have an empty happiness hole it happens the happiness hall is just empty when you reach in sometimes the happiness pit when you get to the very bottom turns out to be empty or there’s no you know whatever treasure is supposed to be at the bottom it’s not there that was a semi-revelatory experience for me but then as i continued doing strength training eventually you get to phases where um you can’t build any more strength unless you start to deliberately gain weight because you can’t build muscle beyond a certain point unless you also gain some body fat that was very scary for me but once i did that i was like i feel better and feel better about myself than i ever have in my entire life like i feel i feel amazing and i feel like i look amazing and that’s like but the previous version of me would not have thought that and that just revealed to me like these things are not the way you look and like how you feel or how you feel about yourself are not as connected as we are made to believe by all of the fitness and diet products out there that are like if you just lose weight like the happiness that you seek is just on the other side of that like 10 pounds or 20 pounds or whatever the case may be yeah but i mean it’s crazy because it seems like you know um body positivity body neutrality uh body acceptance whatever you want to call it it seems like it’s coming more and more to the forefront of what people are talking about these days however the number of people that respond they want to lose weight in the new year it just stays consistent i mean what what is the sort of work you think we like actually need to do to eventually get people to drop one the correlation between health and body weight and to the correlation between happiness and body weight it’s really really hard because it is so much about not our own behaviors one it’s not our own behaviors because it’s like the way that we’re marketed to or is so incredibly aggressive it’s like we can’t really control that and it’s very hard to overcome just like with mental fortitude and then what was the other point i was gonna make i’m completely blanking what was something that was the question about uh correlation between health i have this really awesome habit as a person where i ask nine questions in one question yeah yeah it’s super great well i didn’t i didn’t really have i think it was a fairly simple question i just like made up a two-part answer and then immediately forgot the second part but i think it’s it’s something like i think there is a correlation between like we feel a lot of people feel bad in their bodies like even just physically speaking we like feel in pain like i’ve i’ve had peers with back pain for several years now like when i was in my late 20s i would have my friends complaining of back pain and it was just like this is absolutely uh mental to borrow a term from british people it’s like you there’s there’s no realm in which somebody who’s only 28 years old should be in pain because they you know it’s because they’re sitting too much i think a lot of the time but um we also just feel bad and we want to feel a little bit better and the weight loss industrial complex has done a very good job of sort of in interpolating like binding those things up together when these things can be completely separate like the way that we eat and the way that we move the fact that we move does not have to be about weight loss yeah no 100 i mean that that’s something that you know i i work out every day it um has taken me a while to sort of figure out what i actually want to get from exercise because you know i i did sports in college i was a hammer thrower which is uh i don’t know a lot of people on the podcast it was really sick and so much of it was you know the big three power lifts and olympic lifting and then occasional plyometric type exercises but it was all you know how fast can you move one weight one time that was my entire training uh and you know i was like at a body weight of 270 pounds deadlifting like 565 and my body hurt all the time and then i got out of that sport and i was in the real regular world and i was like how do i interact with food and exercise now and so i’d go to the 24 hour fitness and i’d go you know front squat 400 pounds one time and then be like why why am i doing this and so it took a while for me to get to the point where i realized that it’s not the results that i’m actually after right the process is the result is a kind of mantra that i’ve been saying in my head like i i work out for the sake of working out because i know that makes me feel good and it’s not how i look in the mirror afterwards you know it’s like the working out is the thing that makes you feel good not the result that you get from it yes and i think there’s also a mindset too like when we are saying these things when we’re like oh it’s not about the weight like i would have heard this when i was 25 as like oh a you are already attractive as a person so it’s like not fair of you to tell me it’s not about how i look whatever um but also i think we have a kind of fundamental misunderstanding as well of like i think this is going to be really big in the next like 10 years we’re starting to get there but the idea of sort of body composition and muscle versus body weight as of metric like we’re already on the page of body weight is not super great i think even somebody who wants to quote unquote lose weight might know that that like bmi doesn’t tell the whole story and like um people of different body weights can look all different ways in large part because of muscle mass so i do think while it’s obviously my extreme prerogative because i love lifting so much i do think that a lot of people who are after weight loss are not actually really after losing weight per se they’re not after making the scale number go down because that’s it’s not it’s not even really what they need in terms of health if you’re looking to like lose 10 or 20 pounds you probably don’t need to lose that for your health you’re just like i mean we always here for aesthetics you should lose you know lose 10 of your weight and you’ll like be more healthy but i think that’s also really flawed um but i think we’re gonna get to a point where we realize if that’s like the sort of goal that you’ve had in mind while we’ve been so focused on weight loss what you actually want is not a change in your body weight you want a change in your body composition you probably want more muscle which we’ve been taught to fear for a very long time and then as a product of building muscle you can lose body fat at the same time this is like people are talking more and more about this in a way that’s i think positive because it reinforces the idea of thinking of your body as needing these habits of exercise and like exercise being good and integral to how we live versus it being a torture mechanism for making the number on the scale go down yeah [Music] there are few better foods to eat during the summer than a nice juicy grilled piece of chicken or steak or salmon 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free-range organic chicken pork raised crate free and wild-caught seafood so get summer sizzling started with the special butcher box deal for our listeners free bacon for the life of your membership plus ten dollars off holy smokes sign up today at butcherbox.com hotdog and use code hotdog to get one pack of free bacon in every box for the life your membership plus ten dollars off your first order that’s butcherbox.com hotdog and use code hotdog to claim this deal nicole what’s your relationship to i mean okay i don’t have a really did i make this up though didn’t you like peloton with my brother like like maybe once that’s awesome yeah like uh my question is like again the prompt is do new year’s resolution diets really work yes and like that’s the question i’m trying to answer we have to get back on topic here we’ll get back on topic i don’t think i personally don’t think they do i i mean with my have you ever done it like have you ever do you set new year’s resolutions never i mean like i write like a mood board like make a mood board and i share it like with a group of my girlfriends i’m like this is on my mood board and then i kind of like explain like what my dreams and like goals are for the year but i kind of forget them when march comes around i’m not gonna lie that’s a general imperative yeah and and the same goes like every of course i’ve written like be healthier or lose 15 pounds before x date but that never really happens and i don’t know if it’s just a personal thing or if it’s just like a universal thing it’s just i just don’t think they’re legitimate yeah no i mean i i think january 1st is a is a weird marker to set like i’m going to be skinny now yeah i think any time you’re you’re trying to put something out in the future and saying like i will be a quote unquote better person on this date it’s just setting you up for failure like in my opinion i think statistics would generally back up the fact that they don’t go work but my question for casey is like one what is a diet and two what does it mean for a diet to work true right because the term diet it’s become i mean literally um uh yo i’m new to like the internet i don’t know if trigger warnings abound i suppose but anytime the term diet is used people assume it in a negative way they think of the keto diet the atkins diet diets but when you just say my diet is eating three mini gingerbread kitkats because those fruits did you have one today dude yeah i’ve been eating them for breakfast they roll they’re in the office and that’s a part of my diet it’s something i don’t track calories i don’t track macros i try and eat 200 grams of protein a day yeah my diet is mini kitkats because they roll and they make me happy and that gives me energy throughout the day but casey what is a diet and what does it mean for a diet to quote unquote work yeah i mean a diet can be a diet is just like i think the etymology of the word diet which is something along the lines of like what we eat in a day it’s not it’s not necessarily about even changing your body weight generally it’s just what you eat um so if we were talking more specifically about a weight loss diet which is what most people are um who have a goal of weight loss or trying to do around new year’s do they work i mean i hate to get too philosophical but also this is like what does work mean you know like if if you’re if you have a specific goal of like i want to lose 10 pounds then the diet working would mean you lose 10 pounds but are you going to be happy if you lose the 10 pounds and then gain the 10 pounds back because like a diet that just only makes you lose 10 pounds in a set amount of time is not going to make you like not wait 10 pounds less forever if that makes sense like yeah we i think we have a real not we like the promises of the industry have a real issue in terms of the disconnect between a sort of event versus a lifestyle and i think we’re all on the page of it’s like lifestyle habits are very hard to change but at the same time we can’t really do these like event based i’m going to lose 10 pounds and then continue to weigh 10 pounds less forever often with the same in you can’t do that with the same way that you lost the 10 pounds in the first place very rarely like does that is that something you want to continue to do for the rest of your life you might eat like i don’t know you might eat keto for like two months and be like okay i lost my 10 pounds i want to stop eating keto but then you’re probably gonna gain the 10 pounds back which is totally fine but there’s a disconnect between between these two things and i think that’s often when we talk about whether diets are working or not we’re not fully accounting for the difference there yeah i mean when it when i heard you say that like to me uh a new year’s resolution like it’s like a checklist and then it’s like marking off the checklist but do you erase your check mark once you like yeah like unaccomplish your goal that’s like one of the questions like i lost 10 pounds done off the list then whatever happens from there screw it and then you’re back yeah right it’s like yeah and then did that make you happier in the long run which again this is the the goal in all of life is just to keep your serotonin dopamine levels whatever above the threshold above the threshold to where you still want to keep living it’s just happiness is the end goal of anything that we do we think if we’re more successful in our jobs it will make us happier a lot of people just work themselves to death and it sucks they messed up a lot of people think losing weight will make you happier they lose weight they’re miserable hell i i i have this terrible thing where i try and act like i’m above it all and then i read one youtube comment and i change my entire lifestyle like i uh during during the pandemic oh jesus it’s still the pandemic what the hell am i talking about during the first three months of lockdown when things were you know hairier than ever we were out of the studio i just went full like spartan on my diet when i was like this is the one thing i can control i know it’s not healthy mentally but like i’m just going to eat quote unquote clean as possible and run every day because i didn’t have access to a gym uh and i lost like 10 pounds got super lean and then one youtube comment said josh is down to jv muscle mass wow and i said i’ll i’ll show you jp i’m varsity bro and then i gained 20 pounds and started just an eight month period of bulking where i just got really strong again um and so i i’m so reactive to all this and none of it ever made me happier or i’d say even less happy it’s almost just neutral uh and purely reactive to the youtube commenters so shout out to them out there for just be nice on youtube i know you’re affecting you’re affecting his life quite a lot youtube yes i think yeah reel it up talk about it on his podcast no or just or just comment aggressively nice things just be like wow josh you’re doing great uh you deserve happiness today i’ll be like yeah you’re damn right i deserve happiness um but uh no so i mean i guess people use the phrase like diets don’t work because 95 of people will eventually gain them back we’ve seen all the studies after like the biggest loser right the show yeah where people just go even harder and there’s like a scientific basis to that too right when people diet your metabolism is physically slowing um whereas if you’re say weightlifting gaining more muscle you are likely increasing your metabolic rate right yes it’s def it’s along those lines where i think if you if you diet very aggressively you will lose body fat but you will also lose muscle which is what helps keep it supports a lot of our biological processes but one of the things it does is like keep our metabolism high so when you diet aggressively losing fat and muscle a lot of times you’ll rebound you’ll regain a lot of that weight as body fat you’ll diet again lose body fat and muscle so it becomes this way of shaving away your muscle mass that you need in order to if you wanted to maintain a heal a lower body weight you would need that muscle mass but we’re often losing weight in this way that is not protective of our muscle um keeping protein high helps uh lifting weights helps even more than that yeah it’ll it’s you can and you can i think i already said lose body fat and gain muscle at the same time especially if you’re new to lifting weights um but often when we’re dieting we’re so focused on making the number on the scale go down that we’re trading away a lot of that muscle mass that we really need in order to keep our weight or keep our keep our bodies healthy really yeah i’m saying i it’s funny you know you mentioned um a lot of especially women will say that they don’t want to lift weights because it will make them bulky that is just a got decades old refrain i’d even heard it i’d even heard it from dudes before i think to say so i did krav maga for about a year hell yeah i did krav maga bag classes and i would also lift weights and i would walk into a room shoulders first i’m not kidding like i would literally like like like the way i walked changed like yeah i like badass yeah that sounds amazing no i want to come into the room like a little mouse oh let’s break that down i mean yeah no i didn’t i didn’t like it like the way that i was standing and the way i mean i have scoliosis so my posture is already garbage so i was like kind of like walk like i was just very like i don’t know i’m showing you guys i can’t really verbalize it but i would come in and i would walk like large did that make you like feel bad like i was larger than i was yeah of course i did i don’t know what do you mean of course i don’t know everybody has different goals i was like i don’t want to come into a room looking quote-unquote masculine like i felt like my walk was more masculine when i would walk into a room and i didn’t like that i wanted to be like i like tried it and i loved it but i was like i don’t like this and then my mom was like you’re walking different and then my sister’s like why are you walking like that and i’m like i don’t know this is just my stance now wow i can’t even picture this different walk this is wild like like oh i wish i could show you i wish i could stand up and show you but literally i would walk in and like like my chest was puffed out my shoulders were down but i would like swing them no i know the exact words i know the exact one no no it’s um it’s called it’s called the invisible lats walk dudes at 24 hour fitness who kind of their chest is puffed out okay and kind of waddling like a penguin as if their lats are so big that they’re that their arms can’t physically get to their sides that’s the walk that you had dude you had the invisible laps yeah and like i just i guess i just didn’t enjoy that part of it i mean i liked everything else about it i just didn’t like that part how like it almost made me less feminine in my opinion i felt less feminine when i was doing it so i’m like okay screw that and then i went and did something else interesting yeah i didn’t like it i mean that’s just me i have to say i imagine that a lot of the people who i don’t hear from i mainly hear from people who are like this changed my you know how i feel about my body and i think about my body in a different way that is at least more detached from uh what it looks like like my body suddenly has more value to me beyond what it looks like and that’s mainly like the people who glom onto my newsletter and my columns are tend to be the ones who are sort of on that page i hear far less from the people who um where the overriding feeling is they don’t like how they feel like or how they feel yeah that they look um and i think this is totally if anything more normal than the people who are who make that one 180 degree turn fairly easily but that’s really it’s tough i mean we are kind of operating under pretty stringent expectations of how we look yeah and it’s very difficult to feel like you’re to take on the role of the iconoclast and be like i’m gonna be the one who’s gonna like change the perception of um bigger women there’s lots of people who don’t get to make that choice as well and that’s like also really um quite difficult i think there’s a lot i mean like we we’ve spoken about body positivity and like fat positivity there’s so many people who are trying to like own that presentation in a space but they i mean they’ll tell you it’s not it’s not easy yeah yeah i mean gender gender obviously plays a huge huge huge factor in this and like you know coming from my perspective where it’s like the things that i enjoy doing create a more masculine body type and aesthetic so for me it’s a very easy one to one but for instance going back to hammer throwing i mean i had teammates who were i mean actual olympians who were you know say like six four two fifteen uh women who were just elite at their sport and literally to the point where they were making a full living off of it and i knew that they they hated their bodies because they considered them masculine which to me was such a huge bummer because it was like you are a literal olympian what people absolutely dream to get to and you know you have an incredible skill and you still feel bad about it i mean like one do we have some sort of imperative to just break down those gender norms i mean that’s kind of how i feel despite doing not like a ton about it but you know um or i mean is there some i mean it’s just i think a question i would ask here is do you feel the same way about even everyone but like other women where you feel like they like us a given woman can look too big or is it mainly focused on you i think it’s focused on me yeah for sure i was just like nope i was i was loving it that like i was kickboxing i was actively like i could have hurt somebody if i really wanted to it was really fun that’s great i just don’t think i just i just couldn’t like it just it just took a chunk out of my like femininity and i didn’t want that anymore i enjoyed it yeah i think this is like i don’t think that there’s an answer in any particular place yeah i think this is a fruitful line of inquiry if you will that like like thinking about okay i think lots of other people who do this stuff or who look this way look great i don’t judge them but i judge myself and like why why is that what caught what like sort of leads to that thought pattern for me like i’m not a therapist but i think this is like this is just like therapy though you are you are now ourselves oh you are now my therapist i will i don’t care if you’re not licensed yeah you’re you’re doing the work in that case thank you for your emotional labor i’m building my hour my like sort of what do they have like uh not clinton hours you need to fly for 10 000 hours before you can get a therapist so i mean obviously there there are so many freaking factors um we talk about discourse maybe moving in the right positive direction but the demand for people to lose weight uh is still there or i mean i would love to see the term lose weight shift to be healthier or be fitter or be happier in whatever way shape or form that takes um but what would you say is like the most actionable advice just the easiest simplest advice if you want to make a positive change for your diet nutrition what have you this new year what do you do that’s a good question i think i mean given all this talk about how the sort of results based goals can be a bit um problematic in terms of execution it’s just like not that easy or it’s not as easy as it sounds like lose 10 pounds sounds really snappy and like achievable but in the grand scheme it’s not really i think a much better goal type of goal to focus on is uh a habit-based one that’s like i’m going to you know you can start as slow as you need although i’m personally a fan of thinking about not trying to wedge exercise into like too small of the cracks in your life and like trying to give it a little bit of a place of privilege but like something like i’m going to go on a 20-minute walk three times a week or i’m going to go on a 10-minute walk every day is like one thing that i started doing during the pandemic because i was sitting all of the time so i made it like a point to uh walk for at least like just go around a couple blocks every single day that’s why you’re making all the uh all the tick tock content to watch i love it okay it makes sense you can double you can multitask on those too yes exactly so i think something like that something habit-based and then like i feel like you can trust you will see differences in how you feel and like maybe how you think about food or um your body and like all of these things just from that like you don’t have you can sort of trust in exercise to produce a different lifestyle without having to worry about the metrics of it you can just show up periodically but consistently and that will make changes for you i think yeah i think a lot of people they get the analysis paralysis because like you said there’s so much information so much marketing coming at you all the time like the bodybuilding forms that told me my diet would be ruined if i ate fruit because there’s too much sugar which is horse hockey i remember i had a roommate who was asking me about diet and exercise tips and he was sitting there and he was like hey man is it true that i shouldn’t do cardio after i lift weights because then all my gains are going to be gone and i’m like no like i mean they’re if you’re an elite level bodybuilder you may have whose income is literally tied to this than like maybe um but like not for you no not at all he’s like bro is it true that like if i eat don’t eat carbs directly after a workout if i don’t have protein within a 20 minute window of the anabolic blah blah and i was like dude you are sitting on the couch right now eating taco bell whatever you do is going to be better for your body than sitting on the couch and eating taco bell like do not look at the micro things look at the macro things go on a freaking walk if you if you are sweating if you are breathing hard and if your muscles ache any of those combinations of those three things you are doing something good for your body you generally know what foods make you feel good and what foods make you feel bad we were talking earlier if i eat a steak before bed i feel like crap you know i’m not going to do eat steak before bed unless i really really want to because there’s the pacific dining car has the steak that’s half price after 11 p.m yeah never been but anywho yeah i think i think a lot of people overthink it uh in a way and like you said it’s it’s habit-based things go on a walk 20 minutes a day yes focused on the sort of like one weird trick things that i think even because probably they sound easy it’s like eat acai the superfood and then it’ll you know do magical things but that’s easier than maybe going on a walk but it’s like it’s really like the boring building blocks the things that the marketing stuff is not talking about is the stuff that really makes a difference like it can be very simple it does not have to be complicated it doesn’t have to be the latest like tracy anderson tip or whatever the case may be it can just be very simple and straightforward you just have to show up that said buy nicole’s new seven minute abs plan available only at mythical.com [Music] all right nicole and casey we’ve heard you and i have to say now it’s time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the twitterverse it’s time for a segment we call opinions they’re like casseroles [Music] wait can i can i start off with a hot food cake that’s about food and diet yeah go for it when i see like uh the real fitspo people who are doing the chicken broccoli and rice diet right that’s what all the like marvel actors who get really jacked for the roles like all i ate was chicken broccoli rice for you know nine months whatever there are so many delicious flavors that you can add that don’t change the nutritional value herbs citrus fish sauce garlic chilies any hot sauce i watched a friend who’s like a pro athlete just squirt yellow mustard on rice yeah and i was like bro soy sauce soy sauce people do mustard what the hell why would the mustard calorie right but so where’s so is fish sauce and soy sauce so it’s hot sauce but it’s so stringent yeah it’s like even if you were to introduce a little barbecue sauce in there that’s like what 50 calories maybe that’s like really not breaking the bank but they will no they’ll be so strict and it’s very yeah it’s too much someone’s got to teach them someone’s got to teach them how to make nook trum the vietnamese fish sauce condiment yeah anyways first up we got at gristle mcthorne body iceberg lettuce is awful and the burps i get from it tastes like hot dumpster water casey how are your iceberg burps i’ve never experienced an iceberg burp in my life i don’t think but i also don’t eat iceberg lettuce you know i’ll have a slice on my yeah burger i think that’s my like sort of maximum engagement with iceberg lettuce i would say so but i enjoy it i enjoy that i like i’m i’m pro-iceberg lettuce i feel like but i think i would you know my advice to this guy might be don’t don’t eat quite so much iceberg lettuce maybe we won’t have the birds how much iceberg are they how much iceberg do you think i’m imagining them just munching on a whole head of the couch yeah i didn’t feel like that would be it no you know what oh you know what’s so good a nice um that’s the salad yes oh yes salad incredible so good and i’ve never had burps from that either i don’t know but like those are delicious well if you eat a wedge salad you’re likely getting the blue cheese burps which are a delight it’s a blue cheeseburger they need to specify it’s so funny we’re talking about my my pre-bed steak the last time i had one would have been on sunday it was a lake dinner at a steakhouse it was about 9 30 i finished last bite of steak went to bed at 10 30. couldn’t sleep because of it that said sorry had a lovely iceberg wedge salad it’s the king of lettuces it is the absolute best the king of lettuces oh oh what say oh what do you say nicole little gems get the hell out of here i’m a big i’m a big arugula fan not even a lettuce sorry okay karma underscore chameleon says french fries dipped in malt vinegar is better than ketchup man that’s tough for me i disagree but like i have respect for malt vinegar i think malt vinegar tastes really good and i would never say no to it even if it were the only thing i i would i would be putting it on my fries 100 i like it not better than ketchup but i do like it with some salt mmm yeah this is very british thing very like fish this is a very chippy shop type of thing the malt vinegar on the fries i need some structure i need give me a good mayonnaise a malt vinegar aioli if you will but to me ketchup’s it’s a lovely complex sauce that we should put more respect on ketchup’s damn name a great ketchup fan big ketchup guy all right um at roscoe and grace the only way to eat a grilled cheese is with bread and butter pickles on top atop the sandwich huh a top a top on top not inside in the cheese with the cheese yeah a nice little pickle topper so it hits the palette first our bread and butter pickles the sweet ones are they’re like sweet and sour oh i have to disagree i’m like a pretty strict like sour salty only pickle i don’t really like uh like i like the fancy other vegetables uh pickles can be whatever flavor but like a classic cucumber based pickle to me i don’t really like when it’s sweet so i’m i’m out on this one i think they just need to be remarketed i think they need to be remarketed as candied cucumbers candy okay you know cause like it’s right and then you you’re looking at it as a little sweet treat and not as a pickle because if you’re comparing like a kosher dill to bread and butter there’s not really a comparison one gives you a salty savory one gives you sweet but if it’s like wow do i reach for that gingerbread kitkat or eat a nice bread and butter candied cucumber those are substitute goods in my mind i do think pickles pickles and grilled cheese like grilled cheese is an absolute top sandwich to pair with a pickle for sure yes 100 but it’s to me it’s to me it’s bite then bite i don’t i mean i when my i need some tuna fish in here fam that’s what my that’s where my brain went get those macros nicole i need a tuna okay sarah underscored k26 268 says borsen garlic and fine herbs cheese and apricot jam in a sandwich slaps so hard read that again for fourson jesus borsen oh okay have you ever had horse and cheese yeah goat cheese yeah i think so it’s like hot fire flames it’s something yeah she’s one of those spreadable cheeses that like we think is fancy in america but in france it’s like what they’re putting in kids lunch boxes wow yeah i mean yeah uh a goat cheese and jam is a classic pairing for sure i’m definitely getting that page 100 i started fist pumping when i like read this i was like rooting for it because that just sounds maybe i’m just really hungry right now sounds really good which i think is the case but damn yeah keep doing what you’re doing on the boar sand the jam all right this this speaks to my lifestyle this is bitter audi die finger food is best enjoyed laying on the couch allowing yourself to be relaxed really elevates the dish i agree i get really frustrated when whatever i’m eating dictates sort of sitting up a little bit i really want to be just lying back and i often can’t do it so i’m kind of like up on one elbow on the couch with the coffee like reaching to the coffee table and i’m like this is not quite the experience that i wanted so i think i agree but i would like more info about how to actually lie back and enjoy it because i can’t functionally do it most of the time this is some marie antoinette stuff yeah like i don’t get it like you don’t get it i mean i’m gonna choke i choke drinking water standing up wow do you think i can eat like a ritz all the best monarchs just died of gout they died doing what they love i mean that’s the goal but like it’s so hard to like think about eating like a like my mind went to ritz like eating a rinse like reclined well i want to be clear i’m not i’m not fully vertical you’re you’re kind of no you’re like propped up yeah i get that like in a hospital bed sort of situation yeah we should just get a hospital bed in our living room sounds sexy at all that sounds so sexy eating lime jell-o in a hospital bed watching murder she wrote yeah the socks like comfy socks i think i think my new year’s resolution diet is going to be it will make all of my meals more couch friendly because here’s the other factor we just got a white couch and i’m not allowed to eat chocolate guys we got a white couch yo with my lifestyle why did you get a white of all the colored couches you go with white i eat so many saucy foods all of my dinners are so saucy that couch is gonna be a light tan in like two weeks julia doesn’t let me eat on the couch i gotta eat on the crappy pink chair that way the spaghetti sauce will blend in if i smell it okay hey it’s joseph double zero says a cup of hot coffee with doritos equals certified busan a cup of hot coffee with doritos hmm i used to have when i was in college there was one class where every time i would get hot tea with milk and cheddar and sour cream chips which is pretty close to what he’s saying so i think i am actually on this page also yeah i’m trying to think of the flavor combination that most speaks to me and it was similarly in college i would eat two pizza bagels and a quart of coffee every morning that was just it it was uh again talking about dirty bulking really putting on some great math for breakfast is quite i love pizza bagels oh my god it was the closest thing to like it was literally on the way from practice to a class there was a cart that sold bagels and the most high-calorie bagels you could get there was a pizza bagel you know figured the extra fat you know was helping me out uh and so i would get two 16-ounce coffees and two pizza bagels and just slam them in like an intro to philosophy class and you know what it was great it was a delight the the spiciness of the pepperoni spiciness the doritos kind of like amps up that coffee flavor i’m in yeah i like your version more casey with the tea and the sour cream sour cream and cheddar chips yeah yeah i’m totally with it but like the like hot black coffee with the doritos i can’t i can’t do that it’s almost like masala chai oh whatever you know what i mean no it’s not no it’s not guava paste and cream cheese is the best dessert ever cubans know what’s up yes yes oh man a guava and cream cheese pastry is so good um i went to puerto rico a few years ago and that’s like a very common flavor combo there and it’s just incredible very underrated here in the states i think true super yeah i mean i i didn’t have that until i went to miami for like a book festival a couple years ago uh megusta los pasciellitos mm-hmm and espanol uh gracias nicole gracias um but no for real i mean we don’t get a ton of uh cuban food we don’t get a ton of we have something but we don’t have enough of like dank ass pastries like yeah mm-hmm porto’s orders portals portals make some dank ice cube and pastries yeah i love them i just like my mom used to just buy the membrillo paste and then just like put on a piece of bread gotta use some of the paste in my mouth guava paste you’re right pure j shot says refried beans are just mexican style hummus yes but there’s nothing wrong with that either that sounds great a refried beans hot like a hummus style refi beans implementation i could see i think they’re saying refried brains is refried beans equals hummus well like let’s i think it equals it well yeah i mean like you know what it does like it does well just like it depends what flavors here because like hummus right one hummus is just arabic for chickpea yes so anytime someone’s saying like edamame hummus it’s like well you know if any chickpeas and hummus that’s a whole nother debate uh but like the flavors of hummus tahini lemon garlic yeah refried beans oh you got onion chili lard yeah that’s an easy stop that’s an easy swap out yeah the lard takes the place the tahini that’s money i also i would eat refried beans over damn near any side in the entire world yeah i really like refried i don’t eat enough refried beans all right at fotato potato so hell of a name frozen bananas over non-frozen bananas wow it’s paleo time i need a moment without one i don’t i like both i like both really i love a frozen banana it has its implementations but i like a fresh banana too i don’t know frozen bananas can be like a sort of ice cream substitute if you blend them which i’ve been doing more of that and i’m into it i think it tastes good and the texture’s good i like both i like both i love regular banana regular bananas i like uh non-frozen bananas but like for a smoothie i have like a pack of like frozen bananas that i throw in there so i like regular bananas more yeah it’s once the regular bananas get too ripe then you put them in the freezer and then you got you got the both i i want to reclaim um these food substitutions that people consider substitutions that have had like uh these bad eras in diet culture stuff like frozen bananas being blended ice cream or avocados being blended into pudding or spaghetti squash instead of spaghetti or mashed cauliflower puree instead of potatoes they don’t need to be substitutes like i love cauliflower puree it’s a delight i don’t think it’s potatoes i love spaghetti squash it is neither good a spaghetti nor is it good as squash if you consider it coleslaw potato it’s a good ass vegetable yes i love blending frozen bananas it’s a nice little treat i’m reclaiming them outside of the orthorexic diet structure in 2022 yeah that’s great i love that i agree up top i’m giving you a high five what i can’t see i’m blind with headphones on i’m like a horse all right and on that note thank you for listening to a hot dog this sandwich if you want to hear more from us here in the mythical kitchen we got new episodes for you every wednesday if you want to be featured on opinions are like casseroles you can hit us up on twitter at mythicalchef or and handyzada with the hashtag opinioncasserole and for more mythical kitchen check us out on youtube where we launch new videos every week and of course if you want to share pictures of your dishes or your new year’s resolution diets hit us up on instagram at mythical kitchen i hope we get some weird stuff they should bring back the mark twain diet where you have to chew every bite of food like 90 times yeah let’s get some old school like red wine and boiled egg diets from the 1700’s all right casey thank you so much for joining us a really insightful conversation um where where can people find you anything you want to plug now’s the time sure my newsletter is called she’s a beast she’s a beast dot co uh on substance and my twitter is at caseyjohnston my name and my instagram is at swolewoman hell yeah and uh i will also be plugging it just because i think it’s a great resource for anybody trying to get started and also just looking for like a refreshing change in the way that people talk about diet and exercise because i know it’s such a weird space to be in so i’ll also post a link on my instagram and twitter so uh come find that awesome thank you thank you see y’all next time bye casey [Music] you