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- [00:01]
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- [01:07]
Mike Pesca
Hi, it's Saturday. It's the Saturday show. And this week I'm going to bring you an appearance I had on another show. Another, not mostly a podcast. It's a video show on the Two Way Network and it is called Lifelong with Ethan Supley. Do you know Ethan Supley? You just might. He was Earl's brother in My Name is Earl. He was in Remember the Titans. Remember, Remember the Titans. Remember the offensive lineman who had to remember a key play in Remember do you remember him remembering and Remember the Titans. Ethan was in that and he was and still is a very fine actor. But for most American history acts he was in for most of his career, he his type, because this was who he was, was a very overweight guy and at times he weighed and I don't know if he was acting at this weight, but he reached over 500 pounds. So even though he was in demand as either the funny fat guy or the tough fat guy, the fat guy. Even though he was in demand and even though this was part of his career, he knew he had to change something. And he did. And now see, Ethan, he goes to the gym a lot and he's really jacked. And the materials for his show and a lot of the other YouTube videos he's on is, look at how this actor went from 500 pounds to, you know, ripped Adonis. So Ethan has this show, he talks a lot. It's, it's not about, you know, where to position your legs during a Bulgarian split squat, but we do, I do mention the Bulgarian split squat. I so do love the Bulgarian split squat. We talk about mental states. We talk. He knows a lot about nutrition and he talked about me and my, I'm going to say similar journey. But I was, you know, basically not. I didn't go through it to a tenth of the degree that Ethan did. Although if ethan weighed over 500 pounds, I did weigh over 50 pounds. I will, I will admit that the name of the show, like I said, Lifelong with Ethan Supley and you're like, wait a minute, Lifelong. Is that expressed in the regular font? Let me orient you because is the audio format capital L I F E no space, capital L, capital O, capital N, capital G. Such is his commitment to longevity. I think you will find it to be an interesting and especially for me, different kind of interview than I usually do. Mike on Ethan show up next, I'm going to say something that you might know but you didn't know I knew. And it's this. A thoughtfully built wardrobe comes down to pieces that mix well and last and quince is great at this premium fabrics considered design. Quince has everyday essentials I love with quality that lasts. Let me talk about the short sleeve Mongolian cashmere polo or as they call them in Mongolia, the short sleeve cashmere polo or as they call it when playing polo, a short sleeve Mongolian. When I wear these things, oh my God, the compliments. I get the feeling feeling that I get because they exemplify what Quint does. They work directly with top factories and they cut out the middlemen. You're not paying for brand markup or fancy retail stores, just quality clothing right now go to quint.com the gist for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full year to build your wardrobe and love it and you will now available in Canada too. Don't keep settling for for clothes that don't last, go to Q U I n c e.com the Gist for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/the gist One great podcast that talks about everything we're going through in our democracy through a constitutional lens is the oath in the office. I've been on it. I listened to it. It's hosted by bonafide constitutional scholar Cory Bretchneider. Past just guest and Sirius XM host John Fugal saying here's a tip future Gist guest and the show which always ranks in Apple's top five in government has featured guests like Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and journalist Dahlia Lithwick and Justice Stephen Breyer and me, Mike Pesca in that company. Smart, accessible, focused on power. Listen to the oath in the office, wherever you get your podcast, also on YouTube with full video episodes every.
- [05:31]
Ethan Suplee
Welcome to Lifelong, where practical health meets real life, and we navigate this wild ride together. I'm Ethan Suplee, and wherever you're watching, whether on Zoom, YouTube, Instagram, tick tock, or whatever app we're live streaming on, I'm glad you're here. As we're coming out of winter, at least fingers crossed. For the people of New York City, there's that early spring feeling where we've been cocooned for a few months, maybe a little more sedentary than we'd planned, maybe a little more in our heads than we'd like. And with that comes the pressure. The okay, it's time voice, time to move, time to eat better, time to focus. For some people, that means tightening things up. For others in our community, it means staring at a much bigger climb. Obesity is real. The health risks are real. The anxiety around it is real. Whether it's blood sugar, mobility, or just the fear of where things could go, that pressure can either freeze you or push you. It is March, after all. And while I hesitate to say March Madness, because I know that technically is about college basketball and our guest today knows that world better than I do, but there is something about this time of year that feels almost like an NCAA bracket. You don't win the tournament in one game. You advance one round at a time. What if health worked more like that? Not I have to fix everything, but what's my next move to advance? To help us think this through, we've got Mike Pesca. He's an award winning journalist, a longtime host of the Gist, and now leading the relaunch of too. Over decades in the news and commentary, he's thought deeply about how people respond to pressure, uncertainty, and the stories we tell ourselves when the stakes feel high. He also started as a sports writer, so he understands brackets and momentum probably better than I do. So today we're asking, how do we turn anxiety into momentum? Mike Pesca, welcome to lifelong Ethan, thanks so much.
- [07:28]
Mike Pesca
And that was a brilliant analogy. And you know what they say in the NCAA tournament? Survive in advance. And what you're articulating is advance to survive. I love it.
- [07:37]
Ethan Suplee
Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, often I do find that the way I perceive what I'm doing plays a bigger part than the actual steps I'm taking every day. It's my, it's my point of view or my perspective. And if I'm thinking like I'm going to advance to survive. Maybe that gets me by a little bit better or a little bit more efficiently than if I'm thinking I need to survive to advance.
- [08:03]
Mike Pesca
Right, right. And it borrows from, and I'm by no means an expert in this, but some 12 steps, thought processes, and every day is one day at a time, as they say. And also the idea, let's take a basketball game. If you're down by 12 with 10 minutes left, there's no 12 point shot. But what you can do is make the most of every possession, claw back and then put yourself in a position to win. It's a great, it's a great mindset. It's a necessary mindset. And as you're saying, mindset is everything. I just don't even think in terms of health, but almost in terms of everything. For us people living in the richest nation in the world, yes, this is true. If we were starving or oppressed or in some place other than the United States or in the United States and in a truly torturous tortures some situation, it might not be true. But perspective, I'd rather have a good perspective and bad first world circumstance than good circumstance. But a bad, which we mostly do, and a bad perspective on it. Yeah.
- [09:08]
Ethan Suplee
I mean, I love Steven Pinker for this reason because he just gives you data that is nothing but hopeful. And, and I did, I did once get in trouble because it was during. Yeah, exactly.
- [09:22]
Mike Pesca
Take our books off the shelf. Yeah, yeah.
- [09:23]
Ethan Suplee
It was during a time where, you know, people were up in arms about something and I just shared a couple of Steven Pinker quotes because it's, it's how we look at it. If we're, if we're facing, there's always going to be something to be upset about, that's fine. But if we're, if we're going into what we're trying to accomplish from a perspective of like everything's terrible, then how do you get better?
- [09:46]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And you know, on my show I always talk about, on the gist, I always talk about normalizing the catastrophic. And this is the part catastrophizing the normal. Now, there are bad things out there, but I do think there is a part of this about weight loss, but a part of this about everything that for a time we went so overboard with the negativity and the, nothing can change. And the, if you've lost or if you've ever gained 50 pounds or tried to lose 50 pounds, it will never work. It's never worked for anyone. And the same is true with our challenges as A globe and the climate. And now you see a lot of people pulling back from. It's a terrible message to say that it's all over and there's nothing that can be done. And what we need to do is teach the next generation that all is lost because things can be done, and it's not easy. But how did we get there? How did we get from people in our generation, when you compare to people in our parents, when it would never occur to them that their worst problems couldn't be overcome? I don't. Yeah, it's. It's psychology and its perspective, and it's a lot of things, and they were
- [10:59]
Ethan Suplee
coming through problems that kill you immediately. We're talking about a problem that kills you over the course of 50, 60 years. And even that might be hyperbolic. It might be 80 or 70 years. You know, if we look at the actual limitations to lifespan, it's real. But is it cutting people's lives off by 20 years? I don't know, but it's. It's still a big problem. I suffer from the fact that this problem had been with me my entire life. From the time I was five, I was, you know, ceremoniously notified by the people in charge of me, my parents and grandparents, that I was fat. And this is a problem, and we're going to do everything to fix it. So I see the world basically through this problem. And what amazes me is that in my lifetime, the world caught up to me. You know, I was the only fat kid I knew at school. And now you can't go to a school without seeing a ton of overweight kids.
- [11:59]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [12:00]
Ethan Suplee
So it's very hard for me to think of the world and probably, yes, I know there's war. I know there's famine. I know there's injustice in the world, and that's terrible. My issue has always been weight. So I kind of filter everything through that.
- [12:15]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. So I never talk about this, but that was me, too. People who knew me growing up, I was definitely overweight. And then by the time I got to college and just drank a lot of beer, I was very overweight. So in my life, there have been different periods where I've lost, you know, 30 pounds maybe two years after I graduated college to a couple years after that, and then you put some of it back. But then I lost another 30 pounds, and of course, not just pounds, but I went from unhealthy to healthy. And now I can't not work out. I'm a little more obsessed with it and dedicated to it than maybe other people in my life would like for me to be. But that's the only way I know how to attack it. And yeah, you're right. It's just like you either think about it all, I find you either think about it all the time, about eating or weight loss or what to do with weight. Or you say, maybe there are skinny people who don't even have these thoughts. You say, oh, yeah, and if I let myself go, I will let myself go. But no, you don't really know what it is. You don't really know what it is to have that, you know, that, that mindset that anvil upon you all the time.
- [13:27]
Ethan Suplee
Yeah, and, and I get the, I think that the kind of, the healthy at every size movement that is dying now. I, I believe, I believe the premise initially is in the stink Steven Pinker kind of vein of like, love yourself, do this as a kindness. You can treat yourself well, you don't have to live in constant shame. But like everything on the Internet or in the social malaise that we're talking about becomes extremified. And it becomes, you look at the statistics, the statistics on weight loss are not very good generally or hadn't been. And so it becomes just love yourself and don't try to do anything. Which I don't think is a super great message to put out there.
- [14:13]
Mike Pesca
Right.
- [14:14]
Ethan Suplee
But I think with the. Yes, no, go ahead.
- [14:16]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. So this is my relationship with that healthy at Every size movement and what a misnomer that is and what a kindness we do by calling that the movement. When really, if you compare some of the most extreme unscientific, anti scientific precepts of that movement to others that are, you know, widely mocked, something about vaccine denial or something about, I don't know, flat earth ism. They had portions in the movement which you had to be an adherent to or else you weren't truly or aren't truly a member in good standing that are essentially like flat earth. I, there, there are a couple things. My news orientation is such that I'm very interested in the opinions that everyone has and I want to know what they think. But when it starts veering into verifiable falsehoods, then we as journalists have to stand up and say, whoa, what about that? And there were a couple of things where that just wasn't happening in the last 10 years. And I am by no means say a trans rights or anti trans rights person, but there were portions of how the media was reporting on, quote, unquote, facts about transgender ideology or science that I just knew weren't true. And it's not just I just knew it. I've done a lot of research and it bothered me that this was an area where in any other walk of life, in any other science, the news media would say things like, well, I don't think those statistics about the reliability of say suicide and you know, gender dysphoria go hand in hand. That is one area where maybe now a lot of people are agreeing with me on the healthy at any size movement. I would hear their good points. Yeah, BMI was in exactly calculated. And there is a horror to the stigma of making fun of the fat. And that causes a lot of that's counterproductive, really counterproductive. And also the ways that shows like the Biggest Loser do it are wrong and they give the wrong examples. So check, check, check, check. But then like any really extreme ideology, you have to buy into the idea that there is that you're healthy at any size, that there is no such thing as an unhealthy weight. And so I had this, one of the preeminent authors, Virginia Soul Smith on the show. I've done a couple of these interviews and I let her, I don't interrupt. I let her lay out the premise. We agree where we agree. And then I challenge her on the things such as, how do you deny a correlation between morbid obesity if you want to use a different term? Because that's a part of it. They always have to use different terms. But truly morbid obesity, being 100 pounds overweight, just take something that's inarguable and health and the sophistry or the argumentation that she a very smart person, New York Times bestseller engaged in was mind blowing. And that's when I realized it's really a cult and an ideology than it is a way to reorient our things.
- [17:14]
Ethan Suplee
Thinking, yeah, yeah, because I'm all for don't feel shame and love yourself and I. But I think that's an interesting starting point to treat your body better, you know, do something positive for your health. I think it's just a better starting point. I don't think it negates, I don't think loving yourself negates the need to do something kind for yourself on these terms. It does become cultish and weird from those when, when you get into that kind of nomenclature of like, I'm just going to spin it. There was a 400 pound man who was an athlete and it's like, okay, yeah, he didn't have high cholesterol.
- [17:53]
Mike Pesca
All right, you know what? She, she also told me that sumo wrestlers have, are, are healthier than certain very underweight people and because they're elite athletes. And I came back with her with the fact that the average lifespan of a sumo wrestler compared to the average Japanese person is almost 20 years less.
- [18:16]
Ethan Suplee
Right.
- [18:16]
Mike Pesca
So that is a fact. And you could talk about shame and stigma and compare things to an anorexic person there. There are also interesting facts out there like the very or not the very underweight, but the slightly underweight have shorter lifespans than the overweight. Now I've read a lot of reasons why that might be and there might be diseases that plan to being underweight. That is true. That is something for a smart guy like Steven Pinker to figure out. But it doesn't negate the fact that there is a weight or body weight per and musculature that is just unhealthy. And you're not doing anyone a favor by acting like this cult where if you don't agree with every single plank of the ideology, you're an apostate, you can't belong. Yeah.
- [19:04]
Ethan Suplee
I have a political question for you and I'm excited to ask you because I don't. We don't tend to talk to political people about this kind of stuff a lot. So obesity is the biggest single drag on health care. Now that we have these obesity drugs that seem to be very effective. Why is there no big push from insurance companies or healthcare providers to. I mean they don't, they don't even. Basically, they. Insurance doesn't see it as a necessary. It's still listed as a cosmetic medicine. But if we, if we lowered the rate of obesity, we would save tens of billions of dollars every year. Why is this not being argued about in Congress?
- [19:53]
Mike Pesca
Because the cost would be so prohibitive at the current rates that it would essentially bankrupt or all but bankruptcy. The United States, United States can't be bankrupted. And I talked to a major Obama official who made the case that it's still worth it because you'd save so much money on the back end. But that's not how politics works. They worry about the expenditures on the front end and there is still shame and stigma and people don't want to use their taxes to pay for your weakness or your overeating, which is what they're doing.
- [20:27]
Ethan Suplee
They're paying for it anyway.
- [20:28]
Mike Pesca
They're paying for it anyway. And since something like 50% of us are overweight and 30 something percent of us are obese and almost everyone has an obese member of the family. You know, technically, using the scientific terms, it would seem to be one of the more destigmatized old stigmas. But yeah, that's still the politics. But yeah, this, this costs a lot. The costs are going to come down and at that point the weight loss drugs, I think will be more and more covered. First for, and I think this is happening first for the type 2 diabetes. Diabetes, which is very much, which can very much be helped by the drugs. And then maybe for everyone. Even if there is a cosmetic component, Americans are very, very, very worried about anyone ever getting over on the taxpayer. And sometimes you just have. Yeah, sometimes you have to say, you know, 5% of all spending is going to be graft and live with it,
- [21:22]
Ethan Suplee
because that's what we live with anyway. So if we just.
- [21:25]
Mike Pesca
That is the baseline, isn't it?
- [21:27]
Ethan Suplee
Yeah, I mean, I believe so. I, I would love to have some idea that that got solved. I just don't think it is or it will.
- [21:36]
Mike Pesca
And so let me, let me ask you a question. Do you look at it as, do you look at these drugs? I'm sure you don't think they're miracle drugs. Do you think they're, you know, a good starting point for people? Do you think, as some do, and I don't think this is a crazy observation, that what we really have to do is look at the incentives of how we construct our diets and processed foods and this will allow big drug corporations to get off the hook as far as that goes.
- [22:00]
Ethan Suplee
Well, I, you know, I do think of them in a way as miracles. I was put on medication as a kid for the, what was it called? Fen phen. Briefly.
- [22:11]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [22:12]
Ethan Suplee
And I was taken off of it because I, I stopped sleeping.
- [22:15]
Mike Pesca
And then I was also like cooks your insides. Right?
- [22:17]
Ethan Suplee
It was not good. I wasn't on it long enough to have any kind of real bad damage. But, but, but then I was put on something else which was like basically an over the counter version of fen phen called Ma Wang, which was like a tea. And then, you know, Even, I guess 15 years ago, I took something called H HCG, which was supposed to allow me to basically eat 500 calories a day and boost my, and, and direct my body to eat the fat. None of this stuff worked. None of, none of any of that worked.
- [22:52]
Mike Pesca
We'll be back in a minute with some more of, if not the entire appearance of me on Ethan Supley's show.
- [23:07]
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- [24:10]
Mike Pesca
This is the remainder of what we're going to play here on the Saturday Show. If you want to check out the main show, there's a link or the entire episode, there is a link in our show notes. But now here is some more of me talking to the actor and the weightlifter, even Supley.
- [24:28]
Ethan Suplee
When I see the actual data behind these GLP1 agonists, it seems like they really work. Now to your point, I don't think they're going to get most people all the way there. And by that I mean for me, a lot more to do with my weight loss was kind of waiting for some internal shift to happen when the fat came off that never happened that I then had to spend many years addressing in other ways when I realized, oh, my problem really is with myself and, and my excess fat is like a symptom of that. And so I had to change my perspective and that helped me quite a bit.
- [25:13]
Mike Pesca
So let me interrupt. What's so fascinating about you is unlike the vast, vast, vast majority of people in that situation who can find some psychological solace. And this is who I am, this is my identity. It was, you know, the old question, well, how's that really working out for you? For you, to some extent, it was pretty good in terms of your recognizable actor. And like to be an actor you have to be a type and you were that type. And so you were incentivized and somewhat rewarded for being the big guy in all these movies and TV shows.
- [25:45]
Ethan Suplee
Yeah, no, I was handsomely rewarded. I had a great career as that guy, but I was desperately unhappy, you know, and then even when I lost even When I went from like the extreme end of morbidly obese to just the lower end of morbidly obese or just regular obese, I was still very unhappy. But I got to tell you, honestly, Mike, I got down in 2012 to I think it was 13 body fat. I was doing multiple hours of cardio every day. I had a resting heart rate of 35 beats a minute. And I. And I had all the same psychological issues that I had when I was £500. Nothing seemed to make me feel better about myself. I'd get on the scale and see 220 and feel like a sense of joy and accomplishment for five minutes. But the minute I left my house, that evaporated. You know, I'd take a picture and go like, oh my God, I bought those clothes at a real store. I didn't have to shop online or, you know, go to the big and tall man shop. That makes me feel good. Four or five minutes. I don't have to get the seat belt extender on the plane. What a miracle. But by the time I'm getting off the plane, the seat's still uncomfortable. I'm still like, don't feel any better. All the anxieties I have about airports that I think were caused by my weight still exist. I'm so anxious to get there two hours early because I think it's going to be difficult for me to walk to the gate.
- [27:17]
Mike Pesca
It's not.
- [27:18]
Ethan Suplee
I could run to the gate today and it wouldn't be a problem. So I have to address all that stuff. That stuff doesn't change by losing weight. It just doesn't, you know, and I also don't think any of these drugs, you know, if somebody has in their head this image of themselves that's quote unquote, a normal sized person who's maybe fit or athletic. Those drugs don't get you there.
- [27:46]
Mike Pesca
No.
- [27:46]
Ethan Suplee
They can help you eat less. And by just eating less, you're going to lose lean tissue, you're going to lose fat. And I don't think everybody's going to wind up with the body they, they idealize simply by taking those drugs. It is going to, but it could be the, the miracle thing that allows people to get a better diet, nutrition and exercise plan going and that for that. I think that's amazing. And if it just got, you know, some percentage of weight loss off 50% of the populace, then we'd all be better for that.
- [28:24]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, yeah. They also do some amazing things with other forms of addiction, including non substances gambling. There is Rewiring going on, but you talking about what the drugs can do. I just did a how to episode. It hasn't aired yet. And it was how to take psychedelics for your mental health. So we had Will van der Veer, who is a top psychiatrist in this field, and he was walking through the different kind of psychedelics. And the one that mdma you don't take or it's not really legal now, it might become legal in non very clinical clinical settings. But ketamine's out there and what ketamine does and they all do different things, they're all for different people. Is it just kind of radically. The way I think about it is kind of slaps you upside the head. You just really start thinking about life differently. It's a ch. And if the way you were thinking about life was in a mental rut, it can provide a very good glimpse at a different. What was the word we were talking about in the beginning? Perspective. And so, yeah, these GLP1s, these other similar drugs can at least do that now. Who knows where you're going to take that perspective. How your perspective, you know, might come back to your original thinking. That is your learned behavior, but it at least gives you the opportunity to do that. And so I think that, yeah, I agree that they definitely. We should really be trying to get these drugs to as many people as possible. If not for a jump start, if not for a jump start, if not for any other reason.
- [29:51]
Ethan Suplee
Yeah, I mean like in just practical terms, my argument would be like down the line, we would save an awful lot of money. So anybody been out of shape about providing it on the front end, I would argue like we would save a lot of money 5, 10 years from now or even 2 years from now if every overweight person lost weight. So yeah.
- [30:14]
Mike Pesca
Emily Oster is one of the greatest economists at Brown and she does a lot of stuff for the public and writes for Free Press and other places and Dispatch. She calculates, I think There are only 13 states right now, or maybe there's a couple months ago that covered the medications under Medicaid. But just if you scale it for the nation, health care costs would be saved by $750 a person annually. There's 330 million of us. And then when the savings come in, once you have scale, that's an additional 0.4% to total. It would add 0.4% total Medicaid spending. So it is doable. We just have to have the will to do it. Little more technology. People don't like shots, good ones are coming in, pills, it is all coming. I hope this changes us for the better. I really do.
- [30:59]
Ethan Suplee
I do too. I'm very hopeful about these things. I'm very positive. Okay. When anxiety shows up for you personally, how do you tell the difference between this is useful energy and this is just my brain looking for something to worry about and do you get it wrong ever?
- [31:13]
Mike Pesca
So I have something called, we all have something called anandamide. It is an enzyme and a chemical in all of us, it is called the bliss molecule. Now I have, depending on how you look at it, an excess of it or just a damn lot of it. You know, I'm in the top 15%. So this means I don't experience anxiety like normal people do. Normal, I could say normal. I'm abnormal in terms of having this bliss molecule. The upside is I don't have anxiety. I have worries, but I at least tell myself they're rational worries. I feel stressed just like anything else. I don't perseverate on things that are out of my control. And so that question you asked, I think for most people it's hard. For me it just kicks in and it's like asking me, when you touch a stove, how do you know if it's on or not on? I don't have to know. Like, we just have that reflex built into us. And so if it is something that I should be or can be worried about it, it is usually for rational reasons. Right. Wow, it's a weird thing to have.
- [32:14]
Ethan Suplee
Is there an anandamide pill? Is this, or is that just like cocaine or something like that?
- [32:20]
Mike Pesca
This is interesting. How'd they find it? Every receptor in the body has every enzyme that has a receptor, like a lock and key. There's a reason for it. And researchers were saying, well, why does marijuana work? Like, why should that substance work in the body? And it's either the lock or the key how you think about it. For anandamide, the marijuana works because we all have this naturally occurring substance.
- [32:46]
Ethan Suplee
And.
- [32:47]
Mike Pesca
And when marijuana hits most of us or most of you regular people, it will bond to it and give you this euphoric effect, weirdly and other. Anandamine, what's the opposite of a sufferer, you know, others blessed with anandamide, though there's some downsides that I could talk about that don't like marijuana. I'm not saying it doesn't work, I'm not saying there isn't a high, but I just don't like it. I've tried it a few Times, and it's. It's not working for me, so. And that is typical among people with a lot of anandamide.
- [33:17]
Ethan Suplee
I've been sober for a long time, but prior to my sobriety, I tried marijuana maybe four times. And each time I found myself locked in a bathroom or a closet, terrified that the FBI was going to catch me for having smoked marijuana, which was the least of the stuff I was doing. But somehow marijuana became like the most scary drug drug for me.
- [33:39]
Mike Pesca
Imagine the guy that happened to, and then, like, the fourth time he did it, the FBI did knock on his door. Just statistically, that guy's got to exist.
- [33:46]
Ethan Suplee
Exactly. It was.
- [33:47]
Mike Pesca
It was true for somebody.
- [33:49]
Ethan Suplee
All right. A lot of people in our lifelong community feel like the gap between where they are and where they want to be is huge. What does a healthy first step look like when the end goal feels overwhelming, although you don't get overwhelmed? And how do you avoid the all or nothing trap?
- [34:04]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, I do get overwhelmed. Not from anxiety, but when I am overwhelmed, I cut things down into the thing I have to do. And so this is a negative in that I know I have a little bit of ADD and I know I can be distracted. So I just concentrate on the one thing. So for my show right now, I have four segments I'm thinking about and a how to segment, how to. How to host, a how to show is the one this week. All. When I'm done with you, I'm going to sit down and only concentrate on one thing, which is to listen to this show and then give notes and then concentrate on the next thing. And then you go piece by piece and chunk by chunk. And maybe the key is to identify the triage or what are the right best things. But you have to make a conscious practice to do that. I find it's the only way to make progress.
- [34:55]
Ethan Suplee
Yeah. Bracket by bracket, to put it back in March Madness terms. Now, I wanted to ask you about that. You're leading the relaunch of how to, which is literally about solving problems. How did you decide to take that on? Because from the outside, big media moves look confident and strategic. But I imagine there's gotta be real doubt, maybe not anxiety, but what. What did the process actually feel like?
- [35:18]
Mike Pesca
There's a lot of work and there's a lot of stress. But it was pitched to me by Charles Duhigg, who's the guy who wrote the Power of Habit about just. It started from him not wanting the cookie at 5 o' clock and became this huge international bestseller. And Charles is A smart guy started the show in 2019 and it was a good show. It was. Well, it was a very good show and it made him a lot of money. And then he had some, some other hosts who took over. And then the company that was producing the show wanted out of that business. And Charles said, look, this is still making money. This still has an audience. And I. And, and do you know anyone who could produce this? And I don't think he meant. I haven't asked him yet. But like, did you secretly meet me? I was like, I know someone who produces podcast. I know somebody could host a podcast. It could be fun. So based on the idea that I think this will be a money making proposition. It's nice to have have one of those in your back pocket. I decided to take on the extra work and do it.
- [36:12]
Ethan Suplee
And, and how deep on how to are you? How do you do. How do you figure out what is this people writing to you and going, I want to know how to do X, Y or Z? How do you.
- [36:23]
Mike Pesca
The best way to do it? So we have an expert and what we call a civilian on every show. And the best way to get is when the civilian raises their hand and says, here's this question I have and it's brilliant. We could go find the expert. Expert we have in our back pocket a lot of experts. We just need the civilian to ask the question. So right now I have a friend of mine who went to jail for a while and now is a very successful consultancy where he tells you how to get through the jail experience. How successful? Harvey Weinstein's a client. He doesn't want to brag, but I know it's like one of these inverse things. The worst guy I could name becomes better and more cool for him. But yeah, so I have to. I have some friends who are defense lawyers. I have to find an actual convict or someone who is just convicted and is going to jail soon. We're looking for someone who really wants to use credit card points to the max. We're looking for someone. This is simple. You know, it's not all huge life goals. Just wants to become better at bar trivia. I have a bar trivia expert just ready to go. So, yes, we solicit these. We say email Mike or email how to at Mike Pesca. And we'll go through the submissions and we'll pair it with an expert.
- [37:35]
Ethan Suplee
That's awesome, dude. I'm gonna have to start thinking about things that I've always wanted to know, like, how do you do this thing? And I'm gonna come up with some submissions for you.
- [37:44]
Mike Pesca
Well, you are our expert. I mean, I. I can't wait.
- [37:47]
Ethan Suplee
If anybody wants to know how to lose weight and get ripped right into Mike Pesca, I'm ready to go.
- [37:52]
Mike Pesca
I think the big thing is since this has happened to a lot of people and they find themselves transformed or maybe on the road to transformation, there are challenges there to have like a newly ripped body. It's not all easy and it's not all what you imagined it would be right before you undergo your transformation.
- [38:13]
Ethan Suplee
Yeah. And I think the assumption really has been, you know, the question I've been asked the most, how did you do it? And I feel like I'm lying when I say diet and exercise, but it's, it's the truth. It's just so much. There's so much missing data there. There's so much missing data because, like, I wanted to just feel like a different person and I never did. And so that is a process that I have to work on all the time, every single morning, basically.
- [38:44]
Mike Pesca
That's so interesting. So if you're like Ethan, it's Mike Pescat. How to now. Yeah, I feel like I'm doing a late night infomercial now. When, when you say diet and exercise, one of the things that annoys me, and this is a little bit tied into the healthy at any weight movement, is the idea, and you see front page stories in the New York Times that weight loss or sustained weight loss is just not possible for. And they put a gigantic percentage on it. It's always over 90% and it can be 99%. And that is, I think maybe it's consoling to the people who haven't done it, but I just know it's an inaccurate statistic. And maybe it's true that there's some backsliding. Like I said, I once lost 35 pounds and then I again had to lose 20 pounds. And right now, talking to you, I'd like to lose 12 pounds. Right. But do you think even the helpful people, even the non ideologues, even the people who quote science like that, that are getting it right, doing a disservice or somewhere in between it.
- [39:47]
Ethan Suplee
It's tr. It's tricky. I don't know what the exact statistics are, but I do know I have talked to very few people who started a diet, got to the weight they wanted to get to, and lived happily ever after. I know lots of people who have gained and lost weight many, many times. And so, like, even if you look at the stats about bariatric surgery, it's like after five years, the. The majority of those people have regained a good amount of weight.
- [40:20]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [40:21]
Ethan Suplee
So I don't know. I. I do think it's a disservice simply because I think it kills hope, but I don't know that it's not true. Do you know what I mean?
- [40:30]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [40:31]
Ethan Suplee
And I've done Instagram polls where I've asked, like, I want to know about out anybody who's lost £100 and kept it off for seven years. I think was the way I asked it. And I got hundreds of responses. But when I whittled through them, there were very few people that lost 100 pounds and maintained that weight loss for more than seven years.
- [40:53]
Mike Pesca
Right. But that doesn't mean they go back to £100 more. That doesn't mean that the exam, that the idea of backsliding, I wouldn't look at it as not succeeding meeting. I would look at it as an evidence that it is a lifelong process. And the process for you or you and me and maybe a lot of the people watching is not going to be the same for the person who never really had to deal with this or put on the freshman 15, but then, you know, started jogging.
- [41:20]
Ethan Suplee
I think you're 100% right. And I think it also comes down to the, like, the, the difference between the goals we imagine and the goals we actually achieve. Because a reduction in weight by 5% for somebody who's overweight is a massive boon to their health. That's not that much.
- [41:39]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [41:40]
Ethan Suplee
And it actually dwindles from there, like 10%. You're not doubling your health benefit. You're getting a little bit more, but not some massive. And 15. It's the same. The scale goes down. The biggest boon to just strictly health is a 5% reduction. So if you say somebody loses 50% of their body weight and then slides back, because when I, when I started dieting, I was over £500. I never went back up to £500. Over all the years, I gained back a hundred pounds or more multiple times. I never went back to 500. So I got a huge kick to my health just from the first diet I did as an adult going, I want to die.
- [42:23]
Mike Pesca
It.
- [42:23]
Ethan Suplee
I just. It was hard for me to rationalize that as a success because I kept regaining some weight. Do you know what I mean? So I think you make a very good point there.
- [42:34]
Mike Pesca
I also think that don't look at gaining back a lot of your weight as a failure, because I remember. So my journey, some. Some gains, some losses, but sometime around the beginning of COVID or in the middle of COVID things were going bad for everyone. And I just said, you know, I kind of can't stand this. I need to do something that is a tangible accomplishment. Right. Work was tough. Being inside was tough. I'm just gonna. My accomplishment could be learning to play guitar. My accomplishment could be something with Duolingo. I just concentrated on the health thing, and it's going to be my accomplishment for me. I don't know that a doctor would say you, at this point, need to lose a whole bunch of weight. Weight. It was my health journey. I didn't want to call it losing weight. I didn't want to call it dieting. I got an app. My wife got me some, you know, scales and stuff, and it worked. And I felt great about myself. I think not even because I looked better or was healthier or lost an amount just because I made an accomplishment that I set out to make.
- [43:40]
Ethan Suplee
Yeah, I think that's the best, most positive way you could frame it. And I think the majority of people would be better off going into it in that way with those terms.
- [43:56]
Mike Pesca
And that's it for today's show. Cory War produces the gist. Kathleen Sykes runs the gist list, Ben Astaire is our booking producer, and Jeff Craig runs our socials. Michelle Pesca oversees it all. But benevolently improve, and thanks for listening.