Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 411: Fitness Industry Trends, Vegan Vs. Carnivore, Lab Meat, Stocks + MAHA

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

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Welcome in, everybody, to another episode of the Progressive Overload Project. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga, joined by my co-host, Matt LaCocco, and Holden King, talking all of things, fitness, nutrition, sports, culture, politics, and beyond. Today we're going to talk about exercises that are overperformed and, frankly, overrated, things you see a lot of in the gym that could be effective but aren't really as effective as you think. underrated exercises or exercises we really like that we frankly feel that we should see more of. We're also going to talk about how to navigate an injury and how to navigate the whole what the fuck is optimal and even worth doing in the gym craze.

We'll also review some of the trends in the fitness industry related to where it's going, where people are spending their money. I think this is kind of fascinating. We'll talk about vegan diets versus carnivore diets. And if we were forced to choose between the two, which one we would choose, as well as a little bit of a breakdown and analysis on how we feel about lab grown meat and a lot of the political discourse around lab meat. We'll talk about what's going on in the market,

especially with the stock market reaching new all-time highs yet again and a potential new sale. I don't think we have a buyer yet, but TikTok looks like it's on the move to an American owner. A little sports talk, and we'll talk about the looming government shutdown. But first, let's jump in to exercise selection, exercise choice and I thought this is kind of interesting just breaking down overrated slash underrated overperformed or underperformed exercises um and I had a few that came to mind I don't

know if you guys do for exercises that jump out to you as being very overperformed or overdone anything immediately jump out decline bench decline barbell I okay decline bench with a barbell I could see that I feel like it's bro what about the lower chest dog yeah yeah yeah I I know, I just remember, like, new to lifting, like, obviously, like, getting really about it in chest days were just like flat bench, incline bench, decline bench, decline bench, dumbbells, cable flies, and I still had a little bitch chest. So I have since not been doing those and then just, like, just focusing on just training as much chess as possible and just pushing it a good range of motion. And my chest looks better. So it didn't grow from decline bench. I'll just say that.

Yeah, decline bench is, is it the word? bench probably yeah it might feel good on on your shoulders maybe you i think from a weight standpoint you can hit more too everybody that like push a ton on yeah it's like oh my shoulder doesn't hurt like i yeah maybe i have a hard time calling it overrated though because like i don't see anybody do it that much and maybe it's because i don't go to the gym i think that's probably why there's one but there's one i know the bench you go to and i know the decline bench that you're talking about and it's like okay yeah there's always people benching in that gym but like the decline bench probably the least used definitely but i still like every time i go in

like i'm shocked to see somebody like decline benching i'm like wow i would rather do a dip yeah than a decline bench dress if i wanted to train a pushing movement where my arms were moving more in that path that's that would be my choice or set the cables up a little higher and do like a cable totally totally uh i think ultimately if i'm doing a press in that plane i'm already doing a flat press are you doing an incline press like if i want a i want a converging arm path lift in that plane i would want it to be something else so yeah i think of the ways to do it decline bench is probably worse than dips cable like dips or a dip machine do you have one holding that you think is kind of overrated yeah i've got a couple i've got the the shoulder warm up holding the dumbbells here oh yeah with the

with the elbow flex you're holding a bicep curl isoid bicep waste of timer and it's not really doing a lot to like activate or warm up your rotator cuffs which is like what you're trying to probably do with this exercise there's probably just take a cable machine and walk out a little bit and use that motion right where it's more like horizontal um that's going to be a lot more beneficial for getting your shoulders warmed up if you need to do that but you can also just go to your first exercise and warm up with that the second one that i think is a big one is squatting heavy weights with a band around your knees oh my god i haven't seen that in a long time but it does still have happen. Yeah, I think it happens a lot. And I think the band around the knee thing for people who

really love it because it feels good and your glutes are, your glute medias, they're burning. It just kind of takes away from your glute max doing as much as it can because it's kind of competing here. When you're squatting, like your glute max is a prime mover. And you're trying to drive your knees out and contract your glute medias a ton. If you want to make progress on your squats and lift some sort of like heaviest load, I don't see people. people with bands using heavier loads, but when you put it around your femur and it's pulling your knees in while you're squatting,

I just don't think that's very efficient. So skip the band. It makes it a lot harder. I can't think of any lift where having a band around your knees and constraining yourself would be like good. I mean some exercises it adds stimulus or effect, but like it is ultimately, like if you were at the bottom of a heavy squat

and you were like, uh-oh. That's exactly how I was in doing it. Good thing I have this band on. to make my ass grow because I'm going to fucking die You're going to get squashed by that bar

At least when you get buried by that bar You're going to have a fat glute pump That is It does It does make the squat I think worse Most people need

External rotation in their squat They don't need that To be resisted More than it already is Or limited more than it already is By band I have so many exercises That come to mind

That I think are like Overrated but when I when I like really stop and I look at like the way people are training right now and I think like what am I seeing in gyms the most that I think is like kind of a waste of time or that I would just completely swap out or recommend people just like just if you like move away from that because it's not really doing anything for you for for the average person I would say, like, one rep max of almost anything.

Yeah. Now, like, I understand this. Is it an overrated lift? It's an overrated thing to be doing that's that in the gym, I see so many people who, one, aren't competing to be strong and two aren't strong, trying to express strength on a single rep. They haven't taken enough time to develop the skill. And then also, it's like the thing every time you do it.

It's like, oh, I'm going to go to one rep, see what I can do. And I just think that you're going to run. run into some problems still common to see people working up to heavy singles that don't train heavy singles and i think like very few lifts are optimal for the development of strength and like tissue resilience and muscle mass when they're done just once like i would rather do a set of three dead lifts a set of five squats and like a set of five bench as my heavy high output set than a single. I really think that I it just bums me out when I see non-competitive lifters working up to heavy singles and I'm like damn you were in the gym for an hour and you're like

a metabolically unfit adult and you did like nine reps of a compound lift to work up to a heavy single that you didn't need to do right and no one's sore for two weeks after yes yes or it's just like hey I think I'm going to try it today this is one that happened uh this happens to me a lot like clients coming in like hey i think i can hit this like i really want to hit this weight that's cool and i'm like that's cool you can't hit it i know you can't hit it because i just watched you hit it like something less than that three times really slow and i think doing three times slow again would be better than like dying under a single so i think the most overrated thing i'm seeing now is heavy singles still from people who are not competing

in strength sport i also think that planks are really overrated yeah playing are another one that I like the exercise. Yeah, I like what you get out of the exercise. Sure. Core stability. But I think there's probably five versions of the plank. I like more than the plank. Like I think the side plank is a good exercise

and the plank is like an okay, not so great. I think, go ahead, man. I don't, I don't think anybody likes planks. Nobody likes planks. It has like a resiliency feeling to it, but I agree with you guys. guys, I think there's a number of different exercises that I'd rather do that would suck less and I'd be more willing to do.

If you're choosing an exercise that you don't see, if you can't load it, if you actually can't load the exercise with any weight and progress on it, I think that you should do another exercise because, okay, how can you progress a plank? You have to put like a plate on your back and at that point it's just a lot more shoulders and you might as well just do a pressing motion. And for the abs, I'd much rather do something where I'm actually moving my spine and I'm flexing my abs. I'm actually getting something out of that.

I think that makes a hell of a lot of difference. If you're doing planks, I think that's great. If you're doing any exercise at all, I think that's great. But let's switch to planks out for something else. They're still overrated, and I honestly am not the biggest fan of all exercise is good. So let's just, I know, I know. It's so cynical. But, like, I don't, you know what else?

Like, I don't like lying to people like that. That's fair. All exercise is good. You know what? All driving's good. But if you fucking want to get something. somewhere on time you might want to put your fucking foot on the accelerator and like a lot of exercise is like slow it's not going to get you where you want to get it's not going to build

strength i'm going to build tissue and i would i don't care if somebody labels me like oh you're shitting on pilates aren't you worried that people aren't going to work out no no i'm fucking not nobody goes to pilates for the first time that's not anyone's first workout it's where already like kind of fit girls go to continue working out i have never met a person in my fucking life who said you know i was in the i was working out and then you told me that my workout routine was inefficient and ineffective for my goals so i quit i think it's super duper fair to be like this is not optimal for almost anyone and like if you want to get the most out of your training and you're limited on your time you should do stuff that's more effective i think that would

really be helpful and i honestly think we've completely overshot and we've like leaned into the pusification of all exercise is good exercise yes i fucking know like literally 50% of americans do zero fucking exercise and and like if that number jumped from 50 to 25% but all the exercise that was getting done was like zumba i'd be happy but i'd be disappointed because they'd be like well we could have done better so i'm saying there's a lot of information out there and and i think you and i think a lot of misinformation out there i think everyone starts somewhere and i think that's great but eventually yeah it's it's probably time to progress a little bit and and and choose modalities that are just more efficient and i think that's great i think the um

the Pilates craze right now is the hype around it's real i was just talking to one of my family members are going to Pilates now two times a week they hate it they didn't want to go i said why the hell are you doing it then well because it's just a hard workout and it makes me sweat and i'm ringing my shirt out after getting all the water and i was just like i'm trying to lose weight and I'm like look there is so many way easier ways to lose weight number one you don't even need to exercise like let's focus on your diet for a little bit and let's lift some weights and like get into a routine that you can actually stick with I think most people who do Pilates aren't going to do it for very long it's short lived the instructors they've all lifted and they tell you that

they did this Pilates shit to get the body that they have now and I hate that shit I'm with you on that for sure you didn't get the body that you have from the Pilates exercise you've got the body that you have from the eating behavior of the other women in that Pilates class and how that influenced your eating behavior. Whether you fucking want to admit it or not, weightlifting, yoga, Pilates, none of them are burning enough calories to make you smaller. The only way you're getting smaller as a woman is by eating fewer calories. The reason so many women who are currently doing Pilates are getting smaller is not because

of the exercise effect on their body. It's because of the psychological effect of being in a fucking room with a bunch of of other women, how that affects the way you look at yourself, how that affects the way you eat, and don't be, don't be fucking shocked. Please do not be shocked if in one to two years were like, wow, Pilates trend brought with a tremendous eating disorders and like massive amounts of caloric restriction from women who were kind of going in the right direction, but got snatched up by the, oh, you know what's cooler than like actually being fit and healthy?

doing really, like, ineffective workouts with expensive beverages and expensive outfits that look cute. You want to look cute, don't you, honey? You don't want to be healthy. You want to look cute. The fitness industry fucking strikes again. I really think, like, the Pilates body is just the Pilates in a way, eating behavior or, dare I say, eating disorder. Any underperformed exercise or exercise modalities, like, I'll happily say Pilates is overperformed. Oh, yeah, overperform.

And this is a good segue, right? So underperform. Yeah, underperformed, underrated, things you want to see people doing more of. So I still go to a public gym. I know just at least more so than you guys. So I see a lot of what kind of the public trains. And I would just say legs in general. I know if like a gym is predominantly a male dominated space.

Obviously, I see a lot of women training lower body because that's popular. But lunges, squats, deadlifts kind of thing. I think I would like to. see from a little bit more people I think that would like really help just like the long term strength building and just aging process living a higher quality of life longer before you know things inevitably change as we age you know mm-hmm yeah I think there's a big difference between training and exercise we were kind of just talking about a little bit I want to see more people training yeah with like with that's a great point not just jump in programs all the time and

switching exercise up all the time and like feeling a little twinge in your back one day when you deadlift and never doing it again or feeling something in your knee when you squat not just making the adjustment and doing another form of a squat or or just like progressively overloading or like getting better at the skill and really getting into your lifting like I think that's just like it's kind of a lost art in in and maybe I'm wrong no I think you're right my mine was was similar I was going to say I'd like to see more people training to failure or like close to failure and like yeah so like better training intensity literally the The one, I think the number one thing I've done in the last, like, five years that has made me better at getting results for my clients is understanding that it's okay for me to push them to failure.

It's also helped me do more of my own work, like, close to failure. I didn't realize, like, I've always had, like, a few clients that are, I'm just like, dude, stop. Like, stop. Bro, you're done. Like, you're so done with that. And I'm like, holy shit, this person, like, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I'm like, damn, they, they just.

My 74-year-old client. she'll like do a rep like this yeah yeah like i'm like dude all you're good you're good they're like like doing partial hey just like partial like beyond failure all the way there dude i have like it's a few clients that instinctively do like beyond failure partials i'm like damn dude they want to failure and they like kept going because they actually feel like they have to go until they can't stop and then there are people that you work with that are clearly uh they have an aversion to that intensity so they stop away before failure and i find that like that sweet spot lot of like two three one two three reps from failure when i'm in the gym or when i see people train

on their own that's the missing piece and there's so much talk about what program what sets what reps what exercises i genuinely believe if you're doing like anywhere between five to 20 reps of compound lifts or you know intelligently chosen isolation lifts that are right around failure you're going to get tremendous results and i would love to see more people like making a face like that's that's the missing piece like in my opinion you got to have too many people are worried about that face dude I hear a lot even from some of my clients helps to look ugly I must not look good and I'm like who cares you're lifting heavy yeah like you're challenging yourself look like you're kind of struggling and like maybe look like you might shit your pants

like on a set or two and it's it's helped my I've found like a lot of my clients are like when they get that last rep like hell yeah dude they feel good this is part of the skill acquisition that you require that you get over time when you're trying to get closer to failure and train it's a great point more it's like shit and you just proved yourself you can do hard things um and it really builds a lot of resilience um confidence too which i think it's a lot of it's a skill to be able to train hard and and train through discomfort i don't see a lot of slow reps i think i i see a lot of like oh my god it burns it burns it burns they're all the same speed that's not building muscle that's a great point i probably build muscle you

And a great proxy for, like, getting close to failure is, did your reps get slower at any point? If your reps didn't get slower during the set. I also think if you immediately began the second set and, like, did the same amount of reps, you probably needed to add weight or the first set wasn't hard, right? Like, oh, I did 135. It was easy for 10. Then the next one I did it for 10.

I'm like, that should have been 155 or that 135 should not have gone up 10 times because the first set should have gassed your shit. So those are just things. Anything else you guys in to throw in before I riff on these fitness marketing trends that I thought were interesting? Dude, I think we got it all, call it most of it out. Okay, so I found this little like synopsis. I don't have it in front of me, but I have the key points in front of me. It was like this third party group that gets paid to do market research on fitness market trends.

And I thought these were, this made a ton of sense to me, and it probably makes a ton of sense to you guys. since COVID we have had decreased gym participation shall we say like the highest like 2019 had a lot of health club check-ins 2020 had a huge drop off 2021 22 23 we're now back to pre-pandemic levels of like health club usage which is solid we're seeing a lot more boutique gyms which I think includes Pilates it includes what we do I think people want more high-end fancy fitness. I think with COVID, that's also where things kind of trended as well. People kind of got smart about it. And they just did their own thing. They were no longer. They like left the big box gym. Well, that's shrinking. I was surprised to see them. Home fitness and home workouts

are kind of flatlining. And what's like really winning is luxury experiences, high end things like cold plunges and saunas. Ways for people to feel important. I think so to feel sophisticated to feel high end it's not hard work no to go serious on a to go get do a cold plunge it's uncomfortable but it's not yeah like i would i hate talking about overrated talk about overrated oh because it's not training related but yeah i i have a cold plunge the optimization of recovery and doing things that are that aren't aerobic exercise what are you recovering and sleeping sorry sorry i got a battle recovery day from my week of where I got nowhere near failure and didn't push myself at all ice bucket shut up

shut up I mean I do think you're on the money it's super overrated I have one I was given one um I think that it has its place like I think the sauna sauna subsist okay sauna is so awesome not overrated let's make that very clear I think the sauna is perpetually underrated and I think there's a modality for sauna use that I think a lot of when I think of my dad because my dad's so disabled he can't move his body there are so many any American adults who have a movement disability like ALS, like Parkinson's, like could be limb loss paraplegia, who knows, neuropathies one, they also might have mobility issues due to injury, due to joint replacement, due to obesity. Anybody in that population can probably

sauna and see increased aerobic health and increased circulatory health with zero loading and zero movement that's the kind of lazy shit exercise like i'm okay with like yeah that's amazing like i don't know what i would love to see a day where we encourage therapeutic use of sauna for people who are challenged by their mobility i think that could that that that would be like so cool um but i don't know we're gonna talk a lot about like health policy and some of the other episodes that we're doing but yeah i think that's that's interesting more wearables more big gyms more expensive gyms more boutiquey jim this and then to hold Holdenance point, a lot of money being spent on ineffective recovery.

Yeah, this is just going to happen. You guys seeing any trends? Anything's jumping out to you as, like, obvious? I think now it's more in the nutrition space that, like, I'm seeing just, like, particular diets kind of thing. I see the resurgence of a lot of, like, fad diets. I will say, like, it's very obvious to me that fitness and wellness and health have become more of a right-wing-coded thing.

So you're seeing, like, a whole slew of products. coming out and I think one trend that I've seen it's like cow wellness cow stuff yeah like beef tallow bovine colostrum like everything beef beef is good beef is hot beef is all the rage I'm glad you mentioned nutrition though because it seems to be like depending on the modality you choose for your workouts you're automatically there's like doing this diet there's a diet that goes we're avoiding these it kind of does feel that way yes and I'm just you know they go together yeah and I I think that we have lost the the idea of what it means to have balance.

I think people are trying to play a part. That's what I honestly believe. I want to be seen as a bodybuilder. So I have the ghost energy drink and I have the gallon jug and I have the gym shark. I got the belt. If I want to be a power lifter, knee sleeves on my knees, belt over my shoulder, chalk on my hands, there's a look, right? Like there's also like an interesting eating behavior.

Lions, not sheep shirt. Yeah, dude. I mean, there are so many subcultures in the gym now that are clearly a form of, like, wanting to belong. I cannot think of a better example of, I want to belong to a community more than I want to be serious about my health than the Pilates thing. Like, okay, I cannot think of any, like, subculture. Okay, I can't think of any demographic in America that needs resistance training and not to starve themselves more than women. But they're opting for one of the lowest forms and lowest, like, tier strength training exercises, Pilates, and obviously pairing it with caloric restriction. And there's tons of women who are obese.

But, like, that whole thing from the macha to the outfit to the fucking expense, the fact that it has to cost a lot, like, that is performance art. I really believe that it is a participation in a culture thing. I think it goes back to as far as, like, Orange Theory. probably further back than that yeah oh yeah a zumba uh you know the wearing that shit in the 80s with yes that was that was a look that was a culture and i'm thinking like maybe the modern era remember pain and gain like the bodybuilders is a parachute pants and stringers like there's there's always been like looks and aesthetics to pursue so that you can display to other people i am in this fitness community this is the camp that i am in and i think we

see more of that because people have so much less belonging in the world that they're trying to find it in fitness and i think to your point fitness should be about balance should be about what works with your lifestyle how can you stay healthy with everything you have going on and usually it's not by subscribing to a very cut and dry template well it's also understanding that you don't need it to become your entire life like you can fit any sort of fitness and in a balanced way into what you have going on currently like i don't think you should shake up your entire life with all the other things you have going on to fit in a particular community or feel some type of way about your own fitness.

So figure out what, like, makes sense individually to you and find the different ways. Mm-hmm. I agree. And with some of these more, some of these market trends, some of these fitness market trends that are going on, I think we're seeing more strength training. I think we're seeing a lot of, yeah, great.

I think we're seeing a lot of these, like, classes, these organized class. like orange theories adding weights to to their routine and and more functional movement pattern stuff right um but you know like these places are going to have to adapt like especially orange theory because they ran off they they built their base off of the idea that you need to get to the orange zone with your cardiorespiratory fitness to burn more fat and it's just number one a lie you don't have to do that there's no fat burning zone no such thing there's not a required amount of cardio or intensity you need to burn more body fat and as a matter of fact when

you're trying to do that and your intensities go way up when you're doing these things rest of the day yeah great point you're not doing as much you're gonna burn you're gonna burn less fat during the day if you're doing a or you burn more fat during the day when you have like a lifting intense workout sure like burning more fat is that like the substrate fat or is that like on your body, right? And that's going to depend. But I just, I hope we're seeing, seeing less of the misinformation, less of the, you need to kill yourself to get results, because that's so short-lived. We want people in fitness longer and more consistently. And to your point, Danny, too, it's like, and you, Matt, find some balance, do the stuff that works for you,

and it can be individualized and bring your friends along. I think, I think that's great if you want the community aspect. Let's talk about a really bad tribal fitness. choice that I wouldn't want to make, but it's a great hypothetical. Talking about, like, communities, and, like, people do get agitated because this is a bit of a false equivalence, but, like, the vegan diet versus the carnivore diet. Now, I'll say this. There is no ethical component of the carnivore diet. If anything, there's, like, a political, masculine equivalent.

Like, it is, it does mean something, but it's not an ethical thing. But, like, choosing between those two is an interesting hypothetical. that I have seen people kick around before. I reluctantly know what I would choose, but I'm curious what you guys would choose if you were in a position where you were forced to join one of these, like, pseudo-tribal nutritional things.

I would rather be a 160-pound vegan than a 250-pound carnivore and be more likely to get heart disease and not eat any vegetables and just kill more animals, which that's why I'm proponent. What's the length of time of this? is hypothetical.

Indefinite. This is like the rest of your life. I was hoping this was like a month. You can still get your protein in as a vegan. I think I would just stock up on the protein powders. There's no way I'd be able to get like a consistent 3,000 plus calories in a day.

Probably. You'd be so satiated. So satiated. But way more vegetables. Yeah, probably way healthier. Really good for you. Comparatively, vegan would be healthier than carnivore in the long term.

Yeah, I don't even think it's fucking close. I think that they don't like literally ditto I don't have anything else to add They don't want to hear it They don't want to hear it No course because Because the anti-nutrients Soie boy, liberal beta cucks

How dare you look at the scientific evidence That's existed for hundreds of years It tells us how fucking food works In the human body I like looking at how people used to eat 2,000 billion years ago When they fucking died at 37 It's dude I

I hate like These fucking naturalists man Carnivore exists Because these people are just I think it might have been on Jordan Science podcast when I said this, but I'm like, almost certain carnivore only exists because a bunch of hyper-incere puss men

hated getting dunked on by vegans. So they were like, oh yeah, yeah, well, I'm going to come up with like a really annoying diet that's the reverse of your diet, fucker. And it's like an annoyingly juvenile thing. It'd be like, okay, Tim, I'd like you to clean your room today because it's important.

I don't want to clean my room. I'm going to make it messier. it's like i don't think if internet veganism becomes what it became in like the early 2015 to 2018 i don't even think we get carnivore i think carnivore is a reactive diet invented by mostly morons who wanted to prove that even as an adult man they can reject their mommy telling them they should eat their vegetables they literally never got over the foundational trauma of mommy telling them to eat their vegetables so their masculinity is still fucking tied to their stupid rib eye on their stupid board and they have to put raw honey on it

because lord knows that's carnivore but yeah i just the performance are of carnivore is dumb the science of carnivore is dumb the benefit of carnivore is like high protein the only thing these people ever have to say it's like well when you do carnivore instead of eating normal it's good for you it's like bro eating like a regular american such a low bar to clear it's pathetic yeah it is fucking like a joke it's exponentially better to combine those too. Yes. Have you heard there's this crazy? Do you get in all your nutrients and not just half of them?

Do you guys, did you guys like dinosaurs? That's not polarizing enough though in where we live in? That's true. You guys liked dinosaurs. Did I fucking love dinosaurs? Do you guys remember like how there were carnivore dinosaurs? Yeah. And herbivore dinosaurs?

Yeah. And then there were also like omnivore dinosaurs. Right. Well, all the fucking dinosaurs died. But I would bet my ass that the omnivore humans outlive the herbivore and the carnivore humans. by like a fuck ton. Unless there's a meteorite or an ice age coming, if this is just a full-blown sprint for your health, give me team omnivore 10 times out of 10. More practical, more versatile, way less annoying. Like, I hate to say it, but like, if you thought vegans were annoying, man, carnivore people are so much more annoying than vegan people.

I'm sorry, carnivore men. There are really no carnivore people. It's just men. There's like 10 carnivore chicks and one of them has those stupid glasses. I know, and she's like, if you want to get your protein in, what you're going to do is cut up these cubes of raw meat and just put them in your pocket. Throughout the day, you're going to have a nibly. Stop it. You're kidding. You're not fucking kidding.

You're not kidding. Cut these up in a small, some of this shit is so ridiculous. Like I told Sight the other day, like I was like, you know, Dave Asprey used to do piss injections, right? And he's like, no, he didn't. No, he didn't. That's insane. I was like, yeah, it's like, it's like known thing.

He used to inject his own urine. I thought he just put on a shit. So that sounded so insane. I didn't believe you, but that sounds like, that sounds like her. Oh, my God, this woman, that woman with the glasses, she's the worst thing ever. She's so bad. She is the liver queen. I was hoping that they were a thing.

They look like they should go together. But can you imagine their offspring? They would just eat like bones. I'm the boner king. All I eat is bones. Flash is for pussies. I'm on 100% calcium diet. Sparrow.

Like, where do we go from? Speaking of the Brian Johnson of the world. Oh. I would actually be, is that, are we, we're going to talk about that down the road. Okay, okay, okay. But I would like to talk about Labneet, because Labney is like all the rage because it's political and it's fun to talk about, but it doesn't exist. What did you just post it the other day? Scientific, it's going to be political.

It is political. Oh, it was a Francis Collins who used to run the NIH and he said, would you mix politics and science? What you get is politics. And it's so funny because it's like, God damn, that's hell of true. the minute you politicize science science is going to lose to the politics of the moment and like lab meat in practice doesn't really exist it exists in that like you could find it in some really unique situations but you can't go buy it but there are multiple states i would love for somebody to pull this up on chat GPT that have already banned lab meat they already banned it yeah like performative Of course they did. Labmeat ban. They know nothing about it.

It's not natural. What they deem is natural. It's not natural. And so automatic, just going to ban it because I'm ignorant. I don't want to find out more about lab meat. Well, there's some. Are you ready for the top three states that have banned it already? That have banned it already.

Nice. It's like very on brand. And we ban trans lab meat. Should we guess? Yeah, you guys want to guess. I'm very confident. Top three. Top three.

Florida, West Virginia, Alabama. Okay. Two of the three. Damn it. Are you just naming. SEC schools or I think you missed the one that stands out to me, it has to be Texas.

No. What? Oh yeah, they're on here. Yeah, okay. But not in the top three. Not in terms of top three that immediately banned it. Oh, like they banned it. They were like, yep, we're first.

Nope. Wait, the first state of the union to ban something you can't buy almost anywhere. It was Mississippi, but anyway, it's on brand. Dude, is it not fucking crazy that we will ban lab meat? Like, before we even

talk about changing anything about guns. No, you can buy a goddamn bazooka AR with a fucking scope on it wherever you want. What is this lab meat I'm hearing? Might be here in 10 years. Ban it already. That shit's going to kill people. If it comes from a lab, it's going to kill kids in the

classroom. If it comes from a lab, everyone's going to get shut down, have to wear masks, stand six feet apart. It's going to be COVID-19 again. Oh my God, dude. It bothers. It is crazy to me how fast we can take legislative action to ban this shit, but we're just like, God, you know. We'll never

be able to do anything about the guns because people have them already. This is infuriating. My question to you is this. Would you eat the lab meat? Like very simple. One word answer. Would you eat the lab? Yes. Yes. I would. I feel like I would want to see a little data on it.

Okay. So that's fair. Yes. But not completely a fascist. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Yes, but not immediately. It's so like. It's like stem cells, right? They take cells or they take cells. It's It's not even, it's not stem cell. It's like, I don't even understand how it's an animal.

And they, poop, cultures, it becomes a steak. Here's a burger. Okay. So, did you know it cost $300,000 to make a lab grown piece of meat back in, I think it was 2007 or something? 300,000 for a rib-eye? So bad for that guy. It's my dream to finance lab meat.

All right, sir, we've put your $300,000 investment to good use. You can have this one ounce for late. Do you remember that? No. No, but I thought it. So, like, here's my thing. Everybody said this about fat-loss drugs. Now everybody's on fat-loss drugs.

I just need to wait a little bit to see how they weren't fucking everyone's on them. Everyone's on them. One in eight Americans has used one at Per Kaiser, it's way higher than that. The minute they get lab meat that tastes good and has amazing macros, like, oh, check it out. We just made bone and ribeye like 100% great for you because it's all omega-3 fat. so now you don't have any issues well it may be but like i was just listening to lane norton talk about polygly call this epigy that they're fucking doing shit to make protein bars with like

incredible fat profiles oh yeah why couldn't we synthesize a rib eye that has a lipid profile similar more similar to salmon eventually we will be able to do that from what i understand right now i will be eating a lot of omega-3 rich rib eyes and i will be i will stand on the moral moral high ground of being like an animal didn't have to die for this because i know it's dushy to have like hell in animals and be like yeah give me that big steak cows don't matter cows are lame all right i question so do you think it's sooner to come out like the lab meat like you know a rib eye that's just synthesized in a lab or just like a little pill that too that too maybe but the pill a pill that has all the same nutritional properties no we enjoy almost like a supplement like you know like the jetsons i know that's a cartoon like an exercise like a full blown nutrient like this this this this This capsule has all the same nutrients as like, but like a rib-eye. Like it's equivalent to like a rib-eye. Which do you think could come out sooner?

I think we're going to have some really fascinating, like, medicine where it's like, I do think AI is going to enable us to basically formulate like a one-a-day therapeutic for people. Like, because one thing that a lot of people don't understand is, like, medication compliance rates are horrible. Like, people have higher compliance rates for giving their dogs, their meds than them. That's crazy. And if it was, like, all in one pill, like, hey, Mr. Johnson, we compounded your, you know, lipitor, your fucking, GLP1, your Metformin, and your daily Cialis into one pill. And, like, that's all you have to take. That I could see.

I don't know how long it would take to have a pill deliver you all of your nutrition. Well, that you do with, like, fiber and things of that nature, right? Multi-itamins. I think it would be more likely to eat lab meat or take the pill. I would take the pill Oh wow Okay so let's talk about lab meat I have no aversion to either

In this scenario Where I would say No pill Because I do enjoy Chewing and eating food Duh I think that I'm gonna say my whole diet Is taking a pill

I wouldn't do that Okay This is America Dude Where am I gonna get my dopamine From if I'm not eating anything So here's a little bit of the science Behind this lab grown

meat stuff. Okay. So they take real animal tissue from the muscle, fat, connected tissue instead of raising and slaughtering animals. Cells are harvested, stem cells, grown in culture media, often in bioreactors, which we don't even talk about that too much. Sounds so much worse when you here's the process. Which are grown in incredibly scary sounding places that we're also become the whole great. But the process involves adding like nutrients, amino acids, glucose, vitamins, and growth factors. There's just some bodybuilder in there for this. I can understand why no one wants to eat this shit.

It sounds scary, but it's not. It's actually very similar to regular meat. I think it's interesting that when you say how it's made, it's terrible. I know. So this is exactly scientifically how it's made. Ban it right fucking now. Singapore approved culture chicken bites in 2020.

So they're selling them over there. And in Australia and the UK, They've approved quail. The U.K. is considering working on regulations to review for cultivated meat products. Well, so check this out. Cultured meat will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90%. That's pretty substantial. Land use from these animals will obviously drop by 90%.

Housing, baby. No, dude, fuck that. Data centers, homie. Oh, yeah, dude, data center developments are crazy. I just watched a video on Business Insider last night. Not good. Like, I get, okay, where is it in Virginia? Somebody looked this up.

It's like the king of the data centers is like somewhere in Virginia. Amazon has tons of these data centers. It starts with an L. Like, it's, uh, but dude, the data centers that are being built out across the United States. Uh, LaDown. That's it. Yes. Loudoun County.

Loudon. Dude, more data centers in Loudon County than almost anywhere in the country. Which shocked me because you could build that in more rural areas. These data centers are these huge buildings. There's 300 of them there. Those are Amazon data centers. That's Amazon has so much data and compute power that is going to power these GPTs. And maybe the lab meat making.

Speaking of huge companies and Fortune 500 companies and rich tech billionaires, looks like TikTok's going to change hands, which is kind of crazy because the whole reason TikTok was supposed to change. chance was because it's a chinese-owned app that prevents presents like legitimate security like problems for america did you guys know this that in china you can't use meta products like you can't use facebook or instagram in china don't they also not have tic talk that's a huge security issue for us for you guys to be sharing your data with the u.s own company like that's much easier from the monitor people are seeing for sure and like our algorithm in ticot is 100% owned operated and edited by the ccp so what our kids are seeing is exactly

exactly what the Chinese Communist Party wants him to see. So there was a bipartisan push to ban TikTok. And Trump was one of the first people, because he wanted to be tough on China way back in the day, to say, let's ban TikTok. Well, then he found out, like, thanks to people like Charlie Kirk and other provocateurs who used these social medias to access young people, I'd be crazy to ban TikTok, because that's how I reach young people.

There's also a ton of misinformation that can spread on TikTok. And if you're Trump, misinformation is good for you, because generally speaking the truth is bad for him um but yeah so we're at this place now where ticot has to be sold to an american company and divest from china or else it goes away am i some why am i more worried about that sold to new dude you should be because this is going to just bought by some other billionaire that's allied with trump and then you have to stop and pause and go okay zuckerberg is he's kissing up to trump he's got meta which is instagram and facebook do not even get me started on the allegiances between

Elon and Donald Trump. Larry Ellison, who owns Oracle and Microsoft, are considered to be the two top companies likely to acquire that. The head of Apple's giving him fake awards. Right. Wall Street Journal. And then we have the Jimmy Kimmel thing,

which basically the company that is buying all the local owned ABC stations cancel Kimmel because they want to get their merger done. Right. There's a lot of media consolidation going on around Trump, but like I do think It's really fascinating that somebody is going to buy the biggest media app of our lifetime. And I bet you that the number is close to a trillion dollars.

No shit. So they started first. We're going to take some guardrails down on social media. Number one, you're not going to see as much fact checking. Never. There's no fact check. I think on Facebook. No, it's community notes now everywhere.

Oh, fact check is too biased and we have to, you know, let free speech. We pivoted on the free speech thing. The First Amendment matters so much. that anyone can post anything they want. AI is really developing. And some of these videos, you don't know what you're seeing, and there's no fact checking.

I lost my train thought. No, I don't think you did. I think you're just kind of sharing how this is all changing. Like, I don't think you lost your change of change. We just don't know where the train is fucking going. No. No one knows where we're going to eat.

The timing of everything is just really interesting right now. And now we're going to have an American owner, TikTok, get rid of it all together. Who is assuredly allied with the president, like the largest media company owners already are. It really is an fascinating pivot to consider that in 2020, conservatives were railing about liberal control of the media and liberal media bias and liberal suppression of media. And when Trump is back in office within eight months, there is a massive rallying around him by the largest, biggest media companies in the world.

Whether it's CBS, whether it's ABC, whether it's Apple, whether it's Microsoft, whether it's Oracle, whether it's Twitter, they are uniquely bent in his direction. And that is a huge 180. And this idea that a liberal media ecosystem exists is complete bullshit. The amount of conservative-leaning podcasts that are crushing, Every single news program is not even funny. So I do think Trump has a unique, unique position right now where he has his thumb on the kind of volume and amplification of information right now

and the sale of the biggest media company ever that I'm interested what that number is going to be. Elon Musk spent like, I don't know, was it $50 billion that he spent on Twitter? I thought it was more. Yeah, I guess it was like around. I don't know. Well, this is going to be way more. I think TikTok is worth substantially more than Twitter. Like, I would not, you could convince me that it's worth 20 times.

44 million. 44 billion? Yeah, if you told me that TikTok sold for $440 billion, 10 times with Twitter sold for, I'd say it was undervalued. TikTok, I'd rather have TikTok for 10 times the cost than X. Yeah, where the algorithms are going to go, like on people's explorer pages. I'm super interested to see. Who has that?

Because that is the key. Who has the TikTok algorithm? The most powerful algorithm. Totally. Just like the same thing with who has a Twitter algorithm. Is it still China or is it some guy who's close with the president? Because that would, there's no doubt Elon Musk uses the X algorithm to amplify certain things. Oh my God.

So I'm pretty sure he's like even openly admitted that. All of this is happening. And like while all of this is happening, the stock market is at all time highs. And it continues to just hit all time highs because we got a rate cut. we'll talk a little bit more about that later or in a future episode about who is running the Fed but like the stock market's crushing the stock market is crushing

there's just no way around it the economic activity and the rate cut or lead in the growth of AI optimism are just causing a huge market surge the beginning of Trump presidency this time around the stock market was just going like this because of the tariffs I get it and now it's just like kind of slowly people have accepted the tariffs people have digested

the tariffs it doesn't mean that we haven't seen issue we won't still see problems from them but clearly people are like just chill now yeah they don't have any problems in it is it is it fair to say that what you see coming from like wall street and the like the stock market is a fair assessment of the lived economy no no it's what the top i think that's becoming pretty clear that it's not what's interesting is the data on the lived economy which is like what do general what do americans say when you poll them on the economy and how it's like too much still even like do you trust trump on the economy right like 52 percent don't no because that was the fox news poll and he said and i quote fox news has the worst polls yeah

their polls are weak and gay the best polls are on truth social trump 100 percent likely to win best handsome as president of all the time biggest cock too but like dude this shit's crazy because the gap between the lived economy and the stock market is huge and like all of us are in the lived economy but because we want to be wealthy one day we're also in the stock market right so it's pretty interesting to like look and be like yeah my assets and securities are growing and like my wealth is growing but just like living in the economy as a millennial kind of shitty it's like things are very expensive

and I do think a lot of the things that people see when they're or say when they're pulled on the economy are not reflecting in the market yeah I agree on that and then on and then on top of that I just think that controlling the media

right now is just like it's just something you would see in Russia in China and and I think that they're doing exactly what they said they're going to do they really are just continue i'm like they're not going to be able to do that they're doing it they're going to push until

they're checked they are just flooding the zone i can't keep up with all the shit no one can and that's why you're like you know just look the other way let them handle it and we'll be a full-blown fascist freaking country yep but the one thing america will always have is sports which is what we're going to close with really quick it seems like otani and judge are basically a lot to win the MVP in baseball like we talked on one of our earlier episodes about Cal Raleigh, the catcher being like a great choice. I'm kind of frustrated that he is not like a runaway because I do think catcher is like the most underrated position in baseball.

And like you see a ton of like corner outfielders who hit for power and field their position well win MVP. It's very rare to see a catcher win MVP. And I do feel like the Yankees were good with Judge. before, and the Mariners are much better with this core built around Raleigh. I'm a little disappointed in that, and, like, I'm, I am a firm believer that Ocho Hay Otani is a superior player to Aaron Judge because of his ability to do multiple things. Yes.

And I do feel that them being so frequently talked about. They're like dominating their B. One and two, it's the King A and the King B. It's Otani and Judge. They go together, like Lamar and Josh Allen, like it's, or my, the homes and Josh Allen for a long time it's like we want them to play in the world series the big power bats the big huge like titans of baseball and it's like yeah i don't know what cal raleigh to me did this year was more impressive erin judge to me did what he did the last year

which would just be the best hitter in all of baseball which is hard to do but otani can be like the second best hitter and steal 50 bases and pitch which is insane you know no one's gonna hold yeah there's no one as good as him but you have to have somebody else for the people for the sport. It's not good for the sport to have the same MVP's indefinitely. I feel like we saw us in the NFL last year. Josh Allen had a great year, but so did freaking Lamar, and you could have made a case,

you could have given it to Lamar again. I like that the NFL rotates MVP. Yeah, and it's good for the brand. I know Judge is like this unbelievable talent, too, and there's nothing, anybody's taken away from like what he was able to do, but didn't he also win some MVP's mostly because he hit a bunch of bombs and drove a bunch of people in?

Cal Raleigh is literally leading the A.L. in exactly those two categories. So if we're going to hold that as the standard, then I think you also need to keep it as the standard. And to me, I would like to see, like you said, Raleigh, more consideration. Aaron Judge would hit fewer home runs if he played on the Mariners. God knows how many home runs Cal Rale would hit if he played in Yankee Stadium. If all we're doing is giving Aaron Judge the MVP because he dinks him out of Yankee Stadium

and has an insane OPS and lots of RBIs and lots of home runs, I'm fine with that. But to your point, if it's just an award for the dude with the big, biggest bat, give it to the catcher, who traditionally is like the second worst or worst hitting position in your lineup, like not a spot you typically rely on in the batting order for offensive production. And we talked about this, he's an elite defensive catcher, which is worth a shit ton. He could get a gold glove this year, what is legitimate position is Aaron Judge.

He's an outfield. He is an outfield, but he DH is a lot. He can't, but he has. a good arm and he actually plays plus outfield. Yeah, Judge is a good player. Okay, he just doesn't look like he'd be that fast. No. He's not going to like seal the most bad. But he has like great timing

and he like plays out and makes good catches. He's like six foot eight. He uses his frame. But I think what Otani continues to do is like absolutely crazy. I had a lot of people say he'll never pitch well and just it's too hard. And like the other night he had like five no hit innings and a bomb.

And it was like, oh my God. Like stole 40 bats. It's like what? 60 bags last year and hit 50 bombs and then this year he's like i'm not going to steal as many bases because i'm going to pitch again yeah and like by the end of the season when they need him tuned up he's at his best probably going to we're probably going to watch this guy start playoff games and hit bombs it's like this is insane on the mouth his ability to like this is really special the game it is crazy in a number of different departments like how disappointing has Travis Hunter been as a two-way player

in the NFL? Like he has not done shit on offense or defense because it is like the Tiger Woods I really believe Travis Hunter was drafted because of the effect show Hayotani had on baseball and the Jaguars being aware that our franchise is trashed. We have no fans and we would love to hone in on

some of this and the appeal of a two-way player. I think that's the same way he won the Heisman, but that's just... I don't know. I don't know. I feel like we're going to see this more in baseball down the road. I think Otani is a great example of, like, what can be accomplished? We're seeing pitchers who can throw right-handed and left-hand. Yeah, it's going to change.

That'll be great for the game. He is going to, he transforms baseball, I hope, the way Steph Curry transformed basketball. The way Tiger Woods transformed golf, the way Michael Jordan transformed basketball. Like, I really think he's that good. I think he's going to be more transformative. But here's the other thing. If you told me in 80 years, because your dad told you, nobody's ever going to pitch and hit like Babe Ruth.

that dude used to be a pitcher you know back in the day babe ruth used to pitch what yeah he used to pitch say he's to let him do both i was like crazy to hear about this guy you could literally do anything who used to be a pitcher and he had like 716 home runs you're just like damn how about the guy with one hand a hundred years is how long it took for us to get another guy who could do both and he's probably better he's definitely a superior pitcher unlike i do think like i feel like about donnie If O-Tonnie played against the 1927 Bronx boondongles or whatever, he would have been hitting 900-foot moonball. I feel like it would be like holding pitching against his three-year-old,

just buy you. Imagine O-Tonnie back when they didn't let black people play. Just one V-9. Just one V-9. Yeah. Seriously. Well, that's one of the fascinating things about O-Tani, is there where multiple games,

and he is a player, like if you look at the games where an individual player has recorded more RBI's, than the other team and also recorded enough outs to receive a quality start. Like, the list is just him. It's like he actually has one V-9 a few teams. Legit a league of his own. I know. All right, guys.

Well, that's all we have for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, be sure to leave a five-star rating and review on both Apple and Spotify, wherever you listen, comment and tag the show on Instagram at Progressive Overload Pod. And be sure to follow all of us on Instagram. those are all linked in the video below. I hope you guys enjoyed the episode. We'll catch you on the next one.