Front Burner - Protein-maxxing and the age of self-optimization

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

Protein was once mostly associated with body builders and elite athletes, but today it's advertised everywhere from cereal boxes to fast food restaurants.It's just one facet of a broader phenomenon: many are referring to apps and gadgets to count their steps, count calories, and check if they actually had a good night’s sleep. But are our attempts to enact self-care actually making us self-obsessed?Writer and cultural critic John Semley joins guest host Matthew Amha to talk about the emerging culture of wellness, technology and self-improvement.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The housing crisis isn't just about housing. It's also about democracy, dignity, identity, security, and who counts and who doesn't. In this year's CBC Massey lectures, housing and human rights expert Leilani Farha explores the rise of Housing Inc. And our collective fight for home. Join us on September 8th at Kerner Hall in Toronto. For information on how to get tickets, go to cbc.ca.ca. This is a CBC podcast. Hi, I'm Matthew Amha.

In for Jamie. If you look closely enough, there's a new number that's come to dominate our diets. It's on the menu at fast food restaurants like McDonald's. It's on your Uber Eats. It's on the cereal at the grocery store or the yogurt in your fridge. And that is protein. For decades, protein was largely associated with bodybuilders and the world of elite athletics. But today, it's something closer to a cultural.

obsession. Protein is really just one facet of a much broader phenomenon, as many are also counting their steps, monitoring their recovery, watching their V-O-2 max, and waking up every morning and referring to a device to see whether or not they had a good night's sleep. There's a sense that we're reaching for full optimization, to be our most productive, efficient, strongest, and healthiest selves, looking to unlock that ever-elusive 1% more. So today, we're talking about protein. the fully optimized self, and whether our attempts to become healthier, might actually be making some of us less healthy. John Semley is a writer and cultural critic who has been writing about the emerging culture

of wellness, technology, and self-improvement. He's our guest today. Hey, John, how are you? I'm good. Thanks so much for having me. So let's begin with our cultural obsession with protein, which is in many ways kind of one of the clearest manifestations of this broader cultural shift towards self-optimization. For a long time, most of my life really, I'd say protein and the particular interest in it was something that was primarily associated with bodybuilders and athletes.

But at what point was it that it kind of became mainstreamed into something that we're all thinking about in some way? Yeah, I think you can go back probably 20 years. I mean, as you said, protein supplements used to be purely or almost purely the province of, you know, competitive weightlifters, bodybuilders, serious athletes. But then we had this emergence of low carbohydrate diets. I'm sure everyone remembers Atkins and Subway having an Atkins menu. You Atkins-friendly wraps like the savory chicken bacon rat trap and the turkey and bacon melt wrap. Packed with all the delicious taste you'd expect from Subway, but with under 11 net carbs, they'll help you satisfy your. And that plays a greater focus on protein as you're kind of looking to make up for the macro nutrients that are lost when you reduce carbs.

But even more recently, the demand has shot through the roof. I mean, as you mentioned, I've done some reporting that shows that the price of protein supplements, because they're so in demand, has increased fivefold in recent years. And now there's kind of new dietary guidelines, at least in the U.S., that suggests doubling the previously daily recommended amount of protein to about 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. And, yeah, protein is in everything these days, it seems. I mean, it's always been in everything, but it's advertised. as being in everything.

Yeah. I mean, to your point, I guess, I mean, you know, we now see protein advertised in foods and by restaurants that have historically had nothing to do with fitness culture, right? I mean, like, even places that have been traditionally understood as unhealthy or decadent, right? It's on our coffee, or cereal boxes, snacks,

even advertised by fast food chains. Chipotle trying to capitalize on the protein fad. Start your morning strong with the same smooth, creamy Tim Horton's latte you love. Now with protein. Ooh, that looks good. Subway's new protein pocket. Over 20 grams of protein, crisp veggies. When you see a product is branded as having 30 or 15 or 7 grams of protein, are we really being sold nutrition? Yeah, I think the thinking is pretty rudimentary. Like seven grams of protein is really not a lot. Why even advertise that? But I think the thinking is just like protein equals good. And like you can go to McDonald's now. McDonald's has menus that say, you know, our McCrispy strips have 30 grams of protein or a double quarter pounder has 48 grams of protein because of all the.

beef. Now, are those healthy choices? I wouldn't say so, but they're certainly high in protein. And I also don't really associate, like, mowing a bag of greasy McDonald's with health or with discipline or anything like that. And I guess, I don't know, I think the opposite is almost true, that when you think about protein only, it allows you to be undisciplined. You can get lax with other parts of your life because you're gobbling down all this protein, which you think you're supposed to be eating. I mean, there's also this interesting dynamic, which I know that you've written about, which is the kind of nexus between protein and GLP1 drugs, right? That is people eat less while taking drugs like OZMPIC for the purposes of weight loss. There's an increased interest or

concern about the need to preserve lean muscle mass. Can you talk to me about the nexus between, you know, this cultural fascination with protein and our obesity drug era? Absolutely. I find the stuff so interesting. And I mean, one of the big issues with GLP1s or GLP1s. Or GLP1, you like drugs, or really any weight loss regimen is losing muscle mass. Something like 25 to as much as 40% of the weight that you lose while losing weight is typically lean muscle. So, you know, as clever as these new drugs are, they don't really distinguish between burning fat and shedding lean muscle.

And there's also research that shows that, you know, GLP1 drugs may specifically slow down protein synthesis. So in short, you kind of have this problem where people are losing fat, but they want to keep muscle. And protein has a dual role in this. You know, on the one hand, it helps to build and maintain that muscle. And on the second, protein supplements are an easy and bio available, as they say, source of protein. You know, these drugs work in part by slowing your gastric emptying and making you less hungry. And that reduced appetite makes it harder to take in anything close to the daily recommended amount of protein, at least conventionally. So protein shakes and stuff like that,

they kind of make it much easier if you're having trouble eating cod or tuna or chicken breast. You might have an easier time just putting two scoops of way into some water or, or I guess, almond milk, if you're feeling really fancy. Yeah, I mean, I guess for some of those listening, I mean, this may be a good kind of takeaway, but is there an upper limit or kind of clear guidelines as it relates to just how much protein that people should be consuming? I know that you've written about the fact that, you know, the benefits for muscle building kind of begin to plateau at around 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. Yeah, so I went recently to the American Diabetes Association conference in New Orleans,

which is basically now just a weight loss drug conference. Also, New Orleans is a very funny place to have a weight loss conference. Let's learn about weight loss drugs and then go eat hush puppies and, you know, drink drinks with seven shots of ever clear in them. But anyways, there was a great presentation I saw there that sort of suggested that people who are on GLP-1s can maintain muscle mass by doubling their daily protein intake and committing to a basic aerobic and weight training program, which to me seems totally sensible. And that same research showed that beyond sort of doubling, the average person will see diminished returns. So let's kind of zoom out for a moment now. We are today,

maybe just on the other side of what was a real wellness gold rush. I mean, I'm thinking about companies like Gwyneth Paltrow's Goup or even companies like the Canadian wellness brand othership. And in some ways, it does feel like the thing that we mean when we're, we talk about health has kind of changed, right? As far as I understood it, health used to have a fairly straightforward definition, which meant not being sick. Today, it seems increasingly to me not just not being sick, but also striving to be the healthiest and most optimized version of yourself, you know, this much more maximalist approach where we're all looking to optimize every final percentage of performance through eating, exercise, sleep, sun exposure, supplements,

meditation apps, and wearable technology, and on and on and on how we go. where do you think that this particular impulse has come from? Yeah, I think the impulse is pretty basic, which is that people want to be healthy and people want to be healthier. And I also think they want that to be easy or accessible, you know, like why wait six months or a year to go to your doctor and get your blood work done, you know, especially in the U.S. where you might not have a doctor or medical insurance, when you can kind of rely on your Fitbit or your Apple Watch or whatever to tell you that you're on track. I mean, these are tools that fulfill, I think, like a lack or a perceived lack in the health care system. You know, your brain also probably rewards you with a little serotonin drip when your watch tells you that you hate your steps for the day. So I don't know, we love this data.

Like some people say that we have kind of like a data fetish where, you know, these numbers in a literal fetishistic sense are meant to substitute for a more holistic view of our overall health. I mean, there's obviously also, you know, pretty enormous commercial ecosystem. system that has emerged around some of what we're discussing here, right? I mean, how much of the self-optimization movement is genuinely driven by advances in health science and how much you think it's driven by an industry that benefits from convincing us that we're never quite healthy enough? Well, of course, yes. I mean, these companies, they're all trying to sell you trackers and gizmos and apps. And then when they sell you the apps, they try to sell you subscriptions within the apps. You know, they're trying to sell the idea that you can always get a little faster, a little stronger,

or sleep a little better. So, of course, there's a financial incentive that is driving this, you know, even with the sleep score stuff. It's big pillow. Big pillow is behind everything. I guess, you know, protein is an interesting example here as well because this kind of newfound cultural obsession that we've been talking about is now beginning to affect the underlying commodity market, right?

Way used to be a relatively low value byproduct of cheese making, but now the demand for it is so strong that producers are having to build. new capacity. And, you know, your reporting has shown that way prices have risen dramatically in the last few years. What do you think happens when our cultural fixations begin to reshape the industries that are responsible for producing the things that we all consume? Yeah, the way boom is interesting. I mean, I think industries sort of change shape all the time. I mean, even when way prices are going up, some people are like, well, I'm not going to buy way. I'm going to buy ricotta or cottage cheese. Did you know that people are eating cottage cheese more than ever, especially in Canada?

I do not. I do not. It's like, yeah, it's like, the gross, lumpy thing that like Richard Nixon would have for lunch. But now it's popular. People are putting in recipes. So, you know, these industries always kind of have complicated dynamics. Like the way and cheese thing, I always compare it to like chicken wings. Like chicken wings used to be a waste product. And now they drive the poultry market, you know, whenever, whatever a restaurant is doing some sort of endless, boneless wing promotion, you can bet it's because the poultry farmers are trying to reset the supply and demand equilibrium. So I think we're seeing a different thing with dairy and Wei, where people want Way more than the dairy, so cheese producers are moving away from

making sort of hard cheeses and making stuff like ricotta. So it seems a little bit weird, I guess, ostensibly that we're prioritizing the byproduct over the product. But as people in these industries say, these are now co-products. Way is no longer a waste product or a byproduct. It's a co-product of cheese production. The housing crisis isn't just about housing. It's also about democracy, dignity, identity, security, and who counts and who doesn't. In this year's CBC Massey Lectures, Housing and Human Rights expert Leilani Farha explores the rise of Housing Inc and our collective fight for home. Join us on September 8th at Kerner Hall in Toronto.

For information on how to get tickets, go to cbc.ca.ca.massies. Why don't we talk for a moment about one of the defining benchmarks of this self-optimized moment. And that is the daily race to 10,000 steps, right? It does feel like that specific daily target was mainstreamed into our zeitgeist at a certain point. And, you know, as I understand it, there's no direct evidence that that number originated in what you might refer to as a scientific determination. Can you walk me through how that number or daily target came to be marketed as this benchmark of global health? Yeah, I mean, this is a great example of the whole sort of health ecosystem and culture, essentially being like gizmo driven.

You know, in the 60s, there was a Japanese company that released a pedometer, and they called the pedometer a part of me to our Japanese listeners, the Manpo Kai, which roughly translates into the 10,000 steps meter. So that number was totally arbitrary. But then it became ingrained as the gold standard for daily steps. Like, if you get a fitness tracker or My Fitness pal or an Apple Watch, they sort of start with 10,000 steps as the baseline goal. So this is a thing that has just kind of become conventional wisdom.

Is 10,000 steps the right amount of steps? I don't know. It's probably better than 1,000 or 9,000 and 99. I mean, in addition to the 10,000 step benchmark, there are all kinds of numbers that are now animating our daily lives, right? Calories, heart rate, VO2 max, sleep scores, body fat percentage, grams of protein. And I'm wondering how you think the cumulative impact of all of this may come to gamify health and ultimately gamify our lives in some way, right? I mean, where you don't just go for a walk, you hit your steps. You don't just sleep, you get a sleep score.

You aren't simply working out, but you are closing your rings, right? And what are some of the downstream impacts of that kind of gamification of health? Yeah, gamification. Oh, man, this takes me back to, like, the pandemic when I was using the Nintendo ring fit app to exercise, which literally turns exercise into a video game. And yet I still gained 40 pounds during that period, very smart. But yeah, this is sometimes called persuasive technology. You know, basically it's a technology that sort of nudges you or can sometimes even guilt you into hitting your goals.

Another classic example, people might be familiar with the persuasive technology is like the duolingo owl if you're learning a new language. And you have this cartoon owl that pops up in your email making you feel bad for not doing your German. That's the owl that's terrorizing me every day. But I mean, this is the thing. Like, you know, I guess it can seem a little cruel or something like that. But these are your goals. You decided to want to do these things. and you told the technology to remind you.

So, you know, part of it might seem vaguely pathetic when we have these little buzzes and beeps and shiny graphics that sort of pat us on the back. But it might just be times changing, I guess. And this stuff does motivate people. I mean, it motivates me. I remember I once walked around the block twice just to hit my daily steps.

But I don't know, that sounds kind of insane, I guess, now that I'm saying aloud. I mean, even the kind of language around this search for the optimized self often has, you know, an almost managerial tone. People discussing their bodies in the way that we used to talk about corporations, right? I mean, efficiency, performance, output, optimization. What do you think that tells us about our cultural environment today? When you think about the language inherent in some of what we've been talking about? Yes, I think it was Mitt Romney who famously said on the campaign trail.

Corporations are people, my friend. But yeah, there's a step. definitely like a kind of late capitalist logic to all this. You know, we believe that corporations and financial entities can be fine-tuned into efficiency and profitability. So why not apply those same principles to the quantified self, you know? People used to say, my body is a temple and now, I don't know, my body is a boardroom. I mean, something you've mentioned before as well is, you know, when you're at a restaurant, they'll now ask you what kind of protein you want, right? Yes, I find that's kind of weirdly futuristic. Like, it's, you don't want chicken or steak or

salmon for the taste or anything like that. It's just the pure protein that's being put into your bowl of food. Yeah, it has kind of a chum bucket quality that I find a little gross. The rise of wearables is also a part of all this, right? That's the advent and popularization of those small electronic devices that are designed to be worn directly on our bodies or integrated into our clothing. They often feature sensors, microprocessors, and watch. wireless connectivity to track health and biometric data, deliver notifications, and sync in real

time with our mobile devices. Examples of them would be the Apple Watch, the ORA ring, the Fitbit, and the Whoop Band, to just name a few. And I wonder how you think these devices stand to change our relationship to our own subjective experiences, you know, as it relates to our bodies. Like, let's say a person falls asleep and then, you know, wakes up feeling genuinely refreshed. But they refer to their watch and they have a sleep score of 60, right? And suddenly they feel like they didn't sleep well at all.

What do you make of that kind of dynamic? Well, as you said, it is subjective. So I can only kind of speak for myself. Like, personally, I don't track my sleep at all. Like, if I wake up from a nice dreamless sleep 10 minutes before my alarm goes off, that is a good sleep. And I know I have slept well. And, you know, I try not to be too hysterical.

Like, people sometimes relate to this stuff in all different ways, you know, like if you find that calorie tracking works and, you know, I think it does work, then for sure keep using my fitness pal or whatever to track your calories. But if you find that these sorts of technologies are making you obsessive or deranged, then you probably need to take your foot off the gas a bit, you know? The counter argument is I guess people would say that these apps and these devices, these wearables encourage that sort of derangement through that persuasiveness that we talk about.

But I think ultimately it's like a mental attitude. You know, I had experienced the other week where I was halfway to the gym and I realized I didn't have my Apple watch on and there was part of me that's like, I got to go home and get my Apple watch. Because if I work out without my Apple Watch, I'm not even exercising. Exactly. My second thought was, that's not true. So I went to the gym and I worked out without even logging it.

And the workout was exactly the same as it would have been on any other Wednesday. Yeah, yeah. I mean, just to kind of continue off that point, I mean, if you're not wearing your wearable, it's like you've wasted the workout. It's like the workout did not happen fundamentally. And I guess, you know, that brings us back to this notion of gamification. It does feel as though we have been placed in a game. in which, you know, us, the user, the customer, the subject can't actually win, right?

I mean, a game that we're designed to lose because there's always another metric. There's always some other goal that we are told must be fulfilled before we can become our fully quantified selves, right? You hit your 10,000 steps, now you must improve your VO2 max. Your VO2 max is good. Now you must improve your sleep. Your sleep is good. Now you must build more muscle.

And now you must lower your body fat. And, you know, on we go. I guess what is the endpoint here, right? Like, what is the logical conclusion to all of this self-quantifying? Yeah, it's funny. As we were talking about this, I was like, they should add another metric to quantify how disordered your relationship is to quantification, you know? You are 78% more dysregulated this week than last week.

But, you know, the logical end point, I think it could get a little crazy. Like, I think about this guy who's all over the internet, Brian Johnson, who's like this tech vampire. And his goal is basically to live forever. Like, he tracks his blood oxygen levels. He tracks, like, the fortitude of his... nightly erections, you name it. He's got a number on it. My objective of the blueprint is to demonstrate aging escape velocity, using the best science trying to do all the appropriate

interventions to neutralize my aging process. So he sort of embodies, I guess what you would consider like a transhuman desire, where we're not just like measuring ourselves. We want to transcend the limits of our humanity. And I think it's kind of a nutty cultural tendency. As a species, we accept our inevitable decay, decline, and death. I want to argue that the opposite should be true. My name is Brian Johnson. I mean, the logical endpoint, and it's bad news for Brian Johnson and for everyone, is that we're all going to die.

There's only so much you can do to prevent that. You know, that is the final ring that will close for us all one day. So much of the optimization that we have talked about today ultimately depends on measurement. And increasingly, we are measuring ourselves with these devices that are collecting a never-ending stream of information about us and our bodies. Your watch may know how much you slept, how much you moved, will know your heart rate, your location, and a whole other range of pretty precious information about your life. In some cases, this biometric information can begin at birth as there are today all kinds of products being marketed to new parents and their babies.

What do we know about who owns this stream of information? And is there a world in which this biometric data could one day be sold to the highest bidder or, you know, used by employers or insurers or advertisers or data brokers of some kind? I think there will come a day if we're not already in it. I mean, this is another one of those things where it's like, if you still maintain the delusion that you have anything like privacy, if you're using a device that's hooked up to the internet, just forget about it. You know, we all agree to terms of service.

And with these products, the manufacturers own the biometric data, and they can share it with third parties. You know, in the U.S., at least, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mr. Health himself, has, you know, floated plans for issuing wearable devices to Americans where certain metrics can reduce or presumably increase insurance costs. Wearables are a key to the Maha agenda of making America healthy again. And we are going to, my vision is that every American is wearing a wearable within four years. So I think this is a case like in that of the state wanting to move the burden of health care onto the patient, you know, or in the case of the U.S., I guess even more onto the patient. So, yeah, I can definitely see how these wearables and all this data can kind of end up being used against us. Okay. So finally, despite many of the issues and concerns that we've laid out, I guess it's important that we recognize that, you know,

a healthier lifestyle, taking your health more seriously is, of course, perfectly reasonable. Eating well, exercising, sleeping well, keeping up to date with the developing state of your health is all great. But we're talking about this distinction, this very particular distinction, between taking care of yourself and turning your health into a kind of project or obsession. Where do you think that line sits? How do we meaningfully distinguish between taking care of and prioritizing health without falling into some of the logic of optimizing and quantifying that we've been laying out here. Gosh, I wish I had like a good answer. But again, it's also personal. Like, you're talking about people's relationship to their own bodies and their own health, right?

Like, again, for my part, like I track my workouts. I track my runs or sort of sluggish jogs, I guess, I should say. And, you know, I feel good. When I hit a personal best on the bench press or shave a few seconds off a 5K pace, I think that that's totally normal. You could even call it healthy. But I also think that, you know, people who are given to obsessiveness are bound to obsessive. And that a great many people can probably relate to all this data normally, but some might get way too into it. One of the things about data is that you can kind of get as deep into it as you want. But again, I think this has more to do with like a person's cast of mind or their particular neurotic makeup. So I don't know.

I don't know exactly where the line is. But if you're losing sleep over losing sleep, then you've probably crossed that line and can put your Apple Watch on the charging station overnight. That's an incredibly poetic way to end. If you are losing sleep over losing sleep, love it. John Semley, thanks so much for coming on. My pleasure. That's all for today. I'm Matthew Amha.

Thanks for listening to Frontburner. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.