Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1642: COVID Vaccine Skepticism?

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin discuss why many in the fitness and wellness industry are skeptical about the COVID-19 Vaccination. Why the health & fitness industry seems to always push back. (2:12) Would this topic have been this polarizing 25 years ago? (3:44) Why it’s nearly impossible to NOT have feelings around topics that are highly politicized. (5:46) What politics do VERY well. (11:23) What the current data shows. (13:07) Why the health & fitness space is the most skeptical over the COVID vaccine recommendations. (16:14) Why if health is a priority, you take action yourself first, before medical intervention. (21:44) Why you must take FULL responsibility for your health. (25:47) What is the risk factor of spreading the virus if not vaccinated? (32:30) How there are lies and anti-truths. (36:50) Why public policy is sometimes heavily influenced by lobbies and special interest groups. (40:05) How you can be pro-vaccine, but not pro-mandates. (45:27) Related Links/Products Mentioned September Promotion: MAPS Performance and MAPS Suspension 50% off!   **Promo code “SEPTEMBER50” at checkout** Visit Four Sigmatic for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine—but vaccination remains vital | Science | AAAS Underlying Medical Conditions and Severe Illness Among 540,667 Adults Hospitalized With COVID-19, March 2020–March 2021 Prioritizing health: A prescription for prosperity | McKinsey The secret to better health — exercise The coronavirus is here to stay — here’s what that means Why Some People Are Still Getting Sick—but Not with COVID Guidance for Industry: Guide for Developing and Using Data Bases for Nutrition Labeling Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Alright, today's episode. Big controversial. We tackle the subject that a lot of people

tiptoe around or afraid to talk about. In this episode, we talk about COVID vaccination skepticism. To be more exact, why the fitness and health industry seems to be the most skeptical industry in regards to COVID and the vaccine. We think you're gonna really enjoy this episode. Listen to it all the way through

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Just use the code September 50, that September 5.0 with no space for that discount. All right, gentlemen, you guys ready to have a controversial conversation? We haven't done one in a while. I know. I know we keep getting messages on this particular topic we're going to cover today And often the messages I get are, why are people in the fitness and health industry this way? Why are they pushing back on this particular topic? And what I wanna do is talk about not our own personal opinions,

I think that's irrelevant to this conversation, but rather why the fitness and health industry responds the way that it does for now, what's happening right now is this whole debate and conversation around vaccines and COVID and vaccine mandates and You know who shouldn't shouldn't get them in the past the fitness industry and health industry has been skeptical of any other health um, you know recommendation and I do want to be very clear when we get into this

many other health recommendation. And I do wanna be very clear when we get into this, that if you are objective and you look back, you'll notice that the health and fitness industry is always skeptical. So it's not this particular subject. The government could come out and recommend that we all avoid one particular food or we all stop eating meat

or we all have to eat this particular way. And they will get, typically we'll get pushback from the health and fitness industry. And right now the big, again, the big argument is around vaccines. And so I wanna talk about why, why that is and why our industry in particular seems to be the ones that pushback the most.

Do you think that 20 to 25 years ago had this all happen that it wouldn't be this polarizing? That's a great question. Do you think that just because of how fast media travels today, how we all read and get media today is so different than just a decade or two ago? Do you think that's part of it? I feel like something that we're waiting for these studies to come out and for a certain

amount of population to get vaccinated and then to tease out what are we seeing. I mean that takes some time and we're barely starting to see some of the research on some of these countries that were ahead of us. But because you get like the real time update on Twitter and Instagram and as soon as something moves in one percent this way or one percent that way, you get all the alarmists that are posting right away. No, that's a really good question. I think, no, and here's why I think you're right.

I think that because of media and how easily accessible it is, how it's in your face constantly, it's easier to politicize topics and subjects now that being said The health and fitness industry has always been skeptical of health recommendations that came out of either government or the pharmaceutical industry or the food industry we've always kind of been that way You know you even go back to the days of Vince Coranda and bodybuilders and they were doing things that people were like, oh my gosh, what are

you doing? That's totally unhealthy. I mean, if you were lifting weights in the 70s and 80s to improve your health and fitness, you were told by medical professionals, you're going to hurt your joints. You're going to destroy your knees. You're going to destroy your back. Don't do that. It's bad for you. Oh, women definitely shouldn't live for weights. It's just going to make you a man, it's not good for you. So we've always kind of been in odds for certain things and that of course science catches up, people change their minds. Sometimes the fitness industry changes its mind.

Usually it's the medical industry that changes the mind and we can go down that path if we want to find reasons. But I think before we do, you know, here's something that I think is real important. And off air, we all, we have often, often have conversations whenever there's things that get really heated. We don't do this on air because we have to hash things out. And one thing that we all have in common, because we all train people for a long time. I mean, over two decades, you start to become better at your craft after a certain while.

And whenever topics, especially around health, are politicized, it's almost impossible to not have feelings around it. It's almost impossible to not have your own opinions or fears or anxieties or have your you know your position be skewed. It's almost impossible and so what you have to do and I remember you know I'll use a personal example you know years ago long time ago. Somebody very close to me was diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer it was actually called lignitis plastic as a cancer where the survival rate after five years, I think is like 5%. So that's basically your terminal.

And when I was in that position with this person that cared very much about, I'm a health person. And so I'm like, okay, our medical system really has no answer for this. That was literally the words from the doctors. We'll try this, but the data shows it's not going to help. So what I did was I went and I researched animal studies and studies and, you know, petri dishes, like, what could I find anything that could possibly help? And at one point what I had to do is remove my feelings, and my feelings were, I'm going

to save this person no matter what. And I had to, and what happens when you're in that state of mind if you've ever been in a position like that is it's really easy for me to pull up an article, miracle cancer here that the pharmaceutical industry doesn't want you to know about, you know, and it's this thing, this herb or something. It's really easy for me to latch onto that. So what I did is I said, okay, this is crazy

because I'm on the internet till three o'clock in the morning every night trying to figure this out. And what I did was, and this is what we've is I said, okay, this is crazy because I'm on the internet till three o'clock in the morning every night trying to figure this out. What I did was, and this is what we've done altogether, is you take your feelings aside and you say, okay, the best metric we have is data, for multiple sources, independent data, data either from different agencies, data from different science organizations, although it's not perfect, I can't think of a more objective thing to look at in order to base a decision,

because everything else, especially when it's so politicized, like this is right now, everything else is based. I don't think it's just that either. I also think that, there's a lot of big influencers right now that are putting pressure on people that have platforms.

Like if you have a large platform that it's your responsibility to stand up and speak whatever you believe or whatever you think. And I don't fully agree with that. And it's not that I don't think that you should take stand in what you believe or stand up for your values. But I also think that it's irresponsible to communicate something that you don't have a lot of knowledge around. And just because you're emotional about something, just to your point, you know,

really easily I could be reading, reading or watching one news channel and get emotionally charged in this direction, switch to the opposite side, listen to that, and then get emotionally swung the other way. I just think that it's irresponsible because maybe you're the person who spends more time on one side or the other, and because you have a large platform like we do to come out and take a stance on something that we're all learning about right now. Or feel forced like you have to take a stance. It's unclear. And that's just, you know, that's part of deciphering

what is really happening. Like, where's the real information out there to grab onto? It takes a lot of time to dig through because there's two different agendas. It seems, you know, being promoted and polarized and everybody's taking lines in the sand, but what's the objective truth?

What's the data say? Like, where has this played out in other countries? Like, what is the population kind of reporting back? And the medical community itself, what are they saying? What are they seeing? So to really pull your emotions out, takes a massive discipline these days,

more so than ever, I think, and it's really hard to do. So, and I find myself, again, I'll get caught into that emotional whirlwind of, what's right, what's wrong, what's right, what's wrong? But for everybody to take a deep breath, and try to really assess, based off of just the data.

What is that saying right now? Even that's freaking hard. Yeah. Because it's really easy to cherry pick data to support your argument. And we're seeing a ton of that on both sides. You're seeing a ton of pieces of data that goes, oh, this seems like this supports my argument. Right.

And so they cherry pick it and then they use that. So it takes a lot to not only read the data, but to read the data on both sides. And then also understand that there's a bias that you're reading. Totally. Because where it's coming from. Totally. And data is not perfect. It can get influenced.

But I think the best way to approach it is to look at data from multiple sources. Look at meta analysis, which takes multiple studies, analyzes them, look at data from agencies that aren't connected. Is it perfect? No, nothing's perfect, but I can't think of anything that's more objective than that. So it's the best thing that we have.

And again, and here's one, another thing, I'll point that I wanna make with politics. It is poisoning and influencing every single thing in our lives, and here's what politics does. Okay, this is what politics does very well. They don't handle multiple opinions on a spectrum at all. Politics doesn't do that. I mean, how many political parties we have in this country?

There's two. There aren't 15 that are on a stage debating. The aim of politics is to create camps and it's always two camps. There's not never more than two. There's no room for nuance. Nothing. So if you come out and you, let's say you're somebody that says, you know what? This, this COVID vaccine is a good idea. Oh, you're in the, all vaccines are a good idea camp. You're in the blindly follow whatever the government says camp, right? And the person's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, that's not me, no, no, that's what you are.

And then if you say, hey, you know what, for me, I think I'm gonna wait on the vaccine, or you know, I think I want more data, or you know, I don't want it. Oh, you're the anti-vaxxer, like, hold on a a second I have all these other vaccines. I'm not anti-vaxx I just and so the this is the big thing that politics does very well as it creates two camps and you're the with us or against us Don't fall for it Most people are not clear in one camp. That's just a fact 100% talk to anybody who disagrees on the subject and I guarantee if you talk to them

You'll find that it's it's way more nuanced There's either communist or you don't care about other people's lives Yeah, it's like you've one of the other and you don't care about other people's lives Or your communist so so before we get into like the reasons why the fitness and health industry just generally is skeptical of Just health recommendations in general, but the vaccine more specifically for this episode. Here is the current data as of the recording of this podcast. Okay, so these are numbers. So it's not our opinion. If you disagree with the numbers, then I don't know how to help you. There's, I can't argue with you. This is not opinions again. but so far what we're finding in the data is you are

far more likely to be hospitalized if you don't have any immunity, which includes vaccine immunity. Also includes natural immunity, but it also includes vaccine immunity. So that's number one. The studies on natural immunity, one of the largest studies came out of Israel, showed this pretty clearly, but other studies have also supported this. That natural immunity is the best type of immunity. By the way, this supports how natural immunity tends to compare to vaccine immunity anyway. Generally speaking, natural immunity is stronger than vaccine immunity. It comes with its own risks, of course. I'd rather get a polio vaccine than risk getting polio

and developing natural immunity to it because we know what polio could cause, for example, nonetheless, if you were infected with COVID and you survived and healed and it wasn't a big deal or whatever, your immunity, according to the current data, is better than the kind of immunity that you would get from a vaccine. The data is very clear and it shows that vaccines reduce the risk of infection. And again, we're comparing this to people

who have had no immunity whatsoever, okay? Reduces your risk of infection, reduces your risk of severe symptoms and death. That's what the data currently shows. Data also shows that the vast majority of people who die from getting infected with COVID had comorbidities, which include things like diabetes, heart disease, inflammatory autoimmune disorders.

The most common of these comorbidities is obesity. So if you are obese and you get sick, all things being equal. Okay, so don't do the whole comparison thing like, oh, I know somebody that's obese and they did well and somebody, okay, so all things being equal, if you had two identical twins and everything was the same and one was obese and what was it, the obese person would likely suffer from more severe symptoms. And that's just a fact again. Here's another fact. Okay, it's early in this stage of pandemic. So a lot of these things can change. And it's early in this, you know, this stage of these vaccines. It's impossible to know long-term effects of both COVID and the

vaccine. That's just the bottom line. If anybody tells you otherwise, they can't. There's nobody as reculating. Nobody has a crystal ball. So could there be long-term effects from a vaccine, unlikely, but yeah, could there be also long-term effects from COVID? Yeah, definitely. There's lots of viruses that people can get. For example, HPV is a common one. You could get HPV, get no symptoms,

and then increase your risk of cervical cancer later on, which we now know, right? So those things are impossible to know. So now what I want to talk about is, why the fitness and health and wellness industry, specifically right now, seems to be the most skeptical of, you know, these vaccine recommendations, because if you go on social media or if you read blogs or articles, whenever you read

about people who are skeptical or who say, I'm not getting vaccinated or watch out for this or whatever, it almost always comes from the health wellness or fitness industry. I feel like we're in kind of like a, um, the boy that cried wolf scenario. Hmm. Because the, because the government has failed so many times with recommendations, you know, pregnant women should smoke cigarettes and, you know, thing and the food pyramid that's upside down, you know, like, I, yes, saturated fats are going to give you a hard time. Or just fat, just fat down general. Right. Yeah, saturated fats are gonna give you a hard task. Or just fat, just fat and general. Just fat and general, right?

Right, so I think that's whether they're right or wrong in this situation, I think to your point of why the health space is just more skeptical because we live in that space. There's a lot of people that I know that are average people that don't even know that the food pyramid was so off. Still to this day, right? I still have cousin or ants that eat margarine

because they said they're supposed to eat. Or to this day. I still have cousin or ants that eat margarine because they said that or recommendations around cholesterol or you know a lot. I mean most people know about the pregnant women shouldn't be smoking by now. I think that's yeah. About that's made its way around. But there's still a lot of people that don't know how how many bad things that the government has advised with related to health. And so because of that, I think that you get a larger percentage of people in the health and fitness space that are more skeptical because they've seen those inconsistencies. And I think nutrition is a great example of that, is you go back and just growing up through school and what they're promoting to us, it just, if you come back, it's almost

exactly the opposite. Like on almost like, so we talked about cholesterol, we talked about saturated fats, like so food pyramid, we just, there's just so many different examples of like, eggs are bad for you. Like, no, wait, they're good for you. You know, it's just like, it's this constant sort of, you know, batting the ball back and forth where it just, it gets frustrating because you're trying to relay this information to your clients and have them successful and healthy, but in fact, you feel, you feel somewhat like invalidated when the new research comes out and

it totally undermines what you're just teaching them. Yeah, or you're just always opposing. Yeah, you're always trying to fight with the coming in with. Yeah, so people need to understand this. The fitness, health and wellness industry is also the health industry. Just like the medical industry is considered the health industry. Now different approaches, typically different methods, right? If you're a fitness professional, your expertise is exercise, right? It's nutrition, it's relationship with exercise and nutrition and that kind of stuff.

If there's wellness involved, you're understanding the effects of how you are with relationships with other that kind of stuff. If you're the medical health side, right? You understand medicine, you understand how to treat acute illness. Like if a client came to me and is like, oh my God, salt my left arm is under so much pain,

I have so much pressure on my chest. I don't the fuck to do, call the doctor, we gotta go to the doctor, right? But if they go to the doctor and they say, hey doctor, you know, I just, I don't feel very strong when I lift up boxes, I think I have a little bit of back pain and I'm only eating 15-hour calories

and I'm still fat, what's going on? Doctors should say, go talk to Saul, he can help you because this isn't what I know. So what we need to understand is that the fitness health and wellness history is still the health industry. So here we are. And by the way, not all the recommendations

that came from government were wrong, some of them were wrong. But the ones that they were wrong on were so opposite of what the health and fitness industry had said so if you Went to a fitness professional 30 years ago and said Should I eat eggs? Most of them are like absolutely man when my clients eat eggs

They're stronger. They feel good. They have more energy now the the medical side would be like hell no In fact, they used to say what I think it was like one egg a week or something like that because it's so high in club. Now we know that's totally wrong, right? And we could point all the reasons, all the stuff that they've said that's been wrong in the past. And I'll tell you what, as a trainer, I've had many clients come to me with diet advice from doctors

that just made my skin crawl. Like, I had clients come to me and say, yeah, doctor put me on a 500 calorie a day diet that just made my skin crawl. Like I had clients come to me and say, yeah, Dr. put me on a 500 calorie a day diet and it's a liquid diet to help me lose weight. And I'm like, oh my gosh, what are they doing? That's absolutely terrible. And so it's no wonder, and this is I think

the most important part, by the way, doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter what health recommendations they put out. The people that will always be skeptical is the fitness and health and wellness industry. So right now it's vaccines. It could be anything. If right now the government came out and said, like I said, everybody needs to just eat vegetables, which kind of they're actually moving in that direction. The people you'll see that'll push back to most

is gonna be the health industry. So really doesn't matter. So we automatically, the people in our space, put up their walls and say, hold on a second, I'm skeptical. So they don't accept what is being said right away as the right thing. And so that, I think there's a big part of it.

Yeah, I think it's also because most of those people feel confident that they can handle this themselves, right? That they can take care of their own health. Oh, that's a big one. I think if you're in this space, especially if you've been in this space for years or decades like in our case where you've done a lot of reading and nutrition and exercise and you know, you hear a study like the one that you've talked about where you know a majority of the people that are dying have these you know obese or heart conditions and health related stuff that are underlining that makes them such high risk. So there's a lot of

people in that space that feel hey I've been fighting my whole life to stay away from those things already. I feel confident that I have control of this. Bro, you couldn't have said it any better. Like, if I went to, let's say I got, in fact, recently we just got a huge physical and blood panel test because we are all doing this business thing with each other that involves life insurance, so you gotta test all your stuff, right? If my numbers came back and I looked and they said,

oh, Sal, your blood lipids are way off or your blood pressure sigh. Now, I'm not going to the doctor in getting medication. Not right away at least. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Okay, high blood pressure is damaging by itself. I'm doing all the stuff. I lost weight, I reduced this, I reduced that, I increased this, all the things I know how to do, it's not working. Now I'm gonna go take a medication.

By the way, look at the numbers, okay? People who exercise regularly and who prioritize their health take significantly less medications than people who don't do those things. And it's because you are more fit and healthy, but it's also because we're more confident in our health because we're working inside our body. Yes. We're working on our body constantly.

So yeah, the health and fitness issue, I think you nailed it. I think it's, it really is. It's a constant work on our body that, you know our body that we can assess the interventions necessary. So if I get really sick, if I have symptoms and you're able to kind of decipher the severity of them, like that's gonna take me to the hospital versus if I've never experienced any kind of symptoms, I might just go to hospital right away,

but as I'm working on my body, I can understand these signals and what my body's going through. And that's just something that's a health and fitness people I think that they kind of hold on to that. Well, I'm a perfect example of this in the last three years and a perfect example of someone who eventually went to Western medicine to help me out.

I mean, I tried for almost two years to increase my testosterone levels naturally. Good example. And I made a little bit of progress, but not enough to feel good and not enough to feel confident that I've got this without the assistance of that. But you bet your ass that I'm gonna try it first

and do all the things I can to control that before I go, hey, okay, I'm going to commit now to taking a shot for every week now for potentially the rest of my life. Dude, okay, let me ask you, I already know the answer this, but I'm going to ask you guys a question. How, have you guys ever had a client that came to you that said, yeah, I'm going to get shoulder surgery or, yeah, I need knee surgery.

And then after you train them for six months, they go, oh my God, I don't need surgery anymore. Has that ever happened to you before? Okay, that happened to me all the time. Why is that? Because the average person is not confident in their ability to remedy certain things. Whereas if your, if health is a priority to you, you study it and it's something that's important

and you take actions to, again, to prioritize your health. Continually practice again. Yeah, you're going to, sometimes, it depends on the situation. Adam used a great example, right? You gotta go the medicine route. However, you know that there's things

you could do naturally. Like, let me try these things. I know my body, or at least I know what can help my body. Let me give this a shot. So that's a perfect example. Here's kind of an extension of that. People in fitness and health, especially professionals,

take full responsibility for our health. Most people don't take any responsibility in their health. I mean, the average person who had McDonald's, oh, I mean, that's so true. Yeah. You know, blaming the food industry, blaming, I have examples of people where they, something will happen to them,

something will happen to their health, and it's like, how, how did this happen? What's going on? And now I'm not trying to poke fun at them, I'm not trying to say that they're idiots or that they're not responsible. They're just unaware. They're just told, wait a minute.

Why do I have high blood sugar? And I have family members like this. Well, they'll come to me every once in a while with something and they'll say something like, why is my blood sugar high? This isn't making any sense. I don't understand. Well, I mean, here's why, here's why, here's why, maybe, if we do those things, let's see what happens.

Do they? Usually they don't. In fact, if you talk to doctors, there's such a high percentage of people that don't even take medications when they're told by their doctor, you have to take these medications because if you don't, you'll be at a higher risk for all these things. They'll forget or whatever, or a doctor will say to them,

I mean, I know people, I've known people in really bad situations where doctors like, I had an aunt, her blood sugar would get so high. I mean, they're like, you're gonna go blind or you're gonna lose limbs. And she would still, you know, she would still eat candy and desserts and stuff like that and and I get it. It's not easy and sometimes you just want to feel good in the moment. But people

and the health and fitness, when you take full responsibility of your health, when somebody tells you to do something for your health, you're automatically going to say, well, hold on, give me a second. Let me think about this or let me, let me, give me a second, let me think about this. Or let me see what I can do through my lifestyle, because that's a big one, right? What affects your health more than anything is your lifestyle, not just a single actual rather how you live. In the pursuit of being empathetic, you know, in cultural pursuits of this, you know, we've lost sight of objective, of, you know, type of advice that will actually help people.

And it seems like it's been mean or you're shaming or like, no, if you really care for somebody, you want to provide them with good information that's going to help them thrive and be healthy. And so there's, what we've seen with this virus too, it exposed a lot of like previous types of problematic lifestyle driven ways that people are living their life. So if obesity is a real susceptibility to having bad symptoms from this virus, and that has to be something that gets talked to.

And I do, I wanna say this too, I wanna be clear that this is for better or worse. Like all these reasons that we're giving is to why the fitness and health industry is skeptical. We're not saying they necessarily should be, we're not saying that they shouldn't be, but I will say this, I will make this statement. More often than not, the skepticism benefits them, just historically speaking, okay? In this statement more often than not the skepticism benefits them just historically speaking

okay. In this case it might not. In this case you might be the health and fitness professional who waited, waited, waited, up, you get sick and then for some reason your immunity just didn't hack it and then something bad happened you. But we're just explaining why. Why you're hearing it from that space more than anyone. I also think that you can be skeptical for yourself, but yet still pro. For example, I mean, I called my mom and dad both up and I told them, you go get that vaccine, go get that as soon as you can,

because both of them are overweight, drink, smoked on and off their life. I know have low vitamin D levels. They're unhealthy. They have poor diets. They're probably both vitamin D levels. They're unhealthy. They have poor diets. They're probably both super high risk. They're very high risk and I don't care what the other side says about all the potential long-term effects. They may not live that long at all. They're out there going with forget the virus out there. Just the route they're going already. They may not

live that long. So I absolutely want them to do that. But yet, then for myself, I feel, okay, I'm a little bit more in control and have been in control of my diet, my nutrition, my exercise, my health. So you have the luxury of pausing. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's just, yeah. And I think that's where a lot of the pushback comes from, from the health fitness community is that there is a difference there. You know, if all things considered like, if there's been a lot of effort and practice around like healthy contributing habits,

like you, you know, that's gonna play a factor. It gives you, okay, so, and again, the data still shows, again, I wanna be clear, the data still shows, you're probably, well, the data shows you're better off getting vaccinated than having no immunity, regardless of how healthy you are. However, when you're better off getting vaccinated than having no immunity, regardless of how healthy you are. However, when you're very healthy, when you feel strong, when you take care of your diet, you're sleeping on stuff, you're just less fearful. And you're just more confident

in your own abilities. And this doesn't matter what the case is, if you take anybody and you make them feel strong in their bodies, confident, have good energy, they are generally less fearful of anything. And when you're less fearful, you are going to pause more often and consider other things. So I said, you know, when you were talking about recommending your parents, Adam, I said, well, they don't have the luxury necessarily of pausing. Whereas you have more of a luxury of them. You know, because you're saying, well, I'm more, I'm pretty healthy, I'm very fit, I take care of these things. So I have more of odds of, you know, doing okay.

So let me pause for a second. Whereas if, let's say you just, you just survive cancer, you know, you might think you're sold, I don't got the luxury of pausing. Like, I, this is not, you know, you might think to yourself, I don't got the luxury of pausing. Like, this is not gonna work for me. By the way, studies show quite clearly that when you improve the physical strength of somebody, they're less fearful generally. And one of the number one common say

is to get from women in particular when we would lift weights. After months of training, they would always come to me and say, I feel less afraid and I feel more confident in life, because you're just stronger. So generally speaking, feeling fit, strong and healthy, you are less fearful and therefore you are less likely

to make decisions based off of fear. Now, I'm not saying everybody makes decisions off fear. I'm just saying, when you feel strong, when you feel good, you're more likely, you're probably more likely to say, hold on a second, let me wait and see what's going on here. Now, what is the risk factor of spreading if you are unvaccinated? Because that's normally the pushback that I give

when I talk about my personal, I'm gonna say, this is how I feel about my parents. This is where I am at personally, and you get the extreme other side that will go like, that's so unselfish for you to do that because you're putting me at risk. And if I'm correct, that it's your justice likely to spread the virus being vaccinated or unvaccinated. It's really more about the severity of the symptom. No, no, no, okay, so data is a bit murky on that. So far, it looks like because you're less likely to be infected, you are less likely to spread it. of the symptom. No, no, no, okay, so data is a bit murky on that.

So far, it looks like because you're less likely to be infected, you are less likely to spread it if you're vaccinated. That's what they're saying. Could, by the way, could any of this data change in a week or two? Yeah, definitely. I mean, a lot has changed over the last year. The vaccines at one point were 97% effective, and then this variant came out, and now, at preventing infection, there were 90% percent, like you just aren't going to get came out and now you know at preventing infection

There were 90 something like you just aren't gonna get it and now people are getting it But now we're seeing reduced symptoms. So the current data says yeah, you're less likely To spread it as a result and I mean We can get it's not foolproof is is the other side to that no and and and the the current data also points to the fact That and again, I'm going straight based off of current data, okay, so this is in my opinion, but the experts in this field who are writing about this are saying, it's not going away, it's never going to go away, it's going to go into endemic stage, meaning that it's going to be around forever. It crosses over into animals too.

So it's like- Which is a real problem. Yeah, so it's like we have to vaccinate every human vaccine, every animal. Yeah, and it would have to be like a 90% effective, whatever. So it's probably gonna be around forever. So, and I wanna say that because,

again, what politicians will do is they'll make you feel like if you just do what they say that will fix everything. Yeah. Which is not the case. I mean, some of the stuff they say is not prepared for the real future. Yes. So they're saying that it mimics most like a cold the way it changes, but it has the severity of the flu. Right?

Is that kind of how they're explaining it? It changes just like colds are constantly mutating all the time, but then it's got the deadly side of it and serious and severity of flu. So I read an article that I think was scientific American. It was really, really well written. And what the guy, or girl, I remember who wrote it said, was that the severity of this is so severe right now because it entered into society and we had like no immunity to it.

So it was brand new. Yeah, so it's like, I mean, this is a terrible example, but it's a good example. It's like when Europeans came to the Americas and all the Native Americans died, or a lot of them died, from diseases that the Europeans had already built immunity over. It didn't affect them, but it wiped out people who had no immunity. So what they said was, here's what's going to happen, as more and more people get affected, as more and more people get vaccinated, we'll start to get to the point where we'll have more immunity, and so it will become less and less severe.

Now they also said in the article was it's not the kind of immunity where it goes away. It's the kind of immunity where you get infected but it's not nearly a severe. Just like a cold. You know that one of the cold viruses which is also coronavirus. Rhino virus. Well one of them was there's three corona or two or three other corona viruses that cause also the common cold. One of them they think was responsible for a pandemic in the past. I believe it was like a Russian pandemic.

And then of course people, there's immunity and then like I said, we can throw vaccines on that. And then what all, and this was according to the article I read, they said that in the future what it will be is a childhood illness. So kids will get it, because they have no immunity, and then kids get it pretty mildly anyway, and then they grow up and then- That's what it chicken pox.

Yeah, or no, different, because it's a respiratory illness, but it'll be like a common cold. That go, or at, or like the flu, where we deal with 12 to 60,000 deaths a year, from the flu, it'll deal with 12 to 60,000 deaths a year from the flu. It'll be something like that. People in the health space have not just seen, or the health and fitness space have not

just seen bad information come out of government recommendations, but we've also seen complete reversals, which is different than, oh, this information is wrong. You know, there's, there's, and these aren't lies, but there's lies and then there's anti-truths, right? So a lie is, you know, we knew better and we told the other. Yeah, a lie would be like, oh, that was wrong. Anti-truth is the opposite of what you're saying. So like if Adam says, I could say,

fire is green, that's just a lie. Or I could say, fire won't burn your hand. That's anti-truth, like that's the opposite. We us in the health and fitness space, and I say us as in generally, we have not just seen wrong information. It's been the opposite. I mean, now the recommendation, okay,

I'll use one stupid example. When we were growing up, I swear to God, this is true for people watching who are younger than the age of probably 30. We were hammered to avoid butter. Hammered, like do not eat butter, it'll kill you, it'll clog your arteries, eat margarine. It's way healthier for you.

It's made from vegetable oil. And I remember as a kid, my mom would buy, when I opened the fridge, we didn't have butter, we'd have a big tub of country crock, which was basically vegetable margarine spread, right? And this is what we were told forever. Today, they don't just say, we were kind of wrong on butter. They say, don't eat margarine.

It's terrible for you. I'll kill you. Eat butter, right? Yeah. We were told in the 80s that coffee gave you cancer. This is what we were told. Oh, study show that coffee gives people cancer. Coffee's bad for, if you talk to any doctor in the 80s about drinking coffee,

they would all say, bad for you, stop doing it. You need to stop drinking coffee. It's totally bad for you. Now they say, coffee is good for you. It's very good for you. And not only does it not cause cancer, it's anti-cancer. Studies actually show that it reduces your risk

of certain types of cancer. Now that being said, I think less of that, and even what we're dealing with right now, is big government lying to us, and more about that the science is still so new. Totally. For your example, with coffee, you know, they were showing research to support that, but they forgot to test for and see that if someone also drinks coffee, they're more likely to smoke cigarettes. Totally. And so that's where the missing piece, which we may have this in 20 years from now, that,

hey, they're trying to guide us in the best direction they can or what they feel is the best direction until we find out 20 years from now that there was something else that we didn't tease out from the stomach. Yeah, it's a big false confidence in, you know, I get the fact that to try and make sure that we don't tease out from the stuff. Yeah, it's a big false confidence in, you know, I get the fact to try and make sure that we don't have hysteria everywhere, but it just, as a viewer or as somebody just been watching, there's just been a lot of inconsistencies with policies and full reversals of policies.

Yes. I think part of that is why politicians are going so hard in this direction is because it's the money. I mean, to me, that's... It's always that. I mean, I think that, you know, if I can save the world and line my pockets

with billions of dollars at the same time. Or say I could save the world. Right. Because they never do. I'm going to double down and triple down on that because I could, even if I'm wrong later down the road, I was trying to help you and save you. Yeah. And do think that's part of it. And this is also, people in the health space were very aware of this years ago, but now I think the general public is starting to become aware of this, is that public policy sometimes is heavily

influenced by lobbies and special interests. Okay. And all it takes is one or two of those to become evident for people to start losing trust. Right. So to give an example, this is silly one, but there were these mandates that went out, I think it was like 15 years ago, where they said, okay, we're going to improve school lunches because school lunches are just unhealthy. I mean, shit, when I was a kid, if you got the school lunch, it was pizza or chicken nuggets or a burger. I think it's chocolate milk.

Yeah, and chocolate milk, right? And that was your food, right? Well, isn't that how pizza got on the plan and the first place? That's how it stayed on there. Oh, okay, because it's tomatoes or what are the vegetables? Yes, then they came out and they said, oh, no, no, no. School lunches must include one serving of vegetables.

So then the lobby comes out and in lobby's government and then they said, okay, pizza's fine because tomato sauce is considered a vegetable technically, right? Which, I mean, if you're in the health space, you're just like, you roll your eyes like, okay. Like, is cake eggs then? Because eggs is in cake, so I can eat. And the truth goes back to the money thing again, too.

What is a very cheap food that you can make in bulk, and then you can still fall in the guidelines, I mean. Totally. Totally, so, and we've seen this, you know, time and time again, right? We've seen this with the food pyramid, which is obviously heavily influenced by- 60% grains. Yeah, it's obviously heavily influenced by these lobbies.

Here's a current example. Here's a current example. I don't care where you stand on vaccine mandates. I'm not talking about my opinion on whether or not we should have mandates or not. Think if you listen to the podcast, you kind of know where I feel it. I'm not gonna talk about that.

I'm gonna talk about the clear inconsistency that in my opinion seems to be, especially to people who've seen this before, to be influenced by lobbies. In many countries, in Europe and Israel, a vaccine mandate, excuse me, includes natural immunity. So if you get a card that says you're immune, it means I got vaccinated, or I also,

or I had COVID and now I have natural immunity. The vaccine mandates that we're seeing here do not include any natural immunity. And then we see silliness like this, like kids getting, like universities kicking students out who are virtual who don't have, you know, vaccinated. You try and make sense of that. Yeah. So you see stuff like that. Come on, I don't care where you stand.

When you look at that, you gotta shake your head and go, well, that doesn't make any sense. If you're gonna mandate people, you should count at their own house. Yeah, so does it look like influence from big pharma, saying no, no, no, just count vaccines so we can sell them more? I don't know if that's happening, but I could see why people would make that connection.

And people in the health space have seen that so often with other stuff that it's no wonder that they're gonna feel skeptical with that. The food labels is my favorite. To this day, I look at food labels and I just go, or the recommendations and I just shake my head. I mean, I'm gonna be very honest.

If most people follow government food recommendations, they'd be sick and unhealthy, if they really did follow. Or exercise recommendations for that matter. They still to this day. I think now they're starting to recommend. What's the allowed margin for error? I remember you bringing something up. Yeah, it's like 20 or 25 percent.

Which is a lot. That's a lot. Yeah, do the math. If you think you're eating 2,000 calories and you're off by 20 percent. Yeah, 400 calories. Which could make the difference between gaining or losing weight. 100%. We're not talking about 50 calories talking about.

And I get why they do that. But, but for all these reasons, for better or for worse, because I think this can also backfire sometimes. I think sometimes people in this space don't make the right decision because they're always skeptical about everything. And again, we're not even agreeing with their skepticism. We're not just explaining. This is why no matter what comes out from politicians or recommendations when it comes

to health, from the medical industry or from the government, the industry that's probably going to push back no matter what is is gonna be the health and fitness industry. So I think this will help people understand, and also most people are not on one side of the other. Most people are not anti-all vaccines, and most people are not pro, give me whatever the hell you want, and I'll take it, and I don't care.

So consider that also. Most people are somewhere in the middle. Don't let them divide us, and I don't know if you guys Everything else the same. No, I think that you can be pro vaccine and not pro mandates. It's just that simple I think that we were all Smart enough people that we can do our own homework We can do our own research and we can make that decision for ourselves whether we feel that we are at risk or not

I mean, I mean my opinion even on myself would change if the studies and the research came out. If it was a 50-50 shot that I live based off of being young, healthy, and fit, I'd have a different point of view for myself even. But it's because it's a 0.001% chance of death for someone in my category is why I lean that way. But that could change, right?

That could change in the next six months or a year or two years and who knows, but I definitely don't agree with being, and even if it was that high, I still wouldn't agree with it being forced. You know what, those funny, I wanna bring one more thing up, is that although people in our space

are like pro eating healthy pro exercising regularly. I think you'll you'll find that a Very small percentage if any at all whatever support forcing people to eat unhealthy and forcing people to exercise. I don't know a single trainer That if I came to them and said look you know the benefits of exercise and nutrition Do you think we should make it a law and they'd'd be like, no, no, I don't think so. Why? Here's why. Not because we don't think it might be beneficial.

I think if we forced everybody to eat right, we'd probably save a lot of lives, for sure. I think it's because we take our own health as our responsibility, which means we automatically respect that it's other people's responsibility for their own health as well. So I respect that in people. Love your neighbor.

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