Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Weight Loss

Episode Date: August 30, 2013

Welcome to Sawbones, where Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin McElroy take you on a whimsical tour of the dumb ways in which we've tried to fix people. This week: We help you shed the ellbees. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers (http://thetaxpayers.net)

Saw bones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books! One, two, one, two, three, four! We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines, the escalant macaque for the mouth! Wow! I'm over-firing. I'm a salt-pull. I'm just a macarons. This is a marital, a horror-of-mish-guy-head-medicine. I'm Sydney. Honey?

Yes, you. What's wrong with you? I'm feeling quite down because I feel like I've put on a lot of weight lately. Oh honey I think you look great. I don't I don't I don't think you've put on any weight. It's true. I have pounded the show in the last week but I really feel the last week but I really feel uh I feel where you're happy. Did you put that weight on in your vocal cords? No this is Howard Hawks, did you? Because I'm a giant fat person. Oh this is Howard Hawks. I don't know I don't know if we can do a whole

show of you talking that way honestly. I don't know. It's a great strain. Could you could you jump we can do a whole show of you talking that way, honestly. I don't know. It's a great strain. Could you jump up and do a few jumping jacks real quick or some push ups? Like the presidential fitness test, could you do some like pull ups? Hey, hey, did you hang on that bar for a while with your chin over it?

I didn't actually lose any way. I'm using my, portly voice. You, portly voice. You're portly, this is my voice. I like that. I like how PC that word is there. This is my portly. Well, it's to distinguish it from my giant fat person voice,

which is my normal, normal, uh, uh, voice. But this is my portly voice. Is everybody in the audience at home? Oh. Don't feel bad for me. It's trendy to get back on the horse. Anyway, earlier when I said a marital tour of misguided medicine, that's the thing, right?

Is it tour? Is that what we say? I couldn't remember. I think it's a tour. It was a tour. Yeah. And today we're gonna, We are your guides.

This is a tour. Sydney's gonna help me to shed some of these last LBs with a lot of hit, dieting tips that are as relevant now as they were in the 1700s. That's right, because the presidential fitness test really just doesn't work. Um, I could never hang on that bar for longer than, well, exactly as long as it took for them to move the stool out from under me. And we're perpetuating this myth that anyone can do sit-ups.

Well, I mean, I can do the human do sit-ups. The human body. It's all joints. I'll have to explain to you afterwards. We'll do another podcast on the impossibility of sit-ups later in this month, maybe. The impossibility of sit-ups is my favorite arcade fire out. On the eighth week of August, we do the impossibility of sit-ups podcast.

Sydney, take me all the way back. Let's climb into our time machine here and say, I see that your first dieting tip is from 1727. It would seem to me, I'm surprised, I guess, that we had fat people. You should know where we start this show. I am myself overweight. So when I say fat people,

I mean it with all the love in the world, I've lived my life as a fat person. So there's really no malice, man. I just want all of us to get back on this horse and just feel great about us, you know? I would also like to go on record as saying that I think you're perfect. You're too kind. It's true.

1727. So, I suppose there were probably people trying to lose weight prior to 1727. This was just as far back as I found actual dietary recommendations. And I mean, I think that we have to assume, and I didn't read this necessarily, but we have to assume that there was a long time where there wasn't enough food for everybody. So we probably weren't so concerned with not gaining weight. We were more concerned with staying alive and sustaining our functions. So at some point, people had enough food, and then at that point, they ate too much of

it, and then they had to start trying to lose it. God, that's so messed up when I say it that way. But the furthest crazy diet recommendation back that I found was from 1727. And I'm sure there are older ones. But at that time, a theory came out that we noticed that people who were overweight tended to live near swamps. Okay, I liked that.

I liked that this started like this because it reinforces what my theory was about why we didn't see more dining temperatures because we were so dumb that we didn't know that food and being chubby were related. This is my belief at this point. No, well, I mean, we have to figure that there was a point where people did not make the connection

that big people ate more and little people probably didn't. So at the time, it may as well, well, we tend to see really big people near swamps, so try not to live near a swamp. If you can. Well, that's not the craziest idea, right? Because you see while while the food are you about to make a case for why swamps make people fat? No, that is crazy. No, I mean, while the connection between food and fat may be pretty obvious to us now, I would think that, you know, back in those days, you had to go on what you could see with the naked eye and you saw people who were thinner, who ate a lot because we didn't understand anything like metabolism or whatever. So, you know, it might be hard to make those connections. Well, we didn't make those connections.

And then there was, you know, we're also, there's another thing where we were battling a whole period of time where it was considered a mark of, you know, you were well off if you were heavier. Right. So once we even did understand the connection between food and your weight, it was, you know, a rich people weight more. And so, orpolescent.

Yeah, so you wanted to be overweight because you were just telling society, hey, I got food, you don't. Dig. Yeah, too bad for you, buddy. Let me eat cake. Look at this turkey leg. Doesn't it look yummy? It's bet you wish you had one.

You want it. So are you peasant? By the 1800s, though, with the Victorian period, people really, really liked that whole, and we talked about it in the tuberculosis episode? Or, no, in the plague episode. When did we talk about TB? Ummm. We talked about tuberculosis.

People like to look like they had tuberculosis. Bleeding, it was in the bleeding episode. It was in the bleeding episode. People love to look like they had TB. People love to look frail and breakable. I don't know why so they starve themselves in the 1800s. I like popular. I like to look unbreakable That's where I wear a green raincoat around everywhere like Bruce Willis just like Bruce Willis man It felt my breakable So you know, which actually was probably I mean is it a good idea? No?

Is it a good way? No? Is it a good way to lose weight? Sure. Sure. You'll lose weight if you starve yourself. So a lot of people in the 1800s just didn't eat because it was very popular to look pale and thin and fragile. An odd time all around. In the 1820s, Lord Byron actually was kind of our first, our pioneer of diets, of weird diets when he told everybody to just drink vinegar and water. I mean, that'll do it. It would make you throw up sometimes, other times it would give you diarrhea. In general, you would lose weight.

Sure, right. I mean, vinegar, boy, can you imagine after a long, hard day at the Gristle factory? I don't know. 18 others you get Gristle factory. Just kick back a cold vinegar on water. It should be noted that Lord Byron had had like all the eating disorders. I would say an eating disorder. He was a bulimic. He was an anorexic. His dietary tips were probably not ones we should follow. Right. Yeah. in Errachsik, his dietary tips were probably not ones we should follow.

Right. Yeah. I think it's interesting that we look back to 1863 for the first time when someone decided they were going to address the public, address the people at large, that was not meant to be upon, and tell them to not be quite so large. And William Banting wrote the letter on Corpulence,

addressed to the public, where he basically said, look, look guys, it's 1863, food is abundant. We're all getting these days like to announce the year a lot. They were very proud they made it as far. Listen, we all know it's 1863. It's, we're all getting a little large. It's time to cut back. And so, Banting became popular.

That's what they called it, Banting, which meant, which is interesting because his name's already a gerund and they, and they just sort of, so they just took it and made it a thing you might do, which is when you would eat a low calorie and low carb diet. Not a bad idea, actually. Okay, William Banting. Banting? On point. Yeah.

I like that the first guy that came up with the diet pretty much got it. An actual like diet. The first guy out was like, yeah, this'll work. Try this. Which is perfect because so a guy came up with a good idea on how to lose weight. And then for, you know, 100 or so years,

more than that, 200 years, people were gonna come up with a lot of stupid ways to lose weight. No. because it was too easy. Did we understand what carbohydrates were back then? This was already part of the endomically? No, I should say this. When I say low carbohydrate, that's me using that terminology.

He said, you should eat a lot of meat, investibles, and you shouldn't eat a lot of bread. Okay. And pasteries and sweets and things like that. So he didn't say carbohydrates, but he knew that there was something about those grains. Something about those grains.

They're so yummy. They're so delicious. This was followed by a lot of stupid ideas. The first of which was Horace Fletcher in the 1900s who came up with Fletcherism. Tatus does not sound, that does not sound appealing to me. No. Fletcherism. Tatist does not sound that does not sound appealing to me. No. Fletcherism involved chewing your food and then either

either chew it so much that it's a liquid and I guess maybe you don't want to swallow it or actually actively spit it out and they had like pots places like ads where they like spit your chew chew here. You know chew this food up and then spit it out and they had like pots places like ads where it's like put spit your chew chew here. Which meant like, you know, chew this food up and then spit it out. And then you won't get away. Hey, hun, do you want to go out to dinner tonight? You know, I have found recently that going to dinner has become profoundly unappealing. They've got those, I mean, everybody's spitting out

their food. The buckets, and I really, let's stay in. Can we just stay here? Can we get tied to liver? Could we stay in swallow or food? It's just, let's just go nuts. Tonight. Let's not chew it a hundred times.

Let's just swallow it. Let's be bad. And then let's just swallow it. The thought was that even if you did swallow it, once you chewed it a hundred times, it was a liquid and there wasn't anything in there that you would digest, so you wouldn't gain weight. That's inaccurate.

Yep, that's inaccurate. That's not right. Nice, nice dry humans. But you can imagine that everyone in the early 1900s had very powerful jaws. Yeah, right. The most powerful. By 1918, people really had come up with the idea of calorie counting. They knew there was energy in food.

There were crude ways of measuring it. And Dr. Lulu Hump Peters was the first one to say, hey, maybe if you just tried not to eat so many calories, you might lose weight. Well, she wasn't the first, right? No. Then, uh, band, uh, banding said that, right? Do you, right? Well, that's true. But this was a doctor. He probably didn't know about calories though. No. He was more just saying like, don't eat a lot of food. Okay. She was actually talking

about counting your calories and the idea that you probably expended calories when you exercise. I wonder if we had a lot of information back then about how many calories a thing had. It's not hard to do that. You can measure it just in how much heat something gives off. A lot of people probably did it back in chemistry lab in college. When they burned a peanut. Anybody?

Anybody? Just me? Just me? Okay. I think my favorite though is in 1925 when Lucky Strike came out with a great diet. Oh man, I can I like it. It was I mean, it was it was succinct. I'm already seeing where we're going with this. Brevity is the soul of weight loss. Reach for a lucky instead of a sweep. Yeah, I mean, that'll get it done. There you go. They

recognize that nicotine was an appetite suppressant. So just, you know, smoke, smoke a bunch. I mean, that's why, and you know, on if you look at a lot of dessert menus in the 20s, most of them did have cigarettes on it. There was pile of cigarettes cigarettes all the mode cigarettes from bay actually it's the only way to go cigarettes but still. Yeah. I like it when you laugh. That's funny. I love thanks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show. We're here every Friday usually. So a lot of people were smoking and they weren't eating. Which wasn't it. Not the best plan, but they also. Can you know what that wants to grow so?

During the time, that was the beginning of people using laxatives, for instance. And people came out of a lot of bogus diet pills as well, with all kinds of ingredients that didn't make any way. Not as good as that. But it was insane. You know they were nutty. There were probably cocaine pills. You know, it's cartilage.

It's cartilage. Go nuts. Yeah, eat this. Eat this thing. It'll make you skinny. In the 30s, though, there was actually like a, okay, so now we have a thing. This is a thing you can eat.

It's easy, it's attainable. We know where it is. It's just eat a grapefruit. Okay. Just have a grapefruit with every meal. Wait, how long? Okay, I'm done with my grapefruit now. Okay, now you're going to be skinny. That's it. It was a very popular diet in Hollywood.

All the stars ate grapefruit. So they thought, well, hey, we'll just eat a grapefruit. Now is this an addition to or instead of your regular meal? I know. You eat it before your meal. And in theory, you should eat less. Look. And then, you know what's funny is that later in the 70s, this would be known as the Mayo Clinic Diet

because it was mistakenly attributed to the Mayo Clinic. But, but no, not- No, the Mayo Clinic never endorses this diet, but for a while, a lot of people jumped on board because I thought they did. I think a good diet, I just came up like, it's called a brush or teeth diet. I try to eat grapefruit after you brush or teeth. You will just die.

I don't like grapefruit. I'm not a big fan. I'm a big fan. I'll put some sugar on there, but that seems like the fetus. My mommy's seated with sweet and low. Oh. Like sweet and low is not terrible.

Can you imagine that? Grapefruit and sweet and low. I remember that for my youth. Forget about it. Kids think they don't like fruit through vegetables because their parents put sweet and low is not terrible. Can you imagine that great fruit and sweet and low? I remember that from my youth forget about it gets things they don't like fruit The vegetables because their parents put sweet and low on it They also came out in the thirties with a lot of soaps that would slim you down Wait lost hopes. I bet you I bet you you walk into your local your local Barneys and and find a soap that supposedly helps you lose weight I guarantee one of these have those creams that would get ready your cellulite So why not a soap that gets rid of your weight. Hi, Garanty, one of the things you're on cream. You're on cream. That would get rid of your cellulite. So why not a soap that gets rid of your fat?

And up until the 40s, this whole idea of weight loss was kind of like, it was largely a female, I should say, thing. All the ads were targeted at women. It was believed that women wanted to be skinny, that it wasn't really men trying to lose weight. In the 40s, it became kind of a both- both genders should be interested. And it was really a patriotic thing at that point.

The American government got involved. So it was a time of war. And the thought was, we need our, you know, our young Americans to be fit in order to be good soldiers. So we need a good fighting force. So that was the first time when the government started to get involved in nutritional standards, the food pyramid, advising people, fitness initiatives, how to get in shape, how to get healthy, telling people not to be overweight. That's how far back that date. We see that today. We've joked about the presidential fitness test, but the government's been involved in keeping people skinny for a long time. Are you telling me Uncle Sam wants me to be skinny so I can help him kill Nazis? Is this what you're telling me?

That's what I'm telling you. Your government is calling on you to eat this great fruit. Please eat this great fruit. Please chew this fruit a hundred times and then spit it out and then smoke a cigarette and you can you two. You two can be part of our fighting forces. I'm in. Sign me up. Give me a gun. Give me two guns. And the thing is, you know, as government recommendations came out, they always were pretty, pretty benign, pretty bland. Like try to eat a balanced diet, don't eat too much,

try to exercise. All sound. All sound. but nobody wants to do that. That's too hard So on we go with the parade of stupid ideas. How about a cabbage soup diet? That doesn't sound filling you want to eat cabbage soup? You can eat all the cabbage soup you want I guarantee you will spend so much time in the bathroom. You will not be able to eat very much cabbage soup Because you have to make room in your schedule, you have to pencil that in. Exactly. I'm not trying to eat cabbage soup. And that was it.

The 50s gave birth to the cabbage soup diet. I should also note that by the 50s, weight was becoming, I shouldn't say weight was becoming an issue, but it was recognized that there was a subset of the population that was overweight. Okay. You know, and people began to, you know, in the clothing industry, notice that, hey, there's a whole section of people we could market to. And so Lane Bryant in particular came out with a great series of ads that you can look up online if you're interested called Calling All Chubbies.

Oh my God, that's fantastic. Calling all chubby. I got the vapors, that's so good. That is the word they use. I will get a t-shirt with a calling all chubbies that are on it right now. Not plus size, not whatever they say with the euphemisms.

Now women with curves, all the things. No, they calling all chubbies. You're terrible, can you imagine? I mean, these were their, this would they ran? They're at because they're, they're expecting a segment of the population to look at that and say, oh, that's me. That's me. Yeah. I'm answering. Chubby girls, chubby teens, there were all kinds of ads. I hear, I hear you're ringing. I'm going to pick that up. And so, of course, I think that we can... I'm going to go ahead and correlate these two. So, in response to calling all Chubby's ads, by 1954, people were in practicing the tape

worm diet. Yes, now we're getting to something that works. So, are you familiar with tapeworms, Justin? Love them. Eight one today. Didn Didn't tell you shouldn't have mentioned it. You don't know what tapeworms are there Okay, they're worms that you put in your tongue and they eat the food that is down there with you That's actually not so far off. I know Sydney So they're intestinal parasites. You're not actually supposed to eat them people Traditionally had you know accidentally ingested them in food that was not so safe. But they do. They attach themselves to your intestinal wall and they eat all of your nutrients.

I love that. It's, you know what it is? It's conservation energy. It says, I'm not going to let this, I'm full. I'm not going to let this plate of ham and eggs go to waste. I'm going to let it feed it to my, it feed it to my feed it to my tummy worm. Feed it to my cylindrical buddy. Get in there. Yeah, Annelid. Get in there. These dudes get long. Oh, yeah, they are real long.

How do you get them out? Do I want to know how you get them out? Well, I mean you can take medicine. Nah, that's boring. But then they... Well, you tip, but I mean, you know how that come out. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and it's very important that you don't like break them in half while you're removing them. Oh, no. You don't want all that to spill into your gut because then you get this big inflammatory response

with the ascentifils and it's big mess. So you really need to pull them out in one long string. So you take a medicine that kills them, so they detach. Because they're little, and I mean, you want want to be freaked out you look at a picture of that Skolix of their little their little scary teeth Clamped into the inside of your intestine so that you kill them that let let's go and Then you sit on the toilet and just wait inch by inch yard by yard you remove that sucker

Just get out of there, buddy. Yeah, it takes a while. No more free ride for you. You know what's funny is when I was looking up information about the tapeworm diet, because you really could buy a capsule of parasite, you know, they sold them in a capsule. And it was the tiny little parasite that you would swallow and then it would become attached to your intestinal wall and then you lost weight because you were malnourished. The, every time I looked up something about these parasites, I found a picture of Tyra Banks.

Well, that's weird. She take one. I, I think that she did a show once, her Tyra show. She talked about tapeworms. I think that's actually the reason I kept finding that. But I'm gonna go ahead and completely lie and say that Tyra Banks swallowed a tapeworm. Did Tyra? That's an utter lie that I just made up and I'm gonna say it. Did Tyra bank swallow a tapeworm or did her literary alter ego creamy-de-la-crem swallow a tapeworm? No,

honey creamy-de-la-creme was not her literary alter ego. Tookie, Day La Creme is her literary alter ego. Now who's Creamy Day? That's her mom. Okay, baby. Come on. Model in, people. On Amazon now, pick it up.

I don't really think that Tyra Banks followed a tapeworm, but I just lied and said she did. So there. Don't podcast now. Now it's- It's racist. It's time move forward People came up with just a lot of different ways of eating to lose weight

So in the 60s I mean everybody's heard about the Mediterranean diet eat a lot of olive oil drink a lot of red wine You get real skinny. I've not heard of this. Oh Yes, you have everybody has the people in the Mediterranean region. You're just making me feel bad now I'm sorry. They were skinnier than us. That's why we all eat olive oil. Well that and Rachel Ray told us to. Yeah. EVO, she said.

Exactly. In 1963, Weight Watchers was founded by a housewife who said she ate too many cookies, so she just had to help all the other housewives. This is classic America. I ate too many cookies. I'm a founded group about it. Hey, I have a cool solution for you. Maybe just pump it on the chips of hoi, lady. Not so fast because in 1975, the cookie diet did come out. I got ahead of us. I'm sorry. There was a doctor who invented

special cookies that he said were made with amino acids that would help you lose weight. Just eat these cookies. This should be noted that like everything's made with amino acids, but whatever. This is a diet I could get into. Is this still around? Is that still cooking? It was a resurgence. Like in the late 90s, I think early 2000s of the cookie diet, but there's special cookies. I think they're like the cookie equivalent of like the super donut. Yeah. Yeah. A special nutritionally fortified cookie. Oh my God, where's the super donut diet?

I would get into that. You know, the 70s also gave us the sleeping beauty diet, which Elvis tried, which just means like go to sleep for several days and then you won't eat so much. It's sustainable. I really like that. Yeah. Also the Prolin diet, which was developed by a doctor where he made this liquid Prolin

out of the slaughterhouse byproducts of animals like hooves, horns, tendons, bones. You just drink this. Here's my impression of the testing period for the Proundi. Hey, do you want to drink this? Nope, it works Some people did drink it. It only had 400 calories. It had zero nutrients and a lot of them had heart attacks Perfect. So it's a bad idea. Yeah, Roger Lynn MD. Don't know bad job. It's a good try. That was a bad job I'm bad try actually I mean next month of

That's not the first time okay the stuff was developed that was actually pretty scary You know because the 70s brought us things that were reasonable like slim fast But then they also brought us Dexatrim. Okay Slim fast is not reasonable. I have to take Umberto's here on this. I'm sorry, it is milkshakes. If you only have a milkshake for breakfast and a milkshake for lunch, yes, you're right.

You will only get whatever 600 calories. That is not a diet. That is just only milkshakes. You could have anything. And also I did slim fast for like two months. And then afterwards, if I drank orange juice in the morning, I throw up. That still happens today. It ruined me, Sydney. I can't drink orange juice in the morning because it's slim fast. That's a, does this sad story that you told?

You didn't, it's not on their sheet, so I'm just mentioning it. I'm sorry, I will say this that I think if you're going to have to drink a milkshake for breakfast and lunch, it could taste better than slim fast. Not if you want to lose weight. I don't think anybody loses weight with slim fast I don't I really hated doing it you know because the one thing about it is How is still hungry because it is a it is not a large milkshake Well, you think you were hungry on that you should have been a breatherian What do I what a breatherian?

What a breatherian's into and the 1980s breatherians came around and they believe that if you're interested Breitharian. What do I, what do Breitharians, what do Breitharians into? In the 1980s, Breitharians came around and they believed that if you were in true harmony with the new universe, you really didn't need food or water. Perfect. I love it. So, one, one advocate of this lifestyle was on 60 minutes and almost died of dehydration. When I was looking at your, I'm not laughing at her, that's terrible. Well, all my problems didn't die. She didn't die. No, she tried to live on air

It didn't work. She's okay. Well, she was she was then she's probably I don't know how she is now doesn't look like she's doing a lot of healthy living When I was just looking at her she just now I thought I said a woman demonstrating it for 60 minutes almost died Yeah, she's like well come on lady You can't make it. You can't hour without food and water. I'm gonna fuck it up. Gone dead. But it's true.

I mean, when we talk about unhealthy diet fads, I mean, like Dexitram, as I mentioned, came out in the late 70s. And it definitely caused strokes. It was a diet pill. You're stimulant and people died. And that is not, and that was the beginning of the diet pill bad where, you know, fend fend and all that that came out afterwards where people were taking medicines

that were bad for your heart, were causing strokes and heart attacks and arrhythmias and all of the valveular problems. And I remember Gexatrim being available for a long time. Me too. Also another thing about Gexatrim, the memory I have is watching commercials for it on TV as a kid, and think about how delicious it looked.

Cause it was a white, it was a red capsule, and then on the other it was clear, and you could see these tiny red, white, and yellow capulets inside the capsule. So it looked like little candies being poured into a larger candy, and as a kid, I was like, man, that was really, really good.

That was so nice. Don't they want everybody to like it? It made me hungry. They defeated the purpose. It made you hungry and then you took the pill and then you were never hungry again. Perfect. Because you had a stroke. I had a stroke. Well, I had a good red. In the 80s, we actually started to see real diets start to come around like not just, you

know, don't eat or take this pill or eat a cookie. Sterex, son. No, like actually, you know, eat a certain way. Oprah came out with her liquid diet that was when she came out with like a wagon with like 62 pounds worth of fat and it or something and said, I just lost all this by not eating food. It's the Oprah diet. Arobics came out, jazz or size came out.

And in 92, Justin's favorite, the Adkins diet came out. Robert Adkins oven this piece. That's right. That was a guy that was low carb. Not quite like the adkins. It absolutely works. It makes you sad. That's the only problem with it. It made me sad. You know, it doesn't work is the blood type diet. Now, what is that? This is when you, based on your blood type, you eat certain foods. That makes no sense.

It was based on this idea that we had certain enzymes in our bodies based on which blood type we were, and so we'd break down different foods, and it was all kind of BS. Before we get too deep into modern solutions for weight loss. And this will be a slightly longer episode just because we feel bad about not giving you one last week. But before we get into modern solutions about weight loss, I want to mention that like, if you're doing one of the things that we mentioned in the next hour or so,

like that's great. Like and it's working for you and it's healthy. Like it's not hurting you actively. Like you know what, maybe that's just the magic for the thing you need. Maybe it's healthy. It's not hurting you actively. You know what? Maybe that's just the magic of how you need. Maybe it's just the thing you need to keep you going. So don't think like we're discouraging you if we happen to mention the bogus diet you

do. No, and I should say this, when I talk about liquid diets, adkins diets, the zone, south beach, those kinds of things, I'm not saying that they're bogus. I'm really not. There are plenty of people, and I recognize because you're one of them, honey, who lost weight on the adkins diet. I think it's just when you're getting into a diet that deprives you of certain things and makes you feel bad, you need to make sure with your doctor that you're doing something

that's safe for you. For instance, if you're a diabetic and you're doing the adkins diet, I talk to your doctor that you're doing something that's safe for you. For instance, if you're a diabetic and you're doing the adkins diet, I talk to your doctor because I don't want my diabetic synchytosis and that's exactly what the adkins diet intends for you to do. So I would just really make sure that if you're trying one of these diets that's a little medically dicey, talk to your doctor. I get a PCP. I'm a big believer in like the diet that

actually works is restriction and and whatever like restriction actually works for you, you should you should run with it if it's working. Absolutely. It's the LB's. Yeah and can I just clarify that when I just said go get a PCP, I didn't say go get PCP. Right. Because I go get a PCP by which I mean a primary care for the show? I mean, the medical advice that's in it just gave you is not valid as we have given you a disclaimer at the beginning of the show. That's right. Then doesn't mean you should do the opposite of what you don't. Don't get a PCP.

Just means you can't see what. So what's the zone? The zone diet was actually not, it was kind of a play on the adkins diet. It's, I mean, it is, right? It's still a thing. Yeah, no, people are still on the zone. And it just, you're limiting the amount of carbohydrates, you're pumping up the amount of veggies and meats

that you're eating, but you're not completely eliminating carbs like you're on the adkins diet. And it has to do with, if you're eating certain like good carbs, you can eat more of them. A bigger percentage of your diet can be good carbs like whole grains or brown rice or quinoa or something, but if you're eating like bad carbs like white bread, then less percentage of your diet can be that kind of thing. So I mean, we're getting back to carbs again.

We also saw the rise of the macrobiotic diet, which again was a big focus on vegetables, but then grains came back with that. The idea was that it actually fought cancer. If you, you know, I'm going with paltrow, it's the biggest proponent of this diet. Grains, local veggies, antioxidants, you can fight cancer this way, but I should point out that all medical organizations say we do not advise this diet for cancer patients. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that.

I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that.

I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that.

I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. I can't find a way to do that. So you know how red the color red is supposed to make you hungry, right? Well the color blue is supposed to make you not hungry So I think it was a Japanese company developed some blue glasses that you could wear some like blue-tented lenses And they were marketed as like the vision diet where these glasses food will not look as appetizing and you won't eat so much I swear to God, Sydney if I ever saw a totally fat dude wearing blue glasses and eating a huge dinner, I think our probably a prey for a meaty or a dish like meaty. It's nothing would ever be more awesome than that exact moment. I love I love the idea of everybody walking around with blue glasses on and staring at donuts going, please don look so appetizing please don't look so yummy.

I don't care what filter you have on donuts those is a piece are going to look delicious. This was also the same time period where we saw the the idea that you could staple the cartilage of your inner ear as a way to make you not so hungry. Seems legit. Would suppress your appetite because it was based on an acupuncture technique. Oh, there's a pressure point there and so the thought was well we'll just reduce your appetite. It works for like up to six months and then you get tolerant to it. I didn't find any research that this works. There's no reason I think that's true. No, maybe it does for you. I would get somebody who's

licensed to do it. Some of the worst fads are, and this is still going on eating cotton balls. This I would recommend against. It probably would make you feel full, but there is no nutrients in cotton balls. Okay. Right? That makes sense, because they're cotton. And then there was the baby food diet, which is still being touted. Again, like not dangerous per se, but you're going to look like kind of a weirdo if you check out at the grocery store with the giant cart full of baby food

What are you what are you eating Daniel? You know this is my baby Finn. I love these bananas Special boy, my look at this Yes, you're looking then also please please go you don't have any babies You don't have it And they're all baby food you're killing me in 2001 I had to bring this up Justin because of our personal experience with neutral system Nutri-sister came out which I think is a great point because this was when people started saying you know what I cannot figure food out Would you please send me food that I'm supposed to eat? I quit point because this was when people started saying, you know what, I cannot figure food out.

Would you please send me food that I'm supposed to eat? I quit. I quit just send me boxes of food. I'll eat what you put in the boxes. I don't know what else to do. I'm lost. Send me boxes of. And we're allowed to say this because we did neuter system.

Well, we did neuter system. That, that was not great. All the cereal tasted like sweet bings from a real cereal factory. And one time I got- Not even it's diet food people, it doesn't taste great. It tastes bad.

And at one point I got muffins that had a maggot on them. They sent me a few month of food though in exchange for my silence. I don't know what happened. Well, there we go. Which I have broken. They can have free month of food though in exchange for my silence. I don't know what happened. Well, there we go. Which I have broken. They can have that box of food back because I certainly never ate it.

I certainly did not eat it. He's bad guys. Just to kind of round out the more recent weight loss techniques, ally came out in 2007, the medication ally. I think that's another great one to mention. This was on the heels of all the fedric containing drugs being banned because, you know, they were killing people. Ally came out and, uh, oralistat is the, is the generic name. And this was a novel way to lose weight. It prevents you from absorbing the fat in your food. Well, then where does it go?

Well, it goes right out your butt, just like that. Out your butt. But not when you want it to, just when it wants to. I did ally too, and the less said about that, the better. Yeah, I didn't think you'd want to share that experience. Let's just suffice to say that it's a really great like negative reinforcement, because the more fat you eat, the more likely you are to have anal leakage.

It's also a really great way to limit your social circle to the people who really, really care about you. And it's also a great reason to never buy white pants again. Right. Because of the anal leakage. It probably would help you lose a few pounds if you can stand the side effects mainly through again negative reinforcement You will never want to make the mistake of eating fat again after you take this pill. Hey, do you want some of this bacon? That's hysterical. Do you keep it away from me? Keep it away. Keep it away. I've been hard with the anal leakage David

Um, in 2011 the beta HCG diet came out beta HCGG, a hormone, of course, that is really serine pregnancy. It's actually a pregnancy test, check for. So the thought was, you get this little vial of HCG, put a drop under your tongue, and you lose weight. Sounds good. Sounds great, doesn't it? Perfect. And people probably did lose weight on the diet,

but not because of the HCG. Because the diet also required that you eat between five and 800 calories a day. Perfect. Sounds great. Yeah, and that'll work. I mean, you'll be starving, and I don't know what the HCG is doing to you, and I don't want to think about it. But that was a big fat, and then I think the most recent that we can talk about, that I

know people are still doing, because it's pretty brand new, came out last year, is the five-2 diet. Mm-hmm. Which, I've not heard of this one. No, well, and I had to look it up because I actually was under the impression that you could eat anything you want from 5am to 2pm, which I thought sounded like a pretty sweet deal.

Cool, why? That is not at all what it is. Okay. So for five days of the week, you eat whatever you want, eat normally. You mean, don't binge, but just eat what you want. And then for two days of the week, you eat like 500 calories a day.

You fast, essentially. That sounds pretty good, actually. I think it ended up that. It doesn't sound too bad to do. And people say they're losing weight with it. Again, I don't know that it's encouraging any healthy eating habits, like lifestyle changes or patterns to like really make you feel good,

but there it is. Five, two diet. Five, two. So for five days, my day through Friday, you just go nuts and then I guess on the weekend, I think I'd reschedule that. They can make it Tuesday, Wednesday, because those days suck anyway, don't they?

That's where you go. Sydney, we've gone through a lot of different possible diets. I think I've tried many of these, especially in more recent years. I've tried many of these because I wanted to make sure you weren't hurting yourself.

Right. But the thing that I keep coming back to that you help me keep coming back to is the actual real no kidding secret to a loss and there is one and there's a diet that actually genuinely absolutely totally every time works. Sydney, what is it? The diet that works is watching what you eat, eating a balanced diet that includes a

lot of healthy meats, fruits and vegetables, counting your calories, calories in, calories out, burn more than you eat, and exercise. Get active. I think that's the biggest problem, is that people want to focus so much on what they're putting in their bodies and they're not exercising. It's not easy as I can attest. It's not fast.

Nope. But it will, it will work. And there are changes that you can make that'll last a lifetime. And then you can be part of a healthy fighting force brought to you by the US military. This was paid. I'm sorry. I have a government. Sorry. Sydney's a government shell. We hope you had as much fun as we have today. Thank you so much for hanging with us, even though we missed our our our episode last week. We appreciate you coming back to join us again.

We are here every Friday with a new episode. Yeah, and it was totally Justin's fault last week that we were gone. Whoa, why is that, Sydney? He left town, he wasn't here. I couldn't record an episode on my own. Who was I gonna tell about this stuff? I, Sydney does utter the episode to herself, to herself when I, when I, when I, to our cats.

I sit and I tell our cats about things. They're not interested. Um, thank you to so much to people who have, first off, let me say a huge thank you to our buddy, Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know. They gave us a really, really nice plug this week. Yeah, thank you so much, guys. I was ecstatic, because I love your show. She really does. I do. It meant the world to her.

And thank you so much for those of you who have hopped on the iTunes and reviewed our program. That is so cool that you would do that for us. It actually doesn't just boost our egos even though it does that too but it it also is a great way for us to help share the show because when people review it and subscribe to it then we get you know more more eyeballs on it because iTunes is like hey got this hit podcast for you. So you have really helped us out with that. Some of the people who have said this

or you recently, be to the Ryan, three, three tanker, I think, cast welding. Carrie Ann Amm, M, she's a stuff you should know, a fan that found us. I can't find an untaken name. Click love. Michael Kathulu. Keefer's Keefer. Consider the limbing. The hopping glob marked Twain. Miss shadow play. Maze. Albeck J. Row 983. Mike C9-7-9-1 cupcake mask. Cupcake mask. Cupcake mask. Yeah, you really are, send us some. Vinny Longa, OMG, OMA, OMA Activate, I guess, Nagi, DV, Mock.

So many others who have, Action Allen, of course, who have, help reviewed our show in the past couple of years. I read every single one and I really appreciate it guys. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, You are all the best. You can always tweet at us at Justin McAroy. And she's at Sydney McAroy, S-Y-D-N-E-E. And we have a Twitter account at Saw Bones

where we put out the, let you know when there's new episode live. Or if you have any ideas or things you want us to talk about. You can send those to Saw Bones at maximumfun.org. This has been SawBones. I'm just Macaroid. I'm Sydney Macaroid. It's always dope. Go.

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