Maintenance Phase - BONUS： The Conservative Diet Books of Yore

00:00:00.000 i have one i have i have an appropriate one when does either one of us ever come in with one and

00:00:16.540 be like i got it welcome to maintenance phase the podcast that believes diets are a matter

00:00:22.460 of personal responsive bootstraps i wonder where we're going in this episode i'm aubrey gordon i'm

00:00:30.740 michael hobbs if you would like to support the show you're already doing that thank you so much

00:00:35.980 and today we are combing the shelves of aubrey's diet book collection this is going to be the first

00:00:45.740 of many such comings and according to a text message you sent last night we're today talking

00:00:53.060 about conservative diet books yes we're talking about the gop but it stands for go on a plan

00:01:00.520 no that wasn't that good i really like like but the challenge here is i don't think anybody calls

00:01:07.240 a diet a plan yeah i know i give me time to watch that i'll come back so we're normally doing a diet

00:01:14.060 book deep dive I'm calling this a diet book buffet a little smorgasbord you had this great

00:01:18.840 idea of just doing a tour of the diet book collection and picking out a few that like

00:01:23.940 didn't have quite enough there there to sustain a whole episode right and as I started to look

00:01:30.640 at the collection like a that's a lot of the diet books a lot of the diet books are like it's not

00:01:36.700 enough for a whole episode but it's very funny and silly and let's talk about how funny and silly it

00:01:40.920 as i started to look through the collection it became clear that there were these little like

00:01:45.200 sub themes like there are a bunch of diet books that are just about like the wine diet or the

00:01:50.120 pasta diet or the popcorn diet or the junk food diet there's a bunch of celebrity diet books

00:01:55.960 written by people who have absolutely never been fat why does share have a diet book okay

00:02:01.320 so there are all these little subsets and i thought for today we would start out with

00:02:06.660 one of those subsets oh yeah which is politically conservative diet books and straight up some of

00:02:14.100 these people are politicians some of them are political actors either way they are folks who

00:02:18.640 have been like up front about their political conservatism get out the paleo let me keep doing

00:02:25.360 these out gonna have the paleo good job more throughout so for this one i pulled more diet

00:02:32.140 books than i used there were a couple there's one that i pulled that was called a diet plan

00:02:36.680 for uncle sam oh hell yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah let's get into this and then it was just about

00:02:41.840 like federal budgets and like obliterating the social safety net oh i thought it was gonna be 0.71

00:02:47.960 like roast bald eagle and shit unfortunate no it was a bummer but it was not the kind of bummer i 0.92

00:02:56.020 was looking for oh a fun bummer i know i was looking for a fun bummer and it was just a 0.93

00:03:00.720 straight up bummer there was another one that i was like i think this might actually be a whole

00:03:04.820 episode as a sort of like an episode in two parts one of them is um the boston police had a very

00:03:12.740 popular diet book what yes what yes yes if it was popular enough which it definitely was not i would

00:03:21.580 have been like we should do this on it books could kill do you know what i mean like hang on i'm

00:03:25.360 coming over. We're doing this one because it's garbage. So today we're going to look at three 0.95

00:03:30.720 different diet books. It is a classic maintenance phase crescendo. So brace yourself for things to

00:03:38.480 get wilder as we go along. The first diet book that we are going to look at, hang on, I got to

00:03:44.420 close out of everything and open up the folder of pictures of these diet books. And then I'm

00:03:52.220 gonna send you one of them garbage obstructing progress is that is that one i didn't see it 0.98

00:04:00.340 coming that one has a verb okay mike i sent you a picture of the cover no fucking way 0.98

00:04:07.140 i got you a present what yeah okay so good god okay so it's the i heart america diet 0.85

00:04:18.680 by someone named phyllis george and bill adler and the cover is like this bright rubik's cube

00:04:26.900 red with like a a nice like swirly wedding invitation font and it says i heart america

00:04:33.500 and the heart is like an image of like a barbie doll woman it's like a woman like blonde white

00:04:41.660 gleaming teeth yeah my whenever whenever i see like republican imagery like this i'm just ready 0.95

00:04:47.880 for a fucking horror show i'm sure she's nice this is a red flag the barbie doll woman is phyllis 0.97

00:04:55.560 george it is the author of the book ostensibly not nice uh her career started as the winner of 0.99

00:05:02.860 miss america she went on to become a sports reporter and a news reporter okay and at the

00:05:08.260 time that she published this book it was her last year as the first lady of kentucky oh okay yeah 0.76

00:05:16.000 she has she has a sort of miss america news anchor lady kind of look technically the title

00:05:21.660 of the book is the i love america diet but every time they do the heart so i'm only calling it the

00:05:28.700 i heart america yes obviously i feel about this like i feel about like so i live in portland

00:05:33.540 oregon there are nike bikes that you can use all around town many cities have like just like bikes

00:05:40.300 that you can like pick up and use ours are provided by nike nike has a store in town called

00:05:44.900 nike town as it does in a number of places on the side of the bikes it says bike town but my brain

00:05:53.060 always reads it as bikey bikey town same whenever i'm in portland i'm like i guess the bikey town

00:05:57.820 bike and i feel similarly about this which is like look i could try to rewire my brain to read

00:06:01.780 that as the i love america yeah yeah but it's always going to be the i heart america diet with

00:06:07.080 the barbie doll lady in it also a ton of people you know tsa pre-check how it's like pre dash and

00:06:13.040 in like a check emoticon but everyone ignores that so they'll just say like i have tsa pre 0.80

00:06:18.220 this is where i fully turn into that like fucking tiktok about us where i'm like this week i thought 0.77

00:06:26.480 we'd go light and i ended up with 11 pages of notes i think about that tiktok all the time 0.95

00:06:32.360 i really i'm like they really nailed it and i know because of the amount of personal embarrassment i

00:06:38.960 feel when i catch myself doing those behaviors called out called yes out so lovingly but

00:06:45.320 absolutely i know we we appreciate you and we're we're wildly self-conscious now and we're mortified

00:06:51.320 okay so phyllis george with this book joins the pantheon of lifetime thin people with the

00:07:00.960 goddamn audacity to write a diet book oh yeah look look what i did miss america wrote a diet book 0.89

00:07:06.680 yeah this is how i became symmetrical wow thanks 0.98

00:07:10.340 her co-writer and i would guess the main writer of this book is bill adler whose bio just says

00:07:21.660 like he's a literary agent and a writer and he co-authored the i heart new york diet which i

00:07:27.200 also have is that just a bunch of like pizza slices and sewer rats step one former rat king

00:07:32.780 with other rats future maintenance phase bonus app this book was published in 1983 so it's exactly

00:07:38.360 as old as i am it was published again in her last year as first lady of kentucky and it was blurbed

00:07:46.020 by like one million med school professors interesting we will get into why that is

00:07:52.160 momentarily the main thing that we are going to focus on for this book in particular is the

00:08:01.540 description on the flap of the book jacket. Okay, because it really does encapsulate like I skimmed

00:08:09.280 the whole book. And I was like, No, actually, I think the strongest text to look at is the actual

00:08:13.840 pitch that they're making to readers. So I'm going to send you we're going to go through bit

00:08:19.320 by bit. We're not going to do the entire thing because it's longer than it needs to be.

00:08:23.020 But we are absolutely going to talk through the first couple of paragraphs of it.

00:08:30.140 Okay, putting on my bifocals.

00:08:32.080 There you go.

00:08:33.280 It says, this is a diet for sensible Americans like you and me.

00:08:38.980 It's safe.

00:08:39.760 It's sound.

00:08:40.620 It's sure.

00:08:41.280 Of course it works because it's based on the official recommendations of U.S. government

00:08:46.300 agencies.

00:08:47.500 It's like no other diet you've ever been on or heard of before, doubtful, because it's

00:08:52.800 not just a diet.

00:08:54.260 It's an integrated three-way program that permits you for the first time in your life

00:08:59.160 to take control of your weight destiny.

00:09:02.160 It tells you what to eat.

00:09:04.320 It tells you how to eat.

00:09:06.200 It tells you the ways, all caps,

00:09:08.620 to beat fat with workouts anybody can do.

00:09:11.880 It's not just a diet.

00:09:13.180 It tells you what to eat.

00:09:14.500 It tells you how to eat.

00:09:15.780 It tells you what workouts to do.

00:09:17.800 You're describing a diet.

00:09:19.540 It's just like such God.

00:09:21.740 It's such boilerplate, this stuff.

00:09:24.240 It's like, this is like nothing else.

00:09:26.200 we're gonna tell you to eat less and move more it was really striking to me to be looking at

00:09:32.720 something again that is my entire lifetime ago and be like oh this is new marketing right every diet

00:09:42.320 is doing this same thing which is just like they're all like we're not like the other girls

00:09:47.560 we're different it is fascinating how like five minutes after the first diet there was the first

00:09:53.460 diet being like, we're not a diet. Yeah, we know diets don't work. Are you ready for our next

00:09:59.000 chunk of the description? Give on programs. No. And that one doesn't really work. Sorry. Yes,

00:10:06.740 I'm ready. Sorry. Okay, so I'm sending you the next chunk of the description. All caps. And

00:10:12.780 there's a fabulous bonus sentence case. You can be healthier than you are. You can live longer

00:10:19.280 with increased vigor. That's because you'll be following the U.S. Federal Dietary Guidelines for

00:10:24.900 Americans, the recent scientific breakthrough praised by doctors everywhere. The President's

00:10:31.200 Council on Physical Fitness and Sports asks, a strong, vital America depends on physically fit

00:10:37.320 Americans. Can we depend on you? If you love America, the answer is yes. It's patriotic to be

00:10:44.460 trim and healthy yeah yeah yeah problematic through lines in this little paragraph well i

00:10:52.440 picked this one out because i was like oh cameos we've got the president's physical fitness tests

00:10:58.160 we've also got the u.s federal dietary guidelines for americans which came up

00:11:04.100 so much in our food pyramid episode they are the basis of the food pyramid food triangle but yes

00:11:09.820 Also, we've got those guidelines being praised by doctors everywhere, which like they weren't even really praised by doctors within the USDA.

00:11:21.180 The guidelines doctors everywhere said about. 0.97

00:11:25.060 And then we've got this absolute fucking bananas shoehorning in of like real patriots are thin. 0.97

00:11:35.220 Yeah, dude. 0.98

00:11:35.880 It's weird that they're saying it this explicitly.

00:11:38.600 usually it's like between the lines it also just like i was reading this one and i was like this is

00:11:43.160 pure camp yeah i know this is the problem with this is it's hard to be offended by it

00:11:48.240 it really is so weird and surreal this uh description also lists out the things that

00:11:57.500 you can do on this diet which also felt really reminiscent of uh diets that we have heard about

00:12:06.180 talked about all that kind of stuff this is a list that should have bullet points in front of it but

00:12:10.680 it doesn't because i'm texting it to you is the exercise plan just standing up and saluting the

00:12:14.500 flag and sitting down over and over again it's actually just like joining the military and going

00:12:21.140 to boot camp yeah yeah just push-ups yeah yeah yeah absolutely uh it says lose up to 11 pounds

00:12:28.720 of fat a month not water as on fad diets eat the kind of foods you've always loved even ice cream

00:12:35.120 never never diet foods make the switch to lifetime stay slim habits easily pleasantly

00:12:41.600 deliciously learn how to transform your favorite recipes into scrumptious nutrition-packed

00:12:47.640 slimming delights oh this is very similar to the scarsdale diet thing yeah where in general when

00:12:54.180 it talks about the diet like in the introduction it's like you can do anything don't worry about

00:12:58.740 being hungry bestie and then once you get to the specifics it's like prisoner of war camp

00:13:04.900 rations and like hours of exercise and they just like coexist peacefully here's the thing that i

00:13:11.460 would say about this particular diet is like normally i'm like yes that is the pattern

00:13:15.680 in this case it is usda and fda guidelines that they're sort of operating off of so it's less

00:13:24.240 of that just like you get one ounce of cheese every week enjoy it savor it while you can like

00:13:32.260 it's less of that it reads much more like kind of any number of 80s low fat or low calorie diet

00:13:41.980 meal plans like a bunch of the meal plans they're like most nights for dinner you're getting a whole

00:13:47.720 baked potato plus a protein plus a cup of vegetables right because it's essentially a

00:13:53.080 diet book that was created to popularize public nutrition guidelines. Right. Right. So it's not

00:14:00.320 like completely off the rails. The fascinating thing to me is that they like include a small

00:14:06.120 number of recipes and the recipes that they include seem fine. They don't seem like bad

00:14:12.120 recipes to me, but I am confused as to how these ones made the top of the list. Okay. So they have

00:14:19.840 like a few dinner recipes they've got a couple of soup recipes they've got some dips that kind

00:14:24.340 of thing they have a lot of recipes that seem very time limited for your use in the year so

00:14:32.540 they have a recipe for gingerbread okay they have an eggnog recipe festive liquids they have a

00:14:39.000 recipe for something called cottage cheese dip oh no the cottage cheese in the 80s it was so much

00:14:45.140 i have listen it's stockholm syndrome has been debunked but i have it with cottage cheese i

00:14:51.900 continue to enjoy cottage cheese i have tried to get into cottage cheese so many times i've tried

00:14:57.120 i'm like i want to like this it seems fine and every every time i do it i just it's like opera

00:15:03.780 it's not for you yeah aubrey what if we wrote a diet book we've talked about this yeah we like

00:15:10.720 did the same intro it's like you can eat anything on this plan you can move however you want to

00:15:15.100 you don't have to be hungry and then like we actually did it we just like provided a bunch

00:15:19.580 of like bomb ass recipes and we were like you can make these you can not make these you can eat

00:15:24.480 literally anything else any whatever portion makes you feel full and happy like what if and

00:15:31.520 then we just call it a diet book or like it's a diet book but it's literally just like physically

00:15:36.420 eat anything what you want yeah yeah oh my god listen any excuse to get i have this recipe for 0.98

00:15:41.280 like a shrimp that's poached in coconut milk and like ginger and a butt like it's fucking killer 0.97

00:15:47.560 i would get that out into the world yeah the last thing i will say about this particular 0.96

00:15:51.640 is that so they've got the front spread and the back spread of the book covered in blurbs okay

00:16:02.320 then you open the book and the first 13 pages of this book are blurbs that they absolutely

00:16:12.240 should have cut okay as someone who just released a book there's like you are thinking really

00:16:16.600 strategically about blurbs when you pull together a book right or are you so they got blurbs from

00:16:22.100 killer names one of them is from walter cronkite oh my god really i just sent it to you okay he

00:16:31.180 says i know too well how difficult it is to reconcile good eating habits with the demands

00:16:37.040 of the hectic work day and this book appears to me to provide a practical guide that tackles this

00:16:43.280 very problem oh so like i didn't i didn't read it like shirstie told me about it and like

00:16:51.860 i have a hard time with like managing my eating habits and i understand that this book says that

00:17:00.400 it will teach me how to do that this is what she's asking you to do this is like when i get asked to

00:17:05.540 blurb books and i'm just like i will not be reading this book uh but i can provide i can

00:17:13.180 provide like a factual quote this was emailed to me in pdf form by john john seems fine wait have

00:17:21.060 you ever blurbed a book no because i don't have any time to read because all i do is read terrible

00:17:25.560 books and then like one fun book a month for book club and all those are already like out in the

00:17:31.080 world so those people don't need blurbs anymore she also got a blurb from ed mcmahon oh really

00:17:36.760 just sent it to you it just says the most comprehensive diet i have ever read what does

00:17:42.680 that even mean comprehensive that means it's i don't know if it's comprehensive because i

00:17:50.940 definitely didn't read it i'm tired of these fragmentary diets i need a comprehensive diet

00:17:55.920 anyway that's the i heart america diet that's all i wanted to do is just be like this is very goofy

00:18:02.180 this is sort of the theme of the episode like we talked in the goop episode about like dunking on

00:18:08.200 things but making it nutritious dunking there is no nutritional value you're not learning anything

00:18:12.780 you're not growing as a person you're not getting thiamin out of this book two michael are you ready

00:18:19.740 Book two, give me.

00:18:21.200 Book two is called The Love Diet.

00:18:26.080 Oh, The Love Diet.

00:18:26.960 Another heart cover.

00:18:28.320 Another heart on the cover.

00:18:29.300 This one's written by someone named John Daubert.

00:18:31.540 John Daubert has written a number of other books.

00:18:35.180 Titles include How to Improve Your Child's Education,

00:18:40.040 Give Yourself a Chance Finding Your Role in a Competitive Society,

00:18:44.740 John Daubert's First Aid for Marriage,

00:18:47.920 okay and if being a christian is so great why do i have the blah that one actually sounds good

00:18:54.760 i also have the blahs maybe he has tips this one was published in 1977 the tagline for this one

00:19:02.620 is how to diet successfully using that most powerful of all motivators love i'm intrigued

00:19:12.640 I'm going to send you the description from the back of the cover.

00:19:17.880 Get ready.

00:19:19.220 It says,

00:19:20.440 A simple but complete explanation of the catalyst, which can make any reasonable diet a resounding success.

00:19:27.500 The catalyst is love.

00:19:29.500 Everyone has a capacity for it.

00:19:31.040 Everyone has seen evidence of its universal appeal and power.

00:19:34.660 John Daubert shows how to harness the enormous power of love to benefit dieting.

00:19:39.860 The writing.

00:19:40.700 Yeah.

00:19:40.900 The goal is to build a deep-seated, unified inner attitude that controls the dieter's behavior, an attitude motivated out of love for the dieter himself, his friends, his family, his career, and his self-perceived purpose in life.

00:19:58.000 The author shows not only how to use the love we have, but how to obtain all the love we will ever need to get slim and stay that way.

00:20:07.840 Is this chat, GPT?

00:20:09.360 motivated out of love you're right to be confused by this use the love we have how to obtain the

00:20:17.160 love we need to get slim why would i need love to get slim i need self-hatred of the way that i look

00:20:24.220 and feel mike i'm gonna tell you what this is the one of the books that we're talking about today

00:20:28.920 where i read the entire thing cover to cover and i am no more clear on any of the answers to any of

00:20:35.860 the questions raised by this description god the the real i feel like jordan peterson is the one

00:20:40.860 that really cracked this code the trick to these books is to write something totally incomprehensible

00:20:46.560 and then if anyone is like uh this doesn't make any sense then you could just be like looks like

00:20:51.240 somebody didn't get it i guess you don't understand these intellectual concepts you might be wondering

00:20:57.100 michael why this is on our list of uh books written by conservative political actors please enjoy the

00:21:05.120 cover oh wait what oh it took me a second okay so it says i mean first of all this graphic design

00:21:14.080 is on point as usual it is microsoft word 95 they figured out the arch function so it says

00:21:23.160 the love diet and there's like a little tagline by john dobbert small font forward by james

00:21:30.800 dobson yeah the infamous focus on the family prime minister whatever the fuck he is but like he's this 1.00

00:21:37.280 like this anti-gay anti everything fun ghoul absolutely if there was gremlin shit being said 0.99

00:21:43.820 about queer people in national politics it was either being said by james dobson furnished by 0.99

00:21:51.020 james dobson or like parroted by people who were close to him like he is like the nexus right like

00:21:58.040 if you're like mad about jerry falwell or pat robertson you're also probably mad right james

00:22:03.800 dobson right like he is again like the beating heart of a lot of this stuff but also very very

00:22:08.340 trim people are always talking about his six-pack his neck veins okay we'll get there just a trim

00:22:13.980 little man at the point that this was published he was an associate professor of pediatrics

00:22:20.800 at usc at the time he was best known for his book dare to discipline which advocated for

00:22:31.000 the use of corporal punishment by parents on kids i love it when they try to present this as like

00:22:36.980 as like a bold new idea it's like finally beating kids yeah it's like yeah that's what we've been

00:22:42.260 doing for like thousands of years and it's bad also it's 1977 so this isn't necessarily even an

00:22:49.200 idea that has like gone out of vogue in the way that it has gone out of vogue when i think of 0.96

00:22:54.700 love i think of beating children i think of the guy who's like gay people are all gonna die and 0.87

00:22:59.400 it's gonna be their fault also beat your kids more the love diet yeah i just want to make 0.99

00:23:03.420 literally everyone's lives worse this is also the year that he founded focus on the family

00:23:09.160 so he had his eyes on bigger things right it was either become a lifestyle influencer or become an

00:23:16.760 anti-gay grifter if only instagram had been around back then chapter titles for this one include

00:23:23.520 born again and obese that's an absurdity oh no your diet must be self-imposed okay group pressure 0.96

00:23:34.420 is great but at midnight it's only you in the refrigerator okay tithing food for health giving

00:23:41.840 away 10% of all my food. That's the key to losing weight. I look at a meal and I cut off 10% of it.

00:23:49.840 I put it in the collection plate. I just save the potatoes just in my little hand.

00:23:54.320 The last one is absolutely unquestionably the darkest, which is,

00:23:58.560 am I important enough to live longer? Oh God.

00:24:02.680 Right. It gets so dark so fast.

00:24:04.680 This is the one unproblematic chapter that every diet book has.

00:24:08.040 It's the conclusion of Elizabeth Taylor's diet book.

00:24:10.420 maybe everything else i say in this book is like not gonna make you happy so one of my big questions 0.86

00:24:14.700 in picking up this one is just like what the fuck does james dobson have to say about weight loss

00:24:20.740 and dieting yes i am desperate to know this yes okay so i read the whole forward there's absolutely 0.65

00:24:26.220 no there there oh really his forward is basically just like i'm writing this because i'm really good

00:24:30.360 at setting goals and hitting them i'm very accomplished but even accomplished people

00:24:35.340 struggle with their appetite setting goals and reaching them james obergefell

00:24:40.620 so he has this introductory paragraph where he's talking about like i'm a very accomplished person

00:24:48.680 but even accomplished people have a hard time with this thing and then the rest of the foreword

00:24:52.740 is just like two pages and it's just like here's what readers can expect to find in the rest of

00:24:57.040 this book the end oh wait really that's also like a factual walter cronkite one i think there's a

00:25:02.160 decent chance that someone wrote most of this for him and he wrote the introductory paragraph where

00:25:08.500 they were like you have to write about why you uh send me the introductory paragraph okay so i just

00:25:12.860 sent you a picture of the first paragraph of james dobson's forward i'm so excited uh as a person who

00:25:20.800 has worked long hours and carried heavy responsibilities through the years i am well

00:25:25.340 acquainted with the rigors of self-discipline and self-control why then am i such a patsy

00:25:31.280 when it comes to control of my appetite for food and why are millions of americans struggling with

00:25:37.340 the same ridiculous weakness the answers according to john dobbert lie in our inability to marshal

00:25:43.020 the proper motivation to get thin and stay thin uh this is boring yeah it's super boring yeah

00:25:49.240 so that genuinely like the hook of what makes this like such a sort of like notable conservative

00:25:56.980 diet book is like the most boring part there's no like evil genius stuff in here it's like don't

00:26:02.700 don't you have a thanksgiving to ruin james yeah he doesn't name check like jerry falwell or

00:26:08.000 anything like it's like it's a real bummer the other day as i was shoving a child back into the

00:26:12.800 closet against their will i thought about the exercise that i needed to be stronger yep boo 0.96

00:26:18.120 okay so another one of my questions was just like what the fuck does it mean for it to be the love 0.95

00:26:25.860 diet yeah the argument for the connection between love and dieting in this book is so unbelievably 0.55

00:26:35.140 tenuous okay he just keeps saying love is the greatest motivator so harness love as your 0.86

00:26:41.020 motivation to diet is it i don't even understand what his fucking argument is is it like get thin 0.97

00:26:45.520 so that people will love you like you'll be more successful at dating oh michael you are that is 0.97

00:26:51.740 the thinking of someone who's operating on love level one of just like yeah i'm just like i paid

00:26:57.460 a dollar fifty for this book i want like some useful advice but i guess it doesn't even do that

00:27:02.600 let me tell this is i found the clearest passage that i could where he's like spelling out

00:27:08.920 what love has to do with motivation to diet what's love okay oh oh he's he's stacking another

00:27:17.840 metaphor on top of his already try hard metaphor yeah he says love levels can most readily be

00:27:23.840 compared to gears in an automobile it is necessary to get the diet rolling just as first gear gets

00:27:30.440 the car rolling first gear however cannot meet the demands and conquer all types of driving

00:27:36.900 and love level one cannot meet the demands and conquer all impediments to dietary success

00:27:44.380 traveling in first gear for a long duration is impractical and may cause mechanical failure

00:27:51.520 jesus christ that's that's the end of that paragraph oh that's as good as it gets

00:27:59.920 i'm so sorry

00:28:03.760 it is so funny to me to think that like i'm like did any editor ever yeah because like it doesn't

00:28:16.440 even make sense this is such like michael scott vibes where he's like look i'm gonna break it

00:28:21.980 down a business has to make more money than it spends and then like draws out this extended

00:28:28.280 metaphor on this like extremely easy to understand concept yes like oh in levels so can i walk you

00:28:36.960 through the three love levels oh yeah because now i'm i've been in first gear and i'm experiencing

00:28:41.700 mechanical failure i this is normally where you would say something like i'm intrigued and i

00:28:46.380 appreciate that you didn't because you're not because there's nothing to be i'm not there's

00:28:49.800 here but i i love empty i love empty verbiage so take me with you uh according to dobbert

00:28:59.560 according to this author when he's writing about love level one he's talking about dieting from a

00:29:06.520 place of love using your motivation love is your motivation to diet right this sort of his

00:29:11.020 overarching thing and he says that love level one is about dieting from a place of love of yourself

00:29:19.080 okay his version of this sort of like love of self is just really similar to the concept behind

00:29:25.660 chloe kardashian's revenge body oh yeah that show do you remember that show only from you talking

00:29:31.900 about it if you are dieting on love level one if you are dieting for a love of self

00:29:37.360 here are his tips for how to get yourself more motivation okay he says that you should

00:29:45.520 undress in front of a full length mirror jump up and down and quote count the seconds until the

00:29:51.980 rolls settle oh my god motivation tip number two ask an honest friend to tell me how i really look

00:30:00.540 oh these are mean aubrey motivation tip number three mike if those were too dark for you hang 0.99

00:30:07.620 on to your fucking butt i can't because it's jiggling too much it's still it's still vibrating 0.99

00:30:11.160 picture yourself confined to a nursing home as a result of sickness caused by overweight what 1.00

00:30:21.140 that's not even a useful tip just imagine myself in a nursing home also it has the weird like 60s

00:30:27.220 70s language of like caused by overweight oh yeah it's just such a weird turn of things i know

00:30:32.880 it should be overweightness people with overweightness aubrey we're using people

00:30:38.240 first language michael are you ready to hear about love level two love level two is this like

00:30:45.280 caring for my family or something and then like level three is like caring for my community or

00:30:50.840 some shit stop trying to skip ahead because you're not gonna guess level three the brother i'm trying

00:30:55.700 to impose like some form of coherence onto this book which is clearly just incoherent love level 0.99

00:31:00.660 to is about love of sort of the collective he calls this the group theme he talks about like

00:31:09.080 teachers being motivated by love of their students pastors being motivated by love of their

00:31:14.140 congregants doctors being motivated by their love of patients so on and so forth so he is sort of

00:31:21.700 like thinking and talking about like okay what does it mean to diet from a place of love for

00:31:27.140 other people he has some motivation tips for people who are dieting at love level two okay

00:31:33.440 i'm gonna send two of those motivational tips to you motivate me he says even a small weight loss

00:31:40.240 causes your attitude to be one of confidence since you know how many lives you're affecting

00:31:46.140 through your dietary compliance aubrey maybe this is just because i just read your book

00:31:52.380 which is like coherent and like nicely written causes your attitude to be one of confidence

00:32:00.500 like why do you just say even a small weight loss gives you a more confident attitude it's

00:32:05.200 the writing is so bad is he being paid by the preposition look closely at each child as he

00:32:13.320 sleeps and examine how much he means to you and what he would be facing if you your love and your

00:32:20.620 earning power were suddenly gone this is so weird i'm gazing at myself jiggling in the mirror i'm

00:32:28.060 gazing upon my small children it's just like think in the most negative terms possible at all times

00:32:34.000 right and it's like think about what a failure you are and will be this is the jane lynch meme

00:32:40.300 i'm gonna create an environment so toxic like that is what is happening here right uh michael

00:32:47.620 are you ready for love level three i think i figured it out i think it's gonna be god 0.97

00:32:54.280 oh fuck god damn it is it it's love of god jobs include me in so he offers some examples of what 0.94

00:33:01.520 dieting at love level three looks like okay i'm sending those to you okay he says if my weight is 0.99

00:33:09.080 controlled and i'm healthier i'll live longer which gives me more time on earth to serve my

00:33:14.540 master if i'm successful in setting an example of results in my diet others will ask me how i

00:33:20.640 succeed and i'll witness that my god assisted me my witness may result in a convert to my beliefs

00:33:26.820 oh so i'm recruiting people to christianity with my like rippling abs people are like yes

00:33:35.040 wait a minute mike none of you is jiggling in the mirror yeah i'm like thanks bible he created

00:33:40.920 everything and he's also like man on this planet full of like you know billions of people right

00:33:46.860 uh john's getting a little fat huh the funny thing is as a former christian kid i actually

00:33:51.340 think that like new testament morality is like pretty lit but nobody actually implements it

00:33:56.280 jesus talked all the time about like how you know rich people can't get into heaven

00:34:00.800 and you should care the most for like the weakest among you but there's just a whole economy 0.98

00:34:06.980 of fucking grifters who are like no no no no no jesus said the opposite of what you think he said 0.99

00:34:13.420 he wants you to be rich he wants you to be thin it is really wild that in you know some setting 1.00

00:34:20.100 somewhere somebody read the bible and out the other end of whatever machine creates these people 0.98

00:34:26.560 came like joel osteen yeah yeah the bible yes i just want you to be hot and shitty that's what

00:34:32.420 jesus wants um would you like to hear some motivation tips for people at love level three 0.69

00:34:36.980 he says pray periodically during the day to seek assistance to overcome temptation

00:34:42.260 pray before each meal asking assistance for appetite control nurture the belief that failure

00:34:49.280 to adhere successfully to your diet displeases god yeah this is like maybe false idol territory 0.93

00:34:57.240 it's wild as fuck i've been doing some reading lately about uh spiritual abuse is this a term 0.97

00:35:02.640 you've come across uh it sure is it's like a lot of church leaders will use your sort of sense of 0.98

00:35:08.240 morality and like you know your entire world view through religion to basically get away with 0.94

00:35:14.040 terrible shit right for like sexual harassment or exploiting you for money sure this honestly 0.95

00:35:19.560 feels like a form of spiritual abuse right where it's like he's explicitly invoking your like 1.00

00:35:25.260 moral and religious worldview to sell a book absolutely to me the the good parts of religion

00:35:33.620 are just a weekly invitation for people to think about things larger than themselves and like how

00:35:40.300 am i doing good in the world how am i affecting other people and he's he's explicitly like clawing

00:35:46.540 that back he's like no no no no sunday morning is to think about like how many sit-ups you did this

00:35:52.080 week and like if you don't do more you'll die and your children will never forgive yeah exactly

00:35:58.220 it's very strange for anyone with even passing familiarity with the bible yeah but at the same

00:36:03.880 time there is an entire cottage industry of evangelical diet books evangelical weight loss

00:36:11.500 programs right like yeah there's like a million of these they are legion it's also very funny the

00:36:17.160 idea that jesus would want you to adhere to like conventional modern beauty standards because of

00:36:22.900 course beauty standards have changed over time so like why would jesus be like oh yeah in the 1990s

00:36:28.340 i want everyone to have like a long skinny torso and like right now jesus wants you to have like

00:36:33.120 thick hips because like that's where the that's where the fad is look jesus reads in touch weekly

00:36:39.060 he pays attention to who wore it best he has some thoughts jesus says boot cut is out skinny jeans

00:36:45.540 are in oh oh buddy i think you're behind the times now is that not that's out we're out we're old i

00:36:52.660 ordered a pair of skinny jeans on the internet the other day so that's why i'm like i'm i'm on

00:36:56.020 trend i'm a 40 year old man i know what people are doing this is what uh having a 15 year old

00:37:02.620 niece will do to a person oh see you actually know what the kids are doing because i get corrected on

00:37:07.900 it yeah what are you doing why are you wearing that you're at my school and that's what you're

00:37:14.240 wearing she's like kygo has a whole song about this you're wrong okay michael are you ready

00:37:19.040 for our third and final conservative diet book problematic level three this one is not actually

00:37:25.400 a diet book i will set it up that way okay this one is just straightforwardly a cookbook there's

00:37:30.420 no calorie counting there's no weight loss rhetoric there's no nothing this one is just

00:37:34.820 i thought it would be fun to yell about the existence of this book with michael hobbs

00:37:39.560 yelling about recipes our favorite thing i am sending

00:37:44.180 i'm sending you the book cover to look at and to describe for the listener oh yeah i feel like i

00:37:52.480 will hear when you get it oh what yeah wait what yeah this exists this exists and i own it i'm so

00:38:06.020 sorry holy shit okay where to begin wow there's so much happening on this book cover there's so 0.63

00:38:15.340 much happening okay so it's a man and a woman like facing the camera with their backs to each 0.89

00:38:20.820 other like leaned up against each other like two news anchors or something they're both wearing

00:38:25.280 sleeveless denim vests he is holding a rifle and she is holding some sort of like terrifying 0.99

00:38:33.500 looking fucking knife i think it's a hunting knife yeah like a hunting like stab a deer knife 0.97

00:38:39.020 and the name of the book is kill it and grill it and it's by ted and shemaine nugent a guide to 1.00

00:38:49.060 preparing and cooking wild game and fish so this is like how to fucking kill animals and eat them 0.97

00:38:57.120 basically it says includes a recipe for deer elk wild boar rabbit bear wild turkey duck and more 0.98

00:39:04.980 i feel like bear is the odd man out there everything everything else i can get at costco

00:39:09.160 absolutely there are definitely bear recipes in this one mike what do you know about ted nugent

00:39:15.920 oh wait did he do know when to hold him and know when to fold him no that's kenny rogers

00:39:23.860 that's kenny rogers could not be more different all i know is that he's like a right wing

00:39:28.460 gun dude now but i don't know what he was like before that he's like an elizabeth taylor figure

00:39:36.060 where it's like i know her from the perfumes but not from like the main thing that she's known for

00:39:40.220 yeah you know him from his appearances on fox news yeah it's like he shows up and i'm like this

00:39:45.060 is a i guess a famous person but he's like famous to other people for reasons i don't understand

00:39:49.800 We are going to listen to the opening riff of this song, which I think will get you oriented to who he is.

00:40:04.880 I've heard this.

00:40:06.540 Yeah, that's him.

00:40:09.080 Wait, let me let's wait till the beat drops.

00:40:15.000 Oh, yeah.

00:40:19.800 So you get the idea. Ted Nugent official YouTube has 192,000 subscribers?

00:40:26.600 Yeah, it's both higher and lower than I would expect.

00:40:29.440 There's like Pokemon reaction YouTubers who have like more than that.

00:40:32.760 I mean, listen, he's a 74-year-old man from Michigan, you know?

00:40:36.980 So he's like a 80s rocker guy, like hair. It sounds like hair metal,

00:40:41.240 but then the cover of the album does not look hair metal-y.

00:40:44.540 He is reliably described as like a hard rock musician.

00:40:47.860 okay sort of how folks describe him 70s 80s was sort of his high point okay um since then he has

00:40:55.280 really seemed to make most of his career out of being sort of like a personality yeah which for

00:41:02.200 him means like astonishingly regressive outspoken racism proud racism big gun advocate he is a full 0.67

00:41:13.720 disaster wait to go back to my acronym he's a geriatric obstructing progress okay there we go 0.71

00:41:21.140 i thought that one was good he uh was and is an extremely outspoken trump supporter

00:41:26.940 he refused to get vaccinated for covid and then got covid and uh when he announced that he had it 0.98

00:41:35.140 he only referred to it as and i quote the chinese shit god right geez he called president obama 0.97

00:41:46.360 quote a subhuman mongrel oh my god i mean he is like next level here's my question for you mike 0.98

00:41:58.460 what year do you think this cookbook came out who graphic design says i want to say 90s actually 0.78

00:42:08.100 like it looks late because there's weird there's gradients that's a good catch in the color and 0.74

00:42:13.160 then the background of the image looks like one of those fucking magic eye things where you'd blur 0.71

00:42:19.100 your eyes and it would be like oh my god a dolphin it looks like that like that's the aesthetic 0.87

00:42:23.580 and then god the lighting is terrible uh there's like weird like just like a random pink light

00:42:29.840 that is like lighting up his hair but not hers i think that's to be like doesn't it look like

00:42:34.160 stage lighting for like a hard rock musician perhaps it looks fake and weird and then

00:42:40.000 i'm gonna say i'm gonna be wrong but i'm gonna say 1996 oh you are a lot closer than i was i

00:42:46.800 assumed this was like late 80s early 90s okay this book was somehow published in 2002 wait really

00:42:55.780 yes i guess conservative aesthetics are a little a couple years behind sure sure sure there's no

00:43:01.220 helvetica here the blurbs on this book are fully unhinged is it like ted cruz no no no you're not

00:43:11.140 gonna guess it's wild they're so wild they're unguessable oh no uh i'm sending you a blurb and

00:43:18.080 then you're gonna read it okay we're gonna talk about it and then i'm gonna tell you who it's from

00:43:21.920 what can i say about ted that he hasn't already said himself ted is a true original whether you

00:43:27.760 love him or hate him agree or disagree with his philosophies side with or oppose his politics

00:43:33.020 you always know where you stand with good old uncle ted he means what he says and he says what

00:43:38.960 he means hillary clinton oh interesting well it's a twist not hillary clinton no so first of

00:43:46.440 all just tell me your take on this blurb like this is a blurb for a cookbook i mean it's just

00:43:51.340 the whole thing of like well he says it like it is and like well just because he's wrong and bad

00:43:58.480 he's being authentic though it's like right but i don't like the wrong and bad part is what i

00:44:03.920 object to i don't think that he's being disingenuous yeah totally these are the things 0.99

00:44:07.440 that you say when you can't say anything else about someone who is an asshole right yeah that 0.96

00:44:15.580 blurb by the way comes to us courtesy of joe perry from aerosmith wait really yeah that's also a bit 0.97

00:44:23.000 of a like i didn't read the book blurb but i'm doing this as a personal favor that's all of

00:44:28.340 these get ready yeah uh i sent you another one i've known ted for years and i can't say i always

00:44:34.200 agree with him. I can't even say I often agree with him. It's just a huge asshole. But I respect

00:44:40.360 him for this reason. In a world where fame makes people fat and satisfied, Ted continues to fight

00:44:47.040 for his beliefs. He loves nature. And as this book proves, page after page, he feels that living

00:44:53.740 without passion is not really living. That I agree with him on wholeheartedly. Barbara Walters.

00:45:00.840 mitch album the dude who wrote tuesdays with no there's a cameo from the tuesdays with maury guy 0.94

00:45:09.740 this is also so chicken shit to just be like well i don't always agree with him i can't say i always 0.61

00:45:18.180 agree with him i can't even say i often agree with him right but i respect him for continuing 0.99

00:45:23.960 to fight for his beliefs which i ostensibly find abhorrent this is like such fucking like 0.97

00:45:30.500 brain disease among like people like us like over educated liberals it's like well i don't agree 0.98

00:45:36.960 but at least he's fighting for his beliefs yeah his beliefs are bad he's fighting for things that

00:45:42.640 make the world worse yeah it's weird to be like oh i like it when people fight for their beliefs

00:45:47.180 regardless of their beliefs no i mean listen right now today pete evans is fighting for his

00:45:53.380 beliefs right like there are plenty of people who really believe the stuff that they're talking

00:45:57.520 about that we have talked on this show about right oh god mike i'm getting so much worse

00:46:03.160 at putting together sentences i think i've been infected by the love diet guy yeah i'm like now

00:46:08.240 i only know how to say things in confusing ways question mark you have an attitude that is out

00:46:13.340 of confidence and something there's one quote that says ted nugent is beyond argument one of 0.97

00:46:22.060 the good guys attributed to charlton heston look as a piece of shit i respect the fact that ted 0.99

00:46:29.420 nugent is a piece of shit as well there's a page inside the book where the header is just 0.99

00:46:33.380 praise for ted nugent oh nice and it includes quotes from george w bush and tom ridge oh 1.00

00:46:43.080 why are politicians blurbing a wild game cookbook from a guy who

00:46:49.180 from like a total weirdo like a deep weirdo who again is just like proudly shouting his racism

00:46:58.460 rooftops yeah and his biggest hit was at this point a solid 20 years ago right better suited

00:47:07.400 to be at vh1 i love the 80s commentator than to be like anyone's presidential endorsement or what

00:47:16.400 like it's just weird it's just weird right the introduction has a title that title is

00:47:21.500 celebrate the flesh oh oh god other notable chapter titles include rock and roll hogmando

00:47:30.100 hogmando i like my pork pissed off these don't even make any sense i like my rare but not that

00:47:38.720 rare and a chapter just called this is two words it's gonna sound like four words it's two words

00:47:46.400 First word. 0.83

00:47:48.360 The first word is sex fried. 0.97

00:47:54.800 What? 0.97

00:47:56.040 What? 0.99

00:47:57.480 Sex fried? 0.99

00:48:00.580 You've melted down. 1.00

00:48:02.380 We lost Aubrey. 0.99

00:48:04.520 It's so ridiculous. 0.89

00:48:12.120 Okay. 0.96

00:48:13.140 Okay.

00:48:13.980 I'm pulling it together. 0.99

00:48:15.000 what kind of sex are they having on the ranch uh sex fried fish slab 0.95

00:48:20.500 it's like one of those things they say as like a vocal warm-up before you go on stage 0.99

00:48:34.700 unique new york unique new york yeah red leather yellow leather sex fried man i'm trying to piece 0.96

00:48:44.180 this together backwards so it's like i have a slab of fish and instead of frying it i'm sex frying 0.87

00:48:51.100 it i don't know there's a whole note on language that the book opens with it's like you know two

00:48:57.040 sentences that's like hey man this language has been nugentized or something where you're like

00:49:03.820 okay i get it content warning this book contains total gibberish he has some recipes in here

00:49:09.340 mostly it's like little like essays or whatever like he does some writing and then each chapter

00:49:14.520 there are so many chapters each chapter has like one to three recipes in it we're like this is not

00:49:22.120 a great cookbook this seems like one of those books that's just like very blatantly a cash-in

00:49:27.080 absolutely we're like he probably wasn't meaningfully involved and it's just like put

00:49:31.900 them on the cover people buy it no one will actually read it or engage with it in any way

00:49:35.500 After all of those chapter titles, my notes just say, I get it.

00:49:40.040 You're straight. 1.00

00:49:41.320 Like fucking Jesus. 1.00

00:49:43.500 Message received. 1.00

00:49:45.000 Chapter 16, vaginal intercourse with my wife. 0.99

00:49:48.520 Like, all right, Ted. 0.99

00:49:49.860 All right. 0.98

00:49:50.500 We already got it with sex fried. 0.53

00:49:52.240 So he does have recipes in this cookbook.

00:49:54.760 There are not a ton of them.

00:49:56.660 The first one that I want to talk about is a barbecue sauce.

00:50:00.140 uh the recipe title is barbecue sauce for javelina and then in parentheses good for all

00:50:09.260 piggage all right maybe he was involved this seems like the kind of like sub literate like

00:50:16.260 quote-unquote word play that he would be doing a ghostwriter would have reined it in at some point

00:50:21.840 and he is not reining it in at any point the ingredients for this barbecue sauce are tomato

00:50:28.520 sauce the quantity listed is just lots oh my god tomato sauce brown sugar vinegar garlic

00:50:35.800 onion bits pineapple juice lemon juice and prickly pear fruit juice the instructions for this recipe

00:50:43.340 are to mix the ingredients together quote in amounts to your own taste and then simmer it

00:50:49.700 it's for it is very funny of like sorry can you stop performing masculinity now i'd actually like 0.98

00:50:54.540 to get the amounts for the recipe totally you're like weird toxic bullshit is like making the recipe 0.89

00:50:59.380 useless there is also a recipe that they note is contributed by shemaine his wife called coca-cola 0.95

00:51:07.880 stew oh god uh for coca-cola stew you are supposed to season and sear off some venison

00:51:15.520 you then put that venison in a slow cooker okay with potatoes carrots onion two cans of

00:51:26.860 coca-cola classic okay and a jar of sweet chutney sweet like jarred sweet chutney that you can get

00:51:36.480 in the u.s is like jam yeah that's too much sugar i feel like for braising right it's just like

00:51:42.240 simple syrup basically that you're braising this in it would be great if you had some vinegar or

00:51:46.700 some lemon juice or you had some red pepper flakes like something before we had those tiktok

00:51:54.120 fetish content recipe videos quote-unquote we had ted nugent's recipe book what have you seen 0.94

00:52:00.860 the fucking tiktok videos i don't know what you're talking i mean i've seen tiktok but i don't know 0.96

00:52:05.020 what videos you're talking about but you've seen those like deranged ones where it's like i'm gonna 0.99

00:52:08.220 make this in the sink and it's like you take all this pasta and then you pour like a whole thing

00:52:12.300 of pasta sauce on it and you get in there with your hands yeah and you mix it up and it's like

00:52:17.800 then you add a bunch of slices of american cheese and it's like peanut butter or like it just gets

00:52:21.260 like aggressively more demented as it goes along and it's like these things exist only to be shared

00:52:28.320 on twitter for everybody to be like ew gross but then the the current theory is that these are

00:52:34.600 actually just like fetish content and it's like women getting into food with their hands and

00:52:40.040 getting like really dirty and sort of talking about it you know they're like oh just go in 0.63

00:52:45.580 and get really slimy in your hands and it's like you know there is an audience for this but it's

00:52:51.120 not home chefs once again you and i are on different parts of the internet learning about

00:52:57.320 different people and different things i should say there's also like a middle section that are

00:53:00.660 just like one million pictures of ted nugent and his wife and his kids there's a picture of her

00:53:05.880 posing with like a bow and arrow i find it totally plausible aubrey that you are one of the only

00:53:12.720 people who actually read this book this does not seem like an organic grassroots like uprising of

00:53:21.680 people who are like what can i do with this venison and my six pack of coke in my pantry

00:53:25.860 i will say i'm uh flipping through the book right now i'm on page 57 and so far all of the recipes

00:53:32.360 have been for venison i'm limited with the lack of bears that's why we're here it's a real bummer

00:53:36.780 there was one bear recipe in here at some point uh there's a recipe just called big game meat

00:53:43.940 cakes oh god tone it down ted jesus christ it's just meatloaf oh salt pepper ketchup which he

00:53:52.720 spells catsup chopped onion and one pound of ground lean meat the insecurity is just like

00:54:00.260 leaping off of the page it's like it's okay to eat meatloaf ted you don't need to be like

00:54:06.060 it's my man fried meat slap it's like this is just a normal meal ted um that's all i have

00:54:13.780 for ted nugent do we have any wrap-up thoughts what have we learned i think the interesting

00:54:19.420 thing about this is that pretty much every diet and every diet book has like an extraordinarily

00:54:25.440 conservative logic to it, which is like personal responsibility. You got to pull yourself up by

00:54:31.820 your bootstrap. Right. And I think what was interesting about all of these, uh, books was

00:54:36.660 that when asked to fill a book full of wisdom related to that worldview, the first book that

00:54:44.540 we looked at just reprinted the usda guidelines yeah yeah and the second one couldn't do it

00:54:50.740 it's like a very short book and it's all gibberish and nonsense so it's just very interesting to me

00:54:57.020 that like when asked to expound upon these already very conservative views about dieting right you

00:55:03.220 can't go much more conservative than just like dieting to begin with right also the phrase

00:55:08.540 conservative diet is like kind of a pleonism because the whole thing is like instead of

00:55:14.260 changing a social hierarchy, right, where like fat people are poorly treated in society,

00:55:19.180 the way that you respond to that is not by, well, let's treat fat people better.

00:55:23.700 The way you respond is, well, I don't want to be fat.

00:55:26.020 Yeah, absolutely.

00:55:26.840 It's kind of impossible to not write a conservative diet.

00:55:30.420 Absolutely.

00:55:31.080 I mean, like, listen, this is the same impulse behind sort of like looking at a person who's

00:55:35.740 fatter than you and going, at least I'm not that fat.

00:55:38.020 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0.99

00:55:38.200 And we don't really think about our opportunities to like reject the entire fucking premise. 0.97

00:55:42.720 Right. 0.95

00:55:43.260 That's why our advice in the show is get out of these programs.

00:55:49.220 I'm out of them.

00:55:50.480 I'm out of them.

00:56:08.200 Thank you.

Maintenance Phase - June 06, 2023

BONUS： The Conservative Diet Books of Yore

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