Tired of conflicting fitness and health advice online and not sure what to trust? Amy Hudson and Dr. James Fisher dive deep into how to separate fact from fiction in health, exercise, and wellness. In today’s episode, they unpack how to spot trustworthy research, avoid hype, and make smart decisions for your fitness journey. They break down the biggest myths, why social media isn’t enough, and how a personal trainer can guide you to results that actually stick.

• Amy starts by explaining why most people feel overwhelmed by fitness advice online.
• Dr. Fisher explains that not all research is unbiased—big companies often fund studies to sell products. You have to ask, “Who benefits from this claim?” This is the first step to spotting marketing dressed as science.
• Amy covers why magic bullet fitness solutions are everywhere, but progress takes hard work. She explains why shortcuts rarely work and how to focus on what actually delivers results.
• For Dr. Fisher, experts don’t know everything, and the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know much. He shares how to stay humble, curious, and avoid overconfidence in fitness claims.
• Amy and Dr. Fisher agree that one viral Instagram post doesn’t make a method true. You need to question the hype, check the evidence, and avoid being swept up in trends. Amy walks you through how to do it without stress.
• Before trying a new routine you saw online, check in with a personal trainer. They can help you interpret research and apply it safely. 
• Dr. Fisher reveals why lab-based studies often don’t reflect real-world outcomes. Just because something works in a controlled setting doesn’t mean it works for you. 
• Amy and Dr. Fisher cover how AI tools like ChatGPT can help you find solid research quickly—but only if you ask the right questions. Look for references, meta-analyses, and reviews. 
• Scrolling on Facebook isn’t research. Facebook and social media are designed to sell, not educate. If your goals matter, scrolling alone won’t get you the answers you need.
• Before adding a new exercise or routine, check the evidence. Ask yourself, “Does research support this?” and “What contradicts it?” These two questions save time and frustration.
• According to Dr. Fisher, people tend to seek confirmation rather than truth. If you only look for evidence that supports your beliefs, you miss the bigger picture. He explains how to uncover research that challenges you.
• Wonder why fitness fads come and go so quickly? Amy explains that many are just marketing campaigns in disguise. She shares how to spot trends that are hype versus those backed by science.
• Dr. Fisher explains that big research can be misleading when the funder has an agenda. Even credible-looking studies can push products. He teaches how to critically evaluate who benefits from the research.
• Dr. Fisher covers how hard work beats shortcuts every time. He explains why real fitness results require consistency and how to identify programs that actually deliver.
• Dr. Fisher reveals that using Google Scholar or PubMed isn’t as complicated as it seems. He walks you through finding studies, reviews, and meta-analyses to make your own evidence-based decisions.
• For Amy, working with a personal trainer, coach, or medical expert is still the safest way to reach your goals. Social media can’t replace personalized guidance. Amy explains how to combine online research with real-world support.

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The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail–but Some Don’t by Nate Silver

I think the thing that we first have to ask is what’s the actual benefit that we want to get from it? Expert implies that, you know, we’ve almost stopped learning. I think that the greatest minds on the planet never stop learning.

If we want to work smarter, not harder, let’s take the time to evaluate things that we come across. Welcome to the Strength Changes Everything podcast, where we introduce you to the information, latest research and tools that will enable you to live a strong, healthy life. On this podcast, we will also answer your questions about strength, health, and well -being. I’m Amy Hudson. I own and operate three exercise coach studios. My co -hosts are Brian Sagan, co -founder and CEO of The Exercise Coach, and Dr. James Fisher, leading researcher in evidence -based strength training.

And now for today’s episode. Welcome to the Strength Changes Everything podcast. Hey, have you ever felt like there is a lot of competing information out there when you look up something online, there are sometimes multiple results, and some of them disagree with one another, especially when it comes to health and fitness and exercise. We all can recognize that there have been trends and fads that have come and gone over the years in this area, and sometimes it can be hard to tell what to believe and what not to believe when you come across a claim out there. Not only that, but More recently, in recent years, AI has come onto the scene and there are videos that people come across now and there might be things that you see that you wonder, is that even real? And between all of the competing information, fads, fashions, the algorithms of our social media that continue to feed us certain things, how do we decide what’s true?

How do we know what to believe and how to ask the right kind of questions to know if a claim is true? So that is what this episode is about. If you’ve ever felt frustrated in that area, this episode is for you. Dr. Fisher, I’m so excited to talk about this topic with you today.

Yeah, I love talking about kind of the information and misinformation that exists in the world across multiple planes, but that’s certainly over -exercised science. So yeah, interesting question.

Yeah. And you actually referenced a book about this by Nate Silver about this topic. What point did he make in that book too? I wanted to bring that up.

Yeah. So there’s a great book and it’s under the genre of popular science. So it’s certainly not a hardcore science book. I definitely encourage listeners to go out and have a look if they’re interested in this topic. It’s called The Signal and the Noise. And he gets into a dialogue with multiple examples, politics and economics and, and, and multiple other kinds of facets of society, where he talks about the fact that there’s a wealth of information available.

And especially now, you know, 2025, we are inundated with information from multiple sources, as you say, from algorithms and social media. And it’s about being able to see the signal within that noise. And as I said, that’s the title of the book, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver. And yes, it’s a good read for anybody interested in kind of learning how to cut through all this misinformation or all the wealth of information that maybe isn’t as useful.

as some of it can be. Okay, so this episode is entirely dedicated to credibility and exercise information.

So Dr. Fisher, tell the listeners some of the things they’re going to learn in today’s episode. Yeah, so there’s a few kind of key points. So one of the big things is everybody goes on Instagram and social media sites and they hear somebody say something and they go away and they kind of immediately follow those claims or they may go away and immediately follow those claims. So it’s a case of why you should or shouldn’t listen to the claims on social media sites. Why you should or shouldn’t listen to people who are citing academic research.

why you should or shouldn’t listen to people who make challenges based on logic and based on science, and above all else, why you should seek the truth and make a decision for yourself, almost regardless of the other party’s information that’s being kind of spouted to you. And in that sense, we’re kind of going to get into how to do a bit of research and find a bit of information for yourself that’s hopefully science backed.

And we’re not going to get into teaching people how to read research articles, which might be quite heavy going, but at least how to find genuine information. Okay, so this is going to be super helpful for you if this is something that you’re interested in and struggled with. All right, Dr. Fisher, here’s my first question for you. If you come across a claim, what are the initial questions going through your mind to kind of evaluate that claim?

So in other words, if I come across something, what are some of the questions I should ask myself when I see new information? Yeah, I think this is the key thing. So whenever we receive information, we should always ask ourselves, is there a theoretical framework for the why? So is there a physiological rationale or explanation for why doing something helps something or has certain change? So for example, if we talk about engaging in strength training, making your muscles stronger or making your muscles bigger. We can talk about the way mechanotransduction, which is the stimulus of tension within the muscle and the muscle fibers,

is created from the external weights used and how that stimulus creates kind of a proliferation of satellite cells, of cells within the body, which go to the muscle and help the muscle to grow bigger. So we have a kind of a mechanism as to why, we have a rationale and a justification as to why something happens. If we talk about how strength training maybe improves blood pressure, we know that it improves endothelial function, so it can improve the elasticity of our arteries and our artery walls where our blood pumps. So there has to be a justification for why.

So if somebody is making a claim about something or somebody is selling something, then there has to be, or there should be, some sort of explanation as to why it works or the mechanisms as to how it works. I think about when I learned to write papers in elementary school, a persuasive essay. I was taught to make my claim. or say my thesis or at the beginning of a paragraph, make a claim. And then you have to cite supporting evidence. Right.

So it’s one thing to say something, but is there any mechanism as to why or how this may work that supports the claim being made? So, yeah, that’s that’s super helpful. Yeah. And then, as you just said, it’s about evidence. Is there evidence that underpins the claims that are being made or the statements that are being made? So You know, is somebody citing scientific research or, or where did the information that they’re using come from?

Is it come from their own trials or is it a single case example? Uh, could that person be an outlier and actually whatever they’re claiming doesn’t hold true across the population? Or are they citing, you know, a large scale study or a number of studies? We’ve previously talked about meta -analysis, which is a combination of studies. So if they’re citing kind of meta -analytic data. than dust.

like a pretty solid foundation for, for any claims that are being made. As we get into that, we can sort of say, what, what is the existing research, you know, randomized control trials, case studies and so forth. But we might also then start to ask, okay, well, who supported or who funded that research? We know that. big organizations, uh, have a lot of money to maybe put into their research and development departments and they might be able to fund research and, and that just happens to support the sales of their product or, or so forth. So, you know, if we go back long enough, uh, I don’t think anybody would be ignorant to the fact that, um, you know, certain tobacco companies, you know, did research that underplayed.

or, or showed the, there were no harmful effects of, of smoking tobacco products and cigarettes.

And actually independent research has obviously shown that there are considerable harmful effects. So, you know, if there’s somebody with a vested interest and they have enough money behind them, then, you know, to some extent research can, can be. manipulated to some extent to show certain claims, but there should always be a note on that research that effectively is a conflict of interest, that it was funded by these organizations or these bodies or these people or parties and so forth. Yeah, another example that I became aware of too is that the sugar industry also did this, is that they funded research efforts to basically come to the conclusion and spread the information to the public that fat, dietary fat, was to blame for people gaining weight instead of sugar consumption. And it was a very prevalent understanding.

which sparked the low -fat movement. And it came out that it was all funded by the sugar industry. And so the conflict of interest there is very important to recognize and call out if you can track that down. Absolutely. So then, you know, asking that question, um, and we can also even ask the question of the person that’s making the claims. Does that person have an agenda?

You know, many people will go on social media and they’ll cite kind of, uh, certain training methodologies or they’ll cite certain products or things like that. And, you know, they should declare as a conflict of interest, whether they’re an employee of that company, um, or whether they, uh, make a product that’s aligned to, uh, to that, that philosophy or, or so on and so forth, or it should be at least glaringly obvious. I don’t think anybody would, um, would question us because of the fact that this podcast is part of the exercise coach.

I’m an employee of the exercise coach. So I think that’s a fair disclaimer that the claims that I’m making about health train, the health benefits of strength training, well, they’re evidence based. It should, of course, be clear that I work for the exercise coach which has a vested interest in people’s strength training. So, you know, that there, you know, sometimes those conflicts of interest will be kind of hidden away a little bit, but we we should always be able to find them. OK, so so really to summarize some of the main major questions we should ask ourselves when you come across something. Does the person promoting this have some kind of agenda?

Are they to gain because they said how wonderful the supplement was, but they also sell that supplement? Who is supported? the research or is there any existing research cited behind the claim being made? What did that research consist of?

You know, is this an anecdote? or is this a population -based, proven, large -scale study, research conclusion? Anecdotes, to me, honestly, I think that’s one of the biggest ones is for me this was great and this works and okay great but is there any evidence of how it works or does it work at a population level or was it just something that you appreciated because anecdotes don’t necessarily translate one person to another. So one of the things that I’ve seen a lot on social media is a certain different types of training. I’m not going to mention them, um, but they fit with, with our kind of preexisting bias. So they maybe say that I can build more muscle or I can lose more fat, or I can do a certain thing.

And they almost make these, these promises. And they, they might fit with my biases that I want that. I want that quick fix. I want that more muscle. I want to lose that fat. I want that healthier body, whatever it might be.

But the reality is internally, we know that the exercise is hard work. It’s meant to be hard work. So the health benefits are attainable, but we can’t kind of have. massive shortcuts to those things, but we still want them. We still want what I call the magic bullet. We’re still seeking that magic bullet.

So if somebody’s selling that magic bullet, it’s easy to go, wow, maybe that’s something we’ve all overlooked. Maybe that’s the secret that’s been hiding all this time. So it’s tricky with the way information is put out there in some places. And the other thing that we sometimes see is something called the Dunning -Kruger effect. And this often falls into our own biases as well. And I’ll show an image on the screen now of the Dunning -Kruger effect.

And this is, uh, this has, if you’re watching on YouTube and you can see this obviously, but if you’re listening on the podcast, it’s a simple graph that has knowledge across the x -axis and confidence across the y -axis. And as we move along the x -axis and gain some knowledge, our confidence goes sky high. And it’s actually where our confidence peak was just a little bit of information. And the Dunning -Kruger effect basically says that we acquire some information, we become passionate about a topic, but we think based on that small amount of information that we know, because we don’t know it’s only a small amount of information at this stage, but we think that we kind of know a lot. So our confidence to go away and discuss it with other people and tell other people, uh, you know, all the great things about such and such a product or such and such an experience are.

Fantastic. So we kind of go out and we share that information. Now, if you’re looking on YouTube, you’ll also see that that’s marked as our, our stage of ignorance, a little bit of information, a huge amount of confidence. It leads to a little bit of ignorance. We kind of go out and pass that information on. As we then acquire more information.

So maybe now we start to read around the area a little bit more. Maybe we start to see the counter arguments around something and there are counter arguments around everything. You know, there are people arguing everything. If you know, I’m not going to get into some of the things I don’t want to risk offending anybody, but if somebody can argue one point that there was always somebody who can argue a counterpoint. So as we acquire more information and more knowledge, we reach a stage where our confidence in that subject drops down again, and it drops down quite rapidly. So now we’re not so confident to go and talk about it.

We’re not so confident that we understand it. And we’re not so confident to go and kind of spread that information because we’re not clear. on what everything means. And we, on the curve, that’s often referred to as the stage of being cultured. We now understand that there was more information than, than we were aware of. We’ve acquired more information, but we’re not sure now our confidence isn’t there.

And then the final stage of the Dunning -Kruger effect is when we acquire a lot more knowledge and the curve kind of can be, can be extrapolated any direction or any extreme that we want it to go. But as we move further along the X axis, our confidence goes back up again. And it’s actually labeled as expert. I actually don’t like the phrase expert because I think most people that are loosely an expert on a subject know that what we know is infinitely less than what there is to know. So, expert implies that we’ve almost stopped learning.

I think that the greatest minds on the planet never stop learning. Um, there’s always further research. There’s always more information to be gleaned from certain things, but certainly as, as our knowledge increases, our confidence goes up again, but we now might hold, um, a more educated viewpoint where we understand the different perspectives and certainly economists and, and, uh, you know, people that are experts in sort of politics will have a potentially more balanced view. Yeah, this is true. I can see this, um, in real life and it’s kind of like the wiser, the wiser you get, the more you realize you don’t know type of adage. And it is, it is also, um, you know, when you hear people speak with a little bit more nuance and a little bit of disclaimer about, you know, what they’re claiming, um, it can reflect that they’re, factoring in the counter arguments that they have come across that exists out there.

And my guess is that a lot of times people who are coming on Instagram and super excited about something are more in that peak, like, I just discovered something. This is good.

It made me feel good once.

And then they’re sort of proclaiming it to the world, but maybe there’s more to learn and be learned about that topic.

So thanks for sharing with us. Yeah, of course. Of course. So as we kind of wade through the idea of information and misinformation, it’s also worth kind of touching on, uh, constructs of efficacy and effectiveness. And this is kind of a, uh, an interesting, uh, concept within science. So efficacy is does something work?

And typically we look at whether something works in a controlled environment, in a vacuum, in a laboratory based setting where every other variable is controlled for. Now, because of that, and because of the expense, it’s, uh, it’s generally a relatively low sample size. I want to say relatively low. It’s obviously relative to the general sample size for that area of study. So in strength training, that might be 10 or 15 people per group. Um, in medicine, it’s probably far greater, but how well variables are controlled, uh, is, is beyond my remit to talk about.

I don’t do medical research in that way. In contrast, effectiveness is how well something works in the real world. And as a part of that construct, it’s whether people will actually do it. So for example, if I came on the podcast and I was touting that everybody should do a six hour strength training workout, and they should also drink five bottles of red wine at night, and that would help them to, you know, be stronger and healthier and so on and so forth. Well, The efficacy of it might be proven in the, in a laboratory setting, but in the real world, the question we have to ask is, is it, is it good and will it work? do a six hour workout and then go and drink five bottles of wine every night?

And hopefully the answer is no, they won’t go and do a six hour workout and they probably won’t go and drink five bottles of wine every night either.

Cause it’s just not practical in the real world. So many science, uh, approaches look at something, does something work in a lab? Yes. And then it should also go and ask the question, does it work in the real world? Now, this is interesting because a lot of science has looked at the lab, but it hasn’t looked at the real world. And a lot of the time when the company is trying to sell you a product or a philosophy or anything like that, then.

They, they haven’t really assessed how well it works in the real world. So for example, we’re going to get onto the topic of cold water immersion in just a moment. Um, so for example, if somebody is selling cold water immersion tanks or cryotherapy chambers or something like that, then buying the cold water immersion chamber or the cryo chamber or anything like that is the, the, the kind of the easiest part of that commitment. The purchasing of the product, the hardest part is the doing of it. So, uh, and the analogy I often make is, you know, we buy a book to learn something and the book will sit on our shelf.

Well, the buying of the book is the easy part.

The reading of the book, the acquiring of the knowledge is the harder part. So that efficacy versus effectiveness is also an interesting way up when we hear, uh, certain things being touted. Yeah. So I think this, you know, to drive home this point, it’s like if I hear something and I’ve ask myself the appropriate questions to see, yes, there is research behind it. Yes, this probably is accurate, this claim. Now, do I want to implement it for myself?

Will I be implementing this and taking this information on and taking action with it? And then what you’re saying with the effectiveness pieces, will I do this? And can I do this right now in my life? And will this be reasonable for me to take on right now?

Because it only works for me if I do the thing. So something could be good. for some people doesn’t mean everyone will do it. Yeah. So I briefly then gave the example of, of cold water immersion. And of course there are a lot of fitness trends and fads and things like that.

Um, and I’m not for a second suggesting that every example I’m going to give now is just a fad and doesn’t have any efficacy around it, but they’re just some of the big things that I hear talked about more recently. So cold water immersion, weighted vests, and zone two cardio are three of the big ones that I just see, uh, you know, all over social media that everybody should do hours of zone two cardio. That should be our kind of big push. That’s our big intensity level. Everybody should move wearing weighted vests and we all should do cold water immersion. Well, I think the thing that we first have to ask, especially when we start to hear ourself or see yourself inundated with this is what’s the actual benefit that we want to get from it.

So if, for example, I said zone two cardio, well, if somebody is, is wanting to do zone two cardio, then, or is believing zone two cardio would be good for them, then they should ask, okay, why is it good for me? What, what, what will it help you with? And many of the claims around zone 2 cardio is that it burns more fat than other exercise intensities. Now in fact it does burn more fat than other exercise intensities, but that’s in part because it’s of a low enough intensity that the energy substrate that you will use to produce energy is predominantly fat. What the claims don’t say is that it burns more calories. than other exercise intensities.

So it burns more fat but not actually more calories. So certainly higher exercise intensities or interval training interspersed of low effort and high effort will actually be more beneficial in the long term for cardiorespiratory fitness and metabolic health and things like that. So, and I’m not saying people shouldn’t do zone 2 cardio, I’m just saying we should ask the question of how will it benefit me and so forth. The example that I’ve given that I said I would come back to is cold water immersion. So many people, uh, recently have touted cold water immersion for fat loss, and I’m not going to answer that question, but what I am going to do is help the listener or the reader, uh, or the viewer, I should say, go and answer that question for themselves. So I put up on the screen now, Google Scholar.

Now, if you’re not familiar with Google Scholar, hopefully you’re familiar with Google. And if you go onto Google and you type in Scholar. Then you will see that there is a secondary kind of subsidiary site called Google Scholar. And Google Scholar is kind of a reference of academic sources. So if I go into Google Scholar and I’ve simply typed in cold water immersion and fat loss and is all caps and that for that way, it’s, um, it includes both terms where we see cold water immersion and the term fat loss. and I put that into Google Scholar and as you can see on the screen if you’re watching on YouTube there’s 113 ,000 sources, 113 ,000 results in 0 .25 seconds.

If I click on since 2025 there’s now 17 ,200 so I can actually kind of refine that down to the most recent research and many of those are empirical -based studies. In fact It’s predominantly empirical -based research studies. where actually you’ll be able to get hold of the full text article and have a read through yourself if you’re interested. But if not, you would at least be able to get hold of the abstract. And the abstract is normally 200, 250 words as a brief synopsis of the study itself, maybe the methodologies used and the findings. So Google Scholar can be a great place to go away and say, okay, I’ve heard this information.

Is this true? I can go and look it up on Google Scholar. Okay. So a secondary source that can be used is something called PubMed.

And I always used to laugh at my students and said, this is not as exciting as it sounds because it has absolutely nothing to do with pubs.

Uh, and of course they didn’t laugh either. Um, but what it is. Amy, you laughed. I’ll give you a laugh on that one. My son would tell me that’s my prototypical dad joke. So there we go.

So it’s actually public medicine, and it’s a public medicine database. And it’s saying all the scientific research studies are published there. And these are high level scientific studies. So many journals are not PubMed indexed. they haven’t reached the kind of caliber to be PubMed indexed. So these are, for want of a better term, let’s say the best of the best.

And I’ve put in the same term of cold water immersion and fat loss for recent searches, and we’ve got 24 results. So we’ve specifically got a lot less than if I click on any of those, then I’ll be able to go to the article itself. or I’ll be able to go to the abstract there on the PubMed database and also I’ll be able to go to the full text link if it’s available. Now it’s worth clarifying that the publishing system in science is broken. So in many cases, you, uh, won’t be able to access the full text of the article, uh, because they publishers charge, uh, people to go in and read and access the full article. But that’s a real shame in and of itself.

You may be able to find it somewhere else online if you go and do a search for that, uh, for that title. But there’s two ways that you can really. Uh, start to look at science for yourself and make up your own mind because.

All I’ve put in there is cold water, immersion and fat loss. I’ve not put, uh, does it benefit fat loss or, um, you know, uh, is there evidence against the benefits of cold water, immersion and fat loss?

I’ve simply put in the two terms and everything that I find.

I have no idea whether it will be supportive or not of whether cold water immersion is good for fat loss.

Right. And you may put in a search term and see that there are studies done that disprove it, right? Exactly. Exactly. And of course, if we go back to Google Scholar, then the original search that I did that returned 113 ,000 results, it’s almost certain that some of those searches will have disproven it. Many, many of them may have proven it.

And so it’s, it’s starting to find a balance. And what you’re really looking for is if you see the terms, a review or a systematic review or a meta -analysis.

then hopefully you’re starting to see kind of a combination of all of the good quality studies in a topic. Uh, and you’ve heard me talk about meta -analyses and the health benefits and the strength training benefits, uh, um, of, uh, of strength training, I should say. So we know that that’s kind of the spearhead. That’s the real tip of, of academic research. Okay, and that’s helpful.

And Dr. Fisher, so basically the gold standard is a review or a meta -analysis. You mentioned briefly before, I just wanna make sure listeners know what the definition of this is, an empirical study. What is that? Can you define what that is? Yeah, so an empirical study is normally a randomized controlled trial, but an empirical study is really a test of does something work. It’s a single case, sorry, it’s a single study example.

So if I had a group of people or two groups of people, one group used the, whatever method it was or whatever medication it was. One group didn’t, they were either a control group or they were on a next best training method or next best medication. And then I’m looking at which of these two methods produced the best results based on what my outcome variables were. Uh, we, uh, we should have, that should be what’s called a randomized control trial. And that means that every participant, when they enter this study is randomized into either the training method or the, the, the, the variable that we’re interested in or the control group. Um, and so we have, what’s called an RCT, a randomized control trial.

Beyond that, we have, what’s called the systematic review. So systematic review. is where authors have gone away and they’ve used specific search criteria. They’ve said, okay, I want to look at research studies that are this long in weeks or months or years that had a certain population demographic, maybe adults over 25 or adults over 65, or maybe, um, symptomatic participants with low back pain or whatever the criteria might be. And they found all previous studies that have used those, that have met those criteria. And then they’ve talked about those studies themselves.

The step beyond that is called a meta -analysis. And a meta -analysis is where all the data from those studies has been extracted. And it’s been effectively analyzed. all in combination. So instead of having 10 studies, which each have a hundred people in, we now, we now effectively looking at them all as a single study with a thousand people. And that starts to become a lot more meaningful because we might find that there’s a very, very small effect in favor of something in those 10 studies.

But when we add them all together, it becomes a much larger effect in that thousand people. So, and that’s called a meta -analysis. And that really is thought of as the higher end of research. Now it’s worth me clarifying, I’ve been relatively critical of meta -analyses in the past. Uh, in publishing, I’ve published a few papers that have kind of challenged the idea of publishing rationalities, but the methodology has, it has moved on since then. And I think that most of them now we can be relatively confident in their findings.

Awesome. Uh, so we’ve talked about Google scholar and we’ve talked about PubMed and they’re definitely both, both sites that I would, I would recommend if somebody has any questions, any genuine academic questions, and they’re really interested in, in kind of a search for the truth. And then the last one that I’m going to draw people towards, and I’m anxious to do so, but I’m also pragmatic over what people, people do when they’re looking for information. But I’m also going to talk a bit about ChatGPT. So we know that everything now is using AI. AI is everywhere.

I saw a video the other day of a child on a porch getting on a crocodile and the crocodile ran away. And if you now looked at the videos that come up on my social media feed, you would think that I had an obsession with crocodiles or alligators on front porches, because it seems to be every other video on my feed. And of course, many, many of them, and I presume all of them, are AI. generated but there we go so we can be relatively fearful of AI but I think it’s still a tool that we can use so we can use it in the same way we use PubMed in the same way we use Google Scholar but I’ve amended the term a little bit so I’ve asked is there evidence for cold water immersion and fat loss use references to support So again, if you’re watching on YouTube, you’ll see that on the screen. And if you’re listening, then you can, you can use that term and you can go to ChatGPT and type that in. And ChatGPT came back with, here’s a summary of the current evidence around cold water immersion and fat loss.

What we know, what’s suggestive and what remains unclear. Now I really like that because it’s not, ChatGPT doesn’t have a dog in the fight here. It doesn’t care whether I want cold water immersion to be, you know, victorious and to be great for fat loss, or whether I am anti -cold water immersion, interested in care. So it’s really taking an unbiased approach based on my criteria. What we can see is saying what the evidence does suggest, what isn’t supported, or is very weak, and it’s saying practical takeaways. Now, again, if you’re watching on YouTube, you’ll see this, but if you’re listening to the podcast, then under each bullet point that it makes, it has a link and the link is to, in this case, is to PubMed.

So the first link is to PubMed. So I’m going to click on that link and see where we go. And it takes me straight back to PubMed citing an article, Role of Body Fat in the Prediction of Metabolic Response for Immersion in Cold Water. So the great thing here is what CHAT -GPT can do for you is it can find the evidence that supports the claims that it’s making. Now, it won’t do that unless you add the statement, use references to support or use academic, you know, evidence to support these claims or whatever, whatever you might type, but it can do that for you.

It can go away and find those, those papers themselves and literally cite those papers for those claims. And one of the reasons why I know so much about this, apart from the fact that it’s quite obvious now, is as an academic, this was my big fear with many students, that they would go away and ask a question that I might ask them as an assignment and type it into ChatGPT, and ChatGPT would go away and find resources for them. Well, fundamentally, Finding resources is not something I’m concerned about as long as they, they then make up their own mind.

And I think that brings me full circle to ultimately the onus is on you as an individual to decide whether or not you believe the information that you have read.

And I think that. Most people listening to this podcast are smarter to know if they’ve only heard the claims of one person on social media and they choose to believe them, they’re not basing their beliefs on a huge amount of evidence. If they’ve gone away and they’ve found five or 10 scientific research studies and read the abstracts or even the whole paper, and they’ve got a more balanced viewpoint, then I think that they can probably be pretty pretty strong in their beliefs. So I think it’s really important to just know what information is out there and know how to access that information. Absolutely. Yeah, this is really helpful.

So, Dr. Fisher just showed us how to research something on our own.

He just demoed for us how to search using Google Scholar, PubMed, Chat, GPT to see if a claim that you came across is accurate. And I like the point you make, Dr. Fisher, of, you know, it’s not showing me especially with the chat GPT made the point of it’s not showing me what I what it believes I want to know or what I what it thinks I already believe. It’s showing me what is actually out there objectively. And so, you know, why should somebody not consider scrolling their Facebook page as research? Well, Their Facebook page is, is, is going to give them a lot of marketing.

So it was companies looking to sell products, it’s companies looking to make money and so forth. So as soon as somebody has a financial, as soon as there’s money to be made in something, I think we have to be questioning of their claims and their statements. You know, if somebody says to me, you know, you, you should go and do this or go and try this. That’s one thing. But if somebody says, you should buy this product because it will help you, it’s a supplement that will help you to lose weight. It’s a product that will help you to gain intelligence.

It’s a product that will help you to build muscle. It’s going to cost you, I don’t know, $9 .99 a week, and you can buy a year’s supply right now for 50 % off. I think most people are savvy enough to know that you know, for want of a better term, they’re sort of snake oil salesmen.

They’re just trying to sell something with some kind of claims around them.

So we get a lot of that on social media.

If anybody’s like me, I, uh, you know, you’ve, you’ve probably all heard on the podcast that I blew out my ACL a couple of years back. So I still on my social media sites, get adverts for knee supports and knee braces and things like that. So we just have to be cautious of, of the information that is sent to us. Absolutely. Right.

It’s, it’s so true.

Um, I just, you know, kind of. As we wrap up the episode, I mean, I would admit to to being a person who has kind of an action bias, like I’ve talked before about if I learn something new, I. probably one of those people who really wants to try it out and will try it and take action because I want to believe that it’s going to help me, you know. And so this episode reminds me of if I’m going to take the time and energy and effort to really implement something, I better know that there’s some kind of evidence to support it if I really am going to spend all that time and energy on it. Right.

And so It’s just too time consuming to spin your wheels on trying a little of this and a little of that and money, you know, too. I think about supplements and things when it may or may not be really working. So if we want to work smarter, not harder, let’s take the time to evaluate things that we come across. I really, really appreciate you breaking all this down for us. And so, you know, Dr. Fisher, if you were to encourage the listeners today with one kind of takeaway, you know, what would be in your mind the most important takeaway for a listener who is hearing this for the first time? Yeah.

Okay. So I think first thing is if somebody has health or fitness goals, they probably should go and chat to somebody face to face rather than look for sort of things on social media. You know, We, we all are, we’re all sent information on things and, and maybe that sways the way that we interact with products or interact with, uh, with certain things. But actually if we go out and seek information, then we probably go to unbiased sources. Whereas the sources that come to us, come to us deliberately because they’re trying to sell something. So, you know, when we engage in things on social media, that’s still selling a philosophy, or they’re still selling an agenda, or they’re still selling themselves for the number of views they can get.

and so on and so forth.

So, you know, I think going out, you making the effort to do a search for something, whether it’s on PubMed or Google scholar or track GPT or going to, uh, an exercise professional or a medical professional, I think is first and foremost, the best way to go from there.

I think we, we then should.

look for other information. And a lot of the time, what we can do is actually look for information that contradicts our beliefs. So instead of thinking, I believe cold water immersion is going to be good for fat loss, we might start to look up the studies that show that cold water immersion isn’t good for fat loss and see if those studies exist and see the quality of those studies. Because if they’re just as good, then maybe it challenges our own, our own beliefs. Yeah. And we may learn to, you know, that cold water immersion or whatever the thing is, is good for something else, or it works for a different thing than we thought it worked for.

Right. Like maybe it’s just good for, um, mental energy or, you know, feeling like you can conquer the day subconsciously, you know, but maybe it’s not exactly the thing that’s going to work for the, what we thought it would work for. And so that’s actually helpful information when you take the time to do something with. OK, that’s really, really helpful. You know, at the exercise coach, we have a white paper. It’s the strength changes everything.

And it, white paper, and co -authored by Dr. Fisher here and Brian Sagan, and it cites all of the research behind everything we do at our studios and what evidence supports this process, why we do things this way. And so it’s really encouraging for us to be able to lean on this information when we say, this is why we’re doing it this way, because it’s proven to be effective. This helps the most people achieve the most amount of benefit. It’s comforting to know that there is evidence to what you’re doing so that you know you’re not going to spin your wheels. And my takeaway from this episode is that it’s worth evaluating the claims, it’s worth knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing, and why you’re listening to whom you’re listening. This podcast is meant for education and the things that we share here are research -based.

That’s why Dr. Fisher is on this podcast. He brings a wealth of the research to bear on various topics. And so anything that you want to know, one thing we do at this podcast is we answer your questions on health and on exercise and on fitness. And so if there is something In addition to the research that you’re going to do on PubMed and ChatGPT and Google Scholar, if you want to ask us here on the podcast, go to strengthchangeseverything . com and submit your question there. Go out and take your life into your own hands today.

We will see you next week on the podcast. Until then, we hope you remember strength changes everything. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please share it with a friend. You can submit a question or connect with the show at strengthchangeseverything . com.

Join us next week for another episode and be sure to follow the show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts so that you never miss another episode. Here’s to you and your best health.