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Scot: All right. Hey, we're laughing in 2025. That's good. It's a new year, and if you want to hear about New Year's resolutions, we've talked about those before. You can just go back through our library, look around January 1st. We've approached it from a lot of different ways, but this year, we're going to do something different. We're going to skip that. You can go back if you're interested in New Year's. Instead, we're going to take a look back at some of our favorite episodes in 2024.

Sometimes reflection and looking backwards and really solidifying and appreciating the work and the learning that you've done can go a long way to helping you plan the future, especially when it comes to your health.

And for me, this has been a good exercise because I forget about some of the great conversations we've had over the past year, insights that other people have given me, and even insights that I've made. So it's been fun to review our shows from 2024 and try to come up with some of our more impactful episodes.

Mitch, how did that process go for you?

Mitch: Oh, it was kind of cool because it was just . . . There was a reaffirmation. There was a, "Oh, yeah. That thing was something that I learned this year that I need to remember going into the next year." I mean, it's really easy for you just to focus on the now and the future, and in doing so, you don't leave a lot of space for making progress that you've already made.

Scot: Right. And you've already done that work, so why not try to capitalize on that work as much as possible?

The other thing that this process has taught me, Mitch, is that sometimes it's not just one event or one thing that fundamentally changes how I think or how I perceive or how I feel. It's the process. It's the process of having these conversations over the past 365 days. It's getting little bits and pieces and incorporating them into our lives, and then interacting with them, and then interacting with other people about them. And that's really, I think, a powerful lesson for me.

I think in movies and TV shows and stuff, we see, "Oh, there was that one moment." Even we talk about "the turning point." It can be that, but a lot of times it's just these small little things that happen, these small insights that we have. So I'm kind of envious.

If you're new to "Who Cares About Men's Health," I'd highly recommend go back and binge listen to 2024, because you would have a perspective on those episodes that we didn't.

It's just like when you binge watch a show, it all makes a little bit more sense, right? Sometimes it could be more impactful.

So today we're going to go ahead and pull out some moments that were impactful to us as we reflected on the past year. Maybe they were our favorite. Maybe they just entertained us. Maybe they changed how we think. So, Mitch, you ready to dive in?

Mitch: I sure am.

Scot: All right. Let's start with you. Which one would you like to start with?

Mitch: All right. So I'm going to start with one of our more recent ones that we did near the end of last year from Episode 186. It was our "TikTok Nutrition: Fact or Cap Part 2." And I chose this one because it was . . . It's not just a new segment that I think I really like the idea and the approach, but just in doing the research and diving into the weird world of bad health information on TikTok in particular, and just social media in general, it's wild.

It's shirtless nutritionists, YouTube philosophers talking about diets of meat and whiskey. The list goes on and on about all this objectively bad information. And so I think it's kind of cool, and I've learned a lot about how we can actually address some of those trends.

For this particular clip, Thunder is going to be talking us through a really weird claim that claims that cinnamon is the answer to a whole bunch of nutrition concerns.

This one is wild. So it came out of nowhere. We're already up to 1.5 million plays over 20 accounts in the last month. And it's this claim that says if you put more cinnamon in your diet, you'll lose weight. They talk about the importance of having cinnamon to get shredded. They put cinnamon on every little thing that they eat throughout the day. With how quickly it's been spreading and the amount of people sharing it, it seems strange that there isn't even a scientific claim.

 

Person 1: Yo, why are you putting cinnamon on your fruit?

Person 2: Bro, you realize the reason you're not shredded is because you're not putting cinnamon on your fruit. You put cinnamon on your fruit, your blood sugar doesn't spike. When your blood sugar doesn't spike, you burn more body fat. So if you want to get shredded and stop being a fat ass, start eating cinnamon with any sugar you eat.

Scot: Are you kidding me?

Mitch: No. And it's the Taco Bell noise. They do it whenever they point at their abs. I don't know when that started. It's odd.

Thunder: That's fantastic. This kind of reminds me of politics because the guy takes the smallest kernel of potential truth and twists and expands and distorts it in a way that it's completely nuts.

So let's start with his blood sugar insulin thing. First of all, what he was saying is just 100% wrong. When you wake up in the morning after sleeping, you are already in a fasted state. Your blood sugar is already low. Why would you pound some cinnamon to lower it even further? Because if it actually does work, now you're hypoglycemic. You'll pass out and bash your head on the counter or something. So we've just got to keep that in mind.

And then the other point is most of this work has been done in cell studies, cell culture studies, and animal studies, and it has not been done necessarily in humans.

The whole thing about cinnamon will help you get shredded and lose weight, where does that idea come from? Well, people have done studies using adipocytes, which are fat cells grown, in a culture dish and have treated it with extracts of cinnamon. Not just sprinkling cinnamon on the cells, but taking the phytochemical extract, the active component, if you will, and treated the cells with that and found that the cells increased expression of genes that are involved in breaking down triglycerides, fat. Awesome.

But that's cells in a dish, and that's an extract of cinnamon. How do you apply that to people? And that's where the knowledge kind of breaks down.

Scot: Is cinnamon the key to weight loss? Thunder, what's your final verdict? Fact or . . .

Thunder: Cap.

Scot: Cap. Okay, that was a good one. That was a quick one.

 

Mitch: This particular episode and the discussion that we had really kind of reminded me of the real importance of being skeptical over the internet. I mean, we've done some things, like with our red-light therapy episode. We talked to Dr. John Smith, and he found some evidence that things were good, that that is something to trust.

And then with these shows, we talked to a specialist in nutrition, and they're like, "Hey, no, some of these are not so factual."

It's really kind of reinforced this idea that I need to really trust doctors and specialists over folks on the internet, and then trusting my gut, too, when it comes to some of the things I see online.

Scot: So through the Fact or Cap discussions, one of the things that I came away with is taking a look at the claim and going, "Okay, if I did this, is it really going to cause any problems? Is it going to take extra time? What's the risk-benefit equation?" That's one thing.

If I want to cold plunge and I do a little bit of looking, who knows if it actually helps with weight loss, but maybe I enjoy it, and it's not going to be causing me any harm. Then great, right?

With this one, too, I think something else to remember is social media is all about getting your attention, and it's all about getting quick little hits of information. And when Thunder had a moment to explain what was really going on . . . Sure, there's some truth in this, but it's in a petri dish and it's at a cell level. And the way that they're doing it is so crazy when he finally gives you the whole context.

So I think just knowing when you go into these situations, you need to think about, "All right. What could be the bigger context here to this?" I think that's probably one of my big takeaways from those episodes.

I'm going to a Thunder episode as well. Thunder was an important part of the show in 2024. I've struggled with my relationship with food for a long time, and in the Episode 166, "Trust Your Gut: Intuitive Eating Explained," Thunder described how to think about eating and food in a way that was very, very useful for me.

 

Thunder: Intuitive eating is not a diet plan or a strict menu of foods to eat. It's rather a pattern of eating that basically is designed to promote a healthy attitude towards food and a healthy attitude towards body image and health.

The idea is that you're not really restricted to a specific diet, that you don't have a list of foods you can eat and foods you have to avoid. It's more just kind of don't think food is evil, have a good relationship with it, eat what you want and just keep some health in mind. Eat when you're hungry. Don't eat when you're not hungry. Stop when you're full. Don't overeat just because the food tastes good.

 

Scot: In that short little clip, I can't tell you how many things that I redefined about eating in my head. First, this idea that food is good or bad. I think it's really easy to get "I can have it, or I should not have it." And when I start putting myself into that mindset, what do I want? I want that food so much more.

So just allowing myself to think, "You know what? I can enjoy this, even though it's probably not the healthiest choice, but I'm going to enjoy it in moderation. And as long as it's not what I do all the time, that's okay." It's not good or bad. I should or should not be eating this. And when I do eat it, I'm going to just really be mindful and enjoy it, right? So that is one thing that that really changed.

The other thing is that for a long time in my life, I would force myself to eat. And this was born out of when I was younger, I was a skinny kid, and I wanted to get bigger, and I wanted to build muscle. That went into my 20s and my 30s and my 40s, and let's not lie, even into my 50s. And in order to do that, I needed to eat more calories. So sometimes I'd force myself to eat when I wasn't hungry.

And over the past year, I've experimented with "I'm not going to do that anymore. If I'm hungry, I'm going to eat. If I'm not hungry, I'm not going to eat." And I've actually noticed something really strange, Mitch. I've noticed my energy has improved, my mental clarity has improved, my general attitude has improved. I feel like I'm not as tired anymore.

Mitch: Wow.

Scot: So I almost wonder if by forcing myself to eat, I was overloading my system to have to process all this food that I really didn't need. Now I sound like a TikTok person, right? I'm just making stuff up.

I don't know if there's any basis to this, but I feel okay with that decision because when I eat, I eat healthy. I'm eating what I would consider good foods, for the most part. Sometimes I do allow myself to enjoy those things that we hear that we shouldn't have. And I think about "How does this make me feel?" versus "I have to eat, or I have to eat healthy."

I'm not going to lie, I don't eat a lot of meat, but after I have a hamburger . . . and instead of having French fries, I'll get a potato at the store, and I'll just bake potato fries in the oven, not a lot of oil or anything. I feel great after I eat that. I feel satiated. I feel alert. I just feel good. I feel full for a long time.

And instead of saying, "Well, that's probably not the best choice," I'm just like, "No, that's fine." And then the fact that I'm not forcing myself to eat, that might last me for six, eight hours, and that's great.

So anyway, that really forced me to think about how I think about food, how I think about eating, and it's been helpful for me.

All right. Clip number two for you. What's your second one?

Mitch: So this one is from our Episode 184, "Beyond the Battlefield: Understanding PTSD in Everyday Life." And I absolutely love this discussion because we started with a discussion with Dr. Steve Sugden about PTSD and how as many as one in five men can be affected by it. So if a listener is hearing, it might be worth checking out.

But he went further into how it doesn't matter whether it's anxiety or depression or PTSD, there are a lot of ways that we kind of cope with our overactive amygdalas and our fight-or-flight responses and our stress. And especially as men, right? There are some bad coping mechanisms that we can kind of come up with.

And so I loved this particular clip because I think both you and I, Scot, had an aha moment of sorts about how we can take some of our bad coping strategies and learn something from them that might help us turn into something more helpful.

 

Dr. Sugden: And it's this process that as we learn to live and get in routine and have connection, our body starts healing, and then we become more aware. So then we're more aware of when we go back into therapy, it gives us more insights. It's kind of this continuous process. It's not that I just do it once, and then I'm one and done.

Scot: So it sounds like the priority, if you're on substances, is to figure out how to get off substances, and whatever that takes. Maybe that takes medication, like you said. Maybe that does take a little therapy at that point. Maybe there are some individuals who can just stop. Then it sounds like, "Now how do I get better sleep?"

Mitch: And that's the stuff that I've dealt with before with my anxiety disorder treatment stuff. If I haven't slept well, I'm going to be grumpy. I'm going to make bad choices the next day. My ADHD is particularly bad usually the next day, etc.

And so, yeah, it's kind of interesting that when I first started getting treatment for a bunch of different mental health things, I was kind of repeatedly shocked that they started with, "Well, let's get you off nicotine and let's get you sleeping." And I'm just like, "What is that going to do?" But come to find out, it actually can do a lot.

Dr. Sugden: It's really the foundation of improved mental health, and it's probably even the foundation of improved physical health.

 

Mitch: I think back about the Marlboros and taquitos conversation when we were looking back where it's just . . . I still find myself having those urges, but now it's easier for me to understand the connections with the other aspects of my health, right? If I'm really, really stressed or I didn't really sleep well for the last couple of nights, I might be searching out for those things. I might be searching for that.

And it's kind of like a way to troubleshoot my own brain, right? Rather than just guessing or trying to overcome the urges through sheer willpower, I can actually start to address some of the core of those problems. And it has really changed the way I kind of approach not just my mental health, but also my physical health. It's looking for those patterns, taking a moment, being mindful, being in your body, and trying to figure out how things work rather than just assuming that they work a certain way or even wishing they worked a certain way.

Scot: One of the things I love about listening to interviews again is sometimes you pull out a new piece of information you didn't catch the first time. I don't remember a lot about that conversation, but the part about the beer, that I was like, "Oh, yeah, that's right. I did make that." Was that kind of my comfort food? Is it harkening me back to times that were a little bit more fun for me or whatever?

But the other thing is, as I was listening to that, I was thinking about the value of just experimenting when it comes to our health, trying a little something, making an observation, seeing how it impacts us. Is it better or is it worse? That was the one step at a time he talked about.

"All right. I can get off of nicotine. How am I feeling? Am I feeling better? I wonder what else I could do. Maybe I'll try to get a little bit more sleep. Okay, that seems to be working. What if I do this? Oh, that didn't work."

So that kind of just made me think about regardless if it's nutrition or physical activity or whatever, do little experiments, make observations, see what makes you feel better and what doesn't make you feel better, and do more or less of that.

All right. My next clip is from Episode 175, "The Power of Emotional Reflection." We had Dr. William Smith from Huntsman Mental Health Institute on and we talked about reflection as it pertains to guys, reflecting on our emotions, which is something that we don't do. So listen to the episode for that.

But we also talked about ways that we could be healthier. And a lot of the conversation kind of revolved around community and finding your community and interacting with other people and having fun with other people.

I made a little joke about pickleball to Dr. Smith because he was talking about how old he was and how he was trying to get more activity. And I said, "Oh, that must mean pickleball," and he laughed. And I remember I felt a little awkward. I thought, "Boy, I hope I didn't offend him on that." And his response to that was so brilliant that it changed how I behave and how I interact with people now.

 

Dr. Smith: The other thing, just how you brought it up, men getting together, laughing, telling lies about their youth or their big fish that they caught or whatever it was, but doing whatever you want to do with each other and your favorite beverage of choice, but just enjoying each other, smiling, that is so healthy. And you'll start to look forward to that.

So it doesn't have to be that you spend a lot of money, or you have to go create something new. You might have it there already. You just have to invest in it more and appreciate what you already have and recognize that this is a healthy outlet.

 

Scot: All right. So two ways that that's changed how I interact with the world. First of all, I think I've been hiding who I am a lot lately, and a lot of it revolves around this. I should be more mature than that, right? It's not nice to rib and poke fun. You don't want to make somebody feel bad. But I poked fun there, and it was in good spirit, and he took it that way.

I enjoy doing that. I enjoy when I get poked fun at as long as it's in good nature. I enjoy childish humor sometimes, even though I'm much older than that.

I've found that I have some friend groups now, and I've started kind of allowing . . . and even at work and in other venues that I interact with, not just men, I've started to just try to let that personality part of me come back out again.

I've found that it's received well. I've found I feel better about myself. I'm just happier when I'm interacting with people like that. They interact in the same way back.

And that was really kind of changing for me not to hide exactly who I am, but to kind of embrace that side of me. And behaving like that is okay. It's healthy, right? We don't always have to be serious all the time. We don't always have to be mature all the time.

Mitch: And what's funny is that in a similar vein, I have taken from that same conversation we had with Dr. William Smith that I prioritize those types of interactions now. It's really easy to get too serious, or the world's too scary, and so I have to go and hide away from the world or whatever. But I put it on the calendar I'm going to go hang out with my friends, and we're going to go see a dumb movie. I have kung fu nights with my dad every month.

It's prioritizing those types of interactions and elevating them, to having a good night's sleep, to having whatever. It's been really kind of life-changing over the last year or so, is making sure that stuff happens.

Scot: Wow. What you just said there also reframed it for me. Making it as important as the Core Four, making it as important as eating and activity and sleep, because it is to the fourth one, which is your emotional and mental health. It makes a huge difference.

Mitch: It really does.

Scot: What's your clip number three?

Mitch: All right. So my third one is from our special, spooky Episode 185, "House of Horrors: Health Edition." And speaking of poking fun at you, I love this episode. It's where we were trying to share existential fears, big spooky things that come with just living in a body that we don't always talk about. But we turned it into something goofy — imagining a haunted house that's filled with some of our biggest fears.

Man, it was really kind of cool to see where the discussion went when we actually talked about our fears, even in a funny way.

 

Scot: My other one is you walk into the room . . . And I don't even know how you paint this picture. I can't do it, Mitch. You did such a good job. I'm just going to come out and say it. Metabolic disease.

Mitch: What?

Dr. Smith: Diabetes, huh?

Scot: Yeah, diabetes. Or just even in the short term, on the day to day, I'm terrified that I'm spiking my insulin too much, and that's going to lead to metabolic disease. Any time I have a sweet or a cookie or even a big plate of spaghetti, I'm like, "Oh, I'm spiking my insulin," and that kind of terrifies me because I'm terrified of what it might lead to.

Mitch: So the room is . . . there's a bunch of tables with big piles of cookies and your favorite treats, and there's a bunch of people guilting you to eat it all.

Scot: Yeah. Or the cookies and treats have legs and arms, and one of them holds your mouth open and they start shoving themselves into you.

Mitch: Oh, that's worse.

Dr. Smith: Yeah, that's way worse.

Mitch: Why do you think you're so scared of that?

Scot: I don't know why. I mean, I have been tested, and even though prediabetes is 100 to 130 fasting glucose, I've kind of been in the 80s and 90s a lot that one doctor thought maybe I might . . . They brought up prediabetes to me. So I think maybe that's what started it. So that does scare me a little bit, I guess. It scares me a lot.

And on this podcast before, we talked about metabolic disease. Dr. Smith, metabolic disease is one of the . . . That's not good. That's one of the worst kind of . . . As far as health outcomes, it can lead to a lot of bad stuff.

Dr. Smith: It affects everything. I mean, it affects top to bottom: eyes, feet, erectile function, blood vessels, heart, everything. It affects every system in your body. It's definitely one of those that's an aggressive one that can impact multiple areas.

Scot: Yeah. So if I'm for the most part pretty good, but once in a while maybe I go on a little bender and I'll have a couple of dishes of ice cream in a day, or around Thanksgiving, I have two or three pieces of pumpkin pie, is that going to spike my insulin in such a way that it's going to lead to metabolic disease? Help me with my fears here.

Dr. Smith: I mean, a lot of it just comes down to what you're doing consistently. You've got to have those times where you have some of those things. Those things are there. You're not going to get diabetes from eating a couple pieces of pie. Now, if you just make it a point to eat two pies a week for the next couple of years, you're going to set yourself up for something big.

Mitch: Marie Callender's Challenge.

Dr. Smith: It's the long-term stuff. I mean, the short term, where you have a cheat day or whatever when people are on diets, those things help your body to kind of reset and go, "Hey, wait a minute."

And so, yeah, I think you're fine. If you've had testing done, that's reassurance. And when you receive reassurance, you should be reassured. It shouldn't make you more anxious.

And that's one of the things that I find with some people, is I give them reassurance and they're still super angsty about whatever it is that we've just given them reassurance about. That reassurance should be reassuring.

 

Mitch: I will come back to it over and over why I like this podcast, is just the power of guys just talking about their feelings about health. We were able to kind of talk through some things. We were able to joke about things, talk about, "Hey, I'm also having those fears." We found some in common, and I just think that was really, really great and just reminded me of how important that is, especially with big things like fear of your health. Fear of whatever.

And on top of that, also just listening to Dr. John Smith, he's a specialist. He's a doctor who has years and years of experience, and he's gone through this stuff. The importance of going and talking to a professional if there's something that is concerning you, you're able to be told, "Hey, you should be reassured. You are going to be okay." Rather than just holding on to all of that spooky stuff up in your head the whole time.

Scot: But then it's on you, right? Then you have to feel reassured. You have to go, "All right. We're fine," and that could be the hardest thing.

Mitch: It sure is. I mean, every year I run into it, too. Every year at my physical, I'm like, "Hey, I used to smoke. Should we test or whatever?" And he's like, "Do you have any symptoms? We tested you last year." And I'm like, "Okay. Yep."

And so it's just kind of interesting where even though I have these thoughts, these fears still come up, at the very least, I'm . . . Maybe this year I will try harder to be more reassured and not let it take up as much space in my brain.

Scot: I don't know how you do that.

Mitch: I don't know either.

Scot: It's important, too, because there are plenty of other things out there in the world that we should be scared about, right? So better to take the ones that we're like, "All right, check. That one's good," and just put that little box and put it away so we can deal with the other things in our lives.

Mitch: Exactly.

Scot: All right. My third clip also features John Smith. He was an important part of this podcast this year. He's on a lot of episodes and offered a lot of great insights. And this was from the episode "Wins, 'Working-Ons,' and What's Next." It was Episode 180.

First of all, I love this concept of celebrating the wins. Not just always focusing on, "Oh, I've got to do better at this," or, "I've got to get better at that." Focusing on, "I am making progress. I'm working on something. It might not be exactly where I'm at, but if I can notice progress, then that's great." And then maybe thinking about what's next after that. I think it's okay to do that, but I think it's important to celebrate the progress that you've made.

That aside, in this episode, the thing that really hit me was something Dr. Smith talked about that he wanted to work on, which was being more excited when his kids or his wife shared good news with him. Not kind of being the stoic man, if you will.

 

Dr. Smith: Another thing that I'm working on is sometimes my wife is like, "Are you not excited about this?" And I'm like, "What do you mean? I'm very excited." She's like, "You look absolutely like you would rather be anywhere but here right now."

And in reality, I am. I'm excited about it, but I just don't . . . I guess I have a blunted emotion or something where I don't show it. I'm trying to be better, because I think it does change the mood when I do show a little bit more excitement.

I don't know if that sounds weird to anybody out there, but I am kind of just a . . . I mean, as much as I like to joke around and cut up and have fun, when there are things like that, it's like I do have this, "Oh, that's great." And they're like, "That's it?" I'm like, "Yeah. I mean, that's great. What are we doing? Are we jumping around? Are we high-fiving? I mean, are we spinning in circles?"

 

Scot: And I think it's okay. What that says to me and how I process that is that we're all in this world together. And if somebody has something exciting that happened to them, then wow, just really get in there and support that and show that. That's a way that you can show up for somebody.

Just like if they have a project they're working on, they're hanging drywall, and you show up, you're showing up for somebody that way. But you could also show up by sharing the exciting moments in people's lives and really reflecting that excitement.

Maybe even if they're not as excited as you think they should be, trying to amplify their excitement a little bit more, like, "No, that is a big deal." To get away from this stoicness that we have as guys, for whatever reason we might have that.

So I am trying to just be more . . . And I don't even know what it is because it goes beyond just showing excitement, but when people show up with an emotion or something, especially if they're excited about it or proud of it or whatever, to just really try to match or maybe even surpass support in-kind back at them.

Mitch: Yeah, and that was another thing that came up that I've been thinking about. I think about that clip all the time as well.

One of the things that came up in some of my own mental health work was this idea of men are less likely to show emotional vulnerability, period, let alone just react, even if that's joyful vulnerability.

The only way that we can even change that in our lives, in ourselves, etc., is to practice what we preach and try out being emotionally vulnerable, telling people how you're feeling, getting excited when they're excited, being present, and actually living the life that we're living.

Scot: Yeah. And I think that word "practice" is so key. It's going to feel weird when you first do it because any time you do something that is not the normal, it's weird, right? So it's going to feel weird.

And I will say I think experimentation is good. I did some experimentation about being vulnerable a little bit more, and there are some people it works with, and some people, I think it kind of creates a weird vibe. You just have to put that out there, and then you can adjust.

Then there are some people in my life that have been very accepting of it, and I've been able to push it even further in our relationship. Both of us can be a lot more open.

So I think that practice part and the experimenting part and knowing that it's going to feel good sometimes and it's going to feel weird sometimes, and that's okay.

Any final thoughts or reflection on our reflection episode? That's kind of weird. It's like looking into a mirror that's looking into a mirror that's looking into a mirror.

Mitch: Thanks for sharing. I mean, I'm really excited to see what happens this next year, what's going on, what more I can learn. It's also good to take a second and talk about and really kind of reinforce what I've already done.

Scot: Absolutely. And what we've learned and what we know and how far we've come. We're looking forward to some new episodes soon and some new growth here on "Who Cares about Men's Health."

Thank you very much for listening. If you have a favorite moment from one of our episodes you'd like to share, or maybe other health questions or thoughts that you'd like to hear discussed in future episodes, you can reach out to us at hello@thescoperadio.com.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for caring about men's health.