Hey guys I'm Abbey Sharp welcome to
Abbey's Kitchen. Today's what I eat in a day youtuber review is sponsored by
audible and we're gonna be looking at John glaude from the YouTube channel "Obese
to Beast". Now before we dive in I want to tell you about this awesome app called
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start listening with an exclusive 30-day free trial, one free audiobook, and two
audible originals for free. Okay so let's talk about our friend John . Now if you're unfamiliar with Obese to Beasts channel, he's a fitness and
wellness YouTuber who's gained popularity by documenting his extreme
weight loss through CrossFit training and following what he's coined as the
"common sense diet" which, according to him, means he's eliminated all fast-food, soda,
and snacking from his diet. Now before we get too far into this, I want to start
with my general disclaimer that the information that you may see in this
video is for entertainment and educational purposes only and you should
always seek out the help of a registered dietitian or medical professional for
your unique case. Alright, let's meet John. So I just kind of wanted to share
what I've been eating in a day and I want to make it very clear from the start
this video this is me just sharing what I'm eating. I'm not at all trying to say
you need to eat what I what I eat, at all. Most people probably wouldn't want to
eat what I eat because it's very boring but I wanted to share that because I
want people to see that like, for me, when I think about, you know, eating and the
way that I think about food is I want my food to be one - very simple and, two-
something that I can sustain for a long time, right? So it's nothing super fancy.
Okay so if you've been watching me for a while, you've probably already picked up
on the fact that I always appreciate a good disclaimer from these YouTube
videos. So thank you to John for prefacing this video with a disclaimer and stating
that the purpose is really to share what he eats as a kind of FYI. I also love
that he says his eating is really rooted in simplicity and sustainability which
is definitely something I can totally agree with. I mean, I think that the
easier you can make healthy eating the more likely you are to stick to it. Let's
see what else he has to say. Now I do want to say before I show you everything
that I got, I was actually talking about this recently on my podcast, that I
understand that everything that you're gonna see is not some like super
healthy like "whoa that's such a.. I can't believe how healthy he eats" and stuff
like that. That's not at all what I'm trying to show you. I actually think
that my diet is actually pretty normal. I think that it's pretty sustainable for
pretty much anybody. So again I'm not saying that this is what you should be
eating but I understand it's not the pinnacle of health and fitness but it
works really well for me and coming from someone that had a little bit of
disordered eating obviously through food addiction, then binge eating,
and then struggling with a little bit of orthorexia, like I don't feel like I need
to eat perfectly healthy to still be able to chase my goals. Okay so in this
other video on his grocery haul, I love that John talks about how this diet is
normal and balanced and not just like "whoa super healthy". He mentions that he
has a history of food addiction, and binge eating, and orthorexia, and is now
in a place where his focus is not necessarily on eating perfectly "healthy",
but rather to eat a diet that is normal and sustainable for him while still
making progress in the gym and reaching his goals. I am very relieved
to hear this coming from John as research has shown that rates of
disordered eating are very common amongst athletes in weight class sports.
So you can have health goals, even physique goals, without letting them run
your life. Okay now let's get into the diet and look at day one. Okay so I can definitely see where John
gets his "beasts" nickname. This definitely looks like a tough workout. So let's see
what he's gonna eat. It's about 10:30 I'm about to have my first, I wouldn't
really call this a meal, but my first thing of the day. I've really been liking
these cliff builders bars not sponsored or anything like that but I like them
because there's no whey protein in them but they have relatively okay macros. So
we are back home now it is like 1 o'clock normally I don't eat this late,
usually I don't wait this long to eat my first meal but because of the couple
things that came up I just decided to push the food back a little bit. So this
is what I've been having for my first meal for the past couple weeks now that
it's hotter. It's been like a chicken salad, a regular salad, and then like
fruit, normally like an apple. Let me show you guys. So I'll be the first to say that this is
far from an impressive meal. So we got the apple, we got the sandwich with the
chicken salad in it, and then there's the rest of the chicken salad in there, and
then I have half of that salad in this Tupperware. So it looks like John is
already having a busy day and it's 10:30, but I am happy to see that he still has
time to sneak some nutrition in for post-workout recovery. Now an ideal
post-workout recovery snack would include a combination of protein and
carbohydrates to help rebuild muscle and replenish energy stores. Though the cliff
builders protein bars that John eats after his workout does have protein and
carbohydrate, considering the intensity of his workout, you know, he may want to
ideally aim for around one gram of protein for every 3 to 4 grams of
carbohydrates. Like he mentions the cliff builders bar provides about 20 grams of
protein and 30 grams of carbs, so it is a pretty good choice in the grand scheme
of things but he could definitely easily optimize it with like a piece of fruit
like an apple or a banana. As for his lunch, I guess we'll call it or I don't know the first meal of his day, I love that
we're keeping it real here to say that most people even YouTubers don't
necessarily make beautifully styled lunches every single day and eat them on
wooden Photography boards. This is real life and it looks pretty good to me. I
actually love that particular bag salad myself with the poppy seed dressing for
days that I'm in a pinch. But we've got some protein from the chicken, carbs
from the apple and dried fruit, fat from the dressing and the seeds, some nice
dark greens from the kale slaw. It's good stuff. He also mentions that even though
his meal is not impressive it's something that he genuinely truly enjoys
eating. Honestly, I think that the simplest less impressive meals actually
tend to be the most satisfying anyways and at the end of the day if you enjoy
what you're eating that is all that really matters to me. Let's look at day two.
See, we got it right here. So we have 3 whole eggs, 3 egg whites, and then we also
have bell pepper and spinach on that. We have a bunch of mixed berries,
300 grams of berries, we have strawberries, raspberries, blackberries,
and blueberries in this. Then we have two pieces of bread with peanut butter on it.
The reason that I did the peanut butter on the bread is because I do the three
eggs and that's a little bit of fat, it's not too much, but like I definitely
wanted to have more fat so I add the peanut butter. I've really been liking
this this meal or like trying something different because one - I'm trying to add
more like fruits and vegetables all throughout the day just because it's
just something personally that I've been wanting to do. And two - it's less of like
just the straight carbs that I was getting from the oatmeal because the
oatmeal that I would eat in the morning normally was like a hundred and twenty
grams of oats. So that's quite a bit of carbs, plus I would put some sort of like
bar normally crumble that up in there. So that meal would always end up being
probably my biggest meal of the day at about a thousand to 1,200 calories, and
this is a little bit less calories and I don't feel as sluggish. Now I don't know
if I'll never go back to eating oats in the morning but this has been a
nice change and it's really good. Okay so it is great to see that John is really
listening to his body and trying something new for breakfast by switching
up his protein with the eggs instead of having oats and adding in some more
fruits and veggies to his diet. I think we're all susceptible to following into
kind of breakfast ruts and I think it's really common for people in the fitness
community to just become accustomed to eating the exact same meal every single
morning. I get that it's definitely easier because you don't have to think
about calculating the macros, as I can see he definitely has done with this, but
I would definitely try to encourage John to have maybe like two or three
different meals that he rotates just to get some greater variety of nutrition
into his day. Having said that, as far as balance goes this looks really great to
me for a breakfast. I love that we've got protein from the eggs, we've got fat from
the nut butter and yolks, carbs from the fruit and the bread, plus there's some
extra veggies snuck in there. Looks really satisfying and probably a better
choice after a big workout compared to what he described having before which
was just oats with a little bit of a bar on top.
The extra fat in there may slow down carbohydrate and and protein absorption
a little bit, but if it's working for John it's working for me because I just
love how balanced it is in general. Let's see what else he has. This cliff builder's bar right here I really like these. You guys know, I don't do dairy.
Messes with my stomach, gives me mad acne. But these are nice, they get a
good amount of calories in because again for me not trying to lose weight or
anything like that. Okay so we just found out that John doesn't consume dairy
because he says it causes some digestive discomfort and acne. So let's just unpack
that for a quick second. Research has shown that dairy can cause breakouts in
some people especially those with more acne prone skin. It also sounds like John
may or may not be lactose intolerant if it's causing some serious stomach upset
or at the very least he's finding whey to cause bloating which is not uncommon.
Research has shown that some people report difficulty digesting whey protein
and experienced digestive symptoms like bloating, gas, stomach cramps, and diarrhea. These digestive symptoms are usually related to lactose intolerance as
lactose is the main carbohydrate in whey protein. So for people who experience
lactose intolerance and are looking for an appropriate protein powder, whey
protein isolate would be a more appropriate option versus whey protein
concentrate, as the isolate has a smaller amount of lactose. Other non-dairy
protein powder options include soy, pea, rice, or hemp protein. So if you're also
finding yourself bloated after whey, maybe experiment with some other proteins to
find the best one for you. On another note, it's also really
refreshing to see somebody in the weight loss community look at the calories on
the nutrition labels to ensure that they're getting enough calories versus
looking for a lower amount. Although John is known for his extreme weight loss, I
get the impression that his goals are now to really build and maintain muscle
mass while maintaining a sustainable balanced diet and he knows that any
extreme caloric restriction isn't gonna help him
out there. Let's take a look at meal 2. We got some overnight oats that I made last night they have 120 grams of oats, we have a
serving of this Skippy peanut butter, I have some sweetener. I like to use sweet
and low. Also we have this new ghost protein, this is the vegan pancake batter.
I went to GNC I bought this. And the last thing I do is I crunch up one of these
little nut bars and I put this in the oats. Okay so again, we have a super simple meal here with the overnight oats which
is admittedly one of my favorite no-fuss meals of all time. I love that we have
some healthy complex carbohydrates from the oats, tons of protein with the
protein powder and healthy fats from the peanut butter and crushed nut bar on top.
I mean I would love a little veg in there but that would probably be kind of
strange in oats and he did have a salad this day for the first meal proving that
breakfast does not have to mean cereal and lunch does not need to mean salad.
There is no nutrition rule book that says your body needs to necessarily get
these stereotypical meals in a particular order, so I love that John is
switching things up. Let's take a look at day twos second meal. So for the macros, for one serving at 60 calories one fat, three carbs, and eight grams of
protein. So we're gonna be adding 16 grams of protein because I'm going to do
two servings in this. We have two little pieces of toast with some berries on it,
and then I just threw some berries and the rest of the whatever pudding protein
pudding I guess if you want to call it. So this will be a fun meal. I mean
honestly this is not something that I eat all of the time. This is actually my
first time like mixing the powder with this exact pudding so we'll see how it
tastes. I guess I'll do a little live taste test haven't done that in forever. Okay so with this meal John is getting ready for his second workout of the day
and he's created his "protein pudding" concoction with some dairy-free yogurt
and protein cookie butter and then threw it on some toast. Mmm this guy gets some
serious creativity points right here because of this I can only imagine how
delicious that taste. But I also love putting yogurt on toast
instead of like cream cheese and I often mix a little powdered peanut butter in
mine so I guess it's basically like the same idea and I love it.
Also though, cookie butter protein? Yes please.
So I love that he is staying true to his mandate of adding more fruit to his diet
by topping it off with berries. So kudos to you, John. It also makes sense that he
would want to limit his fat intake prior to a workout and focus more on protein
and carbs, as fat will slow down the rate of digestion which may leave him feeling
a little bit sluggish and bloated before his workout. I also want to quickly
address the fact that I see him weighing and measuring his food a lot. First of
all I want to acknowledge how common and normalized this behavior is in the
fitness community as a lot of fitness enthusiasts may aim for very specific
macronutrient ranges but considering John's orthorexic past, I do wonder if
measuring and weighing his food is at all triggering to him as this may
perpetuate disordered thoughts and behaviors. It may not be an issue for him
anymore, but I'm just flagging this because it can be hard for a lot of
people to just turn off those thoughts. Let's take a look at how his afternoon
looks before getting into meal 3. It's like 4:30 now and I'm getting ready to go to the gym for workout number 2. This is going to be more my bodybuilding focused
workout so today we have a push workout. So it was gonna be mainly chest and
shoulders but I'm actually about to head out again and go on a walk. I've been
trying to add in a walk. Okay so far John had a pretty hardcore workout this
morning, then he had a second workout at 4:30, and immediately after went on a
long walk. Now I wish I had that kind of time in my day. That is kind of my dream
I mean maybe I'm not doing anything strenuous like that but I would also
love to do like a little weights in the morning, Pilates in the afternoon, nice
little walk with friends when of course social distancing becomes a thing of the
past. But with a busy toddler, a busy business, and another baby on the way
that's gonna have to wait until like retirement for me. But I mean kudos to
him this is clearly a huge priority for him in
his life and I mean what a blessing. Now going by his timestamps, it's been about four and a half hours since his last meal and ideally you'd probably would
want to space your meals and snacks around two to three hours apart to keep
your blood sugar levels balanced and to ensure that you're getting enough energy
throughout the day, especially for that level of activity. But for someone like
John who is really physically active, it's ideal to eat shortly after working
out like we talked about before that combination of carbs and protein. And
actually if we're getting technical you know some would suggest around three
times as many carbs as protein. But there is no fuel between his afternoon workout
and his walk and nothing going in for at least like three and a half hours after
the gym which is less than ideal. Honestly it really wouldn't be a big
deal for like a really recreational gym goer but because this is clearly really
important to him I would think he would want to optimize that time he's spending
in the gym. So let's see what kind of impact this has on his dinner. And I'm about to make dinner but I got kind of hungry so I'm gonna eat another apple
and then I'm gonna finish off that salad that I made earlier in the day and then
I'm going to make dinner. Dinner is made. As you guys saw, so it's just stir-fry.
We got like 200 grams of rice in there as well. It's just the Uncle Ben's it's
super easy it's pretty good it's not bad. I normally just use the orange chicken
sauce that Panda Express makes but it's kinda nice to change it up a little bit.
So this is dinner I'm very excited to eat this. Okay so I'm not entirely
surprised that John is too famished to just go in and cook his dinner before
needing to eat his leftovers and the apple from earlier on in the day. I mean,
I imagine he must be like hangry at this point I know I definitely would be after
working out and then walking especially since it's been like five and a half
hours since he ate and he's done a gym workout and cardio after that his blood
sugar levels are likely pretty low at this point.
Not only because he waited so long between meals,
but also because he expended so much energy within this period of time through intense physical activity. Again, John could have easily curbed this by
having like a snack shortly after his second workout, something like a protein
bar or like a little protein smoothie, a piece of toast with tuna, something like
that. I mean there are lots of really fast easy options that he could have
even taken a smoothie with him on the walk. As for his dinner,
John is nothing if not consistent. Again, we are seeing a really super simple,
pretty balanced, nutrient-dense meal. He's made things really quick and easy by
using Uncle Ben's microwavable rice, as well as using pre-cut frozen vegetables,
and what looks like precooked frozen chicken slices, as well, that's already
been kind of pre measured out. Though John's meal is balanced with protein, carbs, and veggies, I would have liked to see some healthy fats in there to really
boost up the nutrition and help him get the most out of those fat soluble
vitamins. So maybe like a little drizzle of sesame oil or topping his bowl off
with some cashew nuts or sesame seeds. Again, I assumed this was a deliberate
choice based on his desired macros, but if we're talking general balanced diet
this would be my recommendation. I would also say I'd way rather see the fats
happening around this time of the day, rather than after the first workout just
to help with protein and glucose absorption. Having said that, if we're
still in like social isolation by the time this video comes out then this
would be a great easy meal option for those who hate cooking. I am a huge fan
of stir fries in general because you can easily change up the protein, grains,
veggies, and sauce, and make it a completely different meal every night of
the week. Simple, maybe not crazy inventive, but good by me.
Let's take a look at day two. Alright, so it is dinner time and I'm sure to no one's surprise we're making stir-fry here. And we're back with another stir-fry.
Okay so even though John has switched things up a little bit and added some
more variety to his meals in general, the tried-and-true stir-fry remains his
favorite dinner meal, which he claims to eat almost every day. And you know what?
That is totally okay. I mean if it works for him and it's something he
consistently enjoys every single time, then why the heck not. I mean if it ain't
broke don't fix it. The one thing I do want to point out is that I noticed that
John tends to use cooking spray all the time instead of any regular oil to
grease his pan whenever he cooks. Now I don't know if this is for convenience
sake or, again, it its to save calories and fat macros but many people do try to
reduce calories in this way as cooking sprays are believed to be a "no calorie"
option compared with regular high calorie oil. However, this is not actually
the case. It can be a bit confusing to interpret
how many calories you're actually getting from using a cooking spray as
the calories are measured per one third of a second of a spray. Also, if a portion
size has less than 0.5 grams of fat, it can be rounded down to zero grams and if
there's zero grams of fat apparently that means there's zero calories per
serving. This is why food manufacturers make portion sizes so unrealistically
teeny-weeny. In real life, you're not usually spraying for a fraction of a
second you're gonna go to like fully coat the pan and maybe you're reapplying
as you cook. So I would say for most people at 2 to 5 second spray perhaps is
actually far more realistic depending on the size of your cooking pan and what
you're cooking. So if there's about 2.25 calories in a third of a cooking spray
then if you spray for 5 seconds that's 34 calories worth of oil. Still really
negligible and even in a lot of cases the distribution of oil can still help
you reduce your total intake compared to adding like a big gluck in the pan but I
just wanted to share that little wee tidbit of information in case some of
you out there think that nonstick spray is miraculously
calorie-free. Let's take a look at some of his snacks. And I'm going to end the night with the classic peanut butter jelly sandwich and
some almond milk. So like I said in this video this is nothing special and again
like I said I don't recommend that people eat this. This is just the way
that I like to eat. Dealing with like people that are going to judge every
single meal that I've shown, it just makes you not want to show it that much
because again it's like I know I don't make the best decisions at every single
moment of my life but at the same time like I've been able to make progress
even though maybe the decisions aren't the best. Okay so I totally see where
John's coming from when he says he's been apprehensive about doing his full
day of eating videos because he doesn't want to deal with people judging what he
eats. Maybe he's specifically talking about me,
but like I said I I really do these videos not to shame people for their
food choices but because anyone who's putting content out there on the
internet about wellness and health and diet has a lot of power to influence
other people's beliefs and behaviors. We have a huge responsibility, even if we
say "oh but you don't have to eat that way". As for John, I like that his food
choices aren't the best all the time whatever he means by that. I actually
think his choices are really, really, amazing and most importantly they're
definitely approachable like he said. And despite the online haters, I do applaud
John for being real and just eating what he likes regardless of whether or not
it's perfect. Eating doesn't ever have to be perfect or fit into a certain type of
mold. You know, we really should not feel the need to eat in a way to always
appease others. So thank you John for following the beat of your own drum and
eating in a way that makes you feel satisfied. Now in response to the snack, we
got a classic PB&J some almond milk. Again, I guess I was wrong on people
drinking this by the glass it is a real thing so please do excuse my ignorance
on that but he also mentions at the end that he had an
Rx bar. In terms of his evening snacks, I don't think you could ever go wrong with
a classic PB&J Sammy. It's a super easy way to get in some protein and healthy fats
and is something that I definitely rely on when I'm in a pinch. One thing to be
mindful of when preparing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches is the products
that you're using. Obviously there are so many different
nut butter varieties on the market and I don't know what brand John is
specifically using but ideally you'd want to select a natural nut butter with
nuts as like the only ingredient without any added salt ,sugar, or hydrogenated
oils. The same thing can be said for like jams and jellies because a lot of them
have more sugar in them than they do actual fruit. I actually have a really
super easy low sugar chia jam on my blog which I'm gonna leave in the description
below but if you're looking to buy one you want to look for probably fruit
preserves instead of jam or jelly because fruit preserves will have more
actual fruit. Lastly we don't actually see this but he
finishes his day with an Rx bar. I am personally a huge fan of these bars as
they've got basically three simple ingredients - egg whites, dates, and nuts. I
can totally see why John would be down for that as an evening snack. Let's take
a look at day two final meal of the night. Not really a meal but we have.. this
is just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich it's nothing special but I
always like to have something sweet at the end of the night. So with this full
day of eating, and I'm sure most of you guys that have been following for a while
that have watched a couple of these videos you understand that with my
full-day eatings one - I'm definitely not saying you should try to eat exactly
like me. I'm definitely not saying that this diet is perfect for everyone. What I
am showing you is what I ate today. I honestly normally eat a little bit
more. Today I just I guess I wasn't that hungry and that's kind of how I live my
life is if I'm hungry I eat, if I'm not I don't and I don't really follow any sort
of plan or anything like that I just kind of eat when I'm hungry. John aka mr. consistent talks about ending his night off with a peanut
butter and jelly sandwich and really I love his messaging here
around eating when he's hungry and following his hunger cues accuse. He admits that he just wasn't feeling too hungry this particular day so he didn't eat as much
as he usually would and that is completely normal.
You know, our hunger levels are influenced by so many different factors
including sleep, stress level, diet quality, exercise, medications, etc. So it's great
to see that John is in tune with his body's needs and eating in a very
intuitive way without feeling preoccupied with reaching a very
specific caloric or macro goal. Okay, so now let's talk about my overall
thoughts about John's "What I Eat In A Day" nutrition. So not surprising for someone
who takes such good care of his body, John's meals are very balanced as most
of his meals have a nice combination of protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats.
He also stays true to his word and keeps his meals very simple and approachable
while making sure he gets the nutrition that his body needs. Based on our
nutrient analysis John is getting somewhere between 3,000 and 3700
calories, about a 195 grams of protein, 390 grams of
net carbs, and 136 grams of fat. Now that may sound like a lot but for someone
like John who works out twice a day these amounts are actually totally
normal and healthy. I will comment that he does obviously have a tendency to
look heavily at the macro nutrient profile of the foods he's eating and
talk about very specific portions of some of his foods, like getting a 200 grams of rice. He also eats pretty much the same thing every day
likely because he knows the macros and doesn't need to count or calculate
something new. This is pretty common behavior in the fitness community and
for a lot of people this isn't triggering at all. You know, the food is
fuel for their workouts and it's enjoyable enough not to be problematic,
but for others this level of preoccupation and inflexibility can be
highly distressing. So I just want to flag that John, I get what you're doing,
but everyone else this is not the only way to eat and reach your goals. At the
end of the day, John seems to have established a bit of a routine of eating
that is sustainable and simple to him and is something that he actually enjoys.
I also appreciate that he's self reflected on his diet and found ways to
add more nutritive value to it by adding more variety to his meals while also
preserving the meals that he just consistently enjoys eating every day. Now
in terms of suggestions, I would have liked to maybe see a little better meal
spacing and more consistent post-workout nourishment but I don't know if these
were just kind of like an off day or a regular pattern for him since we don't
get a lot of insights into his daily diet with his videos. So in general is
this way of eating balanced? I think we've established that the answer to
this question is "yes". John's meals are consistently well balanced with a source
of protein, carbohydrate, vegetables and healthy fats. His meals are even more
balanced now that he's made a commitment to add more fruit and veggies to his
diet. so this dietitian is loving that our
nutrient analysis also confirmed that he's meeting all the necessary nutrients
for someone his age, weight, and activity level which he is obviously probably
well aware of himself. Are there any problematic claims or
assumptions made by this channel? As I've already mentioned, John steers clear of
engaging in any sort of extreme diet culture rules and restrictions when it
comes to food. Any talk of calories or nutrition is made kind of as a means to
ensure that he has enough to satisfy his fitness needs. He even openly admits that
he doesn't care so much about calories and repeatedly mentions that he doesn't
focus too much on what is healthy but rather eats what he likes even if it is
repetitive. Based on this point of view, John appears to have a pretty good
relationship with food and a pretty healthy mindset when it comes to food
and his body, particularly in light of his disordered eating past. Now even
though we don't explicitly hear john promote
weight loss measures or problematic behaviors in his "what I eat in a day
videos", he does bring up some controversial topics elsewhere on his
channel, namely his thoughts on the health at every size movement and the
body positivity movement. In many of his videos he discusses his take on why HAES
is dangerous as he believes it normalizes morbid obesity and sends the
wrong message that losing weight is impossible and people should just
therefore accept themselves as they are. Now I can understand why John would see
the movement from this lens, as he was previously an obese person who was
successful at losing a significant amount of weight and keeping it off.
However, I do want to flag that the vast majority of people don't fall into this
category and we know that most people who set out to intentionally lose weight
with restrictive dieting end up weight cycling, aka gaining and losing weight,
which can actually be more detrimental to health than just maintaining their
original weight. I will also say that a lot of people do not have the ability and
capacity to work out two to three times a day like John or maintain a very kind
of simplified macro focused diet. Having said that, the main message that John
consistently delivers on this channel when it comes to weight loss is to do so
in a healthy and sustainable way. He also completely discourages extreme behaviors
like restrictive dieting and over exercising as a means to reach weight
loss goals which I do appreciate him saying. In a lot of his videos, he does
talk about how you can't lose weight from a place of "I hate my body" and
expect those changes to last. Which, again, I can 100% agree with. I admire what John
has been able to achieve for himself through his lifestyle changes and
appreciate the balanced messaging that he provides for his viewers. John also
does differentiate between being overweight and being morbidly obese, as
in one video he mentions that he does believe you can be overweight and
metabolically healthy which is actually supported by ample scientific evidence
but he also is concerned about glamourizing the extreme end of the
spectrum aka morbid obesity. Now I do agree with John that this is murky
territory because I can appreciate the potential health implications of being
morbidly obese, while I can also appreciate the risks of weight cycling.
So I see it as a bit of a risk-benefit analysis that is really unique to the
individual. I myself have had to do a lot of research and just a lot of
soul-searching and I've shared my updated thoughts on weight loss and HAES
on my channel so you can check that out right here if you want to know where I
stand and how I support people's goals no matter what they are. Now while John
might be really vocal about denouncing the body-positive
or fat acceptance movement, and I've become a little bit more moderate or neutral in
my views at this point on this, I do appreciate that when he does discuss
influencers who promote HAES or body positivity he does so in a relatively
respective way. In one video where he was discussing Sophie Hagen's Instagram post
about celebrating world obesity day, he says that while he may not believe that
celebrating obesity as a concept is healthy he doesn't ever judge an
individual or think negatively about the individual. Rather he points out that he
doesn't really think we should be celebrating a person for being obese the
same way that he doesn't think we should be celebrating a person for being fit.
There are just more interesting and important attributes to a person other
than the size of pants that they wear. I also like that he says that his weight
loss didn't make him a better person than somebody who is still 600 pounds,
rather the only thing that has changed was that he thinks he is now healthier
and that is awesome for him. I mean I agree with all of that. I guess where I
get a little turned off, hence why I'm bringing this all up to you guys, is that
I find he does talk about obesity and others experiences of obesity in a less
than sensitive way which, again, is kind of his schtick. He's all about why are we
all being so offended by everything but as an example I've heard him say things
like eat yourself to death which yeah seems pretty assumptive and insensitive.
There isn't a whole lot of consideration for socioeconomic factors, mental health, medication, and other physical ailments.
I mean his assumption is just that someone is a size that they are solely
for eating too much and that may have been the case for him, I don't know, and
it may be the case for a lot of other people. But I don't think that we can
make assumptions about why or how someone is the size that they are, so I'm
not saying that the information on his channel is problematic per se but it may
be stigmatizing and triggering and therefore problematic to a lot of my
viewers, so that is what I'm here to flag. Now are there any good takeaways from
the obese to beast's channel? Definitely. I think we can all take something away
from his channel especially when it comes to his philosophy around food and
keeping things simple and sustainable. This is so key when it comes to eating. I
mean you can try every diet on the planet, but what it really comes down to is
whether or not you enjoy it and if it's sustainable for you. We also see John's
openness to switching up his routine and adding more value to his way of eating. I
think it can definitely be very easy for some of us to kind of get stuck in a
routine pattern of eating, so I am glad to see that we're able to kind of take
this journey with him. I'm also a big lover of super simple food hacks and his
"no fuss" approach to eating and cooking which I definitely think is a really
great takeaway for me, personally. Bottom line, I really enjoyed John's content and
I think he's actually a really smart guy. I also enjoyed how real he is on his
channel and his "no-fuss" positive attitude when it comes to food. While
he's not a nutrition professional, per se, he doesn't seem to promote any dangerous
fad diets and while I may not agree with all of his statements, I can fully
respect his personal experience and his opinion. Well folks, that is all for
today's video. Thank you again to audible for sponsoring this video! If you liked
it be sure to give it the thumbs up, leave me a comment below with who you
would like to see me review next, subscribe to the channel, and I'll see
you next time on Abbey's Kitchen. Bye!
