Episode 128: GOLO makes us GoLoco!
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Episode Description
In this episode of The Up-Beet Dietitians podcast, Emily and Hannah discuss the newest, non-diet, weight loss program: GOLO. This might be the first weight loss program that directly calls out other weight loss program and medications (that Hannah and Emily are aware of, which is especially juicy). The girls discuss the effectiveness of the program and their surprise when it came to the marketing. Tune in for another diet review by yours truly!
Tune in on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube to listen.
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0:08
hello everyone welcome back to another episode of the upbeat dietitians
0:14
podcast Hello everybody welcome back to a new episode a new diet review in fact
0:19
what we got going on today highly requested one when I was making the outline I was
0:26
already getting fired up so we might have a what's the do they call me crazy Hannah or something yeah according to
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our analytics of what Google searches there are about us yeah I might bring
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her out today we'll see what happens but we're gonna go over what goo is and then we've got a good long list of all the
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issues with it and why it probably isn't going to be the anti-diet solution they
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say it is it's a crazy claim to
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make yeah let's start off with what goo is though so it's a weight loss
1:04
supplement also sometimes known as like goo release that claims to help with
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glucose control insulin resistance and hormone balance because everyone's all
1:16
about regulating those hormones these days yeah which insulin is also a
1:23
hormone so that's included in there already and glucose is managed also with
1:29
hormones so it's mostly just like a hormone regulatory weight loss supplement yeah
1:37
that's what it is or claims to be that's like the main thing they sell is the goo
1:42
release supplement and they say that with a purchase of the supplement you also get their like what do they call it
1:50
it's a diet plan oh the goo for Life Plan okay and I think that also includes
1:56
like membership they have what's called The Smart Card which basically is my
2:01
plate essentially is what it looks like but like a little bit different um but yeah the supplement is the main like
2:08
that's what you think of you think of Goo as a supplement um but with that order you do get some guidance
2:14
on what to actually eat which we'll get to what that all entails in a minute but they say that you can purchase one two
2:22
or three bottles of the supplement quote depending on how much weight you need to lose so like you get to pick what the
2:30
right dosage is yeah how would you know like did you make the
2:37
supplement it's it's it's crazy we'll get to that in the cons later too but like it's so unclear like when to take
2:45
it how much to take how long to take it for what is happening it's very
2:51
confusing yeah yeah should we get into the science behind it how they claim works let's talk about it okay so like
3:00
Emily said it's all about like hormone balancing glucose insulin resistance all
3:06
that good stuff they have on their main homepage that lists four different main
3:12
functions of release the supplement including fat burning which underneath that burning it say insulin resistance
3:19
so I guess those two things go together according to them hunger control which
3:24
underneath it says glucose control immune function which says immunity Health below it and then weight loss
3:31
hormone balance they just like picked eight buzzwords and threw them in these little hexagons with a picture of the
3:37
supplement right in the middle yeah like yeah it sounds good yeah so they say
3:45
that you take one release which is again a supplement with your meals make sure
3:51
you're eating balanced meals though and eliminate diet foods which we'll get to
3:56
as the very first con here in a minute they are so adamantly not a diet they
4:01
say it's going to be so much more sustainable this time they even call out like other diets out there and how
4:07
they're better than them because they're all about metabolism and you know slow steady fat
4:15
loss and maintaining muscle which all those things are very important for weight loss to be
4:22
maintained but this is such a random supplement with all these things that we have no evidence to suggest they
4:28
actually do what it claims to do something I'll note just in the
4:35
same paragraph is like you just listed they said eliminate diet foods but in
4:41
the previous sentence they say eliminating eliminating conventional starvation dieting which is very
4:48
confusing when you're like we're not going to make you starve and do the conventional dieting but you need to
4:54
eliminate diet foods when there's like not really
5:01
yeah it's very confusing what they're recommending yeah besides taking the supplement that's the
5:08
main thing because like the diet plan there's so little info about what it actually entails it just says like
5:13
healthy foods no restriction all foods fit but like it doesn't actually tell you like what that means and I guess
5:22
I'll say this goingon to say the studies also are of course funded by them and also the participants are doing exercise
5:29
and diet changes so that's probably why they're losing weight
5:34
yeah quite a few factors that might affect that so it's tough to say it's
5:40
just the supplement well one last thing before we get into our list of cons I did include
5:47
on our little outline here a list of the supplement facts which we can put on the screen here um for those of you watching
5:54
on YouTube so it has magnesium zinc and
5:59
chromium those are like the main ingredients and then they have a proprietary blend I just
6:06
knew had to I saw that I was like H
6:11
interesting yeah we've discussed these before this is basically when a supplement company can say it's their
6:18
own fancy Dancy mish mash of ingredients and there's no one
6:25
to check them on that and say if it's actually true so in their proprietary
6:31
blend they've got all kinds of like herbs berberine which is claimed to be
6:37
nature zoic as of lately I feel like we should address that in a future episode yeah apple extract and a few other
6:44
various like barks and leaf extracts again I'll put it on
6:50
the screen if you want to see it on YouTube but they they claim that there are lots of studies supporting the use
6:57
of these individual ual ingredients and that may be true I'm
7:04
not going to read all I didn't read all those studies I didn't read all 100 whatever they said that's there is that
7:09
doesn't mean though that a that's actually in this supplement because it's proprietary blend we have no idea if
7:15
it's actually what's in there or tell the truth exactly exactly no one is like checking them on that or that it's going
7:22
to work in this context at this dose with these other ingredients in this
7:28
supplement yeah where there might be like contraindications between the two of them it could potentially affect like
7:36
medications like and I just checked their website because whenever we talk about supplements we always talk about
7:41
third party testing and they state that we perform extensive third-party
7:47
finished product testing on every lot that is produced but they don't say who
7:53
is doing the third party testing and then they just go on to say like the supplements are
8:00
manufactured in the US so you could say you are but typically when people are
8:07
paying for the third party testing when there's a nonbiased source testing if their supplement label is correct people
8:14
are paying quite a bit for that so they like to name drop who is doing the
8:19
testing like NSF consumer lab yeah that that will be on the front exactly I
8:26
found when I was digging in like the Q&A section they said that release is made in the
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USA at an FDA registered pharmaceutical facility which is NSF International and
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organic certified and is only available through goo so like their facility where they're
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processing it seems to be following the rules evidently but again that does not mean that the actual supplement itself
8:50
was tested it just means they're not like you have to send them murdering people in their facility or something
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great and there's no rats like on theine line evidently but like otherwise we don't know what's in the supplement
9:03
actually matches the label yeah yeah let's just start off with the the
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anti-diet cling that's always well we're we're all about that we're in that space
9:16
so it's always interesting when someone let's say like
9:22
new last from the past even though they're still around but unfortunately when they claim to be anti-diet
9:30
it's crazy so they start off on their website they're saying like in the last 10 years dieters have spent over $600
9:36
billion dollar on diets and diet products yet we keep getting heavier like and people have been
9:41
dieting for longer than 10 years will not that's true but like this could be a
9:47
true claim like we know that D culture is worth billions of dollars y y y so like this part is true but they're
9:53
selling a solution to it that is just going to make that statistic go higher
9:59
yeah because all they're really selling is the supplement like like we talked
10:05
about they're very unclear about the dietary restrictions physical
10:12
activity levels that you should be implementing the studies that have been done have shown increased physical
10:18
activity levels and changes in dietary habits which can have a very dramatic
10:24
effect on someone's body that's just
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crazy um so it's very interesting that they're
10:36
like talking about what they're pushing in like people are spending all this
10:42
money on it spend money on this weight loss supplement right because it's it's
10:47
different but I want to talk about the shade to I love the shade know this I
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had no idea there was beef well I'm sure there was I didn't know that they were
11:00
were name dropping now like literally they call out like OIC wovie Weight
11:05
Watchers n yeah amazing and they say they're drastic measures which they are
11:11
they're not wrong on there and this is like prime example of like we're we're
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at a place now where most of us know that restrictive ridiculous diets don't work like at this point a lot of us are
11:25
understanding of that and so what's happening is these companies are getting
11:30
super duper sneaky and they're using that anti-diet language because they know that if they don't we're not going
11:37
to fall for it but with this it's very convincing it's like diets don't work that's you know
11:44
when you do these diets you're just getting heavier your metabolism is getting all effed up you've probably
11:50
tried new and Weight Watchers that's why you're here now we have the solution to help you because those weight loss
11:58
programs are not as good as ours but at the end of the day it's all just another diet it's all the
12:03
same it's crazy I also I did not see this the first time when I was looking
12:08
through this the inold on their website where it says you have the willpower to reach your goals but the drug and crash
12:15
diet companies want to make you dependent on them for the rest of their your
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life they have hacked the language whoever's on their Market supplement
12:27
whoever's on their marketing team knows everything we are
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saying but then they're just disregarding that like think what they're selling like how can you say these
12:40
things and then look back like I know obviously it's for money but like from a
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moral like saying we have a good moral compass code of ethics or whatever that
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we unfortunately have to have unfortunately um how could you say these things like
13:00
supplements that aren't regulated and like they get lots of kudos for their
13:06
marketing I'm I'm impressed they did their research they did their research they
13:12
know their target audience yes and like if you're reading through this you're like
13:17
wow snap to them they're getting it so in this little snippet we included
13:26
they call out here I'm just going to read it verbatim it's very very funny so it says quote with goo you don't need to
13:32
take drastic measures like wovi or OIC or weight loss surgery and risk muscle
13:37
loss hormone imbalance and accelerated aging dieting this way does not address
13:43
the root problem slows metabolism and you will likely gain the weight back if you are on a glp1 drug now go look and
13:50
help manage the side effects and keep the weight off so they even say that there a solution to those who are taking
13:57
OIC or wovi and have that fear of regaining the weight they they know
14:02
exactly who Their audience is it's very impressive yes they put a lot of money into
14:08
marketing and it is it's probably paying off I assume yeah I mean I get ask with
14:13
this all the time people are always asking about goo so it's clearly getting out there on a similar front they also
14:20
call out Newman Weight Watchers so I'm gonna quote this one too they say quote Weight Watchers n and other apps and
14:27
online online weight loss companies charge you every month and make it hard to cancel but when you stop paying you
14:33
lose all the information you relied on and now they want you to add prescription drugs because they know
14:39
their programs don't work like these are all the things that we say like it's
14:45
they hacked our podcast they they listen to our podcast and they're like this is
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what we're gonna include it's it's it's kind of like scary it's how good their
14:58
marketing is they're literally so right about all these things like that is why
15:03
new and Weight Watchers have these drugs because their programs don't work like they're totally right about
15:09
that I'm just like in a State of Shock I'm impressed like they're clearly
15:17
listening it's just we're not ending up in the same place
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buten though we keep we keep doing these diet reviews where they're saying things
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like this clearly a weight dos yes when they're clearly all about weight loss it's insane like they're all catching on
15:36
and Shifting the language making it just so much more confusing than it already
15:41
was for poor people who are stuck in this D mentality
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yeah it's crazy it's crazy I like like
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no one talks about this I've not heard anyone talk about this part of Goo yet
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like this like sneaky stuff yeah and it's like very well
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thought out and very blatant yeah so that's problem one we've got a whole
16:10
slew of other things wrong with goo yeah but I think the most glaring issue from our point of view as non-diet dietitians
16:18
is the co-opting of the anti-diet language so insane and so obvious if
16:24
you're if you've got a trained eye like us it's very obvious but if you don't it's just genius marketing yeah yeah our
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next issue is about the diet and food plant which confuses me because I don't
16:40
understand what I was looking at you buy the supplement either like
16:47
one two or three bottles depending on how much weight you want to lose you get to decide and then apparently with that you
16:53
get this plan that tells you what to eat what not to eat which is
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funny because they're not a diet um they're little like my plate
17:05
esque looking chart I think they have I see I see I
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think the my goo is like their membership that has like recipes and online resources that kind of
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thing and then again like the The Smart Card which is like the the my plate guy
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but of course this is not individualized in any way every single person gets the same the same plan with the supplement
17:32
that they have to self assess like what amount is right for them to take so like
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there's no guidance here whatsoever and evidently they also have what they call the jump start plan which is a
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detox because you know they're not a diet but they have a detox 7-Day reset
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everyone needs that dieting 101 if you're going to sell one you need a weak
17:56
detox it's just one has that at every point eight days absolutely not seven
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days CH Ching seven days the best marketing that's exactly how long your
18:08
body needs to be detoxing before you jump into the next phase of the
18:15
plan and then they're like saying in the detox because they're not a diet that you'll eat a variety of quot
18:22
unquote superfoods that will help detox and reduce inflammation and help you identify foods that might sabotaging
18:29
your weight loss efforts AKA you shouldn't eat those Foods because
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they're going to make you gain weight but we're not a diet though not a diet not a
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diet the word also sabotage like kind of makes me Google like that's we're so
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dramatic goo is nothing if not dramatic like the way they like are so
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hard on the gp1s and Newman Weight Watchers stealing your
19:00
money sabotaging your weight loss I'm like looking at your background like the
19:06
bananas are sabotaging you
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you like oh my gosh okay let's go on to the next one we talked about it a little
19:17
bit already but they of course in once again classic diet fashion they have all
19:25
these studies to back up their claim trying to prove to the consumer who
19:32
doesn't know any better that they're they're the most scientific evidence-based product out there I
19:39
mentioned the sub or the the studies that talk about all the different individual ingredients in the
19:45
proprietary Bland Bland proprietary blend probably is very Bland yeah but
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they also have a few studies that are about the release supplement specifically but of course these are all
19:58
funded by Goo who else is going to pay for goo to test these supplements individually so first red flag right
20:05
there and like maybe you're like well who it like the question like who would
20:11
fund it so like they have to fund their own research that's like just a anytime it comes to
20:16
research it's a huge conflict of interest if like say I was doing research
20:23
on if lactose intolerance gets worse with
20:29
anxiety and it was funded by lactate lactate yeah that's going to
20:35
be very interesting because they will benefit from saying oh
20:44
lactoses you don't digest it as well if you're anxious and we're all anxious now in this
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world but like that's a huge they will benefit directly from the results of that and
20:57
also when when you're pouring money into something sometimes the results can get
21:03
construed or we just present them in a way that doesn't make them appear in a
21:08
way that they actually are you would be very surprised very very surprised how many
21:15
times research studies not you Hannah you you know you guys would be
21:22
surprised you guys would be surprised how easily research gets misconstrued in
21:29
like news articles just like being presented on like in presentations like it's very
21:37
unfortunately easy to manipulate it to say kind of
21:43
what you want unless you're reading the study directly and you know kind of what to look for right that's the thing too
21:50
is like not to make anyone feel like they're dumb or less than but
21:56
the average person does not really know how to read read evidence scientific evidence like we talk about all the time
22:02
like we went to school and we had classes like literally just about learning how to read evidence which not everyone does that obviously so even if
22:10
you know you're trying your best to understand the science you may just not quite know what you're looking at and
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these companies know that so they don't have to put much effort into explaining or they can just benefit from using
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their own funds to do these studies and then say that it's like the best supplement ever even though the only
22:32
ones checking in on that claim is them
22:38
yeah this is just a classic supplement story is what we always talk about it is but they're evolving with their
22:45
marketing that's the biggest thing that's honestly changing which is I wonder I wonder if like AI has like any
22:53
role in this if like the marketing team like types in like anti-et
23:00
how say it be AI is so smart it can AI can
23:06
write like blog posts you can easily be like write an expert excerpt advertising
23:12
a like non diet approach to weight loss with they can probably throw in like
23:18
eating disorder in there and like get those words yep oh yeah they're 100%
23:25
using that okay I no longer am proud of the marketing team I'm proud of AI
23:31
advancements which is scary which is very scary let's go on to the next one
23:36
we've touched on this a little bit but the supplement is advised to be used for like three to six months for weight loss
23:43
and the studies show about that time frame as well but of course weight maintenance is not addressed like we do
23:50
not know the long-term effects of this but we do know historically the long-term outcomes of dieting which this
23:57
absolutely is one and so it's pretty safe to assume that a
24:02
lot of people who lose weight from goola will likely experience the same outcomes as those who lose weight from Weight
24:08
Watchers Doom gp1s calorie counting weight regain is just usually
24:14
part of the equation and that is so confusing because there's just so many like
24:20
question marks for like how much to take another they like 3 to six months and then like what do you do what most
24:26
likely happens is like if you stop taking it then you gain the way back you're like oh I have to restart it and then it's that cycle
24:34
of yo-yo dieting which yep goo claims
24:39
not to be because they are not a diet they are not a diet I don't know if I
24:45
saw the word lifestyle change in here glaringly obvious anyway but I'm sure it's in there very similarly the dosage
24:52
is like I said not really personalized I even saw in the Q&A section something
24:58
that said quote you can reduce or increase the dosage depending on your weight loss goals and metabolic health
25:05
status as if a people are realistic with their weight loss goals we know they're
25:11
not historically people have very drastic weight loss goals because we are told that thinner is better we got to
25:17
get there as fast as possible and B this assumes that people know their metabolic health status I don't know if I know my
25:24
bolic health status what does that even mean
25:30
like like is it like when people say they have a fast metabolism or like a slow metabolism right is it like if you
25:37
have a hormonal chronic disease like diabetes like what what ises this me but
25:45
like even if like you feel like your metabolism is let's say stunted like I have a slow metabolism if I even look at
25:50
chocolate I gain 10 pounds is that actually what's happening or have you just been dieting for the last 30 years
25:56
and so your body is trying to do what it does best which is keep you safe and
26:02
you're just not quite sure how to overcome that because all you've known is dieting for all your your all of your adult life bottom line with this one is
26:09
like this is going to be so easily abused and like overused because they don't give any clear guidelines they
26:16
have like one little thing that says like one capsule with the meal or something but they say this too if you
26:22
want to take more you can if you have bigger weight loss goals that you are pursuing yeah and if could be a very
26:28
dangerous slippery slip of like oh this isn't working well enough I have to take
26:34
more and then you take more and more and more and you we don't know how this supplement is going to affect your body
26:41
from a long-term standpoint or even shortterm even shortterm yeah the proprietary blend you just don't know we
26:48
always bring up price of course and of course this one is very expensive oh I
26:54
just scrolled a little bit further on the website and they have something called go digest which I did not see until just now oh what is that so along
27:03
with release which we talked about already they have go digest which is helping with that
27:10
connection from your brain and your gut your immunity your satiety oh my gosh
27:16
controlling cravings and emotional eating goo is going to cure your
27:23
emotional eating why because a supplement will fix a
27:31
mental issue also emotional eating is capitalized and
27:37
so like the ease and emotional and eating so I feel like they are using Ai
27:43
and just copying and pasting emotional eating has no need to be capitalized in this in this
27:49
use no they're just throwing in Buzz words this just in
27:56
like you are seeing how I react when when I see these things live for the first time it's
28:01
crazy what I've never seen a supplement claim to help control emotional eating this is
28:09
kind of getting out of control they're like claiming a little bit too many things too many things one B yeah okay
28:18
so one bottle is 90 capsules okay honestly I was reviewing I made a blog
28:26
post just today on colostrum supplements this is nothing compared to colostrum it'san I don't want to know anyway we
28:32
have an upcoming episode on that we'll get to so we're going to save our our words for that but still this is crazy
28:39
$49.95 for 90 capsules and then it gets less that you pay for like more bottles of each but
28:45
essentially like 40 to 50 bucks per bottle of this supplement that's just
28:51
proprietary blend and if you're taking like I'm just looking at the one battle
28:57
because that's easiest for my math to compute say you're eating three times a
29:02
day maybe and you take one so that's going to be like a 30-day
29:09
Supply that's $50 a month right and then if you want more
29:17
for if you want to take with snacks they just say meals but I feel like I could easily be like take it with a snack then
29:23
you're going to take more of that maybe you go up to the 180 spend
29:29
$45 or if you take it with the go digest which is 40 bucks a
29:37
bottle that is I'm doing math very slowly in my head
29:44
right now $600 I think a year thanks just if you spent one bottle a month but
29:50
hey you're going to cure your emotional eating so could be worth it that's so
29:56
crazy someone needed to be checking that AI be like
30:01
wait they're just copied and pasted I know I hadn't really dug into goo much
30:07
until we were planning on doing this episode and yeah I can't say I was that surprised but I was the most surprised
30:13
about all this like anti-diet language yeah maybe they're a dietitian who has
30:19
like gone Rogue they're like us they're like so bitter about everything that they just like say screw it I'm going to
30:26
go work for the yeah if you can't beat them join them is what they were
30:31
saying you either die the hero or lived long enough to see your become the enemy
30:38
and I feel like that's a dietician this is going to be us in a good 10 years probably we're GNA be on
30:45
someone like goo's marketing team with just like the exact knowledge and words that
30:53
we know how to use to get the right people just kidding guys we won't do that I promise no no we unfortunately have a pretty
31:01
strong moral compass and we have each other too I like we wouldn't let each other do that and I think even if it got
31:07
to the point like Ross and Bobby would probably intervene they'd be like that's true at this point they like know pretty
31:15
well where we stand even if they like say things yes all the time and I'm like you
31:23
literally know r have this like YouTuber that we
31:28
watch that we just watch because he like goes to eat different fast food things at new restaurants and we love that
31:34
recently he's been doing the carnivore diet shocker interesting I can't watch
31:40
it it makes me so mad and Ross knows it pisses me off and so he turns it on all
31:45
the time he's like oh I just want to see what he's trying today and then he'll like talk about his carnivore diet and
31:50
Ross is like side eying me and giggling under his breath so they know and you're toally
31:57
right they would definitely hold us um accountable if we tried to yeah if like
32:02
our morals didn't stop us if we didn't stop each other they're our third line of defense we've got lots of layers
32:09
keeping us safe yes but yeah maybe it maybe it was some like bitter dietician
32:17
who was just like I'm over this let's make money I can't blame them honestly
32:23
yeah our last three we've really already discussed I'm going to just run through them we've already really gone we've got there could be unknown side
32:30
effects because again proprietary blend we don't really know exactly what that all entails it says that it's safe with
32:38
medications how do they know that you have idea what heads I'm on there a lot of medications
32:46
hello as we said they're not third party tested they do claim to be made in an
32:51
NSF certifi facility but does not mean that the actual supplement itself is
32:56
tested for for accuracy or safety and lastly the proprietary blend once again
33:03
big red flag we're just an interesting review this was a fun one this was a fun one this was like kind of enjoyable I'm
33:10
like oh wow look at look at them go we're we're kind of beating a dead
33:16
record but also this one was a little bit more what's the word
33:24
edgier ones this one was tricky to kind of navigate if like only because we are
33:31
so familiar with this that we can identify it but like if you wouldn't you'd be like oh what do we have here
33:39
they have commercials too I see their commercials all the time Ross and I were at bebs recently and I saw it on the TV and of course Ross made a joke about it
33:46
he's like oh look your favorite show's on okay
33:51
yeah what a time to be alive well they they're just going to keep evolving and they're just going to keep giving us
33:58
diet reviews to make we'll be here that's true we benefit in a weird
34:03
roundabout way yeah I'm sure there's nicer things we could talk about but
34:09
this is what we must put our energy toward now at least we're having fun with it at least today I thought i'
34:15
turned into wild Hannah I did for a minute there the whole emotional eating thing but otherwise this
34:21
was pretty chill I feel we're also getting more chill about it like just we
34:27
started off very angry and now we're just like oh look at them go we're proud
34:33
of their marketing team kudos to them yeah oh we're getting so jaded yeah
34:42
well guys thanks for tuning in make sure you subscribe leave your comments your thoughts on the supplement and other
34:49
topics you guys want to hear about in future episodes yeah and we'll catch you in the bonus question listen to it on
34:57
Spotify I think it's exclusively there um but we appreciate you guys listening we will see you next week bye
The Beet Deets Bonus Segment
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So with all these supplements that have crazy claims, we wanted to share what we wish existed. What if you could take a supplement, eat some food, and it tasted exactly like your grandma's lasagna? Or what if you could take a supplement and suddenly feel completely well rested despite only getting 5 hours of sleep? Just a couple of our thoughts, but be sure to tune in because our thoughts start to defy the laws of... physics and reality.
