46: Carbs Aren’t Bad

Troy: I guess we're not doing the megaphone moment anymore, huh? We won't make you use the megaphone.

Scot: That made people uncomfortable, including me.

"Who Cares About Men's Health," providing information, inspiration, and motivation to better understand and engage in your health so you feel better today and in the future. My name is Scot Singpiel. I'm the manager of thescoperadio.com. And I care about men's health.

Troy: And I'm Dr. Troy Madsen. I'm an emergency physician at the University of Utah, and I care about men's health.

Thunder: I'm Thunder Jalili. I'm a Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Integrated Physiology. And I care about men's health because I keep coming back on this podcast.

Scot: I love it. I love having Thunder here because I know we're going to talk about some good nutrition stuff . . .

Troy: Exactly.

Scot: . . . and learn a little bit about nutrition, maybe simplify some things, maybe get rid of some myths.

So our focus on this podcast is to keep things simple. And we do that by breaking down things into the core four plus one more, saying that you should just focus on these things, and if you do that, you're going to feel better today and in the future. We're talking about nutrition, activity, sleep, mental wellbeing, and the one more is genetics.

So, today, we're going to look at nutrition and this is Part 2 of our macronutrient series. We already did our episode on protein. This episode is all about carbs and I would like to title this "Carbs: They aren't bad. They're actually good," because it seems like carbs kind of get a bad rap nowadays.

Troy: They absolutely do.

Scot: When I say carbs, what do you think about, Troy?

Troy: I mean, everything we always hear is, "Oh, I'm trying to drop my carbs." "Oh, no, there's carbs in this. I've got to . . ." Personally, I love carbs. I'm going to be honest. Full disclosure, I'm a big fan of carbs, but the average person you hear carbs and your immediate thought is, "That's bad. I should not be eating it."

Scot: Yeah. So some of the noise you hear, "carbs are fattening," "low-carb diets are healthier," "bread, pasta, rice is bad," "fruit has sugar in it and that's bad," I mean, the list goes on and on. Thunder is a nutritionist. When I say carbs to you, what do you think about?

Thunder: I actually think of carbs in two categories. I think of carbs that are natural. They come from plant products and I think of carbs that are refined and added in the food processing. So, to me, they have two very different meanings and obviously have two different kinds of health effects.

Scot: And do you find that people tend to think of bread and pasta and rice and sugar as carbs when people talk about carbs? Do they kind of have one idea over the other?

Thunder: Yeah. To me, it seems like most people, when they talk about carbs, they talk about the processed carbohydrates that are out there. Like you mentioned, breads and rice and pasta and any kind of added sugar that's in foods.

I think sometimes people forget that there are carbohydrates in plant products. Like if you have beans, or if you have any kind of fruit, many kinds of vegetables like carrots, they have carbohydrates. And I think we tend to diminish that little bit, but those are the kinds of carbohydrates that we need to be seeking out.

Scot: Let's start at the beginning. What is a carb and what's the benefit to me as a person, as a human?

Thunder: So carbohydrates are primarily a class of macronutrients that are built around glucose. So either plants or manufactured products that have glucose or starch in them, that's a carbohydrate. The main benefit is it's an energy source. So we get four calories for each gram of carbohydrate that we consume. So we use it as an energy source.

Troy: Your first response was, "I think of carbs is good carbs and bad carbs."

Scot: I don't know if he said that. Do you think of it as good carbs . . .

Thunder: I don't know if I said good or bad.

Troy: I guess that's how I interpreted it. You were like, "The carbs in foods," and then you were like, "The carbs that are added to stuff." So you don't think of those as good and bad. You think they're all kind of the same, or do you break them down into good and bad carbs in your mind?

Scot: For what it's worth, I think the same. I think many . . .

Troy: I guess that's what I heard.

Scot: Many of us process carbs as good and bad.

Troy: Exactly.

Thunder: Yeah. So I would agree with you in the sense that I look at carbohydrates that come from natural unprocessed sources as more "good" and the carbs that are added in any kind of refining process as "bad."

And a super simple example is look at any kind of soft drink. It has carbohydrates in it, but it's we would consider a bad carbohydrate because you're just adding a sugar. You're adding high fructose corn syrup, versus the carbohydrates that you may find in a piece of multigrain bread that's made with unrefined flour or perhaps carbohydrate that's in a sweet potato. So those are different.

Troy: But are you telling me though . . . are they different in the sense that they are actually a different compound, or they're just different because they're adding stuff and so there's too much of it? What's the difference?

Scot: Or the body reacts in a different metabolic way maybe.

Thunder: Yeah. So both elements of that. So it's the same compound. Ultimately, whether you're looking at a carbohydrate in a sweet potato or you're looking at a carbohydrate in Coca-Cola, you're going to find glucose in there, and in the case of Coca-Cola, a little mixture of glucose and fructose.

But chemically, they're kind of the same thing. It's really the food matrix that they're packed in that has all the differences, because when you have a soft drink that has carbohydrates, you're basically giving yourself a sugar infusion. It gets absorbed very rapidly, hits the bloodstream very rapidly, elicits pretty robust insulin response. Whereas if you eat a sweet potato, you're getting something with fiber in it and it has to be digested, and the absorption of that glucose is a lot slower. So it may have more of a subtle response with insulin.

Will you get the same amount of calories from both? You could. You can make them isocaloric, but it would have a different way in terms of how it hits your system.

Troy: So it sounds like really in your mind, you're breaking it down like, "Yeah, these are kind of the same thing, but you're getting a whole lot more good stuff with these carbs than you are with these carbs."

Thunder: You are. You're getting a whole lot more good stuff and probably your dosage is a lot lower too. I think that's the other thing that people sometimes forget about when you look at carbohydrates from a natural source versus an added source.

Going back to our example of soft drinks, when you have a typical soft drink, we buy 12-ounce cans. Most people actually don't have 12 ounces of soft drink. They'll get something bigger, whether they get it at a fast food place where they may be getting 24 ounces or 36 ounces. So they're getting a big dosage. They may be getting 100 grams or more of sugar from that, maybe 120 grams if it's a big enough drink.

You compare that against apples or going back to our sweet potato example, it's going to be less than what you had in the large soft drink, and it'll be in a matrix that's packed with fiber and other things. So the digestion and absorption is slower.

So it's easy to get too much carbs from processed foods because the dosage is higher. For me to get the equivalent dosage, I may have to eat a lot of sweet potato, or I may have to eat five apples or something. Most people don't sit down and plow through five apples that's equivalent in carbohydrate to a Coke.

Scot: I mean, when I learned how much sugar is in like . . . so a 12-ounce can of soda contains 8 grams of carbs . . . or excuse me, 8 teaspoons of sugar, I'm sorry, which is 130 calories. And you talk about one of those Big Gulps. I mean, you can down one of those in a half hour, 45 minutes. That's a significant number of calories.

Thunder: It's a huge amount.

Scot: This is how my brain works. I have a garden, right? So I've gone out and picked peas or beans or something like that. In order to get that same number of calories from actually raising that food myself and putting all the effort and work into it that it would take, I would have to expend a ton of energy, but I don't have to expend a ton of energy driving up to the convenience store, getting a 64-ounce Big Gulp and downing it in 45 minutes.

Thunder: Yeah. And that matrix that the Big Gulp is in, it's easy to drink. It's easy to put things in a liquid and drink them. Again, if I took your 64-ounce Big Gulp, and I put all the sugar into a bowl, it'd probably be 30 teaspoons or more, maybe 40 teaspoons. No person in their right mind would sit . . .

Troy: That's in a single Big Gulp.

Thunder: Yeah. And no one would sit down with a spoon and just eat 40 teaspoons of sugar. They probably couldn't do it. But you liquefy it, and all of a sudden it's easy to drink and you have a good time doing it.

Scot: And then that's a lot of calories you got to get rid of that.

Thunder: A lot of calories, and it's a really potent effect on your metabolism because you're getting all that sugar, you're absorbing it so quickly. It's hard to eat that much food and absorb it that quickly. So it's this dosage and delivery system. You can think about it almost in terms of a drug. It's like giving yourself an IV of sugar versus having something absorb much more slowly over longer periods of time.

Troy: So you kind of broke it down, like, "Okay, these are the carbs where you have the other stuff that comes with it, that makes it better, versus this other where it's just straight-up sugar coming in." What's the downside of that though? I mean, if I'm just taking sugar in, I'm getting energy from it. It makes me feel good. What's the downside of this?

Thunder: The downside is that having simple carbohydrates in that fashion is associated with obesity and with diseases related to obesity, like cardiovascular disease. There are actually a number of studies that have come out and shown if you eat a high-sugar diet, you can actually increase your LDL levels. And if you don't remember what LDL is, it's that bad cholesterol that everyone's always concerned about.

And there are also studies that come out and have shown that maybe a high sugar intake increases your risk of other diseases as well. There are some people that think a high sugar intake is bad for cancer metastasis and other things like that. So it's pretty profound.

Troy: Does the sugar get converted to fat or is it more like the insulin your body produces responding to that sugar surge that then causes these other issues and the LDL production? Any idea how that really happens and why that's such a big deal?

Thunder: Yeah, it's combination of actually what you said. So sugar intake increases insulin. You need insulin to make fat. And what happens is the glucose is actually used to make fat, and that fat is then packed into lipoprotein particles that are released into the blood and eventually become LDL.

Scot: Why do carbs get such a bad rap in today's society? What's going on there? Is it a perception problem? Do carbs need a good PR firm working on their behalf?

Thunder: Yeah, I think maybe plant-based foods need a good PR firm. I think carbs get a bad rap because a lot of people do recognize the problem with having refined carbohydrates, all those foods with added sugar, and they do make it easier to overeating calories.

If I give you a food example, yogurt. So a lot of people like to buy yogurt. You can get plain yogurt, which most people don't like that much, or you can get a yogurt that's flavored somehow, with blueberry flavor or strawberry flavor, whatever. That yogurt, typically, is going to have high fructose corn syrup or some type of sugar added to it. And as a result, it'll be higher calorie.

So things like that, I think, give carbs a bad rap because it's easy to overeat calories. You won't eat as many calories if you have the non-flavored yogurt.

Troy: And to me, it makes sense. Yeah, I mean, sodas are bad. You look at all the sugar in that. And fruits and vegetables are good. Sure, those have carbs, but what about kind of this middle ground, like bread, rice, those sorts of things? Are those carbs that I should be avoiding? Should I be avoiding white rice and white bread because those just don't have the fiber? How do you look at those, kind of that middle-ground carb there?

Thunder: Great question. When I look at middle-ground, what you call middle-ground carbs . . . I like that term.

Troy: Maybe not good, but may not be bad. I don't know.

Thunder: We're not sure where they go. I just try to find things that are made with unrefined flour if I can. And I try to look at the fiber content, and that's usually my gauge of, "How refined is this product?" If it has a fair amount of fiber in it, then I feel a little better about eating it.

But at the same time, there's a spectrum of very unprocessed sources of carbohydrates, the plants themselves, all the way up through something that's highly processed, like a Pop-Tart or a Coke. And so, really, we try to look at that spectrum and try to go more towards the plant side whenever possible. Does that mean you're never going to fall in the middle, or the end of the spectrum? No. Everybody does that. That's where you now have to think about moderation and being careful about how much of those foods on the other side of the spectrum you're eating.

Scot: So we're coming back to this theme that when you appear on the show often appears: The closer you can eat your food to a single ingredient food, the better off you are. The further down it gets this process chain, by far and away the worse it is for you.

Thunder: Yeah, that's one way of looking at it. It makes it sound kind of "un-fun" actually.

Troy: Makes it sound like you're out of a job. But it makes sense, and it seems like that same thing applies, like you're saying, the more processed, these kind of middle-ground carbs, like I call them, they're just not as good as the stuff that's got the whole grains in and that kind of thing. And it certainly makes sense.

Scot: So what about people . . . like, are there dangers to not eating enough carbs? Again, I said carbs get a bad rap, right? So what if people are actually . . . for a while, I was kind of afraid of them because I fell to the hype, right? Even my mom is like, "Oh, I think I'm . . ." She's an 88-year-old woman. She wants to start a low-carb diet, which is all sorts of bad news from what I understand when you're that old, right? But what happens if somebody does cut out too many carbs?

Thunder: So there's cutting carbs where you decide, "Oh, I'm not going to eat bread and rice and pasta, and I'm not going to have Pop-Tarts and Cokes and things like that, but I'm not going to care about fruits and vegetables. I'll eat whatever I want in the fruit and vegetable side. I'll eat beans and so forth." Totally fine. That's great. It's actually not a very low carbohydrate diet in the classic sense, but that works really well.

But if somebody wants to follow like a keto diet . . . and there are people that do this because they want to lose weight. They want to lose weight rapidly. One of the concerns you have with the keto diet is not that not having the calories from carbohydrates is so horrible. It's not that. It's just that you're cutting out so many other foods that have health benefits, and have micronutrients, and phytochemicals, and fiber, and things like that.

Scot: Because from what I understand, that's what many of your sources of carbohydrate have. They have all those necessary vitamins and minerals.

Thunder: Yeah. Correct.

Troy: And then it seems like so many of your food sources in . . . if you're just going straight low-carb, then you're eating a lot of meats, maybe a lot of things like that. And then there's that trade-off.

Thunder: Then you have all that part. What are now the potential detriments of having a heavy meat diet in terms of cardiovascular disease, risk, and other things?

Scot: So it comes back to balance. I have a few carb myths. I just want you to answer these as quickly as you can.

Thunder: All right.

Scot: All right. So what about the myth "Carbs are fattening"? Why does that persist?

Thunder: It's possible. It depends on the type of carb. If it's a refined carb, then it could be fattening because it's easy to overeat it.

Scot: So it's more of a "you've taken a lot more calories" issue than it is "the carb is bad."

Thunder: Yeah. It's a lot easier to overeat carbohydrates from Pop-Tarts than it is celery.

Scot: Potatoes, white rice, white bread are bad.

Thunder: I don't know. I think that's kind of a . . . The white bread, I would rather replace with a whole grain, but potatoes and white rice, I don't think those are too terrible.

Scot: I get sluggish after I eat a big carb meal.

Thunder: Yes, that could be true, because you are processing a big meal. It's, again, easier to eat more calories and more of everything with a high-carbohydrate meal versus you have a big salad. It really doesn't have that many calories and that many carbs.

Scot: If I'm going to eat my carbs, I should really try to do it before or after I exercise.

Thunder: I'm not sure if that really makes a difference.

Scot: Because there's a lot of stuff out there on the web that says that's how you should do it. Timing.

Thunder: I mean, it probably depends on the kind of exercise because if you're in endurance exercise and it's serious, you probably do need carbs during that exercise. So that part is important. That is important.

Troy: I'm a big believer of the carb-load before endurance. Are you a believer in that?

Thunder: Yeah. But that carb load doesn't come from one meal you have right before you exercise. It comes from being a regular consumer of carbs leading up to the event.

Troy: So you don't think that one meal makes a big difference?

Thunder: I mean, if you eat like crap for days or weeks, and then you decide to go on a 50-mile bike race, and two hours before the bike race you want to have your high-carb meal, that's great, but you've probably missed out on a lot of training effect and carbo-loading leading up to the event where you could have been eating well.

So here's something one of my students told me I'll share with you guys. I kind of liked it. When you're thinking about carbohydrates and you're in the grocery store, all the stuff on the edges of the grocery store tend to be better than the things in the middle of the grocery store. And I thought about that. I thought, "Hey, he's right." Because all the cookies and chips and refined stuff tends to be in the middle and the boxes, and all the produce tends to be at the edges of the grocery store. So that made sense, at least from my local grocery store.

Troy: So your shopping mantra should be "live on the fringe."

Thunder: "Live on the fringe," yeah. The closer it is to the plant that it came from, the better that carbohydrate is. That's the bottom line.

Scot: All right. And I never did ask this question. How much carbohydrates should I have? With protein, there was a formula that we did. Is there a formula for carbohydrates?

Thunder: There's kind of a loose general recommendation of 40% to 60% of your calories. It leaves a lot of room for interpretation. But more importantly, it's focus on the type of carbohydrate that you're eating. Because most people are not really going to sit and calculate, "Have I had 57% of carbohydrates in my diet today or out of the calories I'm consuming?" I think it's better for most of us to think about what type of carbohydrates are we eating and not worry about the amount, because I think that generally will take care of itself.

Scot: All right, Troy. Let's see if we can summarize this. What did we learn today? You go first.

Troy: I learned don't drink sodas. That's the simple answer. I think if people cut sodas out, wow, you're dropping those simple sugars so quickly with that.

Scot: So don't vilify carbs.

Troy: Don't vilify carbs, but . . .

Scot: Eat plant-based carbs and natural carbs. Stay away from the refined sugars and the sodas. Carbs actually have a lot of other good things in them, like your vitamins and minerals that you can't get anywhere else.

Thunder: Foods that have carbohydrates, yes. They have polyphenol compounds, those phytochemicals and vitamins and minerals and fiber.

Scot: Is there anything else we learned?

Troy: That good carbs need a PR firm. I think that's it. Let's not demonize carbs. There's stuff we should avoid, but there's certainly great stuff, fruits, vegetables, like you said, a lot of breads. Whole grain foods have plenty of carbs and are great foods to have.

Scot: And that food matrix makes the difference. Is it refined and standing on its own, or is it in a food matrix? I found that interesting. Because I think some people also are afraid of fruits because they're thinking, "Well, this is the same kind of sugar as refined sugar." But it's that food matrix as you described.

Thunder: Yeah. It's the difference between added sugar and naturally occurring sugar. So, if you look at the food label, don't be too concerned about the sugar. Just be concerned about the part that says added sugar. That's what we need to focus on.

Scot: Thunder, thanks for being on the show, and thanks for caring about men's health.

Thunder: Thank you.

Scot: "Odds and Ends" on "Who Cares About Men's Health." Got a couple of items that we're going to take care of, ongoing threads. First of all, we broke 1,000 likes. Yay. On Facebook. That deserves a round of applause.

Troy: And I only had to like us 100 times to do that. So thank you to the other 900 people.

Scot: Pushing us over the edge. We do appreciate it. Mitch, what do you think has contributed to that? We're building this community of men who care about their health. Facebook is the place where we've chosen to do it. And we've broken now 1,000 men. How did we get there? Give us the breakdown, oh, social media guru.

Mitch: All we had to do was post a controversial running tip. That's all it really took. I mean, we're starting to do some running content. We're starting to get really into that kind of community with this 5K and everything. And all we posted was, "Should you stretch or you shouldn't you stretch?" And we have had over 700 people watch it all the way through and give us their own feedback as to how they feel about stretching. And that's all it took, guys, was just a controversial view on running.

Troy: Mitch, I don't know if you knew this . . . getting into running, Mitch, I don't know if you're aware of this, but runners tend to have very strong opinions about things. You've obviously seen that now.

Mitch: Yep.

Scot: Now, it wasn't just the running stuff. We've had some other great stuff. The mental health stuff, I think, has really resonated. I thought that I felt I saw a large increase when we really started talking about those practical tips . . .

Mitch: Oh, absolutely.

Scot: . . . about how to manage the box breathing and . . .

Mitch: Blasts and the reach-out. And yeah, we saw some absolute great responses with that, and real, honest sharing of content and people explaining, "This has been helping me during a really peak time."

Troy: And the irony of that is we recorded that before the lockdown, before everything got crazy, and then posted all that after. So it was very timely, and I think something a lot of people . . . it resonated with a lot of people.

Scot: Well, thank you very much for liking the Facebook page, if you're listening to the podcast right now. And please do us a favor. Recommend it to somebody in your social circle that you think would find value in the things that we talk about and the way that we talk about them and the inspiration that we tried to provide. So that would be very much appreciated.

All right. Thing number 2 for "Odds and Ends." The "Who Cares About Mitch's Health" Mid-May 5K, which has been moved to June 20th. Do it your way. We are still moving forward with it. We just got the bibs, so you can download a bib and you can select your own number. Troy, I just sent you a copy of Mitch holding his bib.

Troy: How did you send it to me?

Scot: I just did. Yeah, you'll get that on your phone. So go ahead and take a look at that.

Troy: It's coming through. Oh, there it is. So this is Mitch holding his bib?

Scot: Yep. That's Mitch holding his bib, which you can go to facebook.com/whocaresmenshealth and you can print that out.

Troy: Mitch, you look so happy.

Scot: He does.

Troy: You look excited. I love it. WCAMH 5K.

Scot: Yep, "Who Cares About Mitch's Health."

Troy: "Who Cares About Mitch's Health" 5K. Number 101? Did you make your own number? I was going to say, is that where we started the numbers? Is it 100 or 101?

Mitch: No. You make your own.

Troy: You make your own number.

Mitch: Yep, anything you want.

Scot: Why 101, Mitch?

Troy: Yeah, why 101?

Mitch: Because it's my very first time running. So it's Running 101.

Troy: Instead of the number 1 you chose 101?

Mitch: Yes, because I am learning, like a primer to running.

Scot: Mitch is very humble. He didn't want to run around with a bib that just said number 1, so he pulled 101.

Troy: 101. I like it.

Scot: That's a good call. What's your number going to be, Troy? What number are you going to put in on your bib?

Troy: Oh, man, probably 33 just because it's my lucky number. And I've never had the number 33 in a race, so I may just have to put 33 on mine.

Scot: All right. That's cool. Yeah, get a picture of that, you and your bib, Troy, and send it to us and let's get it posted up on the Facebook page.

Troy: Okay. I like it.

Scot: And anybody else that wants to participate, again, the "Who Cares About Mitch's Health" 5K is going to be on June 20th. It's do it your way. It's a virtual race to support our producer, Mitch, who has gone from couch to 5K and is going to be running his first 5K coming up soon. So be sure that you go to that event on our Facebook page and sign up.

Although I'm a little concerned because Mitch rolled his ankle last week. So where are you at on your rolled ankle? Are you going to be able to do this on June 20th?

Mitch: We will see. I am able to walk around, but I'm definitely in the purple foot phase of the bruising and healing process. I haven't been able to run on it yet, but I'm walking around, I'm working through the bit of soreness that I have, and I'm hoping this week to at least go for some longer walks and stuff. I've got a couple of weeks. We'll see what happens. We're pacing her out. Just limped along.

Troy: That's a setback. That's a bummer. So, obviously, you're not running on it at all. You are walking. You are bearing weight, but sounds like it's painful, it's swollen, not looking good.

Mitch: It is the ugliest my foot has ever looked. So, yeah, we'll just see what happens. I mean, worst-case scenario I'll hop along, but the weird thing is I miss running. I never thought I would be a "runner," but here I am just kind of upset that I can't go out and just run and listen to a podcast for a bit.

Scot: That's cool.

Troy: That's great.

Scot: So the walking around on it, is that what the orthopedic doctor told you you should do?

Mitch: He told me for the first week to keep it iced, and then once this main swelling goes down, to start moving it around and seeing how much I can walk on it. So I'm walking around. I'm spelling the ABCs with my foot. It's a little sore, but I think we're getting better every day.

Troy: No, I think that's great. I think movement is key. It's funny, I heard something . . . we've always been taught this acronym RICE, which I'm sure they said to you. Rest, ice, compression, elevation. I heard another acronym that may be better, and it's MICE, for movement, ice, compression, elevation. So think MICE.

I am a big believer in active recovery. As long as you can tolerate it, you're not going to injure yourself. I think Keith Roper, the PT we've had on this show, also really emphasized that. So I think that's great you're trying to start moving now.

Scot: Which is a bit of a new way of thinking, that active recovery. So that's kind of cool, I guess, that you're able to try that.

Troy: As long as you can walk on it and you don't make it worse.

Mitch: It's the coolest.

Scot: All right. Well, there you go. Hopefully, he will be healed in time to do the, "Who Cares About Mitch's Health" 5K on June 20th, even if you have to ride the knee scooter.

Mitch: Yep. That's what I'll do.

Troy: We're just going to put you on a skateboard and send you down Sunnyside Drive, let you fly all the way down to Downtown. That's a nice 5K.

Scot: That's right.

Mitch: Technically 3.1.

Troy: It is. We'll get you 3.1 no matter how we have to do it.

Scot: "Just Going to Leave This Here." That's where we talk about something that's on our mind. It might be health-related. It might just be completely random.

Just going to leave this here. Part of the new normal of doing meetings on Zoom, because I'm working remotely because of COVID, is now I see myself a lot more than I used to. It used to be I'd see myself in the mirror in the morning and then maybe before bed at night, and that was kind of it.

And I've noticed that I have this weird way of holding my neck. Like, I constantly have my head tilted slightly off to the left for whatever reason. And that's a postural thing I've never noticed before. So head is off to the left, right shoulder is hunched up just slightly. Now, during meetings, I see that and I have to try to correct myself, but webcams show you backwards. So every single time, I'll turn my head the wrong way. And then I have to turn it back to the right way because I don't have the proprioception yet to figure out exactly what's going on.

So just a weird kind of little side effect of the times we're in, noticing that I have that postural abnormality that I've probably had for many, many years.

Troy: Well, you know what the answer to that is, Scot?

Scot: What's that?

Troy: Just don't use the video on Zoom. I never use the video. Don't use the video, or the other thing I did when I had to give a lecture, I just showed the video . . . I had a video of the kittens we're fostering, and I just showed the video of the kittens playing because I'm like, "You guys don't want to watch me just talking here. Why don't you guys watch the kittens playing and I'm just going to talk?" And everyone loved it. I don't think they heard a thing I said, but that's the answer. Just show something else.

Scot: Turned on the kitten cam. I like that.

Troy: Just turn on the kitten cam. Exactly.

Well, Scot, speaking of COVID, I'm just going to leave this here. You're kind of a goatee guy. Like, you've had a goatee for quite a while, right?

Scot: Probably 20-plus years, yeah.

Troy: Well, now, I have a goatee as well.

Scot: Really?

Troy: It is not a goatee . . . no, let me continue. It is not a goatee of facial hair. It is a goatee of acne and dry skin.

Scot: Oh, no.

Troy: This is from chronic mask use. I have just been breaking out like a teenager. I've got this zit on my face my wife keeps looking at and just wanting to pop. I'm like, "Do not touch it. It hurts like crazy. Leave it alone, please." This is what it's come to.

Everyone's posting these bad haircuts, these lockdown COVID pandemic haircuts they're getting at home. I'm going to start posting pictures of the zit goatee and the chapped face goatee.

Scot: So gross.

Troy: It's awful. I know it is. It's awful just wearing these facemasks. That's my COVID gripe and probably what I'm dealing with that's most troubling right now. That's where I am.

Scot: Couldn't have seen that one coming, huh?

Troy: Exactly. I did not anticipate that.

Scot: All right. Time to say the things that you say at the end of podcasts because we are at the end of ours. So a couple of things. First thing is if you liked what you heard, please subscribe. You can do it wherever you want to, wherever you like your podcasts, even Pocket Casts if you're like Mitch and the six other people that use Pocket Casts still.

Troy: My sister uses Pocket Casts. Mitch, you use Pocket Casts?

Mitch: Yeah. It's me, two co-workers, and I guess your sister.

Troy: And my sister. I never heard of it. She's like, "Yeah, I use it for everything." So anyway . . .

Scot: Yeah, subscribe to this podcast wherever you want to, even if it's Pocket Casts. You're one of the outcasts who uses Pocket Casts.

Troy: We'd love to hear from you. You can contact us at hello@thescoperadio.com. Reach out to us through Facebook, facebook.com/whocaresmenshealth. Our website is whocaresmenshealth.com. Thanks for listening and thanks for caring about men's health.