['Can't Hardly Wait' voice] Totally Gwyneth

Here’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s latest alleged diet, according to her appearance on “The Art of Being Well”[^1] podcast earlier this week:

“I eat dinner early in the evening. I do a nice intermittent fast. I usually eat something about 12, and in the morning I have things that won’t spike my blood sugar, so that’s why I have coffee. But I really like soup for lunch. I have bone broth for lunch a lot of the days. Try to do one hour of movement, so I’ll either take a walk or I’ll do Pilates or I’ll do my Tracy Anderson. And then I dry brush and I get in the sauna. So I do my infrared sauna for 30 minutes, and then for dinner I try to eat according to paleo—so lots of vegetables… It’s really important for me to support my detox.”

Many are caught up in slamming this “diet” as a living and breathing eating disorder. But let’s consider the possibility that what she is saying is not literally real; depending on the size of that “paleo dinner with lots of vegetables,” a person simply couldn’t survive on these Oregon Trail rations for long before they went into a coma. This is also just a laundry list of diet buzzwords that don't make sense together: intermittent fasting, bone broth, paleo, detox.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s entire job, nay, her line of work, nay her raison d’etre on this planet, is to freak other women the fuck out about not doing enough. Just when we think we’ve got the hang of zigging, GP zags in a way meant to make us go, “Oh no; oh shit; have I been massively screwing EVerything up by not steaming my rectum? What am I doing eating a sandwich like an idiot, this should be a plate of paleo vegetables! What is paleo? What’s a paleo vegetable? What’s intermittent fasting? I don’t know ANYthing,” sending us a-running back to her blog and online store to buy a giant pile of products and “gut microbiome superpowder” lest we be caught off our “wellness” game, ever.

If we’ve learned one thing from the past 15 or so years, it’s that the notoriety generated by these cuckoo-bananas "wellness" assertions sticks to her, but the inanity of the content of what she’s saying sticks not at all. This lady said she would “rather die than let her kid eat Cup-a-Soup,” and still, when it came time to start taking menopause seriously as a health issue in the New York Times, who was gently coated in gold foil and posed like a nude, beatific Virgin Mary but GOOP herself?

Eat

~Discord Pick of the Week: The doing-LIFTOFF-to-squatting-your-giant-plushie pipeline:

~

We stan any coverage that preaches moderation: “No pain, plenty of gain: why taking it easy can be the key to getting fitter—and happier.”

“As I watched him complete his workout, Schwarzenegger was barely clearing 120 pounds on the bench press. After decades of abuse, the man’s shoulders are toast. His knees are shot, his back is sore, and he has undergone multiple heart procedures… Still, let it be recorded that on a foggy October morning at Gold’s Gym in Venice, I was lifting heavier weights than Arnold Schwarzenegger was.”

A 2001 classic: Bill Bryson on his dad and spring training, noted for the intro that describes the lost not-quite-art of “isometrics” (”[using] any unyielding object, like a tree or a wall, and pressed against it with all your might from various positions to tone and strengthen different groups of muscles”).

Who am I without my depression?

Between a satiety index and processed-food index, my hope springs eternal that we will someday help everyone make sense of food beyond “servings of dairy, protein, vegetables, fruit, and grains.”

Drink

I want to hate it but have to admit there are points being made: a gym for your feelings.

I’m fascinated by the growing backlash to the trauma-discourse, holding-space-for-feelings times we live in.

How upper lips got stiff.

In a strictly rubbernecking sense, I’ve been waiting for this moment: the kids who had their childhood made into content.

Finance hoes >>> finance bros

Rest

“I have been on first dates with 107 people in the past five years… Since this online dating era began, I have been on only thirteen second dates.”

In The Interpretation Of “She’s A Beast” As Bearing Witness To Any Woman Doing Any Prodigious Feat: Extreme awe and admiration for Senator Machaela Cavanaugh, who filibustered anti-trans legislation in Nebraska for three weeks.

Nothing “new” about this explanation for poverty, but it’s a decent summary.

There are two types of content creators of which I stay eternally wary: bullet journalers whose only to-do list items showcased in their content are “bullet journal” and “make video about bullet journaling”; and hustle-culture millionaires who make videos about how they made all their money by monetizing spammy posts that evangelize participating in hustle culture by, you guessed it, monetizing spammy posts, with zero self-awareness.

That’s all for this week! I love you for reading, thank you, let’s go—

[F1] I have nothing but raw fury for the fact that this podcast host has the audacity, the gall, to describe "The Art of Being Well" as "evidence-based." Doctors can still be scammers!