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Your Diet Sucks: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Zoë Rom
Diet culture, you've met your scientific match. Hosted by an elite ultrarunner/journalist and a registered dietitian, Your Diet Sucks dismantles the myths, trends, and pseudoscience that screw up how we think about food, health, and fitness.
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The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 3 days ago1h 5m
How Nicotine Got a Wellness Makeover, and What the Science Actually Says
Nicotine is having a moment. Again. This time it comes in a little pillow that tastes like coffee, sold by guys with podcasts who say it’ll help you crush your next deck at work.Zyn went from 50 million cans in 2019 to almost 800 million in 2025. Everyone's doing it. Joe Rogan swears by it. Tucker Carlson has his own brand. The Secretary of Health and Human Services may or may not have popped one during his confirmation hearing. So we had to ask: why, for the love of all things peer-reviewed, is this a thing again?Kylee and Zoë start with 400 years of tobacco marketing, from colonial cure-alls to “reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet," and trace the history of how yesteryear's vice became today's biohack. Then, the gals get into the research behind the claims that nicotine is a cognitive enhancer that will help you crush your next presentation or athletic feat. They also unpack how nicotine impacts metabolic health, and why you might want to think twice before you pop that pouch. We also follow the money through the FDA, MAHA, and an industry where addiction isn’t so much a side effect as it is a business model. If you’re trying to quit or cut back, call 1-800-QUIT-NOW or text with Truth Initiative’s free This is Quitting program.rabbit: Running gear made by runners, for runners. Their Low Light collection has 360 degrees of reflective print, so you’re visible in the dark without looking like a traffic cone.Tailwind: Carbs, electrolytes, and fluid in one flask, and that’s it. Build your own bundle at tailwindnutrition.com with code YOURDIET20Osmia: Physician-formulated skincare that won’t age-shame you into buying 19 serums. Get 20% off your first order at osmiaskincare.com with code YDS20goodr: Fun, no-slip, no-bounce sunglasses starting at $30. Get $10 off your first order at goodr.com/YDS
- 2 weeks ago1h 0m
Does Alkaline Water Actually Do Anything? The Acid Myth, $8,000 Water Machines, and the pH Miracle That Wasn’t
Join the YDS community on Patreon for bonus episodes, weekly blog posts, live Q&As with Kylee and her nutrition masterclasses: patreon.com/YourDietSucksYour body isn’t too acidic, and a $12 bottle of alkaline water was never going to fix it anyway.This week, Zoë and Kylee dig into the alkaline diet: where it came from, what the science says, and why it keeps coming back. The story starts in 1912, when scientists set food on fire and sorted it by its ash. That’s how the lemon, a famously acidic fruit, ended up on every “alkaline foods” list. From there, a real question about kidney disease and acid-base balance got stretched into a wellness theory of everything, picked up a celebrity fan club, and ended at a “miracle” ranch where people got hurt.Then they get into how pH actually works in your body. Your lungs and kidneys keep your blood pH in a tight range whether you eat a kale salad or a meatball sub, and your stomach is acidic on purpose. Those urine pH test strips aren’t catching a problem. They’re watching your kidneys do their job. Kylee breaks down what the research says about acidic foods and bone health, plus the two buffering supplements with real evidence for athletes, sodium bicarbonate and beta alanine, and where that evidence stops.Finally, alkaline water itself: does it work, what does a $5,000 water ionizer actually do, and why does the sales pitch sound so much like an MLM? Spoiler: none of it survives stomach acid.Osmia makes physician-formulated skincare that actually works, right here in Colorado. Use code YDS20 for 20% off your first order at osmiaskincare.com.rabbit makes technical running gear that keeps up with you, pockets for all your snacks included. Shop at runinrabbit.com with the code you heard in this episode.Microcosm Coaching offers individualized endurance coaching from humans who know your life and your goals. Book a free consultation at microcosm-coaching.com.
- Oct 14, 20261h 11m
Do 95% of Diets Really Fail? The Zombie Statistic and What Long-Term Weight Loss Data Actually Says
You’ve heard it in diet ads, anti-diet infographics, gym locker rooms, and possibly from us. “95% of diets fail” is one of the most repeated statistics in nutrition, and it gets used by both sides. Diet culture uses it to say everyone else’s diet fails, so buy theirs. Anti-diet spaces use it to say nothing works. So we went looking for where it came from.The trail leads to a 1959 case series of 100 patients at a New York hospital. Each one got a diet sheet and one counseling visit, then never heard from anyone again. A quarter of them never came back. The number 95 doesn’t appear anywhere in the paper. When a reporter tracked down the lead author in 1999, he told her his data couldn’t support what people were doing with it. The statistic kept spreading anyway.In this episode, Zoë and Kylee look at what the long-term weight loss research actually shows. That includes the Look AHEAD trial, a meta-analysis of 80 trials and more than 26,000 people, the National Weight Control Registry, and Kevin Hall’s famous Biggest Loser study. They also get into why hunger hormones stay shifted for a year after dieting, why diet rigidity predicts failure better than any specific diet does, how dropout bias makes the published numbers look better than reality, and where GLP-1 medications fit in. Kylee talks about what metabolic adaptation looks like in her clinical practice. Both hosts explain why “define diet, define failure, define percent” is the only correct response at a bar.The bottom line: diets don’t fail 95% of the time. With a serious definition of success, the real failure rate is somewhere between two-thirds and 90%, and that’s with intensive professional support. The real number is still not encouraging. But a statistic you can’t source isn’t evidence. It’s a bumper sticker.Want more? Join the community on Patreon for monthly bonus episodes, weekly nutrition question threads with Kylee, and members-only posts.
- Sep 30, 202629 min
Why Is Everyone Still Afraid of Gluten? Fads, Fiction, and Why Bread Hits Different In Europe
Nearly a third of Americans say they're trying to avoid gluten. About 1% have celiac disease. That gap is worth billions of dollars. In this episode, Zoë and Kylee dig into who the gluten-free diet was actually designed for, how it became a wellness identity, and what the research says about the rest of us.We start with the science: what gluten is, why no human fully digests it (and why that's fine), and what celiac disease does to the gut. It's a serious autoimmune condition, and about 70% of cases go undiagnosed. Then we trace the gluten-free diet from its unlikely origin in the Dutch famine of World War II to the bestseller shelf, where Wheat Belly and Grain Brain blamed wheat for everything from belly fat to Alzheimer's. Along the way we ask whether modern wheat is really different, whether non-celiac gluten sensitivity is real, and why the culprit is often FODMAPs, not gluten. We also look at the blinded studies showing how powerfully expectation shapes symptoms.Plus: why gluten-free labels make food seem healthier than it is, what that does to people who actually need the label, whether gluten-digesting enzyme pills work, what happened when cyclists were blinded to their diets, and the question everyone asks. Why can you eat all the bread you want in Italy and feel fine?
- Sep 16, 20261h 33m
Diet Culture & Pyramid Schemes: MLMs, Herbalife, and the Vitamin That Started It All
Multi-level marketing was invented to sell vitamins. Not adjacent to vitamins, not eventually pivoted to vitamins: the first MLM in America was a 1945 alfalfa-pill company that got raided by the FDA within two years, and everything since (Amway, Herbalife, the friend from high school who wants you to try a shake) is running the same play. In this episode, Zoë and Kylee trace how diet culture and direct selling grew up as one machine: the Nutrilite origin story, why supplements are the perfect MLM product, Herbalife's unmarked nutrition clubs and the mystery of why the shake tastes better in the store than at home, the billionaire slap fight that ended in a $200 million FTC settlement, and what the independent numbers say about who actually makes money (almost no one). Plus: Betsy DeVos's grandfather, the Tupperware party as feminist history, and why "boss babe" is doing unpaid PR for a system built to move money out of women's pockets.If you got pulled in, or watched someone you love get pulled in, the math was rigged before anyone signed up. That's the whole point.Full transcript, references, and research at yourdietsuckspodcast.com.Support Your Diet Sucks on Patreon for monthly bonus episodes, weekly nutrition question threads with Kylee, members-only recipes and posts, and the archive: patreon.com/YourDietSucksThis episode is supported by:rabbit: our title sponsor and the run apparel we actually wear. Use code SUMMERSNACKS10 for 10% off at runinrabbit.comTailwind Nutrition: endurance fuel and hydration that won't wreck your gut. Use code YOURDIET20 for 20% off at tailwindnutrition.comMicrocosm Coaching: evidence-based run coaching from humans, not algorithms. Book a free consultation at microcosm-coaching.com
- Sep 2, 20261h 15m
Is It Actually Your Cortisol? Cortisol Belly, Cortisol Face, and the Billion-Dollar Business of Blaming a Hormone
Support us on Patreon! Somewhere in the last few years, cortisol became the answer to everything. Tired? Cortisol. Puffy? Cortisol. Gained weight, lost sleep, can't stop scrolling? Cortisol. A hormone you would die without got recast as the thing wrecking your face, and a $4.8 billion supplement economy showed up to fix it. This episode asks how that happened, and whether any of it is new.It isn't. Zoë traces the lineage: Hans Selye, the self-described father of stress, who built the modern idea of stress from rat experiments in the 1930s and then quietly took tobacco industry money for decades while his research was used in court to argue that stress, not cigarettes, was making people sick. Then the 1998 arrival of "adrenal fatigue," a diagnosis coined by a naturopath in a self-published book, dismissed by the Endocrine Society, and treated with ground-up cow adrenal glands that are still on Amazon today. Cortisol panic is adrenal fatigue with a real hormone bolted on.Kylee handles the real hormone. What the HPA axis actually does, why the morning spike is a sign your system works, why a cortisone shot and "the stress hormone" are the same molecule, and what a proper cortisol test looks like versus a $500 saliva kit with poor day-to-day reliability. We take on cortisol face (the clinical version is Cushing's, and you'd know), cortisol belly (the mechanism is real at pathological levels and unsupported for a stressed person with a normal curve), and the cortisol cocktail (orange juice and salt, which is an electrolyte drink in a wine glass).For athletes, the internet has it backwards. A hard workout can briefly push cortisol into Cushing's range, then it's gone in hours. Real overtraining blunts the stress response rather than flooding it, and under-fueling raises baseline cortisol because your body reads a chronic deficit as an ongoing threat. Skipping intensity to protect your hormones protects nothing.If cortisol is where a structural problem gets relocated onto an individual body, the gummy can't fix the job, the rent, or the toddler. Sleep, carbohydrates, and recovery still can.rabbit: our title sponsor and the run apparel we actually wear. Use code SUMMERSNACKS10 for 10% off at runinrabbit.comgoodr: $25 polarized sunglasses that don't bounce, don't slip, and don't cost a race entry. Use code YDS at goodr.com/YDS for $10 off. Tailwind Nutrition: endurance fuel and hydration that won't wreck your gut. Use code YOURDIET20 for 20% off at tailwindnutrition.comMicrocosm Coaching: evidence-based run coaching from humans, not algorithms. Book a consultation at microcosm-coaching.com
- Aug 19, 20261h 15m
Are You Addicted to Exercise?
Support the show at Patreon.com/yourdietsucks"No days off" is a slogan, a t-shirt, and a diagnostic criterion, depending on who's reading it.This week: exercise addiction. Whether it's real, whether "addiction" is even the right word, and why the whole concept was popularized by a psychiatrist who also thought clinical depression was a choice you could simply make differently.We trace it from a 1970 sleep study that fell apart because the researcher couldn't find enough people willing to stop exercising for thirty days, to the 1976 book that told a generation being hooked on running was a personality upgrade, to the 1983 paper that could only make men's version legible by borrowing the vocabulary of anorexia.Plus: what the prevalence research actually shows, why the brain-imaging literature fits in a three-ring binder, and four ways to tell dedication from compulsion that have nothing to do with your weekly mileage.SponsorsThis episode is brought to you by rabbit, whose new women's collection is built for people who actually run in it. runinrabbit.com/collections/womens-new, code SUMMERSNACKS10 for 10% off.Tailwind Nutrition got us through this one. tailwindnutrition.com, code YOURDIET20 for 20% off.Microcosm Coaching works with athletes who want to train and fuel without the shame spiral. microcosm-coaching.comLinksEvery episode and full transcripts: yourdietsuckspodcast.com/your-diet-sucks-podcastBonus episodes, Kylee's weekly nutrition question thread, and a group chat that will never try to sell you a binder: patreon.com/YourDietSucks
- Aug 5, 20261h 15m
Why Is Everyone Scared of Microplastics?
There is no plastic spoon in your brain (unless you put one there). There is no credit card in your diet. We regret to inform you that this does not mean everything is fine.Both of those numbers came from real studies, and both got mangled somewhere between the paper and your feed. Kylee walks through what actually survives scrutiny, where the fertility conversation outruns its evidence, and why the BPA-free sticker on your Nalgene is not the reassurance you think it is.Zoë traces the whole mess from exploding celluloid billiard balls to Life magazine throwing a party for disposability in 1955. We get into why humans are catastrophically bad at judging exactly this kind of risk, how much you should actually be thinking about it, and the one exposure source that matters more than anything in your kitchen drawer.Nobody needs to panic about their hydration strategy. Maybe buy new spatulas. Definitely don't buy the $300 filter from the guy who could be regulating this instead.SponsorsThis episode is brought to you by rabbit, whose new women's collection is built for people who actually run in it. runinrabbit.com/collections/womens-new, code SUMMERSNACKS10 for 10% off.Tailwind Nutrition got us through this one. tailwindnutrition.com, code YOURDIET20 for 20% off.Microcosm Coaching works with athletes who want to train and fuel without the shame spiral. microcosm-coaching.comLinksEvery episode and full transcripts: yourdietsuckspodcast.com/your-diet-sucks-podcastBonus episodes, Kylee's weekly nutrition question thread, and a group chat that will never try to sell you a binder: patreon.com/YourDietSucks
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About Your Diet Sucks
Diet culture, you've met your scientific match. Hosted by an elite ultrarunner/journalist and a registered dietitian, Your Diet Sucks dismantles the myths, trends, and pseudoscience that screw up how we think about food, health, and fitness.
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