In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 162: 1980s Fitness Fad Fails, Me v. AI Top 5 90s TV Shows, New England Road Trip Part 1, Otzi the Iceman(9-18-2024)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 162

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Details from a breathtaking road trip to Northern New England. 1980s diet and exercise fad fails. Another Top 5 with an AI challenger.
Episode 162 runs the gamut of past, present, and future.
It begins with Part 1 of a recent 3-day road trip into New Hampshire, Vermont, and Western Massachusetts. What places are worth visiting? What places might need to be skipped? We'll uncover all of them.
It is common the 'fall into fitness' at this time of year. Whatever you do make sure you don't try any of these 1980s diet and exercise fad fails. Some are harmless. Some are bizarre. Some are downright dangerous. All will be discussed.
This week features the return of Me v. AI Top 5. It will be a battle between man and machine to see what were the best TV shows of the 1990s. Whose list will be better?
Of course, there is a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule featuring the discovery of Otzi the Iceman.
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Speaker 00:

Hello world, and welcome to the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 162. fall is in the air it will be fall within a few days of this podcast going live leaves may change color but the nostalgia never changes color i don't know what that means we're gonna kick off this week's podcast with a look back in the not too distant past at another excellent road trip i took to northern new england and i'll dive into all the places i saw that you should visit We're going to go way, way back in the day. If you want to fall into fitness, don't do any of these as we're going to look at some 1980s diet and exercise fad fails. There'll be a brand new Top 5, the return of me versus AI Top 5 as we look at the best television shows of the 1990s. And there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time Capsule, looking back at the discovery of Oatsy the Iceman. All of that is coming up right now on episode 162 of the In My Footsteps podcast. What are we going to talk about this week? Falling into fitness, falling into fashion. falling into foolishness, any other falling puns I can make. Welcome into the podcast. Thank you for tuning in. It's going to be a lot of fun this week. I've got a lot of fun stuff to discuss, to talk about. We can really say it now. I hope everyone had a fun summer. From when this podcast goes live, the first day of fall is the 22nd, so Sunday. It really is my favorite time of year, from Labor Day to the end of the year. We're already in those days down here on Cape Cod where it's in the upper 40s when I wake up in the morning, but by the time I get out of work, it's 75. It's just perfect. Before we get into all the fun, I wanted to make sure I start off as I always do, thanking my Patreon subscribers. Laurie, Mary Lou, Ashley, Kevin, Marguerite, Leo, thank you all so much for supporting me. If all the rest of you out there, if you want to support me, support the podcast, all the content work I do, $5 a month on Patreon gets you access to bonus podcast episodes, exclusive ones, early access to the main show, early access to YouTube videos. But if you can't part with money to support me, I totally understand. And what I'm trying to do is build more in the free tier. I've got a collection on there. You have to subscribe, but it's not a paying subscription. But then you get access to the free content. Most recently, what I did was a podcast version of talking about me passing four years alcohol free. Because I can write blogs, but sometimes the inflection of words in my voice, it doesn't come out in text form. So that's a good one. It's short. It's like 12 minutes. One thing that you can do to support the podcast that costs nothing but a few moments of time, that's sharing the show, leaving five-star reviews, leaving comments. I really enjoy interacting with people, especially on YouTube, people that leave good comments, not the troll idiots that I just ignore. But that's one of those things. The more subscribers you get, the more views your videos get, the more you draw in less than savory people. But the vast, vast majority of people that comment on videos and stuff on social media, it's mostly good people. And that's what I mean talking about all of you that are listening, all of you that after almost four years make this appointment listening. You're good people. You're my people. That's why I work hard to try to find things that are going to be interesting for you, fun for you, bringing back positive memories from your childhood, or if you're younger, making you wonder what the hell was wrong with us that grew up in the 70s, 80s, 90s. Either way, what we're going to do right now, though, is look at something that's A little more recent history. A road trip that I took up to northern New Hampshire, Vermont, western Massachusetts. It's kind of a back-in-the-day segment of its own as we look at how the podcast used to be when I did more travel-oriented stuff. And I'm sure there'll be a few interesting stories mixed in there. So let's get started with that. Three years that I've been working at my current day job, we've had a week's paid vacation where the whole office is closed and it's the last week of August. The previous two years, I had these big grandiose plans of doing some kind of fun road trip similar to the one that I did in the fall of 2019. Way back in episode 31, I did a bit of an overview of that road trip. and then did deeper dives into the cities and towns that I visited. So if you're interested in that one, it was 2,100 miles in six days. Just me and my Toyota Corolla rumbling around the eastern part of the United States from here on Cape Cod, kind of in a big circle, with the bottom of the circle being Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in North Carolina. I love travel. I've wanted to be a travel writer since, like, 2009. But after that big road trip in 2019, then COVID hit, and it kind of changed everything, really. Sure, I did a couple of day photo trips, but never any overnights. And even the first two years that I worked at this new job, with this week's paid vacation, I didn't go anywhere. And for a while, it seemed like I wasn't going to go anywhere this year. But then a stroke of luck happened. One of those serendipitous moments. Back in 2012, I stayed at a place in Lincoln, New Hampshire called the Pemme Cabins. It's right on the Pemme-Gawasset River. Don't ask me to spell it. But I went up there when I was in the middle of marathon training to run the Kankamagus Highway, which is a 34-mile slice of road that goes right through the White Mountains between Lincoln and North Conway. The reason I went to run it was because I wanted to practice running hills. Little did I know that some of the hills there were 9% grade hills. Which if you can't imagine that... Get on a treadmill and put it at 9.0 for the incline. And then imagine running up and down that. That trip was a lot of fun. It was an overnight. So I drove three and a half hours up to Lincoln, New Hampshire. And then three and a half hours back the next day. The best part of that road trip... Was the fact that I got up to Lincoln... Got up to the Pemi Cabins and started unpacking. Grabbed my camera to go get some photos... And it had no memory card because I was stupid and forgot to pack my memory card. I took a bunch of pictures with my iPhone 3. Those aren't the highest quality. In early August, I just out of curiosity, looked at the Pemi cabins, wistfully remembering that trip and saying, I might need a do-over actually bringing my nice new camera that I have now. unbelievably as luck would have it they had a vacancy during the week that I had vacation and I sat for a few minutes and I kind of said to myself this is a sign you've wanted a do-over trip up in that area so I booked it then I had no choice but to go what I ended up doing rather than making it an overnight which would have been ridiculous I made it part of a bigger trip so I drove up to Lincoln but I took my sweet time I had a whole itinerary of places to see on the way up to Lincoln. Then the plan was to cut straight across, straight west into Vermont and drive south in Vermont, stay somewhere, and then continue south the next day and catch up with the Mohawk Trail in western Massachusetts and take that back east. All in all, it would end up being a three-day trip in the same Toyota Corolla that I drove in that 2,100-mile trip. It's still going strong. Knock wood that nothing happens now that I'm saying that. I won't dive too deep into a lot of stuff from this trip because there's only so much room on this podcast. I've got a lot more to get into. I will say the drive up to Lincoln, New Hampshire was full of interesting events, including driving through the heaviest rain and hail mix that I've ever seen. And I was in the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire. So basically, I had to focus on there was a white car ahead of me, a couple of car lengths. And thankfully, they were there. And I just followed them as the road was flooding. I basically couldn't see anything. I said, if I go off the road here, no one's going to find me. That would be when I finally saw a bear or moose get out of my flipped over car. And then I got Yogi and Bullwinkle beat the hell out of me. My first stop on this road trip to make it really fitting was the birthplace of H.H. Holmes. He's considered to be America's first serial killer. I have plans to do a bigger segment on HH Homes in October, you know, part of spooky season. I've got some good stuff lined up for that month, but I don't want to get sidetracked here. The home of HH Homes, the birthplace, it's not anything special, and it's a private home, so it's basically I got a photo and a quick video. A funny thing was I had several covered bridges on my itinerary to see on the way up to Lincoln and then in Vermont. And I think after the third covered bridge, I was like, all right, that's enough. Not that I don't like them anymore, but it was sort of like I need to get to the Pemi cabins and have dinner and I could just keep getting sidetracked with covered bridges. The cabin was everything that I thought it would be. They have screened in porches on the river and they're rustic, but not too rustic. They've got a lot of modern amenities, flat screen TVs, microwaves, heat, you know, things like that. But the rushing of the water makes you feel like you're by yourself, even though there's at least a dozen other cabins and rooms in the same area. If it sounds like I'm gushing about the Pemi cabins, it's because I am. I highly recommend you check them out. It took me 12 years to get back to them, and I'm planning already to maybe go back in the spring. There's a lot of family-friendly stuff you can do up in Lincoln. It's a smaller mountain town, but there's actually a lot to do. I have this quest... where I find these photos on Instagram that some of the bigger accounts post these sunset photos or these beautiful places in New England that get tons and tons of likes. I'll see these photos of places and be like, I need a photo of that place. I've done it with Ponyhenge that's in Lincoln, Massachusetts. I've done it with the Old Stone Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts. I did it with the Wayside Gristmill. in sudbury massachusetts anyway there's a spot in sugar hill new hampshire which was about 15 minutes north of where i stayed in lincoln it's saint matthew's chapel it's a church it's got these really nice yellow doors but there's a photo from way back behind the church on the right side shooting through this kind of meadow of flowers and the sun sets in front of the church the Typically the photos I saw were these purple flowers, the lupines, in between the camera and the church. So I went there, and I was the only one. It's, again, kind of middle of nowhere, which was perfect. I had seemingly forgotten that earlier in the day it had rained insanely, so when I went walking through the meadow to find a perfect vantage point through the flowers, it was like I was knee-deep in water. Not quite that bad, but man, my shoes got soaked. Photos were worth it, though. In that same area of Lincoln was where the Betty and Barney Hill UFO abduction story took place in 1961. There's a historical marker. There's a mural painted on a nearby convenience store about it. Way back in the archives in episode six, I did a segment about Betty and Barney Hill. I have made that into a video segment that's going to be going up on YouTube the first week of October for spooky season, of course. My plan was to take my camera and my tripod and go a little further north where it was very dark and try to get some nice night photos. But once I sat on the screened-in porch in the dark with the water rushing, playing a little Hawaiian music, maybe enjoying a little edible, I was like, I'm not going out to shoot photos. This is fine where I am. As far as places to eat, depends on when you go to Lincoln. flapjacks, a breakfast place. That was my choice, but they were closed the day I was up there. Then my second choice was a diner that was really popular on TripAdvisor. When I went there, they were, parking lot was full. There were cars lined up across the street and there was a line out the door to get in. So I said, forget that. My third option was White Mountain Bagel, which ended up being just awesome. I had sausage, egg, and cheese on a wheat bagel. It was perfect. The whole atmosphere of being in a mountain town, just sit outside on the picnic tables. I drove the Cancamagas Highway. I visited a bunch of places on that road. I'll tell you, like I said earlier, the 9% grade on some of these hills, my Toyota Corolla, it's been running well, but I wasn't going to risk it. So I was going slow up those hills. I highly recommend if you go up to Lincoln that you at least go a little ways out on the cank, as they call it. Just be prepared. There's no gas stations, no convenience stores, pretty much no cell phone service. At different points, I was on SOS mode, which that's not always good. The views of the White Mountains, though, it's worth it to have no cell service. You can post photos to social media when you get back to civilization. As I'm going through this segment, I'm realizing how much more there is that happened on this road trip. So what it looks like is going to happen is next week I'll do a part two of this road trip to try to fit as much in as I can because I don't want to skip too much because this road trip was awesome. I spent my day in northern New Hampshire and then I went west into Vermont. This was the point where I put on my GPS avoid highways so I'd be really in the rural countryside areas of western New Hampshire, eastern Vermont. The first place I stopped in Vermont was a town called Fairleigh. It's right across the Connecticut River. Before this trip, I hadn't been in Vermont for any sort of extended period of time, and I'm talking hours of time, since 2000. I think it's harder to get to Vermont because it's at least two and a half hours minimum to get to Vermont from where I am on Cape Cod. I parked at the town hall and walked around to take some pictures. And all I kept thinking was, hopefully they don't mind that my out of state car is parked in the lot for the town hall. I didn't know if spots were reserved. But on this whole road trip, I didn't get any speeding tickets, parking tickets, nothing bad like that. As I started driving south towards my destination, which was Brattleboro, I had booked a room there. I started to realize there was as much construction going on on the back roads of Vermont as there was on Cape Cod. I stopped many times at these portable red lights that they had on wheels. It got so bad that eventually I started taking pictures of the red lights when I got to a red light where I was. And some of these, I've been going through the photos. I don't know where I was. I have to find a clue in the photo. I also realized that I think I've gone a little soft as far as my endangering other people on the road in order to get the photos I want. I used to in the past, if I saw something I liked, I would literally just quickly pull over to the side of the road. If someone's behind me, I get beeped at, middle fingers. On this trip, I passed several locations that looked like they'd be perfect for photos, but there'd either be people behind me close enough that I didn't want to risk just whipping the car off to the side, or there'd be nowhere to park, which that usually didn't stop me before either. What ended up happening a lot of the time on my trip south through Vermont was I had to enjoy the scenery with my eyes and make memories instead of taking millions of photos. I don't know if that's good or bad. I mean, it's good for the other people on the road that I wasn't a maniac, but it's bad for me because some of the things I saw, the only way to get pictures of it now is to go on Google Maps and do a screenshot or something like that. What we'll do though is we will pause the road trip as I'm heading south into Brattleboro, Vermont, because I'm looking at how long this is going already and realizing that I'm about halfway through this trip. So we'll come back next week in episode 163. And we'll do part two, which will include the interesting places I visited in Brattleboro, my experience in the Hoosac Tunnel, my driving of the Mohawk Trail, and my victory over my GPS by not using it to help me get home from Western Massachusetts. I'll link to as many places as I've talked about so far in this road trip in the description of the podcast if you want to check them out. And go to my YouTube channel. There's loads of videos. I did webcam wrap-ups of each day of the road trip. The one from Lincoln is on location so you can hear the water rushing behind me. It was good times. This week in history, we are going back 33 years to September 19th, 1991 and the discovery of Otzi the Iceman. The discovery of Otzi, who was called that because he was found high in the Otzal Alps near the border of Austria and Italy. It was one of the most significant archaeological finds of the 20th century. Two German hikers, Helmut and Erika Simon, they were hiking at an altitude of about 3,200 meters, about 10,500 feet, in the Oetzal Alps when they found a body protruding from the melting ice. At first, the Simons thought this was another hiker that had died in the harsh conditions of the Alps. But once this body was removed and examined by archaeologists, they realized that because of his clothing and equipment, he was from the Copper Age, dating to around 3300 BC. The best part of this discovery was how well-preserved Ötzi had been. It allowed researchers unprecedented levels of analysis on his remains. If you're curious, his body was removed from the ice and it's now housed in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Balzano, Italy. And it's kept in a climate-controlled chamber, which mimics the conditions of that glacier where he was buried for over 4,000 years. Analysis of Otzi let archaeologists know he was around 45, stood about 5'3", weighed about 110 pounds. they were able to find out information about his lifestyle, diet, the health of Copper Age Europeans. For example, he had contents in his stomach, so it revealed his last meal included wild meat, likely ibex or red deer, grains like einkorn, wheat. Ötzi was also discovered with an array of tools. He had a copper axe, a dagger, bow and arrows... And he had his clothing that was made from different animal skins and plant fibers, which allowed scientists a glimpse into materials and techniques used by these people at the time in the Copper Age. I'm sure you're all wondering about the mystery of Otzi's death, though, how he ended up in that glacier on the Alps Mountains. The initial theory suggested that he had succumbed to the cold, to the elements, while traveling through the mountains, but advances in forensic analysis have revealed a more violent end. In 2001, a CT scan revealed an arrowhead lodged in Otzi's left shoulder, indicating that he had been shot from behind, and that arrow severed a major artery, which likely caused him to bleed to death within minutes. Despite the violent end, where he had cuts and bruises on his hands, injuries to his head, possibly from a fall or a blow, Otzi's belongings, all his valuables, were found with him, so robbery has been ruled out as a motive for attack. If he hadn't been killed like that on the mountainside, his health and lifestyle likely would have led to his end not too long after. It was discovered he suffered arthritis, His intestines were infected with parasitic worms, likely from contaminated food or water. He was lactose intolerant. It's amazing. Genetic analysis of Otzi's DNA showed that. And in 2012, a study revealed that Otzi had hardened arteries, which basically meant he had heart disease. Otzi the Iceman has become a symbol of the deep connections between modern humans and their ancient ancestors. And his unprecedented, well-preserved body offered a window into the past of people who lived in Europe more than 5,000 years ago. And Otzi the Iceman was found in the Alps 33 years ago this week in history. Oh, we're going from the time capsule that was Oatsy's body to an actual time capsule. There's some sort of segue in there. But for this week's time capsule, we're going back to the day that Oatsy was found. September 19th, 1991. Let's see what was going on in the world of pop culture back then. The number one song was I Adore Me More by Color Me Bad. Boy, you talk about quintessential 90s right there. Color Me Bad was a boy band. They had their biggest claim to fame when they were on Beverly Hills 90210. The song went to number one for two weeks. It was their second single off of their debut album, CMB. Their first song was I Wanna Sex You Up. which surprisingly only went to number two on the Billboard charts because that song, I feel, is way more remembered than I Adore Me Amore. The number one movie was Freddy's Dead, The Final Nightmare, and you could get into the theater with a ticket costing $4.21. I don't know what I paid to get in, or my mom paid, but I went and saw this in the theater. It was in 3D, well at least the end was. This was supposed to be the final Nightmare on Elm Street movie. For me being 13, almost 14 at the time, I thought it was an excellent movie. If you watch it back today, it's not quite as good. Now it did make $35 million on a budget of $5 million, including whatever money I paid into it. But it's 22% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and by this point, Freddy Krueger had become almost like a parody of himself. One-liners, his makeup, he looked more like a pizza that had become human. Luckily, the follow-up, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, was so much better. The number one TV show was Roseanne. This is the show about middle-class, middle-America family, the Connors. Roseanne and Dan, the kids, Darlene, Becky, and DJ. The show was on for 10 total seasons, originally from 1988 to 1997, and a brief reboot in 2018, but it was rebranded as The Conners when Roseanne got fired for being a scummy human being. And if you were around back then, September 19th, 1991... Maybe you wanted to watch the news about Oatsy the Iceman being discovered. Well, you're in luck. You can get yourself a Sony VideoScope 53-inch rear projection television from Tweeter. Remember Tweeter? And what's great is in their ad, it's last year's model, so you're going to get a good deal. What is the good deal on this projection TV? $24.99. You're going to save $500. When adjusted for inflation, that means you'd be paying just over $5,700 for this TV. For comparisons on how TV technology and prices have changed, I found a 50-inch Samsung ultra-high-def television at Best Buy on sale for $279. Not over five grand. Plus that TV probably weighed a thousand pounds. That'll wrap up another time capsule, another This Week in History. But now let's go into the future and the past at the same time as I bring in my old pal ChatGPT to help me with the top five as we look at me versus AI, the best TV shows of the 1990s coming up right now. you know what that sound means well i guess it's only the third time i've ever played that music so you wouldn't know what it means by the music but what it means is it's the return of me versus ai top five this is where i take my normal top five segment and share my picks for whatever the topic is but then ask the same question of chat gpt i try to make these as legit as i can Meaning that I ask ChatGPT the question once and whatever they give me is what they give. So I don't try to change the question to get either funnier answers or more accurate answers. Also, when it comes to ChatGPT's answers, I've been tempted in the past to put some kind of an AI voice reading off what ChatGPT wrote, but I end up not doing it. Maybe I'll do it this time. I don't know. So let's get into it. This week's top five is the best TV shows of the 1990s. So it's a little bit different than my favorites. So I'll say a couple of the ones on my best list are shows I didn't really religiously watch, but I can't deny that they were among the best of the decade. Because we're doing me and AI both top five lists, there won't be any honorable mentions this week, but the list is in no particular order. So let me try to run through mine, starting with number one, The Simpsons. This was the easiest answer maybe to any top five I've ever done as far as best shows. My best and my favorite lists would both start with this show. To show you what a success The Simpsons was, it's still on the air. It debuted around Christmas 1989. I was in sixth grade then. I am far removed from sixth grade now, but the show is still on the air. The Adventures of the Simpson Family, Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. As of May 2024, there are 768 episodes of The Simpsons. But I also willingly admit that once the Simpsons movie came out in 2007, that probably should have ended the show, and I haven't really watched it in the last 16, 17 years. Pick out any episode, basically from season 3 through maybe season 15, and you'll have classic TV. Just like number 2, Seinfeld. The show about nothing. It gave way to so many catchphrases that are in the lexicon of America. So many quotable episodes, unique episodes. The adventures of Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer in New York City. There were 180 episodes of Seinfeld. The show was on from 1989 to 1998. It was a ratings juggernaut and so popular was this show that when it went off the air, NBC was offering at least Jerry Seinfeld $5 million per episode to do a season 10. This is another show just like The Simpsons that Basically, pick out any episode. Throw a dart at a poster on the wall with all the episodes listed. If you have some kind of poster like that, I don't know. But you can't go wrong with any of them. Number three is the X-Files. Agents Mulder and Scully and their adventures with the supernatural, paranormal, some true crime. Originally, The X-Files was on from 1993 to 2002, and then it came back from 2016 to 2018. The show started my freshman year of high school, and it was the talking point of a lot of my friend group when new episodes would come out. Because the story's the sci-fi, paranormal, the true crime. It was the kind of stuff that I was interested in at age 15, 16. And still am to this day, but it was nice to have a show that kind of explored those topics in a more contemporary way. Number four is ER. This is one of those shows that I did not religiously watch. I probably never watched an episode of it at all. I knew how big of a show this was, not from ratings research, but from the fact that my mother had it as appointment viewing for herself. ER started in 1994. and was on for 15 seasons. And it takes place in Cook County General Hospital in Chicago. This show gave rise to so many careers. George Clooney, Anthony Edwards, Eric LaSalle from Coming to America, Julianna Margulies, Noah Wiley, and so many more. This is one of those shows that if I do a time capsule from anywhere from 1994 through the rest of the show's run, ER is usually the number one TV show. And finally for me on my top five best TV shows of the 90s is Friends. I watched some episodes of Friends. I was not a religious viewer. It was not like The Simpsons or Seinfeld or Married with Children. Much like ER, though, Friends started the careers of so many people. Those of you that watch the show, you could name all of the six main characters. Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, and Lisa Kudrow. Friends living in New York and their adventures through life. This also led to so many catchphrases, quotable episodes, the Ross and Rachel love story. The show was on for 10 years from 1994 to 2004, and I'd be foolish to say any list of the best TV shows of the 90s would be complete without it. Oh boy, but here we go. What does ChatGPT have to say the best TV shows of the 1990s are? I was surprised when I asked this question that they weren't confused by having to choose the best. Because sometimes AI will say that's subjective and they have trouble. So I asked ChatGPT, what were the top five best TV shows of the 1990s? And here is ChatGPT's reply. First, they preface it by saying, the 1990s produced some of the most iconic television shows, beloved by audiences and still influential today. Here are five of the most cherished TV shows from that decade, known for their cultural impact, popularity, and critical acclaim. So there's the setup. Let's see what you think of their list. They start number one with Friends. ChatGPT says that Friends is a cultural phenomenon following six close-knit friends navigating life, love, and work in New York City. Known for its humor, relatable characters, and catchphrases, it remains one of the most popular shows worldwide. Okay, we agree so far. ChatGPT's number two? is the X-Files. We're two for two here. ChadGPT says the X-Files combined elements of the paranormal, conspiracy theories, and investigative drama, following FBI agents Mulder and Scully as they explored unsolved cases involving supernatural phenomena. Its mix of mythology episodes and standalone mysteries captivated fans. I don't know, I don't like the fact that our lists are identical so far. Number three from ChatGPT is Seinfeld. This is going to get real boring if we go five for five. ChatGPT says, Seinfeld is often referred to as a show about nothing. I just referred to it like that a minute ago. It focused on the minutiae of everyday life through the lens of comedian Jerry Seinfeld and his quirky group of friends. Its witty, observational humor and iconic moments made it a defining show of the decade. So ChatGPT's first three are also on my list, but that's where the similarities end. Their number four is The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. It was on the air from 1990 to 1996. ChatGPT says, Starring Will Smith, this show blended comedy with important social messages, depicting a street-smart teen from Philadelphia adjusting to life with his wealthy relatives in Bel-Air. The show's memorable theme song, humor, and heart have kept it popular long after its original run. I can't hate on that. If I did the top five on my own with honorable mentions, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air would have been in there. So that's one I can respect. We've got one more from ChatGPT, number five. This is where I part ways with ChatGPT, as their number five is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I have raised my eyebrows in surprise, if you could see. Buffy was on from 1997 to 2003. ChatGPT says this show became a cult classic by blending supernatural elements with high school drama. Buffy Summers, a young woman chosen to battle vampires and demons, faced both literal and figurative monsters, making it a groundbreaking series with strong feminist undertones. I'm still a huge fan of Sarah Michelle Gellar, but this show would not have been in my top 50 of the 90s. Four out of five I can agree with, but think to yourself, best shows of the 90s. Where would Buffy the Vampire Slayer fall for you? This isn't quite as egregious as when I did the top five 1980s professional wrestler's And ChatGPT not only picked a wrestler from the 90s, but also picked a tag team. So I guess it's the best I could hope for, at least until AI gets smarter, and then I ask it the question and it kills me. That wraps up the return of me versus AI Top 5, the third in the series. But if you were around back in the 80s looking to fall into fitness... If you asked what the best diet and exercise fads were, I would hope nobody would recommend these that are coming up now. Well, it is that time to fall back into fitness. Some people's fitness journeys are pretty short. They don't need much help. Others might need a lot more help. And some might need a miracle. These products we're going to talk about here were not that miracle. We're going to look at 1980s diet and exercise fad fails. What I've got here are 10 examples, different exercise products, diets. And I think most of these are going to be familiar with you who grew up in the 70s, 80s that were of the age then that you may have tried these or at least seen them on TV. In episode 144 of the podcast, I did the 1970s diet and exercise fad fails. I also did a video version of that that's on my YouTube channel. If you want to see images of some of this foolishness that people were doing back then. Gravity Boots Gravity Boots Inversion, being upside down, is so good for your spine, for your body, and for blood circulation. They have inversion tables where you lay on it and it tips you so your head is towards the ground. Gravity boots was that idea, but you hooked your feet into them. What you'd need is one of those kind of pull-up bars that you always see people falling down with that hook above doors. You need one of those that was secured. Then you would hook these boots around your feet, latch them to the pipe or bar and hang there and just let your spine relax and the blood go. But think about how I just described how you're going to get up there. Hook your feet into these and then hang them up there. Get a ladder and climb up and then do it. You know there were a lot of people that tried this, and just like the viral videos you see, they hooked their feet into them and fell right down on their heads. Honestly, I can't believe these things were around. It makes sense in theory, but I bet there was lots of dislocated hips. You can find them on eBay now if you want to go try them, but don't. One product that was far less dangerous than Gravity Boots... but I know I was embarrassed to see the commercials, was the Buns of Steel video.

Speaker 02:

Now you can have this amazing tape that was formerly $29.95 for only $14.95 just by calling this toll-free number.

Speaker 05:

I love Buns of Steel. My buns look great now.

Speaker 02:

To order Buns of Steel, call 1-800-874-3200. Have your credit card ready.

Speaker 00:

Buns of Steel became a catchphrase in the lexicon of America in the 80s with this video. Workout videos, home videos, the VHS, those really came to life in the 1980s. I'm going to do a segment on those in a future podcast episode. Greg Smithy was the host of the Buns of Steel video, which was an exercise that targeted your butt, your glutes. Now granted, the glutes are an important muscle. I know as a trainer that typically most of the people that come in with low back pain just have weak glutes. But there are only so many exercises you can do and have your butt on fire. This VHS sold well, but it was also parodied so many times, including SNL. That was another thing about the 1980s workouts. They had these very... targeted ones, for your buns, like buns of steel, or for your abs. The next one was the Abdominizer.

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The Abdominizer targets the proper abdominal muscles, so each and every setup is made more effective, safer too. You can have a tone of your tummy in weeks. Best of all, it's so simple. The unique rocker mechanism lets you rock, rock, rock your way to a firmer stomach.

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For those that don't remember, this was a blue... kind of cradle plastic thing with handles on it that you would sit on. Dennis Colonello, who's a Canadian chiropractor, he came up with this idea. You basically rock your way to firmer abs for $19.95. It looks like somebody bought one of those old plastic round sleds and then just cut handles in it. I bet you people did get this abdominizer and use it as a sled at the golf course. The infomercials were all on TV in the late 80s, early 90s. You can find them on YouTube. They're pretty stupid. I just did a quick Google search of Abdominizer, and it's true. People do now sell them, the vintage ones, for people to use as sleds. All right, so the first three things I've talked about are actual quote-unquote fitness equipment. But what about a diet? Does anyone remember the lemon juice diet? This diet was sometimes also known as the master cleanse, where you would drink this concoction of lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup. Basically a juice cleanse for a week or two weeks. No solid food. Unless you're drinking just straight protein shakes as your liquid, you need some kind of solid food for nutrients. Some of these diets also recommended that you take a kind of herbal laxative tea along with the lemon juice mixture. This detoxification type diet is not good and it led to a lot of side effects like headaches, fatigue, weakness, gastrointestinal problems, and some cases of long-term weight gain because when you get off this juice cleanse, all you want to do is eat as much solid food as possible. So there's a fail. Speaking of fails, do you remember 8-Minute Abs?

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I went from the splabby spare tire to a washboard stomach. Thanks, 8-Minute Abs. We've combined 8-Minute Abs legs, arms, and 8-Minute buns in a super intense 8-Minute workout for only $19.95. I

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used to hide my backside, but look, now I have a shape to show off.

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Jamie Brenkus was the creator of the eight minute abs video meant to be core work for people that didn't have time to go to the gym. Eight minutes isn't that long. This workout started in the late 1980s and it caught fire through the early 90s because who wouldn't want to get six pack abs in eight minutes? But the problem is that's not how it works. Yes, you could strengthen your core. But you also need to do a lot of changes to your diet to reveal those abs. Just because you do 5 million crunches, you're not going to spot burn the fat from your stomach. These are sad things that I learned when I became a trainer. I'm not saying 8 minute abs isn't something to try. But just don't expect too much if you don't change your diet. Or if you don't do any other sort of physical activity besides 8 minutes of crunches a few times a week. I used to have a client I trained in her home 30 minutes once a week. And she complained to me that she wasn't seeing any changes in her strength or her weight. It was because she wasn't doing anything the time I wasn't there. 30 minutes of exercise isn't going to stop 6 days, 23 hours, and 30 minutes of not exercising and eating crap. But I digress. Speaking of not eating crap, do you remember the Scarsdale diet? The Scarsdale diet started in 1979 and gained fame throughout the early 80s, but it is heavily, heavily calorie restrictive, as in 1,000 calories per day, regardless of your age, weight. You've got certain macros you have to meet, protein, fat, carbs, but 1,000 calories a day for anywhere from 7 to 14 days. Granted, you could eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and salads, but restricting yourself that much, it's really dangerous. It's better to cut your calories some and increase your activity level more than just stripping away possibly a half, two thirds, three quarters of the calories that you would eat during a normal day. But we're not done with the diets. How about the Beverly Hills diet? No, not the Beverly Hillbillies diet that would be rabbits and raccoons and possums. The Beverly Hills diet was actually a book that came out in 1981 written by Judy Maisel. The Beverly Hills diet is more focused around the enzymes of foods. And it's meant to be a longer term diet. And you start off with just fruits. And over time you get to increase what you eat. One of the things about the Beverly Hills diet was fruit should only be eaten alone, not part of any other meal. We've dipped into several diets there, but what if you had the greatest exercise equipment already in your backyard? Well, that's what you had if you did the trampoline workouts before. These were not giant trampolines that you would have in your yard. They were smaller. They still make them for little kids to jump around on. But that was the idea of this workout. Bouncing and jumping to get your heart rate up. They had workouts like the rebounder, the just bounce. There's one you can find on YouTube that's got Tone Lokes music to it. So it's very late 80s. Trampolines could be a fun little additive to a workout once every now and then. But if the only thing you do is jump on a trampoline and you're not five, I don't know what you're getting out of it for fitness. Maybe I'm just jealous that I didn't have a trampoline growing up as a kid. The last diet that I'm going to talk about from the 80s as far as fad fails go is the Cambridge diet. The reason I saved this one till near the end is that this may be the king of all calorie restriction diets ever. You thought the Scarsdale diet was bad at a thousand calories? Could you imagine allowing yourself 330 calories all day? You could have lots of fruit and vegetables again, but 330 calories? You might lose weight, but you're also going to be too weak to even get off the couch. This was originally developed in the 1960s by Dr. Alan Howard, a biochemist from Cambridge University. But it wasn't released kind of as a diet, I guess, to the public until 1980. And you can see why. 330 calories, one cup of oatmeal, one cup of oats, regular oats is 300 calories. And that's good for you. Can you imagine having basically a cup of oatmeal and almost nothing else all day? You were supposed to do a lot of meal replacements. Again, a lot of juice cleansing, smoothies, shakes. It might be good to do for one or two days. If you have the days off and you can just do nothing but lay on the couch and let your body eat itself. It's just crazy. But finally here, I wanted to end with something that was definitely diet fad related, but way more lighthearted. You remember sizzling? move over bacon

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there's something leaner tasty sizzling whoa sis what's the matter with my bacon here's what's the matter fat fat sizzling's 50 leaner than bacon it's all real meat without all the fat delicious

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when i was doing my research for 80s diet fails there was a lot of stuff about fake fat-free foods or low-calorie foods where you replace fat with something else that's just as bad, but then you can say it's low-fat. Sizzoline was basically a bacon substitute, and it had the famous commercials. Goodbye bacon, and it flies off the plate. Here comes sizzoline, and it would fly in. I remember those as a kid. It was considered a leaner alternative to regular bacon. But the irony was, sizzoline was still 37% fat by weight. So it's healthier than bacon, but not healthy. I can honestly say I never got to try sizzoline. I know, my life was so terrible growing up. No trampoline, no sizzoline. But I did get to go to Dairy Queen. Sizzoline was discontinued in about 2005. I just looked on eBay to see if anybody was selling unopened boxes or boxes that had been emptied as nostalgia. Well, you talk about a waste of money. If I did something like that, would you spend $20 on an empty box that used to have sizzling in it in the 80s? Man. So there you go. That's a look at 10 different diet and exercise fad fails of the 80s. I'm sure most of you remember a lot of these. I don't know how many of these you tried. The diets, maybe, but things like gravity boots, like why would you get those? It's like the same as falling out of a tree, except you don't have to pay money for that. In the future, I will do diet and exercise fails from the 90s, from the 60s, so we can laugh at stuff that people tried when falling back into fitness. But until next time, that's going to wrap up episode 162 of the podcast. Thank you all for listening. An even bigger thank you to those of you that listen and share, subscribe, rate, review. And the biggest thanks to those of you on Patreon that support me. I'm doing my best to make more content over there, not just for paying members, but just on the free tier to give you more reasons to go check it out. Of course, the podcast, the main podcast here is always free. Next week's going to be episode 163. Like I said earlier in the show, I will do part two of my 2024 road trip. But wait, there's more. We're going to look at 1970s fast food fails. I've already found some interesting ones to share with you. None yet that I wish would come back. Also, we're going to look at the 40th anniversary of the first ever compact disc. That's right. CDs are 40 years old next week. It's amazing when I think of the different forms of media that I have seen in my lifetime. When I was really little, eight tracks were still big. Vinyl albums were big and not for nostalgia's sake. Then we got audio cassettes, compact discs. And then MP3s, iPods, streaming music. So we're going to look at the history of CDs next week as well. I hope you enjoyed this week's show. I always have fun researching and putting these together and imagining you out there listening, hearing certain segments and be like, oh man, that was a great segment. Diet and exercise fad fails just for laughs. And I'm very grateful that there are people out there that make this appointment listening. Because I'm almost four years in. This is 162 episodes. I've got so many video segments I've done on YouTube. So much content work. And it's a lot of time. There are weeks that I spend 20 hours doing content work on top of my regular full-time day job. If you're interested in any of my nine books, visit my website, ChristopherSetterlin.com. It's got links to all of the books there. I have some physical copies of these books in my possession. If you wanted to buy a copy from me, Venmo, email me. I could actually sign them and send them out. Keep your eyes open. Go subscribe on YouTube. I've really gotten in a groove of posting more and more videos over there. I'm trying to get to a point where I've got enough subscribers, videos, content hours being watched that I could actually make money on YouTube. I don't have to make millions just to know that my YouTube videos, my podcast, things like that are actually making money would just be the ultimate thrill. So get out there, enjoy the first week of fall. The weather is still great. As you go up north, the leaves are going to start to change. Go enjoy some foliage drives. And I'll keep pumping out the content. Main podcast, YouTube videos, blogs, the Initial Impressions 2.0 blog, all that and more. Thank you so much again for being part of my crew that always checks out my stuff. And if it's your first time here, thank you for coming aboard. And remember, in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Create your own path. And enjoy every moment you can on this journey we call life because you never know what tomorrow brings. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund. You already knew that. And I'll talk to you all again soon.

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