Maintenance Phase

What do you do when you've flamed out as a Hollywood actor, a political commentator and a wellness guru? You make a YouTube channel.

Tracing the left-to-right political trajectory of the unfunniest man in British comedy. Support us: Hear bonus episodes on PatreonWatch Aubrey's documentaryBuy Aubrey's bookListen to Mike's other podcastGet Maintenance Phase T-shirts, stickers and moreLinks!

The rags-to-riches tale of how an illegal methamphetamine manufacturer became a legal methamphetamine manufacturer. Support us: Hear bonus episodes on PatreonWatch Aubrey's documentaryBuy Aubrey's bookListen to Mike's other podcastGet Maintenance Phase T-shirts, stickers and moreLinks!

Metabolife: how an illegal methamphetamine manufacturer became a legal methamphetamine manufacturer — the rags-to-riches story of the ephedra diet pill empire that killed over 150 people before the FDA could stop it.

Once widely banned, raw milk consumption is on the rise and states are repealing their bans. No one’s happier about that than the far right. How did we get here? NOTE: In the retelling of Pasteur’s early pasteurization, Aubrey misspoke! The culprit wasn’t lactic yeast, it was lactic acid bacteria.

Raw milk: how states are repealing pasteurization bans in the name of 'health freedom.' The real history of pasteurization (it saved millions of children from dying of tuberculosis), and why the raw milk movement is nostalgia disguised as science.

One blogger bravely pushes back against Starbucks, Subway and basic scientific facts. Support us: Hear bonus episodes on PatreonWatch Aubrey's documentaryBuy Aubrey's bookListen to Mike's other podcastGet Maintenance Phase T-shirts, stickers and more Links!

Vani Hari, the Food Babe: the blogger who pushed back against Starbucks, Subway, and basic scientific facts. Her army of followers got companies to change ingredients through pressure campaigns based on misunderstanding of chemistry.

Why are you, as a man, afraid of sunflowers. Support us: Hear bonus episodes on PatreonWatch Aubrey's documentaryBuy Aubrey's bookListen to Mike's other podcastGet Maintenance Phase T-shirts, stickers and moreLinks!

Seed oils: are they actually toxic? The evidence is far weaker than the discourse suggests. How a legitimate concern about omega-6/omega-3 ratios became a moral panic where 'seed oil avoiders' police restaurant menus.

We’re talking about our first diet MLM and IT’S A REAL DOOZY! Support us: Hear bonus episodes on PatreonWatch Aubrey's documentaryBuy Aubrey's bookListen to Mike's other podcastGet Maintenance Phase T-shirts, stickers and more Links!

Herbalife: a diet MLM that preys on immigrant communities with the promise of health and wealth while delivering neither. The convergence of diet culture, multi-level marketing, and exploitation of vulnerable populations.

Everyone agrees that processed foods are bad for you. When it comes to defining what they actually are, however, there is considerably less agreement.

From our Patreon feed, we're catching up with RFK Jr. and his cadre of "Make America Healthy Again" influencers.

Meet the tech bro on a noble quest to double his lifespan, improve his productivity and irritate his waitress. Support us: Hear bonus episodes on PatreonWatch Aubrey's documentaryBuy Aubrey's bookListen to Mike's other podcastGet Maintenance Phase T-shirts, stickers and moreLinks!

Dave Asprey's Bulletproof Diet: butter in coffee, mycotoxin panic, and the biohacking-to-product pipeline. How Silicon Valley's optimization culture created a diet empire built on unfalsifiable claims and expensive supplements.

The places where humans live the longest are explained by traditional lifestyles, widespread incest or systematic fraud, there is no fourth option. Thanks to Catherine MacDonald for helping us research and fact-check this episode!

Mike and Aubrey investigate the Blue Zones concept -- the five regions where people supposedly live the longest. They examine the evidence and find serious problems with the data, including age fraud, inconsistent record-keeping, and cherry-picked communities.

The annual awards show for the worst wellness grifts of the year: SkinnyTok, smart toilets that analyze your stool composition, and restaurants offering smaller portions 'for women and short kings.'

Mike and Aubrey trace Russell Brand's transformation from comedian to wellness guru, examining how he leveraged recovery narratives, spiritual language, and anti-establishment rhetoric to build a massive wellness brand before his sexual assault allegations.

Because we live in hell, here is last month's bonus episode about RFK Jr.'s presidential campaign with a new intro about what he could do at HHS. See you next year! Support the show

A special episode on RFK Jr.'s appointment to HHS: his anti-vaccine history, his MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) rhetoric, and why wellness populism is dangerous when it has institutional power.

The internet gets weird investigating the "disappearance" of America's gay best friend.

Before building his fitness empire, America’s most bedazzled fitness guru was a guy named Milton from New Orleans.

Richard Simmons part 1: the unlikely story of how a bullied, fat kid from New Orleans became America's most famous fitness personality — and the only mainstream fitness figure who actually seemed to care about fat people.

Aubrey walks Mike through diet advice from Sophia Loren, Victoria Principal, and Cher, revealing that celebrity diet books of the 1980s promoted dangerously low calorie counts, bizarre food combinations, and body standards that required both genetic luck and professional assistance to achieve.

How a mother, a daughter and a crackpot Swiss psychologist gave us the world's most popular Buzzfeed quiz. Support us: Hear bonus episodes on PatreonDonate on PayPalGet Maintenance Phase T-shirts, stickers and moreWatch Aubrey's documentaryBuy Aubrey's bookListen to Mike's other podcastLinks!

Myers-Briggs: the personality test used by 88% of Fortune 500 companies that has zero predictive validity. How a mother-daughter team with no psychology training created one of the most profitable assessment tools in history.

Mike and Aubrey examine the ultra-processed food panic, tracing the NOVA classification system from its origins in Brazilian public health research to its adoption as a moral framework in the anglophone wellness world.

We went a little easy on the Cass Report in our last main feed episode, so we're back to [Mortal Kombat voice] FINISH HIM!!! This was supposed to be a Patreon bonus episode but we'd rather you support the lovely trans people who helped us with the research and fact-checking of this episode!

Thanks to Jules Gill-Peterson (jgillpeterson.com) and Julia Serano (patreon.com/juliaserano) for help researching this episode and Evan Urquhart, Parker Molloy and Katelyn Burns for fact-checking!

Thanks to Jules Gill-Peterson (jgillpeterson.com) and Julia Serano (patreon.com/juliaserano) for help researching this episode and Evan Urquhart and Parker Molloy for fact-checking!

In the 2000s, Jamie Oliver made a big splash with his work reforming kids’ meals in the UK and US. Was his work wicked slammin’, or just proper rustic?

What was missing from America's pandemic response? According to the internet, a sunshine vitamin, a malaria treatment and a whole lot of horse paste. Thanks to Health Nerd (Substack) for helping us fact-check this episode!

Mike and Aubrey dig through the sensational claims around GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, examining the gap between clinical trial data and media hype. They trace how these drugs became framed as the end of the obesity epidemic despite limited long-term data and significant side effects.

Ozempic is being hailed as “the end of the Obesity Epidemic.” This week, Mike and Aubrey dig through the sensational claims. But will they make it past the caveats?

How a plant-based pejorative went from an alt-right burn to a core concern of mainstream Republicans. Support us: Hear bonus episodes on PatreonDonate on PayPalGet Maintenance Phase T-shirts, stickers and moreBuy Aubrey's bookListen to Mike's other podcastLinks!

Join us for a 75 minute answer to a 5 word question: Is there mercury in vaccines? Support us: Hear bonus episodes on PatreonDonate on PayPalGet Maintenance Phase T-shirts, stickers and moreBuy Aubrey's bookListen to Mike's other podcastLinks!

A political candidate has some questions and we have some extremely obvious answers. Support us: Hear bonus episodes on PatreonDonate on PayPalGet Maintenance Phase T-shirts, stickers and moreBuy Aubrey's bookListen to Mike's other podcastLinks!

Somehow an episode about an old-timey fitness influencer ended up being one of our most wholesome ever. We're as surprised as you are. Support us: Hear bonus episodes on PatreonDonate on PayPalGet Maintenance Phase T-shirts, stickers and moreBuy Aubrey's bookListen to Mike's other podcastLinks!

Mike and Aubrey investigate the USDA Food Pyramid, revealing how agricultural industry lobbying transformed a science-based nutrition graphic into a marketing tool for commodity crops. The pyramid prioritized grain industry profits over public health.

The French Paradox: how a 60 Minutes segment in 1991 turned red wine into a health food and created a billion-dollar resveratrol supplement industry. The data was cherry-picked, the mechanism was wrong, and the French aren't actually healthier.

Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop: jade eggs, psychic vampire repellent, and the 'detox' empire. How celebrity authority launders pseudoscience, and why the target audience isn't stupid — they're underserved by a healthcare system that doesn't listen to women.

Is there really a sleep loss epidemic? Hobbes examines Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep claims and finds significant exaggerations: the data on sleep duration decline is weaker than claimed, and the health effects of modest sleep reduction are overstated.

Part 2 of the BMI deep dive: the 'obesity epidemic' narrative examined. How statistical redefinition, not actual health changes, created millions of new 'overweight' Americans overnight — and why the epidemic framing serves industry more than public health.

BMI was invented by a Belgian mathematician in the 1830s who explicitly said it shouldn't be used to measure individual health. It was adopted by insurance companies in the 1960s because it was cheap and easy, not because it was accurate.

Eating disorders: the most lethal mental illness, with mortality rates higher than depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. Why diet culture IS eating disorder culture, and how the same behaviors praised as 'discipline' in thin bodies are diagnosed as illness in thin-enough bodies.

Weight Watchers: the most successful diet brand in history, with a 95% failure rate. How the program profits from recidivism — lifetime members who rejoin are the core business model.

How 'America's Doctor' became TV's leading purveyor of junk science. Green coffee bean extract, raspberry ketones, and a salad-dressing skincare regimen — the pattern of promising miracle cures that don't survive scrutiny.

The history of snake oil — which was actually a real Chinese remedy that worked. How a con man's fake version destroyed the reputation of traditional medicine and created the template for modern wellness grifting.

The Biggest Loser as a case study in metabolic damage: NIH research showed contestants' metabolisms slowed by 500+ calories/day and NEVER recovered, even 6 years later. The show that proved extreme dieting permanently breaks metabolism.

The pilot episode: Aubrey and Michael lay the foundation — anti-fat bias is not just mean, it's medically harmful. Fat patients receive worse care, are diagnosed later, and die younger not because of their weight but because of how doctors treat them.