Joe Rogan Experience #1816 - Gad Saad

Saad lost 86 pounds by walking 15–20,000 steps daily, tightly tracking every calorie with MyFitnessPal (around 1,600–1,700/day), weighing himself weekly, and largely cutting carbs. He emphasizes avoiding “all or nothing” thinking: aim to make slightly better choices every day and let compounding do the work.

Rogan and Saad argue it’s actually more stressful to leave problems festering (health, writing, obligations) than to confront them. They advocate “turning pro”: showing up daily, writing a fixed word count, training even when you don’t feel like it, and treating your body and craft like a professional responsibility.

They distinguish compassion for individuals from endorsing narratives that obesity is healthy or that dieting is ‘fatphobic.’ Saad frames fat-acceptance ideology as an ego-defense that’s easier than doing the difficult daily grind of behavior change—and Rogan notes settled science clearly links obesity to poor health and worse COVID outcomes.

Saad recounts extreme examples—like a postmodern student denying that only women give birth or that the sun rises in the east—as emblematic of a broader trend: treating all facts as social constructs. He argues this has morphed into today’s gender denialism, fatphobia rhetoric, and “math is white supremacy” claims, which he calls “idea pathogens.”

Both insist that suppressing ‘misinformation’ (e.g., Hunter Biden’s laptop story, Holocaust denial) is more dangerous than allowing bad ideas into the open, where they can be rebutted. Saad stresses deontological ethics: foundational principles like free speech and truth-seeking must not be sacrificed for short‑term political gains.