FLOW #22 - How Google & Butter Saved My Life | The Case for Targeted Advertising to Create Technological Serendipity

Summary: You're listening to the 22nd episode of the Humans 2.0 podcast, solo-series, FLOW! Today's episode is about a downwards spiral I fell into a few years ago and how I solved it. <br><br>The year was 2016. I had finished my first year of college and I didn’t gain the freshmen 15, I gained the freshmen 50. <br><br>I went from 165 to 215 in less than 3 months. This was prompted by binge eating bags of sour patch kids (70+ grams of sugar) every night because I disliked where I was in my life. In addition, I was chugging down 2-3 cans of heavily caffeinated red bull every single day.<br><br>At first, I was doing it for more energy, but I quickly realized after a week I’d get extremely tired after drinking a can of red bull. Which led me to the discovery of scientifically backed studies that showed diminished performance after 200mg of caffeine. <br><br>Tired, depressed, and anxious I had completely given up on life and spiraled down even more into binge eating other foods and napping extensively throughout the day. <br><br>My typical day looked like this:<br><br>- Wake up at 8 am for class.<br>- Drink a red bull on the way.<br>- Come back from class and nap until noon for my next class.<br>- Wake up, drink another red bull on my way.<br>- Get out of class and eat horrible food at my school’s cafeteria like fried chicken fingers and fries.<br>- Come back from classes for the day and drink another red bull.<br>- Binge on watching TV Shows<br>- Take another nap. <br>- Wake up and eat dinner and continue watching tv shows.<br>- Stay up until 4 am.<br>- Repeat. <br><br>Needless to say, I was in a detrimental cycle that I wasn’t consciously aware of at that time. It took me about 3 months to realize what was going on and the fact that I needed to break out of this cycle before things got even worse. <br><br>Desperately looking for answers, I turned to the internet to help. After many hours of googling, I found way too much information about what I should do. I looked into every single diet and potential solution and the wide range of information left me even more confused. Become vegan, eat fat, don’t eat fat, eat only in these hours of the day..blah blah blah! <br><br>Throughout history, the ability to have more choices and options in front of you was a sign of luxury and prestige. However, with the internet, information has been commoditized and you now have more choices than you will ever become aware of forever. Feeling hopeless and lost I had completely given up and I stopped looking. <br><br>The following day I was on a website and a google advertisement popped up for this strange thing I’ve never heard of called “Bulletproof Butter Coffee” I can’t find the original ad banner but I remember it had a nice looking coffee cup in the image, and I thought “HEY I like coffee what’s this?”<br><br>Clicking on the banner led me down the rabbit hole of discovering bulletproof coffee, which is the critically acclaimed, mycotoxin free coffee with grass-fed butter and MCT oil.<br><br>Huh? What? How is this even a thing, this sounds like the worst idea I’ve ever heard. Luckily, I hit the order now button and went to the grocery store to buy some Kerrygold grass-fed butter. <br><br>After receiving the shipment, I tried it next morning and it was an interesting experience. It actually tasted awesome and I figured I’d stick with this for a while. In case you happen to live in 1970 and think fat is bad for you…<br><br>It turns out the creator of this, Dave Asprey also has a Bulletproof diet regiment which calls for eating plenty of good fats and wholesome vegetables. Long story short, I ended up losing over 50 pounds in an extremely short period of around a month. All from simply eating fats and vegetables. <br><br>My brain felt like it had turned on for the first time in my life and I could think clearly about my life. This diet regiment led me to a serious amount of...