Jeremy Ethier swaps diets with Cam, a 700-lb man, and his wife Michelle for 24 hours. Brain scans show Cam's reward center lights up at fast food while Jeremy's self-control dominates. Jeremy consumed 8,300 calories and gained 6 pounds; Cam ate 2,000 calories and lost 3 pounds.
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What would happen if I swapped diets with someone 3 times my size? For the next 24 hours, I'll be attempting the daily diet that got him to over 50% body fat while he's eating the exact diet that got me to 10% body fat. This isn't just a diet swap. I'm using advanced brain scans to investigate why some people just can't stop eating.
Yeah, I mean, not super thrilled.
I don't feel so good. This has never happened to me. I'm not just doing this with Cam, but I'm also doing it with his wife Michelle.
That sounds That's fucking horrible. Before swapping diets, we're each doing a weigh-in, and tomorrow morning we're doing another one to see if our weights have changed.
But for now, it's time to eat, starting with the most important meal of the day, breakfast. 1, 2, 3, lift.
Wow. You just have to say that you're fine when you're not really fine.
Okay, you gotta walk me through. Tell me what's going on here.
That's my go-to breakfast. It's a sausage and egg griddle, a sausage and egg muffin. 2 hash browns and a large Coke.
You got a large Coke, regular Coke for breakfast.
I love like a fizzy drink with food. Okay.
This is something I would actually have when I was dieting, and it's a high protein French toast. 1 whole egg with egg whites, some sweetener in there, which the bread is soaked in, pan-fried caramelized sautéed apples with some cinnamon, 2 slices of turkey bacon, and then sugar-free syrup. All right, let's dig in. I'm excited.
I'm excited too. I'm excited for the turkey bacon.
Holy, I haven't had regular Coke in, I don't know, I can't remember.
I don't know if I've ever tried sugar-free syrup. I honestly can't tell a difference in the syrup.
All right.
First time trying McGriddle. Oh, oh, wow. Oh, this is very good. This is very good. This is dangerous.
Thing is, not everyone's brain responds to food the same way. So one week before our diet swap, I brought all three of us in for EEG brain scans. There's two phases to our experiment. In the first, we simply stared at a plate of McDonald's burger and fries for 5 minutes. This is how Cam's brain responded. You see the dark red area in the front of Cam's brain? That's your reward center, which decides how irresistible food feels. If you've ever seen a bag of chips or box of donuts and felt like it was just calling your name, this is what's driving those cravings. And Cam's reward center was on fire. Now compare that to my scan. My reward center barely reacted at all. Instead, most of the activity shifted to the brain's self-control center, the system that helps you pause and think twice when something doesn't align with your goals. So before we'd even taken a single bite, our brains were already playing by completely different rules.
I'm very much habit-oriented. For me to try and like change really anything, the smallest things kind of just causes me distress.
But then we looked at Michelle's brain and It's as if she wasn't looking at food at all.
And what we see in Michelle's result is, uh, someone who's responding to food the same way you would expect if you had asked her to look at a pair of, uh, candlesticks or something neutral.
Now Michelle's brain isn't broken. She's actually been taking Ozempic for the past year, a prescription medication designed to reduce the appeal of food. And while it hasn't completely solved her eating struggles, which we discovered in phase 2 of our experiment, she has been taking steps towards a healthier lifestyle ever since we featured her in one of our previous videos, and she agreed to work with me on a long transformations.
I will, absolutely. Thank you.
Let's go.
But she can only succeed long term if Cam, who has been more resistant to change, agrees to join her. So at the end of the video, we're going to ask Cam straight up, you going to do this with me or not? But the good news is Cam's brain isn't stuck this way. Reward can be dialed down and self-control strengthened up. My diet is actually built around 7 science-backed strategies that do just that, and the first is surprisingly simple.
One thing that McDonald's and fast food chains are like super good at. They make the textures like usually it'll be really soft, which makes it like really easy to overeat. So I always have like some kind of more solid component that actually has some chew to it because it slows down your eating and it helps you just like get more full from the meal. That's the main reason for the apples.
And just this change alone might explain why I've already finished my breakfast while Cam and Michelle are still going.
You guys are done?
Too much.
Too much.
Literally too much.
I feel like if I ate that, I would be overfull.
And you're satisfied?
Just missing a fizzy drink.
How would you rate it out of 10?
Um, I'd give it maybe an 8, 9.
I don't get an 8, 9 from when I cook you regular food.
Calm down, come on, be honest.
Be for real.
I really like it. I don't want to say this, but probably a 9.5. Oh my God.
It's good. And while all 3 of us were satisfied with breakfast, when we tallied up the calories for each meal using my app, so the McDonald's breakfast comes in at 1,674 calories.
Wow.
Very high amount of calories for the actual food that you get. This guy over here, 474 calories.
Wow.
This is double.
Triple.
Triple the calories. Triple. Oh, triple. See, I'm really bad.
Triple, Michelle's.
And I was definitely skeptical going into this, but it's delicious.
Now, while I am glad breakfast was a big hit, there are still 4 meal swaps left to go. So there's a real chance my plan can still backfire.
All right. Time for lunch. So what I have made for you is—
Ooh.
Barbecue chicken fajitas complete with some fizzies, some diet sodas here. So the chicken is actually just pre-made grilled chicken. I'll usually prep some kind of vegetables, fresh lettuce, and then wraps on the side. And then the sauce is a sugar-free barbecue sauce with half-fat mayo. What do I got?
So for lunch, you have kind of our everyday lunch that we have. At work. Bagel with cream cheese, a banana, 2 granola bars. You got a cookie, full sugar Coke, and of course, 2 cheese strings.
I've had these since, I don't know, elementary school. But we got another Coke as well.
Yeah, definitely a big pop drinker.
I haven't seen vegetables yet. I'm curious to see the rest of the day. So what's the theory behind this, this lunch?
Because I'm on the road, basically it's kind of tough to have like a hot meal for lunch. So for me, it's more kind of like just snacking throughout the day.
Well, let's dig in.
All right, see, this could be easy to grab and go though, Cam. If it just cooked the veggies for you, you could take all this. The barbecue sauce is good. It is good. You can tell— you can't tell that there's no sugar.
Now my body was already struggling from all the sugar, over 100 grams from the Coke alone. So after hearing what Cam still had in store for me, I started to wonder if this diet swap might need medical supervision.
I could literally feel the food coming up.
I'll drink 4 Cokes a day usually, 2 at work and 2 at home, and 1 in the middle of the night sometimes. I usually will go to bed at about like 9 o'clock at night, and somewhere between between about midnight and like 3 in the morning. I'll get up out of bed, I'll go to the bathroom, and I'll pop like a cold Coke out of the fridge, and I'll just like slam half of it, no problem.
And then he'll wake up, get ready for work, and drink the, the other half can.
Which leads me to my second dieting tip.
When people switch from full sugar Coke to diet soda, they tend to lose weight. What's interesting is that they had one study where they took people who regularly drank diet soda, they made one of them stop drinking diet soda, and added more water instead, and the other group added more diet soda. And the one where they added more diet soda, they actually ended up losing more weight in the next year and keeping the weight off.
Wow.
It just helps like eliminate the cravings. As for the total calories of our two lunches, so this meal, your typical lunch, actually comes up to 1,545 calories.
Oh!
What?
Wow.
The meal you're eating 408 calories.
Wow, under 500.
But that's crazy.
This is sneaky. It's not that much food at all.
And by the time I finish lunch, I'll already be well over 3,000 calories, which for me is enough to gain almost a pound a week if I just ate these two meals every day.
How has your weight kind of trended over the years?
I was always big growing up. I'd say about 10 years ago, I was probably 130 pounds less than what I weigh now. I kind of lost my dad and went into like a dark place and sort of just wasn't really living a healthy lifestyle. It was kind of like one of those things where like you don't really notice and then all of a sudden like your clothes don't fit. It feels really bad.
Now carrying nearly 380 pounds had given Cam one surprising advantage, something we'd see in the gym.
What in the hell is going on?
But their lifestyle doesn't come without serious health consequences.
I found out about a year ago that I was pre-diabetic, so I got put on medication for that. By my doctor, and that kind of scared me. And I know just with my mom and my sister having medical backgrounds, it's just if it's something that you ignore, it only gets worse.
You may not believe it, but this is actually Michelle's sister Nicole, and she's a big reason Michelle wanted to kickstart this change. Not just because Nicole's a nurse, but she and her husband recently worked with me as a case study following the nutrition and workout plan designed by our Built with Science app. In just a few months, they both completely transformed. Giving Michelle hope, especially because the weight loss medication Michelle's been taking hasn't quite solved all her problems.
What did you notice after that?
I just feel like the food noise has gone away for me. Like, I'm not always like, oh, I need to have a cookie, or I need to have a bag of chips.
Now, if you remember phase 1 of our brain scan, that's exactly what the data showed. However, in phase 2, we found something none of us were expecting. So all 3 of us ate a simple lunch until we were full, and then we were presented with a plate filled with desserts and were told, eat as much as you want.
When we wanted Michelle's brain after having the dessert, all of a sudden the reward center is more active. And if she had no means of controlling it, she would still want more of that cake.
Which is why my next science-based strategy might just be the most important part of their success.
But like, Cam comes home and it's like, okay, I got cheesecake because I want a cheesecake. If that's around and you have a bite, like, that's— it's game over.
It happened the other day with the donuts. Remember, we got 6 donuts and I had a donut or 2 or 3.
So far, my lunch didn't seem to be getting rave reviews from Cam.
The heat of veg for me is pretty low.
Okay, what's your rating?
6.7.
67%.
Okay.
And while getting 67% on a test would be enough for my mom to grab one of her slippers from the closet, we do have 3 more food swaps to go, so hopefully I can pull up my average.
All right, lunch is done. I'm feeling full of sugar and we're going to somehow manage to work out.
Ready? Ready.
Let's get to it.
I want to run Cam and Michelle through a basic workout routine they can stick to twice a week, either in the gym or even at home. Not only will this help prevent muscle loss as they lose weight, but when I asked Cam during lunch to think of a deep why for making this change, his answer wasn't exactly what I hoped for.
Oh, it's 100% Michelle. That's, that's the only reason I'm here.
So I'm hoping that getting started with weights can help give Cam a personal positive goal to keep him motivated. And just 10 minutes into our first workout, so far my plan seems to be working. Whoa.
What?
Damn.
Not getting all the way down there, but—
Dude, that's crazy.
My dad always told me growing up, he said, it's okay to be bigger, just don't let it slow you down.
Yeah, right.
And that wasn't the only thing Cam could do.
What in the hell is going on?
Oh baby, let's go, Cam!
Woo!
Round of applause! Let's fucking go, man! Hell yeah, dude!
Just pushing weight again, kind of like it's It's like lighting a fire.
Do you feel like your old self?
No, like not really coming back to your old self, but I want to be that person again.
Seeing Cam back in his happy place made me really hopeful he might actually agree to join Michelle's transformation when we ask him at the end of the video. If he does, pushing through hard sets like this should actually help make him stick to a diet much easier.
The control center that you have that is like kind of helping you resist temptation and have discipline, doing that set of squats where you're huffing and puffing and it's like not something that you want to do, that just trains this thing of like, okay, like, I'm gonna do it anyways. And that's why I think like exercise is a big part of what's going to be helpful to your success.
And the best part is they were starting to genuinely feel the benefits of their new diet.
How's your body responding to the food? I know it's a little bit different than what you typically have.
I don't feel lethargic at all. I mean, like, if I would have had that McDonald's breakfast that you had—
Oh yes, there's no way.
I wouldn't want to be here right now.
We haven't eaten as much as we have. Even though they're big portions, I feel light.
I feel like I do not want to work out.
I think that's us every day.
All right, workout is done. You guys crushed it. You guys hungry?
Yeah.
Great, because it's now time for some snacks.
I'm excited. I love, I love hummus.
Okay, let's go. Cam though, have some reservations?
Yeah, I mean, not super thrilled. I mean, it's all right, I guess.
I mean, I am I'm a little concerned because I got another Coke and I'm feeling it.
It's pretty much like every meal kind of thing. I mean, that's just my go-to. PB&J is a staple. Chips, go-to. I mean, I think everybody eats chips. If I'm still hungry at the end of the day before I go to bed, I'll have a PB&J.
Meanwhile, for my snacks, I basically allow myself as many baby carrots as I want throughout the day with some hummus for dipping and one protein bar.
Whoa.
It's not bad. That's really good.
This one has caramel in it.
It's gang.
Really good?
It's really good.
It's gang.
What do you guys normally do when you're eating chips?
Doomscrolling on my phone.
Yeah?
On the couch.
For me, either video games or watching a TV or movie.
I mean, I'm not gonna lie, almost everybody watches something as they're eating, including you right now.
Don't lie.
That's actually one of the reasons why you can end up dumping like half a bag of chips and like not feel it at all. It's because it's just like mindless eating.
In fact, the appeal to keep eating while you're distracted is so powerful that in one study, researchers tested two groups in a movie theater. One group was given a fresh, tasty bag of popcorn, while the other group received popcorn that was a week old and noticeably stale. Both groups ate almost the same amount of popcorn, even though those who received the stale version openly admitted they weren't enjoying it.
Whenever possible, put your phone down for a little bit, right? And just like pay attention to what you're actually eating.
Now, what Cam and Michelle don't know is that through each of our meals today, I've actually isn't secretly strengthening the self-control centers of their brain.
You watching me eat your favorite bag of chips, your PB&J, but you not actually eating it and eating a protein bar and carrots, that is training this thing right here. Because you probably want to eat this thing now, and by you resisting it, you're telling your brain like, hey, I can actually control this. And that doesn't mean you buy a bag of chips and you stare at it at home and be like, I'm not gonna eat you. But just think about when you're at the grocery store and you have these temptations, every time that you resist that You're making this thing stronger, right? And that's gonna help you long-term.
He's like, "I'm craving a Coke." Really? Yeah.
Dun dun dun.
I feel slightly bad.
You should. It was torture what you're doing to me.
I feel bad.
At this point, my total sugar intake for the day is at 306 grams. That is over 6 times the recommended daily limit, which honestly makes me worried about how my body's gonna respond to our next meal. And for our final meal of the day, we have Ooh, whoa.
Okay, similar-ish. Actually, I'm not going to tell you what it is yet. I want you to try it. But tell me what I got here.
Fettuccine Alfredo with Cajun chicken and garlic toast.
Butter, oil, cheese.
Lots of cheese. Always chicken fried in oil for sure.
As for the pasta I've prepared for them, I sauté a bunch of different vegetables. And just salt, paprika, garlic, whatever. I'll throw in the ground beef and I'll add tomato sauce. And to thicken it up, I'll actually add light cream cheese. Noodles, that's actually half regular spaghetti and half basically calorie-free spaghetti. But like, it's hard to tell the difference when you have half and half. A little bit of Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. Yeah, a little bit of salt.
That's easily 1,500, maybe 2,000 calories.
2,000 calories.
It's around 3,000 calories. Whoa. 572 calories. Wow. For all that.
What? 500 calories?
Look how big this plate is.
That's what I'm saying.
You just gotta make the right choices. I'm gonna give you guys both access to the app where you can start, you know, just start with taking pictures of your food. It will analyze how many calories it is. And the best thing is that our app also takes care of your workouts too. Right, so it's as if I was right there with you every single week for both nutrition and your workouts. And if you guys wanna try it out, just head to buildwithscience.com, or you can get 2 weeks free by scanning this QR code right here. Now, before you guys dig in, look at the difference between this one.
Oh, the big—
what I usually try to do, especially when I'm dieting, is I'll use smaller utensils. And the reason for that is, again, it makes it longer to go through the meal. This, you could just shovel food in. This makes it more difficult. And the longer that you spend actually eating, the more full and satisfied you're going to be afterwards.
That's so funny. Sometimes I'll actually accidentally get the small fork out of the drawer, and Cam's very upset about the small fork.
Yeah, I hate small utensils.
So he's like, "What is this? Why did you get me the salad fork?" I'm like, "It's just a fork.
I prefer the little fork." I feel like I'm a baby.
Mmm, these are really good.
Yeah?
Yeah.
I really like the cheese, love the noodles, love the sauce. I'm not really sold on the veggies in here.
As for me, I was starting to feel the pull to the dark side.
So a Coke at dinner. I could see how you kind of get addicted to them though.
Yeah.
Like it was kind of sickening at first.
Now you're enjoying it.
I wouldn't say I'm enjoying it, but like there's something that keeps me coming back.
But so close to the end, I know that I just had to power through one more meal before I could return to my regular diet tomorrow.
I'm actually totally blown away at the size of the portions of like the healthier alternatives and stuff like that. I kind of thought like in my head, like dieting would be like me just being hungry all the time.
Yeah.
And I just like, I can't, I can't even finish like my dinner tonight. It's crazy.
That goes for all the meals all day. They're extremely filling and satisfying. I feel satisfied when I eat this.
All right, there's no way I can finish this garlic bread, but I will do the honors.
So, and we are done.
Not quite.
Jeremy, you should go check the freezer.
No, no, no, please.
Which brings us to our final meal of the day. Dessert.
Open your eyes.
Wow.
Woo!
Okay. Okay.
Look at this little spoon.
This is my favorite meal of the day. Okay. I don't know how you guys are going to like it, to be honest, but give it a shot. Give it a shot.
Okay. Mm.
Really good.
Tastes like protein powder. Switch. The chocolate is better.
Chocolate's better.
But it tastes like protein butter.
You like it? Love it.
I'm not a fan.
You love it.
I'm not the biggest fan. I would just rather not eat a sweet treat after dinner.
That's your Ozempic talking. Get out of here.
Cam.
And with Michelle actually being my toughest critic on dessert, with Cam, we seem to have a winner.
It seems like you're genuinely enjoying it.
I love it.
Yeah?
So good.
Now the two ice creams I've prepared are with the Ninja Creami. I did a cheesecake version for Michelle made with sugar-free pudding, milk, 1 scoop of vanilla protein, and some light cream cheese. While for Cam, I prepared a chocolate version using light chocolate milk, sugar-free chocolate pudding, half a scoop of protein, and 1 serving of powdered peanut butter.
It's like a subtle cheesecake.
Oh yeah, I can smell it when you go from that to that again. Yeah, you can get it then.
Yeah.
As for myself, I'm having their go-to half a pint of Ben Jerry's ice cream paired with a Nesquik chocolate milk.
That's just kind of like my end of the day. It's It's like you said, it's my nightcap.
That looks like the late night show.
It's good.
But like, honestly, at least for me, like, those are banging.
This is growing on me.
Let's go. How do you rate it?
Oh, this is like 9.9. I mean, I don't know if it could be any better.
Wow. You're kidding.
Wow.
Perfect. Let's go.
5.
Michelle, I don't need your opinion anymore.
But even if Michelle isn't the biggest fan, knowing that I set up Cam with a dessert he actually likes gives me hope that he's going to agree to join Michelle's transformation when we ask him at the end of the video and to help kickstart that possible journey together.
Really? Oh man. Merry Christmas.
Thank you so much. We don't have to buy ice cream anymore.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, we shouldn't buy ice cream, but I could just make it for you now.
I'm glad you guys—
Thank you so much.
Enjoy it.
We're going to have so much fun.
In terms of the totals, do you guys have any idea the calorie totals for each of our diets.
Oh my gosh, with all those Cokes.
Total for the day is 8,312 calories. Wow. 422 grams of fat and almost 1,000 grams of carbs.
That's crazy.
It is crazy.
It's even surprising to me because it wasn't actually like that much food.
That's the scary thing.
But it just like adds up. In terms of the diet that you guys had today, which we've also added the recipes for in Science+ app. 1,994 calories.
Wow, under 2,000.
I'm in a deficit for sure today.
In fact, when we tested Michelle's metabolism in a video I'll link below, she was naturally burning over 3,000 calories a day just from carrying her body weight. So if she sticks anywhere close to this diet, she'd lose well over 2 lbs a week without even changing anything else.
Does it seem more realistic, the thought of actually, you know, succeeding?
Very eye-opening. Very achievable. It's definitely something that we can do.
I guess the only other thing is to do the final weigh-in. We need to see how this full day of eating has affected our weights. God, it's 3 AM. I just woke up. I'm on the floor of the washroom right now. I literally feel the food coming up like my gag reflex was going.
It was the weirdest thing.
I don't feel, I don't feel so good. This has never happened to me. I think all the sugar, Coke. Time for the morning weigh-in.
Oh wow, 6 lbs. As for Cam and Michelle, after just one day on her diet swap, Michelle's weight slightly dropped while Cam's dropped 3 lbs. Now, a one-day change on the scale can happen for a million different reasons, but I am hoping that this small nudge in the right direction is enough to convince Cam to officially join Michelle on her year-long journey.
Are you going to do this with me or not?
100%. I'm in.
Subscribe to stay updated, and big thank you to the doctors over at Illumind. They conducted and interpreted our brain scans, and if you're curious to see what's happening inside your brain, I'll leave a link to their site below.
