Gemini (archive audio): Key bodyweight exercises, squats, standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, lower your hips as if you were sitting in a chair, keeping your back straight and chest up. Go as low as you comfortably can.
Michael Calore: Lunges with each leg, three sets of 10, plank, three sets of holds for 30 to 60 seconds, which is torture. Glute bridges, three sets of 15 repetitions. And then he talks about progressive overload and he talks about rest days and all that stuff, which is great. And then I said, “Okay, I don’t know how to do a lunge. Can you show me how to do a lunge?” And he presented me with a bunch of videos, five videos.
Lauren Goode: YouTube, presumably?
Michael Calore: Yes, they were YouTube videos. Two of the links were exactly the same, but I watched all the videos and thought, “Okay, now I feel like I can do a lunge.” I did a lunge and didn’t hurt myself, and I felt the burn. So I feel like that’s pretty cool.
Lauren Goode: That’s pretty good, actually.
Michael Calore: Yes. The only strange thing is that I did a Google search and found the exact same information in a couple of different places. And other than the video, I don’t know where Gemini got all this information from. I don’t even know where he got the recipes from. Everything was presented to me as: “This is what Gemini says.”
Lauren Goode: Without supply.
Michael Calore: Without supply. I tapped on everything and didn’t see any good sources.
Lauren Goode: And presumably humans made those training plans or wrote about those recipes. And that was published and I’m sorry, but now your little bits of data are being chopped up and added to some recipe, and you have no idea where it came from.
Michael Calore: In julienne.
Lauren Goode: That’s how it is.
Zoe Schiffer: Okay, are you going to continue with this? Are you going to continue using it for this purpose or did it seem like a one-off experiment?
Michael Calore: Honestly, the workout regimen is pretty solid. I will continue doing it.
Lauren Goode: Nice.
Michael Calore: And as far as recipes go, I have so many cookbooks and so many years of experience preparing food for myself that I don’t need to make this quinoa salad again, Lauren, unless you want me to make it and give you some. of it.
Lauren Goode: I’ve eaten other meals you’ve made and I think I might suggest them next time.
Zoe Schiffer: Very diplomatic.
Michael Calore: Okay, great.
Lauren Goode: But thank you, I appreciate it.
Michael Calore: So I have to say, for me, as a person who understands myself and understands my own needs, it wasn’t really that helpful. The training was enjoyable. I could have figured it out without Gemini 2.O, but if anyone is new to this or has a lot of questions, or if anyone is considering making these kinds of lifestyle changes, then he actually gave me some pretty good advice.