The Only 5 Fit-Fluencers Busy Dads Need To Follow For No-Bullshit Fitness Information

In 2022, I wrote this post (linked): ‘The Top 5 Fitness Influencers for Dads’, designed to help people sift through the reams of health & fitness information – some good, some bad, some downright terrible – online about how to lose weight, build muscle, shift “belly fat” etc etc yada yada yada.

It literally is, my friends, a jungle out there and it’s easy to slip down the rabbit-hole into a vortex of BS being peddled by grifters, charlatans and snake-oil salesmen, mostly sponsored by Athletic Greens, sorry AG1.

For what it’s worth, my list was:

Mark ‘Smelly’ Bell
Dr Andy Galpin
Jason Khalapia
Dadbod WOD aka Kevin Torres
Dr David Sinclair

This is a fairly strong list, with just one exception.

Dr David Sinclair has been accused of falsifying some of the scientific lab results of various tests & trials to pump up his claims about certain protein-modifying enzymes (called sirtuins) that help old cells restore and not die (very loosely defined – I am not a scientist).

On the back of the fall-out and controversy, Sinclair was forced to resign his Chairmanship of something called The Academy For Health & Lifespan Research and a scientific review of his book ‘Lifespan’, destroyed Sinclair and his claims, summarising below:

“The reach of ‘Lifespan’ is a problem for the world precisely because a Harvard scientist is telling fictitious stories about aging that go nowhere other than continuing hype as legendary as anything in Herodotus.”

I happened to be reading Lifespan at the time I compiled my list and, thus, was hoodwinked by what I was reading and hearing.

Onwards and upwards, and all that.

My new Top 5 for 2025 looks like this:

1. Mark ‘Smelly’ Bell

This is how I described Mark Bell last time around (back in 2022):

“Mark Bell, or ‘Smelly’ as he’s affectionately known, is a reformed hardcore powerlifter (and much more besides) and now invitation-only gym owner (Super Power Gym) and weight-lifting inventor.

Aside from his entrepreneurial chops, for as long as I’ve been following him (around 3 or 4 years), he’s been re-modelling his entire body and life, shedding hundreds of pounds to go from lumbering iron-tossing giant to jacked movement athlete.

Central to his remarkable transformation has been his adoption of daily 10 minute walks and his complete focus on a diet based around protein & fat only, which works on the principle that good fat is better than carbs and protein gives the ultimate satiety.”

To be honest, not much has changed since then. He’s still peddling a lot of common-sense information, documenting himself trying out new methods and ways of working out.

He now sprints a lot, having identified I guess that longer-distances aren’t necessarily going to give him the best bang-for-buck in terms of weight / fat loss.

His diet is mostly carnivore. He fasts for 24 hours once per week.

Best of all, he’s still jacked and open about his steroid usage, but has lost hundreds of pounds and now weighs in at around 210lbs.

2. Derek – More Plates, More Dates – https://moreplatesmoredates.com/

Derek is a bit of a mystery, a mythological beast in the world of strength, training and, most importantly, supplements – legal or otherwise.

His scientific knowledge of drugs and drug testing and all things associated with it, suggest he has a degree in something medical or biological. Regardless, he’s a respected expert in this field and can be found either explaining scietific detail behind supplements on shows like Joe Rogan, or going toe-to-toe with expert like Dr Peter Attia on all things supplementary and hormonal.

It was him who outed The Liver King and revealed his lengthy steroid stack, which the LK had hitherto denied to his 2m+ followers that he ever took.

Derek also drug-tested Nicky Ryan (one of the biggest names in Brazilian Jujitsu) at 12 hours notice and found him to be 100% natty – in a sport where the top dogs are often found to be juicing hard.

More recently, Derek interviewed Brian Johnson (the dude who spends $2m a year on longevity protocols in order to not die and is the subject of the excellent Netflix documentary ‘Don’t Die’) and is / was of the few podcasters who was able to cut through a bunch of the guy’s claims about how his protocol is working.

3. ‘Dr’ Mike Isratael – https://www.youtube.com/@MikeIsraetelMakingProgress

Dr Mike is a funny and strong dude, who is also a genuine Phd (with an actual Doctorate and not a Pretty Huge Dick, but who knows, maybe he has both?), hence the ‘Dr’ part in his name. He’s also a sports science professor.

His fully-qualified background makes him credible (IMO) and well-placed to critique the training & biohacking methodologies of various folks – ranging from wrestlers to bodybuilders to strongmen – which he does in hilarious videos.

The videos are informative and fair, but let’s be clear – when he critiques, it’s with the salty air of the cynic who’s seen one grifter too many lock in on their mark(s), and Dr Mike ain’t having a bar of it.

To whit, this video, where he eviscerates the claims of bio-hacking grifter extraordinaire, Gary Brecka, who largely takes the credit for Dana White’s (UFC President / billionaire) amazing physical transformation.

It’s lengthy so skip to the last 3 minutes if you’re of a bored disposition.

Tl;Dr – Dr Mike summises that Dana’s White’s amazing transformation is 100% down to the physical training regimen he’s undergone (including training with a former Mr Universe competitor three to four times per week), and possibly some, er, supplementation, and absolutely nothing to do with any of Gary Brecka’s biohacks

4. Ben Carpenter – https://www.bdccarpenter.com/

There are enough snarky cynics in the world, thinks Ben Carpenter.

Or, at least, I think he does.

So what does he do with grifters, preying on the uninformed with bogus information and fear-mongering strategies designed to prise away their hard-earned cashola?

He creates super-informative, genuinely science-backed video take-downs that shine a torch on their snake-oil infused slipperiness and calls them out for what they are.

He particularly enjoys going after Gary Brecka, as far as I can tell.

5. James Smith – https://www.youtube.com/@JamesSmithPT

The troll’s troll.

The geezer’s geezer.

James Smith is the guy you probably wanted to be friends with at school, but he was busy getting daring haircuts and fingering girls behind the bike sheds.

He creates sharp, acerbic content and calls out much of the BS in which the fitness industry swims, and one of the first folks to clearly & simply articulate the fact that weight-loss (fat-loss) is really only about a calorie deficit.

He’s also gone to town on AG1 (the ultimate health grift) and pretended to snort an ounce of creatine in a video strongly recommending everybody does it (take creatine, that is – not snort it. Although let’s face, we’ve probably all done worse).

6. Bonus Fit-Fluencer: Super Fit Dad

Yep, it’s ya boy, lil’ ole Super Fit, humbly doling out health, fitness, lifestyle and (occasional) dating advice to time-poor, busy Dad since 2014.

I’m literally an expert on nothing, except possibly sifting through the swathes of fitness misinformation out there, and quickly and accurately (mostly) honing in on the things that give us the best bang-for-your buck when it comes to fitness.

I was fucking about with green powders and smoothies back in 2012, before AG1 had been conceived as the world’s biggest and (you gotta hand it to them) most lucrative grift.

I’ve been listening to Tim Ferriss podcasts since Brian Johnson was a newly-minted and overweight tech founder billionaire (almost) and not the $2m-a-year spending biohacker / longevity experiment he is now (a fascinating episode, by the way, that yields no real clue as the transformation that was coming down the pike.

And I’ve fucked up a tonne along the way, and have the battle-scars to prove it.

Plus, this is my blog so I can include myself in this list if I want to. Soz.

Summary

So there we have it.

I pretty tight list that I’m happy to stand behind (until next year when someone goes all David Sinclair…yikes). Sure, these guys all have something to sell (apart from me), but they’re pretty obvious and clear about it.

There’s no sly grift.

There’s no suddenly selling something that last year they debunked as quack-science and yet now have a company flogging it (sorry Huberman).

There’s no taking the credit for someone else work or transformation. And there’s sure as hell no hydrogen water being pedalled by any of these guys (I hope).

So, yep, I can say that if there’s only a few go-to place for straight-forward, no-bullshit fitness and health advice, these guys are as good as it gets.

SFD