Ice Facials and Banana Peels: Fitness Guru’s Absurd Morning Routine Is a Bounty of Memes

Long after we watched Patrick Bateman wake up to apply his expensive skincare lotions and do a thousand stomach crunches in American Psycho, the earnestly aspirational “morning routine” video is now a staple of social media. Lifestyle gurus of all types (none outed as serial killers to date) closely document their rise-and-grind rituals, encouraging followers to seize the day with healthy and intentional choices.

But the quest for engagement on these clips can lead influencers to some pretty strange places. So it went for online fitness coach Ashton Hall, who posted a morning routine rundown in early February that has since been viewed almost 100 million times on TikTok, and many millions more across other platforms. “Day 191 of the morning routine that changed my life 3:50am to 9:30am,” Hall wrote in the caption. “Sin lives late at night.. if you’re dealing with a weak mind, bad decisions, or lack of productivity go to sleep early.” He encouraged viewers to try his method for a month. “It’s time to do better,” he wrote.

Instead, it seems that most people who came across Hall’s regimen were stunned with disbelief. He doesn’t just rinse with bottled Saratoga spring water after brushing his teeth — he pours it into bowls of ice, then dunks his face into the bowl. He apparently spends more than half an hour around dawn watching recordings of church services on his phone. After eating a banana, he rubs the peel all over his face. He swims laps with his gold Rolex on.

Why did Hall’s unusual habits attract so much amused commentary as the footage migrated to Instagram and X? It probably wasn’t just the little quirks of the montage (the fact that he jumps into the pool at “7:36” but hits the water at “7:40,” for example). It’s also that apart from ordinary exercise, most of what he does amounts to trendy though unproven health treatments: the mouth tape for sleeping, the ice facials, and the banana-peel skin treatment have all been promoted by other influencers despite scant evidence to suggest they provide more than minimal benefits. To see them all carefully performed in sequence makes each feel more ridiculous.

That surreal progression paired well with other notable details, including the prominent product placement for Saratoga water, which comes in distinctive blue glass bottles. Another of Hall’s TikToks showed him standing next to a stack of at least ten cases of them. A market development manager for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether they had partnered with Hall or endorse the use of Saratoga for ice facials. Neither did Hall, who has millions of followers on Instagram and TikTok, immediately respond to a request for comment.

Among other details to draw attention were that Hall has apparently not made it past the first couple pages of his journaling notebook, as well as the curiously generic remark he makes during a business call: “So, looking at it, bro, we gotta go ahead and get at least 10,000,” he says, without any additional context. Perhaps he’s making deals on behalf of his own brand, Worthy, which sells supplements and provides meal planning in addition to fitness coach services, or maybe he’s putting in his next Saratoga order. The possibilities are endless, and so the memes flowed in kind.

“Happy Monday, time to lock in,” the official X account of the Detroit Lions posted on Monday with an image of Hall submerging his face in ice water. “I’m ready for tomorrow,” wrote a user over the weekend, sharing a screenshot of an iPhone alarm set for 4:42 a.m. and labeled “Exactly two minutes of journaling.” Another person posted a picture of a shopping cart loaded up with nothing but bananas and Saratoga water, asking, “am I forgetting anything.” A variant of the “Are Ya Winning, Son?” meme template made the rounds as well: a stick-figure father character walks into his son’s room to find he has his face immersed in a bowl of ice, a bottle of Saratoga water close at hand. President Donald Trump’s White House rapid response team, for their part, posted the image of Hall leaping into the pool, writing: “Locking in for another week in the Golden Age.”

YouTuber MrBeast, meanwhile, went with a screenshot of various texts from a “Personal Assistant” frantically instructing him to dunk his face in ice water and rub banana peel on his face, claiming that he “accidentally slept in” and missed his morning routine. Streamer FaZe Adapt filmed a parody of Hall’s video that saw him “wake up” at 3:53 p.m., eat a hot dog out of his bathroom drawer, lose his entire 401k on a 16-leg parlay bet, and drown himself in a pool when he lost. Even New York City’s sanitation department got in on the fun with a graphic of bananas, water bottles, and ice: “Compost that banana peel and recycle the bottles!” the post advised.

And, of course, some of Hall’s newfound fans announced that they had started to incorporate the phrase “we gotta go ahead and get at least 10,000” — one of those internet coinages that could well outlast the source material — into their regular speech. As an internet personality, he’s made his mark like few ever will, leaving us to wonder what he might bring to the culture next. Boosting vitamins with home IV drips? Trying to outrun luxury cars? Sipping on Saratoga while scoping out real estate from a helicopter? It looks like Hall isn’t short on ideas for what success looks like. Too bad the rest of us can hardly hope to keep up.