00:00:00
do we get fatter with age yes between 20 and 50 years old the average person will
00:00:07
gain about 15 kilos in weight I don't want to be that guy what can I do okay so Dr Giles yo he's the world leading
00:00:15
expert on fat and how to burn it his book is called why calories don't count what you eat does matter let's talk
00:00:21
about how we fix the Obesity how we burn fat how we all get into a healthy weight
00:00:27
everyone's brain hates it when they lose weight we're talking even a few pounds it goes this is reducing my chance of
00:00:34
survival the moment you stop the diet the weight will come back on calories are not accurate what's the truth the
00:00:40
calorie tells you absolutely nothing zero so if you actually look at a stick of celery Raw it's got only six calories
00:00:47
if you cook the celery that's six calories becomes 31. understand the
00:00:53
limitations and caveats of calories veganism what are the general
00:00:58
stereotypes that need addressing veganism plant-based in particular is a diet for the privileged people who can
00:01:04
choose to do so we do not need everyone to be vegan sustainable weight loss what
00:01:10
is the way that you would suggest to do that the simple way hey it is the set of numbers that you can apply to whatever
00:01:16
diet you like so the first is let's talk about something else which I feel like I was lied to about oh God
00:01:23
which is juice oh yes I just want to start this episode with a
00:01:30
message of thanks a thank you to everybody that Tunes in to listen to this podcast by doing so you've enabled
00:01:36
me to live out my dream but also for many members of our team to live out their dreams too it's one of the
00:01:42
greatest privileges I could never have dreamed of or imagined in my life to get to do this to get to learn from these people to get to have these
00:01:48
conversations to get to interrogate them from a very selfish perspective trying to solve problems I have in my life so I
00:01:53
feel like I owe you a huge thank you for being here and for listening to these episodes and for making this platform what it is can I ask you a favor I can't
00:02:01
tell you how much you can change the course of this podcast the the course of the guests were able to invite to the
00:02:07
show and to the course of everything that we do here just by doing one simple thing and that simple thing is hitting
00:02:12
that subscribe button helps this channel more than I could ever explain the guests on this platform are incredible
00:02:18
because so many of you have hit that button and I know when we think about what we want to do together over the
00:02:23
next year on this show a lot of it is going to be fueled by the amount of you that are subscribed in that tune in this
00:02:28
show every week so thank you let's keep doing this and I can't wait to see what this year brings for this show for us as
00:02:34
a community and for this platform [Music]
00:02:43
Giles hello a pleasure to sit with you I've been a big fan of your work for a very long time and I've consumed many of
00:02:50
your YouTube videos conversations you've had interviews and these fantastic books you've written but I want to I want to
00:02:57
start by asking you to give me a bit of an overview of your academic Journey as
00:03:03
a as a researcher um as a graduate of Cambridge and an
00:03:09
overall flavor of the work you do the experience you have and the expertise you have so so I am uh I'm from San Francisco
00:03:16
um that's where I did my high school I did my undergraduate where I studied um genetics that's what that's why I
00:03:22
studied as an as an undergrad then I came to Cambridge to do my PhD
00:03:27
um and I worked on the genetics of the Japanese puffer fish Fugu Rupert Peas I
00:03:33
I know I know so there's a long reason why I did that but I was looking at molecular evolution
00:03:39
um so and I was well trained as a geneticist but then I realized that genetics of pufferfish was not going to
00:03:45
pay my mortgage and was at this point I needed a job so I finished my PhD I went knocking on doors actually I didn't look
00:03:51
at any adverts or anything I just went the department I said you know what I'm just going to see if anyone has a job and the second door I knocked on was a
00:03:57
guy named Steve O ratley and he had just identified the very first obesity gene
00:04:03
in humans when mutated cause really severe obesity This was 1998.
00:04:09
um and I joined this lab I was I was from a famous lab I was a geneticist he
00:04:14
needed um he had just found the first obesity genetics genes he needed a geneticist that's how I got into genetics of
00:04:22
obesity so that's how I started and then I started with the genetics of severe childhood obesity so
00:04:29
um kids who are three years old but 100 pounds so so this is not we're not
00:04:35
talking just a little bit chubby just just drink too much uh Coca-Cola type type of things I mean these are
00:04:41
mutations which cause really really severe obesity that's what that's where I started my career where they can't
00:04:46
stop eating they can't stop eating because in particular
00:04:51
so because they lack the signal between fat and the Brain there is a signal it's
00:04:58
a hormone which lets your brain know how much fat you're carrying that's important because how much fat you're
00:05:05
carrying is how long you would last in the wild if there was no food so if your food sources stopped today so it's an
00:05:10
important piece of information but if you lack that signal like some of these children do this is one of the 100
00:05:17
pound kids I was telling you about then what they have is a brain that thinks that they're starving because now there's no signal so the brain thinks
00:05:24
they have no fat when don't you have any fat when you're starving and so these poor kids who we think and we judge look
00:05:31
at that fat kid what's that look that their parents don't care about them right because there is a mutation
00:05:37
the signal is broken the child cannot control their diet that's what I started
00:05:44
studying um 30 years ago 25 years ago if meeting what happened next in terms of
00:05:50
your academic journey I began to move away from extreme obesity to look at all body weight whether or
00:05:56
not you are skinny medium-sized or large and secondly I also began to think I can't just hide myself in a lab and do
00:06:04
this because otherwise there are going to be people thinking that this kid's fault that he is 100 pounds or someone
00:06:11
might be a BMI someone might be 10 pounds overweight and think it's their fault as well
00:06:17
um that was for me a big turning point to change what I was doing when I was studying to make it more General
00:06:24
um and to also begin to do things like uh to podcasts or to speak speak to you
00:06:30
and write books and do so do things more broadly and speak to people outside the academic environment and you've done a
00:06:36
number of shows on the BBC and documentaries right I I I found three at
00:06:41
least um the first one in 2016 called why are we getting so fat in 2017 clean eating
00:06:48
the dirty truth and in 2018 vitamin pills Miracle or myth
00:06:53
and obviously as well you've written these two fantastic books called why calories don't count and Gene eating
00:07:00
so my question becomes why why did you focus on food why did you care personally enough to pursue with such
00:07:06
persistence the topic of food why is that personal to you could have done anything with your with your intelligence why food
00:07:13
so well first of all I love food so so does that I do I do love food but
00:07:18
actually no we followed the biology so we now understand more broadly that when we study the genetics of body weight we
00:07:25
are by its very definition studying the genetics of how our brain influences our
00:07:30
feeding Behavior so there was an academic reason for uh um for this so just as an example why do some people
00:07:36
respond to stress by eating whereas other people respond to stress by not
00:07:42
eating it's exactly the same hormone but people literally respond in diametric opposite Fashions okay why do people
00:07:49
love food some people use food as fuel etc etc and so on my academic side I
00:07:54
began to try and understand the mechanisms I was interested in that but then it got me thinking about food it
00:07:59
got me thinking well hang on a second when I travel just as an example um particularly pre-covered and I end up
00:08:06
in an airport somewhere International O'Hare in Chicago or something like that and I'm transferring planes for whatever
00:08:12
reason I have to I find myself having I get stressed a little bit I find myself
00:08:18
having to eat a big bowl of carbs particularly rice or noodles and I was thinking about this this became a habit
00:08:25
whatever airport I'm in particularly if I was transiting I would try and find the closest place I could get a big bowl
00:08:30
of noodles in fact just before I came here what I had for what I had for lunch I went to Bone Daddy's to have Ramen so
00:08:36
so that's exactly that I wasn't no I wasn't stressed but but I was trying to relax okay and so that was what really
00:08:44
got me into I said well hang on a second what is it about food that makes me
00:08:49
relax and calm and that I love and then what is it about food that makes some
00:08:55
people so angry you know we're almost religious almost Evangelical about it
00:09:00
and that is where I started thinking there is a link here between what I do in my day job in the lab and I teach and
00:09:07
I and what have you and what I think about you know from broadcasting from
00:09:12
writing and that is when I said you know if I'm going to do something I want to enjoy it I love food I research food I I
00:09:20
you know I write about food that's the reason why because because I love it and I thought that it was an I wanted to
00:09:25
know more about myself and hence then more about other people as well your reference to a day job there what is
00:09:31
your day job as we sit here today so my day job is I'm a professor at the University of Cambridge and I teach and
00:09:37
I research there so that's my day job um and I have a I have a group and we study how the brain controls food intake
00:09:43
through using cells using molecules so that's the day job I say that I mean
00:09:48
this is obviously I mean the writing is is also a job obviously but it's it's what I do in my spare time and actually
00:09:57
what's interesting is it's what has made me I think a better scientist I think
00:10:03
too many scientists lose perspective and that no that's fine
00:10:08
right I mean I mean I'm not more brilliant than than they're many more much more brilliant people than me but I
00:10:14
think people do lose perspective and I think you need to go out out of the lab you need to speak to do you need to ask
00:10:20
what people are interested in in a broader broader Society what they understand about what you do and so
00:10:26
that's that that's the reason why I do what I do and why I say the day job versus this even though I merge it all
00:10:31
together you've been studying food genetics these topics for almost three decades is that accurate since 1998 25
00:10:39
years okay where are we in terms of culture
00:10:44
um as it relates to our opinion and perspective on food you know what I mean
00:10:49
by that like if you started 25 years ago when you observe how Society views food
00:10:56
the relationship it has with it versus your perspective today where are we today
00:11:02
I think it depends I I think there is a polar response to food but we are in a
00:11:09
polarized Society we're living today and I think the same is true about food I think I'm I would like to think there
00:11:15
are people who enjoy food who love food we we watch MasterChef we watch cooking programs we love the food you know we
00:11:21
everyone loves Nigella that kind of thing but then equally I don't know of the same number of people there are also
00:11:27
people who fear food okay now I study
00:11:33
obesity I do study obesity um and I know that most of the
00:11:39
non-infectious diseases we suffer from today is because of poor diet most of it obesity diabetes high blood pressure
00:11:45
certain heart diseases cancers Etc okay this is true and so undoubtedly we need
00:11:51
to know more about our diet and we need to fix the diet that we actually do it but I don't do it through fearing food I
00:11:57
do it about understanding food about loving food about learning how to cook food better sourcing better food that kind of thing right whereas there are a
00:12:04
lot of people in society who are talking about restriction of food removing
00:12:10
entire food groups um saying that this is the only way to eat if you don't eat this way it is the
00:12:15
not the right way um so I think we are in a polar situation where in one on the one hand
00:12:21
we cannot consume enough food uh tallies and cookbooks and and everything but yet
00:12:28
there is a huge section of society that fears food so much that they that diet has become this toxic word whenever we
00:12:35
talk about diets so I think that's where we are at the moment we are in a polar situation I read I read this word over
00:12:41
and over again in your work called orthorexia what does orthorexia mean so
00:12:47
orthorexia is a type of eating disorder people would
00:12:52
have heard of anorexia okay people would have heard of bulimia so anorexia clearly is a is a
00:12:59
controlling thing where you don't want to eat bulimia is there's the binging and there's the purging orthorexia is a
00:13:05
fear of not eating properly it is another I think it's an look I'm not a
00:13:11
psychologist and and a psychiatrist and I'm not an eating disorder expert but I
00:13:16
think it stems from the same and from the same root there is an there is an effort to con wanting to control
00:13:22
something that you feel like you need to control some people try and control their diets other people pick something
00:13:27
it doesn't have to be I mean you could say I want to be vegan or plant-based or I want to be keto or I
00:13:34
want to do Carnival whatever it is you want to do but then you become so hung up on it that if it's not exactly
00:13:39
perfect if it's not exactly like right you don't eat it so that is orthorexia
00:13:45
where suddenly you have to have the burger but it's only cooked this way it is a for lack of a better term it is
00:13:53
a analogous to obsessive compulsive Behavior but specifically with regards
00:13:59
to the way you prepare and are willing to eat that specific food I read something
00:14:05
um in your first book about orthorexia Gene eating I believe it was this book
00:14:10
um in chapter 10 where you cite a study of hundreds and hundreds of
00:14:17
women that follow food eating accounts on Instagram and I think the study
00:14:23
concludes that about 49 of the women that follow food eating accounts or food accounts on Instagram have
00:14:29
what you would describe as orthorexia um which is startling because that's 50
00:14:34
that's half the half the population that follow these Instagram accounts have this fear of messing up with their diet
00:14:42
but if you look I mean Instagram I think is a very interesting thing I mean first of all I as far as I understand someone
00:14:48
may correct me if I'm wrong the majority of Instagram users are female yeah I'm I'm not still and actually the biggest I
00:14:55
think probably what what are the two biggest Instagram um uh styles that are that we talk about
00:15:02
food or you talk about Fitness those are the two big things there's many other things as well and you're absolutely
00:15:07
right when you actually look at in fact if I look at my Instagram followers okay just just when you go to the little
00:15:13
things 89 are women there is no reason to follow I just want to point out there's no reason to to follow me other
00:15:19
than the fact that I talk about diets all the time 89 really I mean I mean I think that so if you consider me and I
00:15:25
talk about food okay and suddenly I'm some you you know Joe Schmo nobody from
00:15:31
Cambridge who just who writes about food and 89 are women then what happens if you actually begin to talk about diets
00:15:37
and and it is it's it's it's true and a huge number of them
00:15:42
it's easy you know I look I look at Instagram too and clearly my pictures are going to be
00:15:48
a little bit blah but there's some very very well curated Instagram pictures the the food is beautiful the people are
00:15:54
beautiful um and but that's the purpose right it's it's sort of like a little advertisement campaign but I think there are many many
00:16:01
people even though they know because people know I'm looking at a curated curated item which I think deep down
00:16:08
inside think that this could be real and this could be them and I think when you take people who are susceptible to this
00:16:14
obsessive compulsive who are susceptible to eating disorders and you suddenly put that in front of of someone that I think
00:16:21
you you it can be triggering for some people for me I my sort of confusion with food and
00:16:28
dieting and weight loss and all of these things stems from almost getting too much advice and I think if you hung
00:16:33
around on Instagram for long enough if you hang around just for like maybe a day or two you would hear so much conflicting advice on what the right
00:16:40
thing to do is this diet paleo keto you should eat these plants and not eat that don't eat meat and you've eventually you
00:16:47
go [ __ ] I can't eat anything you know if you listen to that much advice you'll go well I can't eat anything and that
00:16:53
stifles you to a point where you're like you're eating lettuce but then you realize you're like you know and it's
00:16:58
just what can I eat the more food advice I've consumed the less confident I've become and what I can eat interestingly
00:17:05
I think when I was naive and ignorant I was happier in terms of the orthorexia
00:17:11
you described that like fear of messing up on my diet I I think that the the real answer is
00:17:18
this the reason there is so much conflicting advice is because there is no One Singular right diet I think
00:17:24
there's some general principles we can probably agree with okay we probably eat too much sugar we probably need to not
00:17:31
eat so much uh um we need to a little bit less meat and we need to eat more vegetables okay so look if I say those
00:17:36
three things is anyone going to and if anyone going to argue with me no because it's a it's it's and that's probably one
00:17:43
of the Gen some of the general rules but if you then begin to apply it into your own self then the problem with
00:17:50
eating the problem with eating is everyone is an expert at eating by its very definition you're an expert at
00:17:56
eating I'm an expert at eating long enough for us to be sat here having this conversation and so when I eat a certain
00:18:01
way and I look at someone else and eating is a very visible thing every it's an open event and not only that you
00:18:09
then see what the person looks like okay then in your head and we are human beings simple we are nothing but mammals
00:18:15
we think Red Berry poison blueberry lion whatever right and so you look look at that fat person eating he's eating
00:18:21
something and so we begin to judge other people based on what we're talking about and now the major issues most people
00:18:28
keep their mouth shut mind their own business and eat and do what and do what they're doing but then you get loud opinionated people who go on to
00:18:34
Instagram and say that look at that person they're eating the wrong way the right way is the way I eat look at me I
00:18:39
have a six pack you know etc etc and I think that's the problem so the reason why the information is conflicting is
00:18:45
because There Is No One Singular right diet so it is going to be conflicting you have people have to find the right
00:18:51
diet for themselves not only biologically psychologically but also lifestyle wise because because if you
00:18:58
don't find the right diet for you you're never ever going to be able to stick to it and and Thrive from it because you're
00:19:05
just not so I think that is the major problem that's my biggest message if anything is there's no right diet so on
00:19:10
this on that point if there being no right diet a lot of that I guess is because we have genetic differences
00:19:16
that's one element of it there are genetic differences let's start there then with my genetic makeup yep
00:19:23
um how might there be differences in my genetic makeup that make my relationship with food and eating and weight loss
00:19:29
different from yours oh okay I I probably don't have as good
00:19:35
an answer genetics does not have as good an answer about why different people eat
00:19:40
differently aside from cultural differences at the moment okay so so the genetics the reason behind that is
00:19:47
because it's very difficult to accurately determine what someone has eaten in order to Do genetics
00:19:53
what we do know because we can actually observe is how people of different ethnicities have are susceptible to
00:20:00
different diseases so famously um East Asian people people that look like me South Asian people Indian
00:20:06
pakistanis uh bangladeshis cannot get as large
00:20:11
bmi-wise before becoming at risk of type 2 diabetes right compared to white
00:20:18
people Polynesians famously okay who can get pretty large before they actually end up get getting diseases so that's a
00:20:24
classic example where this is why South Asian people East Asian people have a higher predisposition of diabetes even
00:20:31
though obesity is not particularly a big thing in their um in in their cultures
00:20:37
but then you then begin to look at body shape that does that does matter as matter as well where do you put your fat
00:20:43
do you tend to put a fat on your bum on your tummy you know what is your um how
00:20:48
tall are you how short are you and all of these things which we can see visually we we can see
00:20:56
um there are people who are then susceptible or not susceptible to specific diseases other things you can't see okay why are African Americans for
00:21:04
example more likely to end up with cardiovascular heart disease okay less likely with diabetes whereas why are
00:21:10
Indians you know more and so did you then begin to ask the question and there we have genetics what about in terms of
00:21:17
um this obese Gene I read in chapter two of your book that there is a gene for
00:21:23
obesity there are more than a thousand genes for body weight the obese Gene in
00:21:28
chapter two which I talk about is this leptin Gene is this Gene which lets your brain know how much fat you have so
00:21:35
that's the exact Gene leptin is the gene that I talk about in chapter two with the obese it's called the obese Gene because the mouse was called obese there
00:21:42
was a lack of imagination um because the mouse was a naturally occurring Mouse
00:21:47
um that that had a mutation in the same gene scientists found out what that was and then found out that it was conserved
00:21:53
in humans and that's where my boss Steven ratley then came in and found that that Gene was also mutated in in
00:22:00
some humans so that's the obese Gene it's the it's the fat Gene fat Gene
00:22:05
meaning Gene from fat that lets your brain know how much fat you have and is that possible to to be
00:22:11
not just on or off but slightly defective so some people can just get
00:22:17
a little bit more hungry than others or is it a binary thing where it can be on or off so leptin
00:22:22
for whatever odd reason is pretty much binary so if you have a
00:22:28
little bit of it you're fine if you have none of it you're not however there is obviously there is obviously a pathway leptin signals to the brain which
00:22:34
signals to something else and there is a another Gene that I looked that I looked at called mc4r
00:22:41
it's part of the pathway it's part of the same fat sensing pathway that is a rheostat it's like a thermostat and so
00:22:48
for example we have found thousands of different mutations in this in this Gene and you can imagine that depending on
00:22:55
the severity of the dysfunction some are completely dead some are 70 functional you we can predict
00:23:02
how much someone will eat in a test Buffet meal scenario
00:23:07
um if they have a 50 functioning Gene versus a zero functioning Gene and we now know that point three percent
00:23:16
okay in this country at least so point so 200 000 people in the UK a million
00:23:21
people in the United States will carry mutations in this mc4r Gene okay making
00:23:26
them more likely to end up with obesity so that at 18 years old at 18 years old if you carry a mutation in this nc4r
00:23:34
Gene you are on average 18 kilos heavier 40 pounds heavier at 18 years old on average and that's 200 000
00:23:42
people in this country so it's it's not super common right it's still 99.7 of the people's body weights not determined
00:23:49
by this but there are a lot of people's body weights who are dependent on this specific Gene but it is a it is a
00:23:54
tunable system so it's a little bit or a lot means that you're either slightly heavier or a lot heavier to does our
00:24:01
brain like us losing weight I I did the keto diet recently for about two months
00:24:07
and why did you do it why'd you come off I did it because I wanted to okay this
00:24:13
is interesting it shows how much of a neanderthal I am um I I thought I was allergic to gluten
00:24:20
hey so I thought I'll cut out all of the things that have gluten in them and I'll try that and so I then watched this
00:24:27
video online and it talked about the keto diet so I thought oh that sounds good and I this guy had lost so much
00:24:33
weight doing it so I gave it a try now I lost so much weight more weight than I've ever lost in my life like I extreme
00:24:41
um I did it for about eight weeks I lost about a stone in weight the reason I
00:24:46
came off it was because it was hard it was hard in a
00:24:51
in a simple word it was difficult and I I don't know I felt like I was fighting against something
00:24:58
how long ago did you come off it and the crucial information piece of information I'm interested in is have you gained any
00:25:04
weight back um 45 days ago none of your business I'm joking
00:25:11
no um I gained so much weight back I gained I didn't just gain the stone I'd
00:25:16
lost I think I gained a little bit more back I think I gained a stone and a bit back uh I mean I'm not in bad shape but
00:25:22
like for me I went from being absolutely lean like I'm ready for Men's Health to
00:25:28
being like back to being like you know like um I'd say athletic now but I gained back the way I lost and more
00:25:36
so this is why I asked the question about the brain my brain didn't seem to be on board with me it didn't seem
00:25:42
taught the best for us and it seemed to want to return me back to my
00:25:48
default base state your brain everyone's brains hates it
00:25:53
when they lose weight it doesn't matter your starting point you could start from a point where you are Athletic versus someone who's not athletic Couch Potato
00:26:00
type type phenotype the moment you lose a little bit of weight we're talking even a few pounds I'm not even talking
00:26:06
you're talking about a stone even if you lost five pounds what happens in your brain is your brain is used to you
00:26:12
carrying you or me carrying a certain amount of weight the moment your weight starts to go down as an adult it goes
00:26:19
hey oh you know this is a big flag comes up this reduce this is reducing my chance of survival this is what the
00:26:25
brain thinks and so what it does is it begins to use strategies not conscious
00:26:32
nothing to do with our brain anything like that to drag us back up Kicking and Screaming to where we were before first
00:26:38
of all it makes us hungry okay so so it makes us it makes us hungry and second it actually very very secretively lowers
00:26:45
your metabolism ever so slightly so that even without think even eating exactly the same thing you are now storing more
00:26:52
than you're burning even eating exactly the same thing part of the strategy to get you back up to where you were before
00:26:59
so once you were on that keto diet and we can debate how it talk about how it
00:27:04
works and whether it's useful but once it's on the you're on the diet your weight goes off you're able to keep it
00:27:09
but you said man I can't do this and so you stop and the moment you stop your brain goes comes back on and starts
00:27:16
dragging you back up this is going to be true for pretty much every single diet that is that is out there the moment you
00:27:22
stop the diet the weight will come back on eventually why does my brain hate me
00:27:27
it's what look this is the brain you have to remember um that that's what's kept us alive I
00:27:33
mean we have lived aside from probably the last 40 years
00:27:38
we probably most of the time never had enough food now clearly over the past
00:27:44
hundred years we've had sufficient food compared to beyond that but you know as
00:27:49
well as I do when you turn on the TV and watch Only Fools and Horses from the from from the 70s or whatever you know
00:27:54
people are all skinny they think oh no they're not skinny they don't look skinny they look they look normal weight for the time that they're that they're
00:28:00
there whereas we have clearly over the past 40 years now have too much food so
00:28:05
this is now a different problem okay that we have too much food and so our
00:28:11
brain is trying to respond to this environment but it's responding in a natural fashion because what used to
00:28:17
happen was because there was not a food when there's food there you made sure you ate it otherwise why would you why
00:28:23
would you not do that right so we have a brain that's wired for a feast
00:28:29
famine environment Feast fam and feast famine the problem is we live in a feast Feast environment at the moment and
00:28:35
that's the issue we have a mild adopted brain for a feast Feast environment and this is because of how you set up
00:28:41
Society because of supermarkets fridges preservatives that keep food lasting for longer and Foods more available and
00:28:47
cheaper than before it's more processed Etc right so so this is true now now
00:28:52
without going all food Nazi I mean you have to remember that the all of
00:28:58
whatever you just said preservatives you know pickling cooking you start with that then you say oh we're gonna do
00:29:05
highly processed foods we're going to do pre-packaged foods frozen foods microwave Foods etc etc supermarkets it
00:29:10
has kept us alive okay we're seven and a half billion people and Counting we need to feed all these people and this is
00:29:16
fine the problem is we've now got to the point where the efficiencies the scales
00:29:23
of efficiency and how fruit production is now so high we can now get calories have never been cheaper so this is this
00:29:30
is the um the the the the the issue today you can on uh um in this country for example
00:29:37
in the UK people have calculated that you can get about a thousand calories for 90p now how good are those calories
00:29:45
what the quality of the food or those calories we're not talking we're just talking pure calories because of efficiencies of scale calories have
00:29:52
never been cheaper and we don't have to go run after an antelope in order to get in order to get the calories this has kept us alive until it is killing us
00:30:00
which is now over the past 10 years that have been an important inflection point
00:30:05
in in human history you know previously we never had enough food whereas now since the the past 10 years more people
00:30:12
are dying from over nutrition than under nutrition and over nutrition
00:30:18
in a bad way because you can be you can have loads of calories but still be malnourished because you're eating the
00:30:24
wrong kind of foods and can you believe it we are now in a world where there are more people dying because they eat too much than because they because they
00:30:31
don't eat enough is the worldwide Trend that we are getting skinnier or fatter we are getting fatter
00:30:37
as a worldwide Trend and and and true that the the problems are more obvious
00:30:42
at the moment in higher income countries okay because because either they studied more and be
00:30:49
the kind of food that's available but you are good but what is the goal of of
00:30:55
um of a country that is less developed than us for example they want to pull their people out of poverty they want to
00:31:00
make sure that their poor people don't die of starvation they want to make sure that fast food and and good food you
00:31:09
know and crab food are available to everybody uh there as well now the problem is the moment that happens you
00:31:14
don't switch from being dying of under nutrition and starvation to then now
00:31:20
dying of over nutrition so we are at that infection point where the whole world very soon will get into a severe
00:31:27
obesity problem and and we do need to fix the food environment in order to fix
00:31:32
that do you consider it to be an emergency it is definitely an emergency oh it is definitely an emergency and it's an emergency because because
00:31:41
let's ask the question why is it a problem to have obesity why is it a problem to carry too much fat okay so so
00:31:48
that doesn't you might think well it's obvious well is it because the the there are issues with gravity when you're too
00:31:55
heavy um arthritis Mobility sleep apnea you can't breathe at night but that is
00:32:00
that isn't what kills us okay if what kills us is all the diseases that are associated with obesity diabetes high
00:32:07
blood pressure certain cancers etc etc that is what kills us okay heart disease and and so it is an emergency because
00:32:14
with obesity at a population level as it goes up then you have millions upon
00:32:20
millions of people um that that end up you you know with
00:32:25
diseases so the the estimate is that direct cost to the NHS direct costs for
00:32:32
treating obesity and related illness is six to seven billion a year okay pounds
00:32:37
that's the direct but the moment you take into account the bro economy days
00:32:42
sick etc etc it's estimated we are running at 27 billion a year just on economic
00:32:49
effects on on Obesity so it is an emergency because because many people
00:32:55
are getting ill many people are dying you know and actually it makes economically no
00:33:01
sense we have to fix the Obesity because then we would save ourselves a lot a lot of money so let's talk about how we fix
00:33:07
the Obesity how we burn fat and how we all get into a healthy weight now I know
00:33:13
you think that bmis are largely [ __ ] and unhelpful is that an accurate description of your opinion
00:33:19
okay look before I I don't want to end up um with my colleagues throwing shoes at me so I think
00:33:25
awesome so BMI for those of you who don't know BMI is obviously um your weight in kilograms divided by
00:33:33
your height a meter Square it's a way of controlling for your height and your weight um now on a population level okay it is
00:33:40
actually a remarkably effective why because a it's free to measure it doesn't cost anything
00:33:45
um and on average in a population sadly um the higher your BMI the more fat you
00:33:50
carry and we know that the more fat you carry the more likely you are to be unhealthy okay on a population on a
00:33:56
population level all this is true you might argue rugby players different this and this is this is true
00:34:02
on an individual level however it is not particularly useful for for your for your health other than tracking
00:34:09
your weight it's about as useful as that because each of us are different shapes different sizes
00:34:15
can carry different amounts of fat uh can carry different amounts of fat safely so so that is the problem with uh
00:34:23
um with with obesity right it's it depends on who you are
00:34:29
um how heavy is heavy before it actually begins to actually influence your influence your health
00:34:35
so let's talk about food a little bit um I'm currently
00:34:40
doing some kind of version of intermittent fasting right detail details version well I just don't let's
00:34:48
call it time restricted okay yep right you know um basically I don't I I don't have
00:34:53
breakfast I actually don't really get hungry at breakfast to be completely honest with you I tend to get hungry a bit later in the day so I haven't eaten
00:34:59
anything today and God forbid uh it's 3 30 p.m um wow I know but I just don't I just
00:35:05
don't seem to get hungry yet um and then I read your book and in
00:35:11
chapter three of Gene eating you talk about front loading your food in the day
00:35:17
now I was like [ __ ] hell you know I'm trying my best here Giles and they told
00:35:24
me to eat later in the day to skip breakfast we don't need it and then to
00:35:29
time restrict your eating and then I read your book and then it says front load your food have a big breakfast medium lunch small dinner
00:35:36
what's the truth okay so so that is the I mean I think most societies have a
00:35:42
similar saying the Chinese have a similar saying as as this as well so um a couple of things I was saying eat
00:35:49
like a king at breakfast a prince a Princess lunch and a pauper at um at dinner time and so the Chinese have have
00:35:55
a similar have a similar saying because I think people kind of work this out now there is some truth to this but then
00:36:01
I'll come back and explain what the truth or the truth is so the sum truth is that actually clearly we are
00:36:07
metabolically our metabolism is highest during the day because we have to avoid becoming food and we have to look for
00:36:13
food okay so so that's the thing whereas at night when we're asleep our metabolism drops so if you eat your
00:36:19
biggest meal at night and then a couple of hours later you go to sleep then clearly you you are
00:36:26
loading your calories and then going to sleep which is in storage mode whereas if you eat your biggest meal during the
00:36:32
day you have the whole day left in order to burn it now homeostasis it does balance itself out so it's not the
00:36:37
driver of obesity but undoubtedly it will make a little bit of a difference there okay but then a friend of mine
00:36:44
um Alex Johnstone Alexandra Johnstone Professor Alexander Johnstone up at the Robert Institute in in Aberdeen just
00:36:51
published the study I think probably only three months ago okay which is very interesting so what she did was she got
00:36:57
um people um a cohort of people and got them to eat exactly the same number of calories
00:37:03
they supplied the food so they knew what they were going to do okay and they did it either by front loading all the
00:37:08
calories at breakfast or back loading all the calories at dinner but everyone I ate exactly the same thing and then
00:37:15
everyone then swapped okay so everyone did the did the whole thing and what she found was that there was no different
00:37:22
reference in body weight change whether or not you were eating most of your calories at breakfast or most of your
00:37:28
calories at dinner it was the total amount of energy during the day but
00:37:34
the difference was if you ate more at breakfast you felt less hungry during
00:37:40
the day then you if you ate more at dinner so while if you
00:37:46
ate exactly the same Foods thought at breakfast or dinner dinner or lunch it doesn't actually matter but for some
00:37:53
people it may very well be easier to have the big breakfast because it means particularly if they love food in
00:37:59
particular because it means they get less hungry throughout the day so that is the truth that is the Nuance but does
00:38:04
that mean you know I've got a first-hand experience in this that if I'm not hungry throughout the day then when it
00:38:10
gets to midnight I'll be thinking Hmm no but it doesn't matter right because because it's not
00:38:16
like it's not like well it depends depends how much if you suddenly ate 3000 calories at dinner then then then
00:38:21
maybe they're no I'm not talking dinner I'm talking midnight snack so I I think the reality the the reality
00:38:29
is you have to eat when you have to eat uh is is the answer now if you were
00:38:35
trying to lose weight so if you were actively trying to lose weight because you are active because if one was
00:38:40
actively overweight then you might begin to think about when you wanted to eat more I would probably cut the calories
00:38:46
from your dinner rather than cutting the calories from your breakfast but if you are surviving during the day and this is
00:38:52
true about many people right nurses doctors who work shifts firemen police police officers whatever they do you've
00:38:58
got to eat when you gotta eat so these a lot of these um pieces of advice are fine until they smack into the reality
00:39:07
of Life your job and what you actually and what you actually do but it's general advice for the general person
00:39:12
who isn't constrained by night shifts or anything like that eating late closer to when you fall asleep is bad is
00:39:20
not going to help you lose weight correct okay everyone says this you know
00:39:26
Tim Spector said this to me I need I need people to keep saying it and then I will cancel the midnight Buffet
00:39:33
but I love my midnight Buffet too yeah I know but every so often only not every night yeah yeah not all the time you
00:39:39
know five nights a week um your general stance on keto you know
00:39:45
much of your feedback and much of your writing is more about how it's unsustainable
00:39:50
um is that is that accurate well it depends so so the original keto diet keto in its original form was oddly
00:39:58
enough it was designed for epilepsy okay that was what it was originally designed to do it's only in its most I would say
00:40:05
the past 10 years that suddenly people have realized there was a weight loss element to it as you as you personally
00:40:10
firsthand uh actually actually found it so I think the original versions of Keto were actually very very very
00:40:17
unsustainable because of the really super high levels of fat that were
00:40:22
involved they were unpalatable and and and and with absolutely almost zero
00:40:27
carbs they were very unpalatable they they're difficult to stick to if you have inflammation related diseases is
00:40:32
keto often a diet that's recommended if there's like inflammation related depends it depends where the
00:40:38
inflammation is so so if it's information in a gut you need a different type of diet is so so that there is no one for a given information
00:40:45
right so it then it depends on the diet that you're actually actually own but keto in this extreme form is difficult
00:40:51
to stick to because you know because of the really really high fat to protein ratio so it was designed for epilepsy
00:40:58
because I think there was some reason just to say that when you force your brain to use ketones which is rather
00:41:06
than glucose which is where the keto diet comes from it reduces the incidence of epilepsy so leave that aside but what
00:41:13
then people found as well is that with the keto diet you ended up feeling Fuller
00:41:19
and so more satiated and so therefore you lost weight because you ended up eating eating less weight sorry eating
00:41:24
less food but also because you were having less carbs then it was easier to control your blood glucose so keto I
00:41:32
think is probably good safe thing for some type 2 diabetics
00:41:37
looking to try and a milder form of Keto because now there's different types of Keto that you can stick to to try and
00:41:43
control your blood glucose if you're type 2 diabetic just make sure you don't eat
00:41:49
as much of the fat as animal fat trying to have more olive oil and fish fat and vegetable fat rather than animal fat
00:41:55
then there probably is a case to be made for for for keto not as extreme for a
00:42:02
healthy uh individual such as yourself you found how difficult it was to actually stick to it I think that's
00:42:07
probably a case to be made for introducing a little bit of carbohydrates but high fiber carbohydrates in there so that makes it
00:42:14
more sustainable the issue is and I think one needs to be careful is certainly in its most extreme
00:42:19
forms they haven't been many studies looking at the safety say over five ten years if you stick to keto all the time
00:42:26
how healthy is it for you and so that's the only um caveat that I want that I want to
00:42:32
point out the studies need to be done as it becomes more popular the studies will be done because there are many people millions of people who swear by keto and
00:42:40
um and inherently as long as you don't eat too much animal fat only and so you
00:42:46
have vegetable fat and fish fat and olive oil and things as well then it can be relatively healthy
00:42:52
you reference there that um the protein makes you feel Fuller
00:42:58
that's that seems to be a really important point that if you have a high protein diet you're going to end up
00:43:04
eating less which will result in weight loss right in what order does like protein fats and carbohydrates make you
00:43:10
feel fullest so a calorie of protein makes you feel Fuller than a calorie of fat than a
00:43:16
calorie of carbohydrate in that order so and and the reason behind that is because protein is chemically the most
00:43:24
complex compared to fat and carbs so so it takes the longest to a digest
00:43:29
and be metabolized so and because it takes the longest any food which travels further down the gut
00:43:35
makes you feel Fuller that's just a general it's a it's a general um um thing of how how our body works
00:43:42
so that's the first thing so protein takes longer to digest travels further down the gut you feel Fuller but then not only that protein gets digested into
00:43:49
amino acids amino acids transfer across the gut wall into our blood and they
00:43:55
again go to our cells and organs where they then metabolized now during the metabolism stage it then takes a lot of
00:44:02
energy to metabolize protein compared to fat and carbs so for example for every 100 calories of protein that
00:44:10
you eat we are only ever able to use 70 calories so 30 of the protein calories we eat
00:44:18
are spent dealing with protein it takes money to make money right and so at 30 so protein calories everywhere this is
00:44:26
not reflected on the side of the package protein calories everywhere are 30 wrong just off just just just off the bat
00:44:31
because of the amount of energy it actually takes to sort out to sort out Protein that's another reason why it
00:44:37
makes you feel Fuller super interesting that point about calories obviously I talked to Tim Specter a lot about that and um it
00:44:43
really is a kind of a narrative Buster that calories are not accurate
00:44:49
so look I I I I speak a lot about calories I understand that 200 calories
00:44:55
of chips is twice the portion of 100 calories of chips but so is 200 grams of chips twice the
00:45:01
portion of 100 grams of chips and no one is trying to compare 200 grams of chips to 200 grams of carrots broadly speaking
00:45:08
that's what it is the calorie is a very useful tool um to give you a general idea how much
00:45:16
you are eating during the day that is true okay how much you're eating but it tells us nothing zero about the quality
00:45:23
of food you're eating about how much protein how much fiber what type of fat how much sugar the calorie tells you
00:45:29
absolutely nothing so it gives you a piece of information how much food you're eating and that's yes I can see
00:45:35
how that could be important but I would like to see a world we live in where we
00:45:41
were more concerned about the quality of food we are feeding ourselves our kids other people they're necessarily just
00:45:46
the pure caloric content because I've got a friend that said to me won't name him but he got a friend that said to me that um you can basically as long as you
00:45:53
count the calories you can eat whatever you like so you can have the Domino's Pizza you can have this but you just
00:45:59
gotta make sure the calories are under your sort of calorific allowance and then it's it's all good
00:46:05
so now if your depends what your calorific allowance is and it will clearly if you stick to a purely calorie
00:46:13
counting diet of say 2 000 calories and you stuck to that religiously okay you probably the
00:46:21
chances are you probably would lose weight because we probably burnt burnt more than that but how healthy would you be I think is probably the question
00:46:27
whereas if you had a healthier diet but a 2 500 calories of a healthier diet
00:46:34
would you would you be healthier and that's that's the more important question I think you've asked because
00:46:39
there's two things you're trying to look at you're trying to look at the number on the scale and that probably would work or you're trying to look at your
00:46:45
health your blood glucose levels your blood pressure your ability to be energetic during the day you know how
00:46:51
fast you want to run whatever it is whatever metric can you lift your grandkids up whatever you want to do and
00:46:56
so I think it's a it's a it is a measure clearly it is I'm not I'm not denying it that it is not a measure but it is a
00:47:03
very blunt tool and I don't think it is measuring what we need to measure which is the quality of our food what is
00:47:09
calorific availability in fact reading your work is the first time I've even heard that phrase before but it seems to
00:47:15
be to be important so calorific or caloric availability is the amount of
00:47:21
calories that you can extract from a food versus the total number of calories
00:47:26
in a food so the example which I cite in in both books actually is if you had 100
00:47:31
calories of sugar just just pure white sugar you would probably end up getting 98 nearly 100 calories out of it nearly
00:47:39
100 okay because sugar is our base fuel we chop once we absorb it there's no digestion that's involved the one
00:47:45
example which I give is imagine if you ate sweet corn corn on the cob and then you looked in the loo the next
00:47:51
day it is quite clear you haven't absorbed most of the sweet corn because
00:47:56
you can see it okay but if you take sweet corn desiccated convert into cornmeal make cornbread or corn tortilla
00:48:03
do something else with it suddenly exactly the same source of food gives
00:48:08
you a different amount of calories okay but yet it starts on corn it's exactly the same thing so that's caloric
00:48:14
availability you can start with a sourced food but depending on what you do to that food different calories are
00:48:20
available there's nothing wrong with cuantotia there's nothing wrong with cornbread and there's nothing wrong with sweet corn I'm just saying that the
00:48:26
calorie counts make no sense because you will extract different amounts of
00:48:32
calories from the food even though we're working with exactly the same food that's crazy so if I I had um call on
00:48:39
the cob like you I'm just mimicking your action there um and then I had a corn tortilla
00:48:46
yes if both of them sell in the package this is a hundred calories the truth is my body might with the corn on the cob
00:48:54
only have 50 of the calories available because of
00:48:59
the the nature of the the food versus if I had the corn tortilla Which says 100
00:49:05
calories in the package as well I might get 80 calories from it yes
00:49:11
so so let me give you another example celery is probably something that's easy and and we've actually measured this so if you actually look at a just a typical
00:49:18
medium-sized stick that you might get with some buffalo wings or something like that okay of of celery raw okay
00:49:25
people say that celeries have an uh has a negative calories not really but it's got only six calories it's nearly
00:49:30
negative okay for that if you cook the celery chop it up put into a stew whatever the
00:49:36
hell you're gonna do with it that six calories becomes 30 calories because you've cooked it exactly the
00:49:43
same food and this time I'm just cooking it all right because the cooking you can
00:49:49
almost consider cooking as an extension of your stomach it does some of the digestion for you right because you're
00:49:54
cooking it but it's gonna even stew it's just an hour two hours and then you eat it so then all that energy the reason
00:50:00
why we only extract six calories from from a raw celery is you know it's CR is 99 fiber and water and so you
00:50:09
whereas if you cook it then what happens is some of the fiber breaks down we're able to do it that's a class another classic example exactly the same food
00:50:15
you cook it suddenly six times the number of calories you get from it it's an extreme example
00:50:21
exactly because I could go to a supermarket and I could get a um a six calorie stick of celery it could
00:50:30
literally say on the package six calories I take it home I think great I've got six calories left in my my
00:50:36
calorie deficit today I pop it in the pan I stew it I eat it 30 calories out
00:50:41
of nowhere correct that's false advertising correct I'm gonna get myself into trouble no but
00:50:46
it's true that that is exactly that is exactly true that's crazy that's why I don't think that's
00:50:52
that's why I don't think calories are the most useful thing to be to be measuring because they shift they're
00:50:58
moving they're a moving Target which is fine as long as we know what what what we're expecting but to but if you are
00:51:05
religious calorie counter once again you have to do you in order to so some people do that and it's and for them it
00:51:11
is a useful strategy to keep the weight off and be healthier I'm not going to be back on you you do what you you do what
00:51:17
you want but you have to understand that religiously counting it means that depending on what type of calories you
00:51:23
eat that no matter how religious you are you're going to be absorbing different amounts of calories anyway
00:51:28
but again as you as you've highlighted there the positive upside to that is it gives people something to measure yes
00:51:33
which is relative yes and and that's the benefit for them that if they're measuring every day and it's the same
00:51:39
food they're measuring it's all relative um and there's some benefit to them because obviously people do are very um
00:51:46
passionate that they've had great results from calorie counting in their lives it's something to measure but most people well many people who calorie
00:51:52
count just to be clear means they they stick to eating the same thing which they've done roast chicken whatever it
00:51:58
is but eat fewer calories of the roast chicken dinner now that does work because what you're doing is you're now
00:52:03
reducing the portion size of what you're eating whereas if you're saying that wait a minute I'm going to switch meals
00:52:09
entirely and go from eating 2 000 calories of chicken but I'm now going to have 16 1 600 calories of sugar that's a
00:52:17
stupid example but imagine that was the case okay then calorie counting is not going to work because you could be chicken is better for you than sugar and
00:52:24
and so and so that is an extreme example but few people do that but I I
00:52:30
highlighted only to make sure people understand it understand the limitations and caveats of calorie counting quick
00:52:38
one one of our sponsors of this podcast blue jeans recently did some research and they found that almost a third of
00:52:43
companies are still spending almost a quarter of a million a year on launching
00:52:48
and hosting virtual and hybrid events this is obviously Bonkers with blue jeans new software called events and Studios you can host these professional
00:52:54
world-class feeling events for a fraction of the cost so now going forward for all of my companies and for
00:53:01
myself I think we did our last one in telegram not so long ago every event I will host will be hosted on Blue Jeans
00:53:07
events and Studios and I've never seen a software tool that allows you to personalize and brand and an interface
00:53:13
and the interface itself with such ease that's the real thing about the the software I've done I think two events on
00:53:18
Blue Jeans events and Studios the ease of not having to be an expert to create an unbelievable event if you've got an
00:53:24
event coming up if you've got a virtual event coming up do me and yourself a favor and check out blue jeans events
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and Studios it's honestly incredible and I'd love to hear your responses if you do give it a try you know I never really
00:53:37
usually pick the chocolate flavored heels my favorite are the banana flavor I love The Salted Caramel flavor but
00:53:44
recently I think I in part blame Jack in my team who's obsessed with the chocolate flavor heals I've started
00:53:51
drinking the chocolate flavor heels for the first time and I absolutely love them my life means that I sometimes disregard my diet and it's funny that's
00:53:57
part of the reason why I've had a lot of guests on this podcast recently that talk about diet and health and those kinds of things because I am trying to
00:54:03
make an active effort to be more healthy to lose a little bit of weight as well but to be more healthy and the role that he'll plays in my life is it means that
00:54:10
in those moments where sometimes I might reach for you know junk Foods
00:54:17
having an option that is nutritionally complete that is high in fiber that is incredibly high in protein that has all
00:54:22
the vitamins and minerals that my body needs within Arm's Reach that I can consume on the go is where he always
00:54:28
been a game changer for me I started to believe I think as I said you earlier maybe 12 months ago maybe a
00:54:34
bit more 24 months ago that I was gluten free and I believed that because I I'd eaten some things and then I had like a
00:54:40
bad gut reaction um some pains bit of bloatedness and and
00:54:45
then when I didn't eat those things that had gluten in them that kind of pain and bloatedness went away so my genius brain
00:54:51
assumed self-diagnosed that I am gluten intolerant and then I marched through
00:54:56
the world for the next two years being that kind of like pretentious [ __ ] that's asking if there's gluten and
00:55:02
everything and you know interrogating the ingredients of everything I put in my mouth to try and avoid this thing called gluten
00:55:07
now from reading your work I've started to consider that I'm not in
00:55:13
fact a genius that I'm in fact an idiot and that I'm probably not gluten intolerant
00:55:18
um and that because you look at society and you look at packaging and you look at signage on restaurants and on menus
00:55:23
they they have gluten-free everywhere now everything is like gluten-free you go in the supermarket aisles it's gluten-free pasta gluten-free this
00:55:30
which creates the impression that where humans are just not meant to eat gluten and we're all gluten intolerant or 50 of us are how much truth is there to that
00:55:37
so one percent of the human species are celiacs okay and they are completely
00:55:43
allergic to gluten and and you don't you want to stay away from gluten okay like literally that's they get to the point
00:55:49
where it's so bad that their guts don't work anymore and can't absorb food carefully and so it can kill you so
00:55:55
that's no joke and so gluten-free was originally designed to cater to people
00:56:00
with celiac disease one percent of the human species now three to four percent of humans and they're slightly more
00:56:08
difficult to measure are probably genuinely gluten intolerant and this could be maybe from a little bit farty
00:56:13
till some severe gastrointestinal distress um and but genuinely so and probably
00:56:19
it's best for them to at least not have a big bolus of gluten but the rest of us are not but yet 25 as a as a market 25
00:56:27
of us buy gluten-free at any one point so it's become profitable to sell
00:56:33
gluten-free they now label rice as gluten-free rice doesn't have gluten never had gluten okay okay okay from
00:56:39
from it and so they label rice as gluten-free thinking that it's some product it's not a product it's just
00:56:44
rice so I think the issue here is it's been a boon for people with celiacs uh for
00:56:50
celax I've spoken to people with celiac disease they go we've never had it this good okay because before you have to go
00:56:57
you have to be really concerned now every place you go to the moment you say gluten-free you get a gluten-free meal
00:57:03
and everything and everything is fine the only downside is some people look at them you know but but so but that is a
00:57:10
classic example of of people thinking that it's healthy but can I
00:57:17
just once again I'll stop asking you a question soon but did you actually go and get yourself diagnosed about whether or not you are
00:57:23
gluten intolerant because it doesn't mean that you're not because you could be by the way you can always ask me questions and to answer your question
00:57:30
yes I got diagnosed by Dr Stephen Bartlett right in the comfort of my own home
00:57:38
but my brain my brain wrote out the slip and made the diagnosis have you gone
00:57:43
back to eating some gluten yes and nothing has happened you know what's really interesting something after I
00:57:49
finish the keto diet yeah fad uh keto diet I then tried a little bit of gluten
00:57:55
and everything was okay it was it was I had a little bit of glutes in it I didn't really notice any
00:58:01
any issue so and I was wondering if like keeping myself off gluten or keeping
00:58:07
myself off something for those two months had almost restored my my gut in
00:58:13
some respect that I could have a little bit of gluten again because I I kind of I don't know
00:58:18
it was interesting but the issue with gut is that many so for example I will
00:58:24
have exactly the same symptoms of what you just said bloated blah blah all these things when I have lactose I'm
00:58:29
lactose intolerant because it is a food substance that influences the gut
00:58:35
so I think the issue is I wouldn't put out of hand some thing which you've
00:58:40
had with your gut it could be actually real is it necessarily gluten was it uh was it lactose was it something else so
00:58:48
so the problem is and the reason why people immediately think gluten is because that's what's in front of them but it could be a number of other things
00:58:55
which cause your gut just for a little bit or you could just reading the wrong type of chilies right and and and that
00:59:01
that could also do it but the moment it begins to influence your guts it has broadly speaking the same phenotype same
00:59:06
the same presentation whether it's gluten lactose or Mexican chilies so that's that's interesting so you're
00:59:12
saying you know one to four percent of people really do have an intolerance roughly yes and then 25 ish percent of
00:59:20
us buy gluten-free assuming we are you know I either assume you are gluten
00:59:25
intolerant or think it's healthier I don't think it's healthier okay we think gluten's a bad thing yeah is gluten a
00:59:31
bad thing if you can handle gluten no if you eat too much of it that's always a bad thing but no and let's put it this
00:59:37
way as as a gluten-free donut is still a donut whether or not it has gluten or not you
00:59:43
know so there are things which are inherently fried and and are have more calories more caloric availability and
00:59:49
there are things which are inherently less whether or not they have gluten what about you said you said lactose intolerance then you're lactose
00:59:55
intolerant and in your book you say that 65 of adults are lactose intolerant
01:00:01
that's correct that's crazy that's a huge huge majority that's a huge majority because the mutation
01:00:08
is lactose tolerance so and so under normal circumstances so lactose is a
01:00:13
sugar like glucose like fructose but mammals obviously all mammals can
01:00:19
drink milk as babies we are mammals um all mammals can obviously drink milk and absorb lactose as babies but then
01:00:27
most mammals including 65 of human beings become lactose intolerant the moment they become adults
01:00:33
I guess that's a question of why and then and then how why probably because if University aged Johnny is clamped
01:00:41
onto your boob and there's limited space there's no room for baby Johnny and so you need to encourage a rapidly growing
01:00:46
mammal get away go eat solid food so that other babies can actually get on I think that probably is the real reason
01:00:51
to encourage animals to do the more difficult thing of finding solid food so you make yourself lactose intolerant how
01:00:58
Okay so uh lactase is the enzyme that breaks down lactose and this happens in
01:01:04
your small intestine and it turns it's turned on when we're babies but then as we become older something else comes and
01:01:12
shuts off lactase like in me and so I can't drink a lot of milk but then around 7 500 years ago or so people
01:01:20
people have actually worked this out a mutation occurred near this Gene linear lactase which
01:01:27
prevents the shutting off of the gene okay and so 85 percent of white northern
01:01:32
European Caucasians for example can drink milk as adults every single
01:01:39
one of them has exactly that same mutation that occurred 7 500 years ago now there are other populations
01:01:44
throughout the world there's certain pastoral populations in Africa and certain populations
01:01:49
um particularly Those Who had who had goats and sheep and stuff who then had their own independent way of dealing
01:01:55
with drinking milk because it was a rich source of food so if it was available you were able to to to to drink it but
01:02:01
so that is the mutation whereas for the vast majority of us Chinese people for
01:02:06
example you know we didn't end up drinking milk as as adults um and so we never had that we never had
01:02:13
that mutation and so most of us are lactose intolerant as adults
01:02:18
and these things we can find out how does one go about finding out about my genetic predispositions to certain foods
01:02:25
and diets so you can okay not every single food has a prediction for genetic
01:02:31
wise but if you take any of the direct to Consumer genetic tests that are available they will test all of the
01:02:36
known they'll they'll definitely test lactose intolerance your ability to handle alcohol okay I I know mine your
01:02:42
ability to to metabolize caffeine so these are all individual genes so it's predictable so some people can drink a
01:02:49
lot of coffee other people can't some people can drink a lot of alcohol other people can't I'm probably in the middle for alcohol and I can't drink any milk
01:02:55
so all of those are predictable and you can get from any of the genetic tests that are there the problem I guess with
01:03:01
these genetic tests is they make predictions beyond the stuff that are
01:03:06
predictable they say that oh we can predict that you'll respond to a Mediterranean diet for example I'm
01:03:12
Mediterranean diet is a whole diet it's it's got like whatever 200 Foods how is it going to predict whether or not you
01:03:17
respond to it and so I think some of the genetic tests overstep their Mark in trying to predict what they can predict
01:03:23
but some things are predictable milk caffeine alcohol have you done any genetic tests I have for for a um uh
01:03:31
23andMe DNA fit uh Circle I I've just done them for some for papers uh
01:03:37
newspapers and writing reviews for others just for personal um interest just just to find out what
01:03:43
it is what was your favorite because I know people are going to be listening and they're going to be going you know I want to take action so
01:03:49
where's step one and I have to be honest my girlfriend texted me yesterday asking me this exact question so the minute
01:03:55
this conversation is done I'm gonna say I've just spoken to this genius from Cambridge and now for you babe and I've
01:04:00
got you the answer she texted me yesterday asking me for a good uh DNA genetic test that will help
01:04:06
her understand diet help her understand her diet yeah like her like tolerance to certain foods and
01:04:12
predispositions okay so there are many different tests out there testing different things
01:04:18
so um there is an advantage to going with size like 23andMe obviously I'm not paid by
01:04:25
them it has an advantage to size because they have tens hundreds of millions even people's data and so as with most things
01:04:31
the more data you have and people constantly interact with the app the more you can
01:04:37
improve your product the more you can then improve your predictions but 23andMe only tests a limited number of
01:04:44
the genes in your in in yourself okay so in other words we have three billion base pairs in our DNA each each
01:04:51
individual Mark a 23 and me I'm going to get this wrong I'll probably test about 2 million or so okay of the three
01:04:57
billion whereas if you go to some other companies now that now in effect sequence your whole genome or at least
01:05:05
all your genes so you get a lot more information then they get more information the
01:05:12
problem there however is a is more expensive but B fewer people have done it and so they haven't yet had the time
01:05:18
to begin to tweak their algorithms and their predictions to get a more optimized optimized prediction so that's
01:05:25
the problem right okay whereas 23 me is cheap so that's probably a good place to start to ask certain questions look I am
01:05:33
happy to to like literally literally happy to give you a better prediction than 23me's algorithms because I can
01:05:41
um for for that for for example but they probably give a pretty uh helpful look about lactose alcohol you know and
01:05:48
whether or not you may or may not be uh um gluten intolerant they give some
01:05:54
pretty good uh predictions there okay I'm gonna do that whatever yeah I
01:06:01
really need to do I really I've been I've been thinking about it for a long time so I'm gonna pull the trigger um it's quite remarkable that I haven't yet
01:06:07
um you did a documentary called clean eating which is um predominantly about plant-based eating it wasn't predominant
01:06:15
I did look at plant-based I also looked at The Alkali diet and I also looked at gluten-free so let's talk about those
01:06:21
last two then so um plant-based diet I I heard that there was a lot of adverse reaction
01:06:28
from some people in some communities regarding the plant-based component of
01:06:34
that documentary is that true or false that is true that is true and and the reason there was a problem was look I I
01:06:40
hope you think speaking to me that I'm a reasonable person I speak with some Nuance I don't
01:06:46
think so what we did was was a plot based has taken on a different meaning today okay based on the supermarket so
01:06:53
what have you but when I did the program plant-based meant a far more restrictive version of veganism plant-based meant
01:07:00
that you ate you ate minimally processed foods hardly any sugar and you ate at Whole Foods only it's fine it's a
01:07:06
perfectly healthy it's a perfectly healthy diet as long as you take the right supplements the problem is the plant-based people become vegan or
01:07:13
plant-based for many different reasons ethical reasons environmental reasons and health okay all three or or a mix of
01:07:20
the three the the one issue I took with the plant-based community in that
01:07:25
program is that they believed that there was no safe dose of animal protein okay
01:07:31
which meant that even eating a bit of egg white the moment you started eating a bit of egg whites it begins to kill
01:07:37
you slowly in your you know because I says that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life and it
01:07:42
doesn't support the science doesn't support it we eat too much meat the science does support that okay but
01:07:49
eggs okay um um you know people vegetarian you're calling vegetarians they're killing themselves because they're eating eggs
01:07:55
or something that was what I took them up on and they thought that because I
01:08:01
was challenging I said there is a safe dose of animal protein we do need to eat less meat that's but that's they went
01:08:07
after me they went after me oh my god um it was it was amazing in fact the program has probably gone around the
01:08:14
world probably four or five times and the reason why I know is because every time it pops up in a new you know BBC
01:08:19
doesn't tell me every time it pops up in a new country I wake up to my inbox on my social media and suddenly I got a
01:08:25
rush of hate ah the Canadian vegans have seen it again oh look it's in Australia oh the Swedish vegans hello you know and
01:08:33
and and so and it's just this really odd Evangelical Evangelical I want to point
01:08:39
out I know this you know please it's the people that believe there is no safe dose of animal-based protein clearly
01:08:45
there is a safe dose um there are different reasons for doing things but don't say silly things that's
01:08:51
what that's what got me into trouble with with the Evangelical vegans because I've watched some sort of plant-based vegan documentaries on Netflix and I
01:08:58
come away from them thinking Christ I should never eat any meat ever again for a variety of reasons actually the
01:09:03
reasons that I think they tend to lead with are are more about the impact upon your health and your diet I think that
01:09:10
that's a much more compelling um self for most people especially for
01:09:16
people in in parts of the world whether they have another set of problems they're dealing
01:09:21
with first which is trying to feed themselves period um but as it relates to health and
01:09:27
veganism plant-based diets what are some of the stereotypes there that that
01:09:33
you've highlighted one that there is a quantity of meat products that is healthy what are the general stereotypes
01:09:40
there that are they need a dressing so a couple of things that that is it healthy to be on a plant-based diet let's just
01:09:47
deal with that first okay and I think as long as you do it carefully and think about it and take the right supplements
01:09:54
it is you have to supplement when you're on a plant-based diet okay you have to supplement certain things vitamin B12
01:10:01
iodine iodine pardon me um you got to watch your iron you've got to
01:10:06
watch your calcium but you can do it safely okay but I just
01:10:13
the biggest myth that I want to bust is that it's a diet for everybody it is not
01:10:19
veganism plant-based in particular is a diet for the privileged people who can
01:10:24
choose to do so I can choose to do it you can choose to do it if you live in a
01:10:29
developing country okay or no no don't ever stop that not even living in a developing country if you are Mrs Smith
01:10:35
working two minimum wage jobs okay in this country trying to feed your kids are you really going to be concerned
01:10:42
with your pulses and making sure the supplements are right to actually feed your kids so they can have a vegan diet
01:10:48
no you want to feed your kids all right and so what annoys me about about
01:10:54
Evangelical uh plant-based and vegan is not that people do it people should do what they want to do but what they do is
01:11:00
they make other people feel bad by not having their diet particularly when they don't have the choice to do it that is
01:11:06
what that is what annoys me I've seen some videos on social media we've probably all seen them of certain
01:11:13
activist groups that want people to stop eating animal products going into supermarkets and taking the lid off of
01:11:19
the milk and just pouring it all over the floor in protest if you were sat with one of those people that goes into
01:11:24
supermarkets pours milk on the floor and goes into the meat section and does whatever and they came to you and they said what
01:11:31
should we be doing instead in your perspective to
01:11:36
move people away from animal products for moral or environmental reasons whatever it might be what would be a
01:11:42
better strategy based on what you've you believe in what you've studied we do not need ever we need to move the curve we do not
01:11:50
need everyone to be vegan we we don't we okay there are going to be people who
01:11:55
are vegan and that's perfectly fine I want to stress I am not energy vegan in the slightest but what we need as a
01:12:00
world is for everyone to eat 10 to 20 Less meat today that is achievable
01:12:07
don't eat meat at lunch don't eat meat on Fridays whatever it is don't even mean once a week we need to eat 10 to 20
01:12:13
percent less meat and Less meat products why for for two different reasons that the
01:12:20
environmental impact would be enormous beyond anything the environmental impact
01:12:25
would be enormous and that would help the the environment that's the first thing it's interesting so cop 26 I think
01:12:31
was just finished and cop 27 is is the the people were talking about sustainable farming people were clearly
01:12:38
talking about fossil fuels all of these need to talk about but no the term eat
01:12:43
less meat not eat no meat eat less meat did not even make it to the discussion
01:12:49
it was not even mentioned in the in in the final thing because people are too afraid about the farm about the farm
01:12:55
Lobby okay but that's because we're framing this in a slightly the wrong way because people
01:13:01
think oh you want us to cut out meat entirely you want us to destroy our farming industry no we need to just eat
01:13:07
a little bit less meat all of us immediately for the environment and actually that will also turn to to our
01:13:13
health as well so that I think is the framing we need to go for rather than saying that veganism and everyone needs
01:13:20
to be everyone needs to be um vegan because that puts people off and that's whereas if you don't have
01:13:28
meat one day a week two days a week even if you want to do it four days a week whatever you want to do most people can
01:13:34
do that quite easily you know on this discussion on this debate
01:13:40
some people are very morally in touch and you know they care a lot about the
01:13:46
environment and the world and I applaud those people but then other people will think and I've heard certain commentators who I shant name say you're
01:13:53
not taking my stake from me I don't care and and that's a real so so there has to
01:13:58
be something that feels like more systemic that we do in society to really affect change because people are I think
01:14:04
quite naturally often not always but often quite selfish and they don't really think about the big picture they
01:14:09
think well I'm not going to be alive to observe the effects of those things anyway so is there anything that we could do at systemic level whether it's
01:14:15
supermarkets whether it's I don't know I don't know tax whatever it is to try and reduce the amount of that of meat that
01:14:21
people are eating or is that the right approach I okay okay I mean the the term taxation always
01:14:28
scares people it does yeah okay and I guess actually punitive such as taxation is always
01:14:34
always does two things it always disproportionately affects poor people and it always makes lawyers Rich two things happen I think a better way of
01:14:42
doing it is to try and get people to choose the healthier choice whatever the health of your choice might be make that
01:14:47
the easier and cheaper choice now this could be um subsidizing it this could be putting
01:14:53
it in different parts of the supermarket this could be um stopping subsidizing um Dairy you know
01:15:01
the the meat industry there are any number of different things you can put in place so that you sort of you can't
01:15:07
make something more expensive without making something cheaper that's the bottom line otherwise it will is not Equitable so I
01:15:13
think that's what we need to do but subtly once again I'm going to sound is on the one hand I'm saying that there's
01:15:19
a safe dose of meat on the other hand I'm saying eat less meat but that is that is the answer it's a nuanced answer
01:15:24
where we eat too much meat and and for us the privilege we at least have a
01:15:29
responsibility to try and eat to try and eat less meat because we have the choice we have to wear with all in in order to do it and so I think that is what we
01:15:36
need to do we need to take a more nuanced view about it less Evangelical understand that people's socio-economic
01:15:42
place on the on on said ladder is important about the choices which they have we need to make healthier food
01:15:49
whatever you wanted healthy for the planet healthy for the environment okay we need to make it the cheaper easier
01:15:55
and more convenient Choice that's what we need to do that is the answer for a lot of environmental issues isn't it you
01:16:00
know when you think about developing countries if we make the alternative that is the environmentally friendly
01:16:06
alternative cheaper faster easier more accessible people will naturally choose it it's a cool friend Innovation I guess
01:16:11
versus you let Market forces leave because the
01:16:17
moment you try and make people do something a most of us are selfish we
01:16:23
don't like being told what to do whereas if we sort of think we made the choice because it's the easiest choice then
01:16:29
there's no choice because then because then you just do it and I think that is the way that we have to do it interesting
01:16:35
let's talk about something else which I feel like I was lied to about oh God which is juice orange juice oh yes Apple
01:16:43
Juice I was told when I was young that orange juice and apple juice and all these juices was healthy so I spent 25
01:16:51
years waking up in the morning and drinking as much of this fruit juice as I possibly could
01:16:57
now when I read your book when I started um speaking to other people when I spoke to Tim Spector I found some alarming
01:17:04
things one of the really alarming things you said was the comparison with Coca-Cola tell me about that so so orange juice or
01:17:10
apple juice but both of those juices in particular have as much sugar concentration exactly the same sugar
01:17:16
concentration as Coca-Cola is it not different sugar it's not different sugar so so it is different in terms of in the
01:17:22
juice because of its sauce so it probably has more vitamin C it probably has a couple more minerals okay yes those are true but the actual
01:17:30
bottom line is it's still mostly sugar I say mostly sugar I think 12 a
01:17:35
concentration sugar now and orange juice same for Coca-Cola the sugar is exactly
01:17:40
the same sugar but yet when you do sugar taxes you you tax the coca-colas of the
01:17:45
world iron Brews of the world but you don't tax orange juice okay now I make a
01:17:51
huge distinction between orange juice apple juice and eating the damn orange because when you eat the orange
01:17:58
it's exactly the same source of food right so you drink a a glass of juice what happens is there is nothing to
01:18:03
digest because because of sugar so your body just absorbs it whereas if you eat exactly the source of food orange like
01:18:10
whole orange like a normal orange first of all you chew yeah and so because you're chewing your body then senses oh
01:18:15
chewing happening okay guys guys get an order we're gonna about to receive energy okay that's the first thing second because your body then has to
01:18:23
work through the fiber this is the caloric availability thing to then extract the sugar
01:18:28
instead of having all of the sugar absorbed into your blood all at once because there's nothing there's nothing
01:18:34
to do it takes a little while down the gut for the for the sugar to get in so exactly the same amount of sugar and
01:18:39
exactly the same amount of calories is delivered into your blood but over a longer period of time and thirdly
01:18:45
because you're eating fiber it travels further down the gut it makes you feel Fuller you eat less of something else
01:18:50
during the day so that's the problem with orange juice eat I I really think
01:18:55
that orange juice in very many ways is worse than Coca-Cola not because of his because when you are drinking a
01:19:02
Coca-Cola you know you're drinking a Coca-Cola I'm drinking a Coca-Cola when you're drinking orange juice a lot of
01:19:08
people think that this is the health version this is I'm being healthy this is what I should be drinking
01:19:14
whereas is that where is it is but it's true you should eat an orange or drink water or something else or drink it as a
01:19:22
treat drink it like you would drink Coca-Cola the other thing you said was about the alkaline diet now I read on
01:19:30
Instagram that alkaline water is better for you so there was a period of my life about a month where I just started
01:19:36
guzzling I said it's my system I said please it's not alkaline water I don't think we should put it in the fridge I just want alkaline water and then I saw
01:19:44
some other thing which said alkaline water is a total scam you nodded your head when I said the
01:19:49
scam thing is alkaline water a scam yes no
01:19:54
it's gam capital s c a m look what is alcohol what where did this Alkali thing come from so our blood pH
01:20:01
is 7.4 and above seven is alkali below seven is acidic okay so it is slightly
01:20:08
Alkali and so some guy and I I interviewed him actually um just before he went to jail we'll
01:20:14
discuss why in a second um just before he went to jail the guy who founded the Alkali diet okay a guy
01:20:20
called Robert Young Dr Robert Young um who said that well if we have um an Alkali blood in order to keep
01:20:27
ourselves healthy yes and our Alkali blood is healthy blood we need to eat Alkali Foods this is his his thesis the
01:20:34
problem is it completely ignores the presence of the stomach now the stomach as far as a compartment in our body goes
01:20:41
is the most acidic compartment in our body pH 1.5 it's like battery acid but then all the food we eat goes into our
01:20:48
stomach gets acidified and then as it goes into our small intestine it gets neutralized back to seven again this is
01:20:54
just biology so nothing we eat everything we eat is acidified and neutralized nothing we eat will change
01:21:00
the pH of our blood that's the first that's the first thing so if you drink the water it becomes pH 1.5 and ph7 by
01:21:06
the time the water is absorbed into our body it's pH seven whatever its starting pH was the second problem however is the
01:21:12
taxonomy is what they consider Alkali and acidic so I'll just give one example
01:21:17
they consider citrus fruits lemons to be Alkali except lemons contain citric acid
01:21:26
it is a citrus fruit and vitamin C which is otherwise called ascorbic acid it is
01:21:31
an acidic fruit so how can it be considered itself Alkali I don't even understand that there's a famous I don't want to get
01:21:37
myself into trouble but there's a there's a there's a famous image of a certain actress who runs a certain
01:21:42
website beginning with G and ending with p you know where where is
01:21:49
I'm not good at quizzes or crosswords or anything but so so where she's drinking her high pH water and squeezing in lemon
01:21:57
juice now what happens when you put acid into a high pH water The Alkali diet makes absolutely no sense whatsoever the
01:22:04
question is why do people stick to it okay and people stick to it because the Alkali movement considers meat and dairy
01:22:11
products acidic leave aside the fact that meat are full of blood and his alkaline would leave that alone but
01:22:17
because they consider meat and dairy products acidic in effect you don't eat meat and dairy it is a vegan diet it's a
01:22:24
plant-based diet so Alkali food is a restrictive plant-based diet which is
01:22:30
why people stick to it which is why people lose weight a point of losing weight
01:22:35
um there's this thing called The Weight Watchers which you talk about in one of the chapters of your book chapter 11. yep Weight Watchers are these things
01:22:41
good these like groups of people that are like losing weight together so I think that really does depend on
01:22:48
who you are and um and what you like a lot of people swear by it because they
01:22:53
enjoy the community Spirit the fact that there is a group motivation
01:22:58
um to try and help you do stuff and we've seen this right we've seen it where it's easier to go jogging or exercising when you've already made the
01:23:04
appointment at 8am on a Sunday you are less likely to call your maintenance I'm back bunking out I I'll go because I
01:23:12
really it's a social path it's a social Pact that being said there are public weigh-ins and there are people who are a
01:23:18
bit shy there are people who are mortified that they actually have to weigh themselves in front of other people and I get so stressed out I'm
01:23:24
stressed out about this so it suits people of a certain character who like that and I think they should keep to
01:23:30
that because it's a strategy it works the people who really hate it with the passion of a thousand Sons I think they
01:23:35
should stay away I think they should find find another because then it could tilt some people into Eating Disorders
01:23:40
if you take the wrong if you force everyone to do it okay it could it could go the wrong way so find the people who
01:23:47
it works for and by all means they need to to to to stick to that whereas other people need to find another way is it
01:23:53
true that I think a lot of people believe now that there's a sort of certain
01:23:59
a default weight size based on our genetics that we have that will keep
01:24:06
returning to we kind of touched on a little bit earlier on um regardless of what diet we do so I'm
01:24:12
thinking of some you know families often look quite similar yes in terms of body shape and size Etc
01:24:19
um I'm wondering how much like control they have against fighting against those genes to to get a you know six-pack abs
01:24:25
not saying that's a sustainable healthy place to get to but is it significantly harder for certain
01:24:31
people if their family is maybe a little bit more larger to get to to fight
01:24:36
against that and get to a different state and then stay in that state yes undoubtedly so so there is certainly
01:24:41
what we call it used to be called a set point hypothesis meaning that each of us has a weight we actually protect it's
01:24:48
probably more Nuance than that set range there's a range that you can actually range that we find easy to keep their
01:24:53
weight so in other words I'm not thinking about my body weight at the moment and this is the weight that I am but I wish I was half a stone or a stone
01:25:00
lighter but if I lost that half a stone I would then have to think about food all the time to keep that half a stone
01:25:05
off whereas I get half a stone more and I don't raise my weight anymore so that's the idea where there's a there is
01:25:10
a a weight range is easy to protect and each of us is different there are some people who are skinny there's some
01:25:18
people who just find it more difficult to say no to food than others that's pretty much it so some people's thermostat and food is set a little
01:25:25
higher than others and you defend that thermostat 25 degrees versus 20 degrees and there's really next to nothing you
01:25:32
can do you can shift from 25 to 24 and a half and maybe after Christmas you're 25 and 0.5 okay and so you shift around
01:25:39
there but the likelihood of you getting down to 20 and staying there you can get down to 20 okay if you do some stupid
01:25:45
diet but the moment you're paying you ping back you ping right back up again so we do defend
01:25:51
um there is very very little choice in inverted commas in where we end up with the body weight over a lifetime at any
01:25:59
given meal we have a choice you think right pizza or no pizza pizza or no pizza but over thousands of feeding
01:26:06
events there's very little Choice what then you reference age there do we get fatter
01:26:12
with age because generally I look at you know I'd say younger people typically
01:26:17
have a slightly leaner physique and then something seems to happen along the way
01:26:23
is that just a false observation I have or is there some science that supports the the gaining of weight as we age
01:26:29
there's science the a weight is inexorably up okay even though we've
01:26:34
stopped growing when we're we're 18 years old actually there's some later science I used to I used to if you would
01:26:40
ask me the question five years ago I would have said that by the time we had 40 or 50 our metabolism starts to dip
01:26:46
that's part of the reason that's not true as it turns out our metabolism doesn't start to dip till we're 60. okay
01:26:51
but what happens as we get older are a number of different things first of all we tend to get richer we tend to get
01:26:57
more money we tend to sit on our ass more okay just in terms of the type of jobs we do okay
01:27:03
and because of both of those things we tend to exercise less because we're
01:27:08
busier and so we lose muscle mass those are all three things metabolically the most active part of your body are the
01:27:14
muscles so when you're younger and you're doing things and you have more time to go to the gym first of all your
01:27:19
metabolic rate is linked to the amount of muscle you have and so as you get older you're set on your RS you eat a
01:27:25
bit more we don't eat less we eat more and we can buy richer food because we got more money and you begin to lose muscle mass so all of those things put
01:27:31
together means that you inexorably become larger then what happens at 60 years old your metabolism then starts to
01:27:38
drop as well and then you get even larger middle age spread Etc so on that point about the more muscles
01:27:45
you have the higher your metabolism that means if I'm if I've got big muscles then I'm burning my food faster yes
01:27:51
fantastic news I'm going to work out later lift some weights um because I was really started by that I after I read it
01:27:57
in your book about us gaining more and more weight as we age I Googled it and
01:28:02
the healthcare research and quality agency said that we naturally tend to
01:28:08
gain weight as we age to the tune of one to two pounds per year according to their review and that's from the agency
01:28:15
for healthcare research and quality which I found quite startling but
01:28:20
completely accurate so the numbers so what what the numbers that we have is yeah I think that's right actually so between 20 and 50 years old those 30
01:28:28
years intervening the average person average will gain about 15 kilos in
01:28:33
weight which is 32 points yes two pounds a year one to two pounds a year 15 kilos in weight is gained over 30 years on
01:28:39
average some gain very little others gain a hell of a lot more we look at ourselves in a mirror I look at myself in the mirror um but that's true I don't
01:28:46
want to be that guy mate I don't know how much choice you have what can I do to to to try and stay
01:28:53
because for me it's not really about the weight thing or how you look it's more about like I I am I don't know how to say this but
01:29:01
there was this big set of stairs the other day really really long set of stairs leading down to this Lake I was in Indonesia a
01:29:07
couple of months ago um and I I remember thinking about those stairs and thinking God if I wasn't you
01:29:14
know athletic and strong and didn't have good knees and things like that there's no
01:29:20
way I'd be able to get down this long winding hand carved set of Indonesian stairs so that I could go on this boat
01:29:26
trip that I was going to go on and I just thought about how it was a weird thing I know this is kind of a strange
01:29:32
story to tell but it crossed my mind I got to the bottom of the stairs and I turned to the person I was with and was literally like you know that's why I've
01:29:37
got to stay in shape for as long as I can because I want to do these boat trips and I want to go on this little rafting thing but I won't even be able
01:29:43
to access it unless I can go down up and down those stairs like 200 meters of stairs down this Cliff
01:29:48
um so that's what I care about I care about being active and strong and fit for as long as I possibly can and I from
01:29:54
what you've said about gravity and weight um being overweight is going to inhibit
01:30:00
my chances of being able to do those stairs so so that I think there are two elements there first of all there is
01:30:05
doing the things that we want to do okay like that because you're exactly right
01:30:10
these are the things which I can still do that I can still walk up a mountain or down a mountain because I'm still fit
01:30:15
enough to do that and I want to stay as fit as long as I can to do that and weight will inhibit that undoubtedly
01:30:21
but then there's a second element to actually consider now there's Healthy Look none of us are going to live longer
01:30:26
we hopefully and anyway if we left lived longer but was unhealthy would you want to live
01:30:32
longer so you want to live longer but healthier for longer okay and undoubtedly the thing that is closest
01:30:39
related to health when you age is not your total weight there's a role to play
01:30:44
there the amount of muscle you have it is your muscle mass as you age
01:30:49
independent of how much fat you have okay that will determine how healthy you
01:30:55
are as you age so as so now the moment now I'm talking about going into the 60s and the 70s rather than when one is able
01:31:02
to go down to 200 meter set of steps okay so now as you get older the most
01:31:07
crucial bit of information is to maintain resistance training not lifting and that's not what I'm talking about
01:31:13
sitting on a wall getting up and down a chair because of that the amount of muscle mass you have really really
01:31:20
really marks the level of Health that you're going to get and then the science is startling it is so so so related
01:31:26
independent of independence of weight you know from from there so muscle mass is the most important for healthy aging
01:31:32
the moment you get 60 70 plus interesting okay so I'll keep I'll keep
01:31:38
doing resistance training correct always keep resistance training and lifting weights as long as I can lifting weights
01:31:43
as long as you can at some point you won't be able to lift weights just because don't write me off don't write
01:31:49
me off John the hubris of Youth yeah you just assume you'll always be able to
01:31:55
do what you can do now I I yeah it's something I think a lot about and I think a lot of people will watch this podcast because
01:32:02
probably especially this time of year we're in January they'll probably be trying to find ways that they can cut
01:32:08
fat they want to be a bit skinnier you said you think you said half a stone you want to lose I'm in the same place I
01:32:13
think most people want to lose a half a stone or something what is the way that you would suggest
01:32:19
to do that the simple way you know not the like like in complicated go buy this guy's course and do three million
01:32:25
sit-ups whatever the simple advice you would give someone that's hoping to create sort of sustainable weight loss
01:32:32
okay so this this something's like the last page of of the why calories don't
01:32:37
count book but it is a set of numbers and I know I said not to count calories
01:32:43
but it's a set of numbers that is that you can apply to whatever diet you like so the first is the amount of protein
01:32:49
you eat and you need to try and focus on trying to keep to about 16 of the energy
01:32:54
in your day okay from protein 16 and there's a sweet spot so if you eat too
01:32:59
much and you're not lifting you're stressing your kidneys because your kidneys have to get rid of the nitrogen from the
01:33:05
protein okay so 16 is a sweet spot and it doesn't mean steaks only it can mean
01:33:11
beans tofu any kind of protein from from anywhere 16 second is fiber we need to
01:33:17
eat as much fiber as physically possible okay 30 grams we want to aim for although we're looking at the moment on
01:33:23
average in this country we're probably only eating 15 grams we need to double the amount of fiber we actually eat
01:33:29
third we need to limit the amount of added sugars into our diet added sugars
01:33:35
meaning sugar is not tied up in fiber powdered stuff uh uh um maple syrup
01:33:42
Algarve nectar all those are added sugars you put in keep it to five percent or less of the of the energy
01:33:47
content in your day and those are the three numbers that that I want you to think about so 16 of protein 30 grams of
01:33:54
fiber five percent or less of added sugars apply that to whatever you want what Keto
01:34:01
um whatever you want to do apply that and I think that will be a sustainable healthy way to eat
01:34:08
now there's been a lot said about exercise as a weight loss strategy a lot
01:34:14
of people think you know what I will just run every day and I'll lose weight in your books you said
01:34:19
um the problem with using exercises weight loss strategy is that doing exercise makes you feel hungry you can't
01:34:25
outrun a bad diet is exercise a good strategy for weight loss it is a good
01:34:31
strategy for weight loss if you're an Olympic athlete or a Tour de France writer what if you are a muggle like me
01:34:38
a muggle like you a muggle like me then exercise okay exercise you can never
01:34:43
replace the goodness and wonderfulness and health benefits of exercise is
01:34:49
exercise exercise a good weight loss strategy for a muggle like Steve no it's a good weight maintenance tool
01:34:56
though so in other words once you've lost the weight which means you need to be less somehow exercise helps you keep
01:35:01
the weight off so once you've actually lost the weight that you that you're aiming for whatever whatever that might
01:35:07
be then do the exercise and that will help keep the weight off but it's not going to help me get the weight off in
01:35:13
the first place no that seems to sit in contradiction to
01:35:18
what my old personal trainer only because we don't do it enough so now if you had okay let's put it this
01:35:24
way let's put it this way the way that it would work is if you had a personal trainer and a chef then what would
01:35:30
happen is your personal trainer will make you work hard and your Chef will make your meal okay therefore what
01:35:36
happens is it is controlled on both sides that is not typically what happens in in the real world I go on my run my
01:35:43
cycle what have you I come back I'm ravenously hungry I open the fridge and i stuff my mouth full of carbs that is that that is my story right and so it is
01:35:51
very difficult to control your diet after you've done long Hard Exercise bouts because you get ravenously hungry
01:35:57
so professional sports teams a day exercise ridiculous they train three
01:36:02
times a day so that's that's that but they still have chefs and dietitians and they eat what they what what they the
01:36:07
you know the canteen puts out for them which is healthy food so someone is looking after their diet for them but
01:36:13
they are burning so much they don't have to worry too much about how much they eat whereas we we do it's I know it's
01:36:19
counter-intuitive in some sense but it's purely because we don't exercise enough and is that also because ultimately
01:36:26
because the brain is controlling our feeding Behavior so the brain is knows that we've just been for a run so it's
01:36:32
it's adding to our appetite yes uh a serp a surplus
01:36:38
to make us return to that that weight it's trying to protect there's that and there's also our own internal psychology
01:36:45
on it because now you feel a bit smug you say oh I went for my run on Sunday morning you know and then so I can eat
01:36:52
what I want and there's that element too so suddenly when you normally would say oh I better not eat so much today I haven't there are some internal controls
01:36:58
that we sometimes have those internal controls are weakened once we've actually had our exercise because we feel that we have earned the food that's
01:37:05
in front of us body positivity yes sir that is one of
01:37:10
the things you discuss in chapter nine of why calories don't count now body positivity
01:37:16
um I think there's a lot lots of pieces to it one of the I guess the central idea is that there's no such thing as an
01:37:23
unhealthy weight I don't want to mischaracterize the movement but um
01:37:28
what do you think about body positivity so I understand where body positivity
01:37:34
comes from okay because obviously there is a lot of waist stigma in society um weight stigma for whatever reason is
01:37:40
one of the last rubicons left across if if you or I made any disparaging
01:37:45
comments in public uh or anything about someone's gender someone's
01:37:51
um sexual orientation skin color whatever we get fired but yet some people can make comments
01:37:57
about people's body size and have no and it's perfectly acceptable how can that be acceptable so I understand where body
01:38:04
positivity comes from but I think that body positivity doesn't needs a little
01:38:09
bit more Nuance in their in their argument so
01:38:16
why is it bad to be fat we we talked about this carrying too much fat because of the association with
01:38:22
disease but why okay and it's because of the amount of fat we can store safely so people misunderstand what happens when
01:38:29
you gain weight and lose weight they think that you gain fat cells and lose fat cells not true your fat cells are
01:38:35
like balloons they get bigger when you gain weight and they get smaller when you lose weight but they stay the same
01:38:40
number okay so what happens is the safest place to store fat is in your fat
01:38:46
cells because they're your fat it's when they're not in the fat that they go to your muscle your liver they begin to
01:38:52
cause trouble okay and that's when you become ill but the interesting thing is everybody's fat cells can store
01:38:58
different amounts of fat before the fat leaks out shall we say okay from that I mentioned earlier East Asian South Asian
01:39:05
people we don't we can't store as much fat safely than white people than than Polynesians so the moment you get past
01:39:13
your safe fat carrying capacity you will become ill now for some people that is when that that skinny people with type
01:39:19
to diabetes and there are larger people without uh that are that are healthy that's because there's differing amounts
01:39:25
of safe fat carrying capacity but the moment you go past your own personal
01:39:30
safe fat carrying capacity you will become ill so in a big room you can have health at many sizes
01:39:37
but there is no Health at every size because you will become ill if you become too big interest that's the new ones
01:39:45
that doesn't mean I blame the people suffering from obesity please but it doesn't help anybody to not look at the
01:39:52
health issues that are associated with carrying too much fat we have to discuss it in a non-stigmatizing and non-blaming
01:39:59
language but we do need to be honest about it yeah and I think we can both agree that just generally
01:40:05
um targeting anyone which I've seen a lot of a lot of like someone will be on the front cover of a magazine and then
01:40:11
someone will like quote retweet it and attack them and say that they're not healthy and it's promoting um bad you know bad body standards or
01:40:18
health standards whatever like whether scientifically that's true or not you are without a [ __ ] about an [ __ ] for
01:40:24
doing that you know what I mean you're an artist and counterproductive counterproductive it's making someone feel like awful it's not you know it's
01:40:30
making people have the stigma as you've said and it's if you think about it from a psychology standpoint make shaming
01:40:36
people for how they feel is probably not going to help um them be proactive in making changes
01:40:43
if you think about how motivation works with you know self-esteem and how we feel and wanting to feel positive and
01:40:49
high self-esteem to make changes in our life it's probably not an effective strategy to attack people for the for their body image regardless of whether
01:40:55
whether or not it's a [ __ ] move I mean it does it exactly so I think we can both agree on that yeah and um it's
01:41:01
super interesting I I I'm on my journey with with eating in food so it's been a huge pleasure to speak to you about this
01:41:07
because I feel now a lot closer to understanding and having Clarity on on
01:41:12
what I should beating and what I shouldn't what I really love about your message is that it is centered in um away from restriction and towards
01:41:19
positivity with food and to really like loving food as opposed to being as you've said with that word I think it's
01:41:24
as fix it no what was it that Bloody orthorexia orthorexia it's not about fearing foods which is an awful place to
01:41:30
get into I think we're getting closer and closer to that kind of being fearful of foods it's just about I guess making
01:41:37
um a little bit more informed choices um but also keeping the balance and the and the chocolate and the other things
01:41:43
that are part of all of our Lives what what's your mission
01:41:49
I'm assuming you have one when I asked the question and I shouldn't do that do you have a mission and if so what is it oh so my my mission is to uh
01:41:58
destigmatize obesity and try because look it is it is going
01:42:03
to roll like a tidal wave into every single country across the world so my mission is to destigmatize it because
01:42:11
destigmatizing taking away the weight stigma means that we can have an adult non-hysterical conversation with people
01:42:17
treating the patient the patient the policy makers because at the moment government thinks that a lot of it is
01:42:25
personal responsibility okay there is obviously some personal responsibility it's my health it's my children's health
01:42:31
that I understand but until we put money in the right places fix the environment
01:42:36
make sure that the the treatment and supports making healthier food cheaper that's government responsibility and so
01:42:42
if we destigmatize obesity in the population we can then have this conversation with policy makers and get
01:42:49
them to put the resources in the right place that is my mission because at the moment the resources are being put in
01:42:55
the wrong place which is why we're not solving obesity at the moment if I voted FIFA prime minister
01:43:00
um and there was a couple of simple things that you could do I think you talked to it yep broadly there about
01:43:05
some of them what would be some of the policies you would introduced to Target the systemic issues that are
01:43:10
causing obesity in our population so day one I would make healthier food cheaper and this doesn't only mean carrots I
01:43:17
mean that they're going to be healthy foods even within a chocolate bar there's gonna be a way of actually
01:43:23
putting more fiber and protein in a chocolate bar or frozen lasagna or vegetables okay I think we need to make
01:43:30
healthier food cheaper all the way across the board that's the first thing we've got to do um and that's the first thing I would do
01:43:36
the day after the day I'm prime minister because then the default choice that you make even if you're poor when you walk
01:43:42
into the supermarket is going to be healthy which is not true at the moment the moment that happens then I think we
01:43:47
are one step forward in trying to solve the Obesity and diet related epidemic that's actually around us today
01:43:54
but just to be clear you're not going to cancel chocolate I'm not going to cancel chocolate I'm going to try and make it healthier you got my vote I love that
01:44:00
you're gonna make it healthier and cheaper yeah you've got my vote Giles thank you so much we have a
01:44:06
closing tradition on this podcast oh yes the last guest asks a question for the next guest
01:44:11
oh this is a long one hmm okay
01:44:20
what is the worst thing that has happened in the last year it continues what is
01:44:29
the best thing that's happened to you in the last year
01:44:36
from which have you learned the most what is the worst thing that has happened in the last year what is the
01:44:43
best thing that has happened to you in the last year from which have you learned the most
01:44:51
the worst thing that has happened to me in the last year I think was we were smack bang I forgot in the middle of
01:44:57
Omicron I think of of that um and then my mum ended up with a stroke so my mom she's fine now she's
01:45:04
fine now but my mum lives in California which is which is where I'm from and then life became very difficult I was
01:45:12
trying to find a way to get out there without getting stuck out there anyway that she she ended up being better but
01:45:17
there was a period of time there where I was really seriously stressed about about the whole about the whole scenario
01:45:23
that probably was the worst that probably was the worst thing um it turned out to be fine because she
01:45:29
was fine but it could easily have not been have have not been fine um so that that was probably the worst
01:45:35
of the worst thing over the past over the past year that would probably be it um because my own you know close family
01:45:40
is fine now what is the best thing that has happened to me over the past year
01:45:46
that's an interesting question I'm not sure I know what that I've had a good year I've had a good year and I think I
01:45:53
can't deny that I'm privileged I've had I've had a good year work has gone well other things have gone well my family
01:45:59
are still with me my son is at Uni so I think my family has been the best thing as with most it's very boring answer but
01:46:07
as with many things um has been the best thing that has happened to me over the past year is that that's a cop-out answer no yes again but there was a
01:46:13
third part to that answer with the question which was from which have you learned the most ah
01:46:20
from which I learned the most I think that it's always I always think you learn the most when things go downhill
01:46:27
um because that's the most that's because then you start to reassess uh priorities you start to think so
01:46:32
undoubtedly uh um yeah I should have got that the first time around no no I think you learn a lot more about yourself when
01:46:39
things go wrong rather than when things go well you like it when things go well it's when things when proverbial stuff
01:46:44
hits the fan that's when that's when you learn more about yourself did it make you reassess your priorities it did make
01:46:50
me reassess my priorities actually because I began thinking okay uh um you you know all these things which I was
01:46:55
planning on doing should I I'm Gonna Cancel them now I'm Gonna Cancel them now now now now um you know and actually and actually uh
01:47:02
head back but but after a couple of days my mom became a lot quicker she told me
01:47:09
look I have got people here supporting me now I need you to come back a little bit later so that I so I don't need
01:47:14
everyone my mom said to me I don't need everyone here now that's not gonna I need someone here in in a periodic uh
01:47:22
place place and time and so that's what I did I went back later rather than immediately although I did end up
01:47:28
canceling a bunch of things reassessing the the importance of things to leave almost almost immediately my mom stopped
01:47:33
me and is there a broader point I reflect on when I spoke to Tim Spector who's one of the quotes from the front of your book here
01:47:40
um he talked about the passing of his father and how that is part of the inspiration that sent him off to to
01:47:46
think more about food the food he was eating how he was treating himself um and then I believe he had a stroke
01:47:52
himself which again was a bit of a sort of tectonic earthquake in one's life
01:47:59
when we see the health of those we love and those that we are genetically related to
01:48:05
um have instances like that tragic instances like Strokes or other health issues or disease
01:48:11
is there something in the mind that goes that kind of makes you look in the mirror and go
01:48:16
sh you know like how am I living my life what can I do to avoid um having a similar diagnosis or ending
01:48:23
up in the same place or those kinds of things it is that is an interesting that is a very interesting point because genetic
01:48:30
tests aside the most guarant not guaranteed way the easiest way of
01:48:36
telling the future of how where you're going to end up is to look at your parents it's
01:48:41
very depressing I know but what do your parents look like what if they're still alive what
01:48:47
diseases do they have if they're not what they did what did they die of this is very morbid but but it's not because
01:48:52
you look at it it's it's a picture in essence not 100 of your future you it's certainly more accurate than any genetic
01:48:58
test at the moment and so exactly that you look and it says oh God what did my mom what what what did I have now I
01:49:04
gotta add Strokes into my risk you know and then and then I look at my son what is he going to do but do I need him to
01:49:09
exercise more it does reassess to say that well is there anything I could do yeah uh you know to avoid just just
01:49:16
ending up with a stroke so it does make you think about things it also made me think about the fact
01:49:21
that even though my mom was doing something else not about that she was in hospital yet there were people this
01:49:28
Insidious pseudoscience that we were talking about was still able to seep into a hospital into the person next to
01:49:34
her and people were talking about it when they were seriously ill and not even just talking about about
01:49:40
um about food they were talking about trying to make themselves better but through pseudoscience and that was the
01:49:45
other thing which jumped out of me I said oh my God this can't you you know it's there even in hospital even when
01:49:51
people are seriously ills people are still talking maybe because they're seriously ill they're talking about this
01:49:57
pseudoscientific approaches to to their health and that's why your work is so important Charles
01:50:03
um these books are fantastic they're very accessible books they they're based in evidence not necessarily opinion or
01:50:09
pseudoscience or anything like that they're based in scientific evidence and several decades of of work and research
01:50:15
um so I thank you for writing them they've been a pleasure for me to read I recommend both of them sometimes when I have guests on this podcast I'll say get
01:50:22
you know tell my audience to get this one or the other but I think they're both absolutely fantastic books and necessary and they're very very interlinked you know those there's
01:50:28
things in um why calories don't count Builds on a lot of the stuff that I read in gene eating
01:50:35
as well so there's a they have a relationship between them and it's been fantastic to talk to you you're a very um animated speaker which is what makes
01:50:42
a good podcast guest because people can stay engaged for longer we see that
01:50:47
Trend and that's why I love your delivery and your articulation of all the points makes a big big difference so thank you for being such a brilliant
01:50:53
guest on the podcast thank you so much for having me quick one in television of our podcast
01:51:01
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me know how you get on you got to the end of this podcast whenever someone gets to the end of this podcast I feel like I owe them a greater debt of
01:51:47
gratitude because that means you listen to the whole thing and hopefully that suggests that you enjoyed it if you are at the end and you enjoyed this podcast
01:51:53
could you do me a little bit of a favor and hit that subscribe button that's one of the clearest indicators we have that
01:51:59
this episode was a good episode and we look at that on all of the episodes to see which episodes generated the most subscribers thank you so much and I'll
01:52:06
see you again next time [Music]
01:52:30
thank you
