00:00:00
With your diet during pregnancy, you're programming your baby's DNA. And this is
00:00:04
going to have an impact on your baby's development and on their future risk of
00:00:07
disease. And there's a lot of pregnant moms who are eating a diet that's not
00:00:11
giving them the nutrients their baby needs. This is not the mom's fault. This
00:00:14
is the fault of our food system. This is the fault of society. And nobody's telling moms about this. And I wanted to
00:00:20
create this guide to help parents navigate that food system and see easy things they can do to help their baby's
00:00:25
development. And I know this because as a biochemist when I became pregnant, I just went deep, deep, deep into the
00:00:30
research. And there are some main things that I learned. For example, 90% of moms
00:00:34
are not getting enough choline during pregnancy. And choline is super important. It forms your baby's brain in
00:00:39
the womb. So this is the amount of eggs that I ate per week during the 9 months of pregnancy because this is the
00:00:45
simplest way to give enough choline to our baby. And then your baby needs no fructose during pregnancy. So sugar from
00:00:52
dessert, from chocolate, from muffins, from cupcakes, your baby needs none of this. Because if you have very high
00:00:58
glucose levels during pregnancy, scientists have found that your baby's DNA will have epigenetic switches that
00:01:05
are programming them towards having a higher vulnerability to develop diabetes, obesity, and psychiatric
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disorders. Next, this is basically the amount of protein that I needed to eat every single day in the third trimester
00:01:15
of pregnancy. >> Yeah. because the studies show low protein diets lead to smaller babies and
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potentially this epigenetic programming of staying smaller throughout life. And it's findings like that that led me to
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create a plan and simple hacks for pregnant moms and we can talk about them. >> And then what does the research say
00:01:32
about breastfeeding, exercise, caffeine, and also do you recommend that mothers take certain supplements?
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>> So this is what people need to know. >> Guys, I've got a quick favor to ask you.
00:01:46
We're approaching a significant subscriber milestone on this show and roughly 69% of you that listen and love
00:01:52
this show haven't yet subscribed for whatever reason. If there was ever a time for you to do us a favor, if we've
00:01:57
ever done anything for you, given you value in any way, it is simply hitting that subscribe button. And it means so
00:02:03
much to myself, but also to my team cuz when we hit these milestones, we go away
00:02:06
as a team and celebrate. And it's the thing, the simple, free, easy thing you
00:02:09
can do to help make this show a little bit better every single week. So that's
00:02:13
a favor I would ask you. And um if you do hit the subscribe button, I won't let
00:02:17
you down. And we'll continue to find small ways to make this whole production
00:02:20
better. Thank you so much for being part of this journey. Means the world. And uh
00:02:24
yeah, let's do this. Jesse Inospay, the glucose goddess, for people that don't know who you are,
00:02:36
what have you spent the best part of the last decade committing your life to and
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why? My work started in the glucose space, meaning the blood sugar space. I was showing people how blood sugar impacts
00:02:48
all of us on a daily basis. The spikes and dips after we eat, they lead to inflammation, faster aging, cravings,
00:02:54
fatigue, and it's been the basis of my work because glucose matters for everybody and it is the core of a
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healthy body and mind. And so that's where I started because it's so important.
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>> We last spoke almost two years ago now. What have you learned in those last two
00:03:11
years that has evolved your own thinking or has developed your own thinking in any way? If we reflect on the last
00:03:16
conversations we had around glucose spikes and sugar and the health consequences and diets, is there
00:03:21
anything you've learned in those two years that is interesting and new? >> Oh, absolutely. I think mostly the
00:03:28
impact of glucose on mood and on relationships. For example, there's this fascinating study that took married
00:03:36
couples and they gave the husband and the wives a little voodoo doll representing their spouse. And the
00:03:43
researchers told uh the participants to put a little pin in the voodoo doll every time their spouse annoyed them. At
00:03:50
the end of the two weeks, the researchers counted the number of pins in the voodoo dolls and they also
00:03:54
measured the participants glucose levels. They found that the people who had the most glucose lows had put the
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most pins in the voodoo doll representing their spouse. >> Wow. >> So, it's just an association, but it's
00:04:07
interesting. And scientists then found that when you have very unsteady glucose levels, it impacts this neurotransmitter
00:04:12
in your brain called tyrrosine that manages your mood. So, it seems that with unsteady glucose levels, your mood
00:04:19
is less stable, which could then correlate to you being more annoyed at your spouse. So, I think studies like
00:04:26
this have really blown my mind. >> What's going on when we go through a
00:04:30
glucose crash, per se? >> So, glucose is your body's energy. So, your brain is constantly monitoring how
00:04:36
much glucose do we have in our bloodstream. And steady glucose is great. When your glucose levels crash,
00:04:42
this indicates biologically that you're out of fuel. And this is a powerful signal to your body and your brain to
00:04:49
say, "Alert, alert. We need food. We need more glucose." And so it creates
00:04:53
all these downstream consequences on your mood. You become hangry. All you think about is food. You're in a bad
00:04:57
mood. You're like, "I need to eat something." You look for a banana. You
00:05:00
look for a cookie. It can also activate the craving center in your brain that says, "Steven, go find some chocolate."
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And science has shown this. Low glucose levels creates a cascade of consequences
00:05:10
on how we feel and what we seek. Now, what's interesting is that back in the
00:05:14
day when we had low glucose levels, I'm talking like hunter gatherer times, they
00:05:18
wouldn't arrive so quickly because we didn't have these big spikes that then
00:05:22
led to these big drastic drops. It was more we ate in a more balanced way with less sugar obviously. So, when our
00:05:28
glucose became low, it was a bit more gradual. Today, because we have access to all this sugar, we can spike our
00:05:34
glucose very quickly and as a result, it then crashes very quickly. So, the effects are pretty much immediate and
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they're very intense. All of a sudden, you go from feeling okay to your brain
00:05:44
being in alert mode. We need to find more fuel. So, we've disregulated our glucose levels to the point where it's
00:05:50
impacting us in a very unnatural way. >> Is that in part because we modify our
00:05:54
food? Even fruit. When I looked back through the history of fruit, apples, bananas, etc. looked extremely different
00:06:01
before they were modified to be juicier and sweeter, etc. >> Completely. It's like dogs. So all the
00:06:06
the dog breeds today from Chihuahua to golden retrievers, they all come from wolves. Humans have been breeding wolves
00:06:13
together to create these different species of dogs. They all have that ancestor of the grey wolf. So humans are
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very good at breeding natural things to serve their purposes. And when it comes to fruit, it's the same thing. So as you
00:06:24
say, if you compare like an ancestral banana or an ancestral apple to a modern one, they look completely different. And
00:06:30
you should pull up these photos. They're fascinating. Ancestral banana, tiny,
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full of fiber, full of seeds, not very sweet. And then modern banana, full of sugar, low in fiber, really easy to eat.
00:06:41
So that's the first thing people need to know about fruit. Fruit is not natural.
00:06:44
Fruit is the product of human engineering. However, a piece of whole fruit also contains fiber and water. So
00:06:51
even though it's been bred to have a lot of sugar, the fiber in the water reduce
00:06:55
how quickly the sugar arrives in our bloodstream, making it more or less okay for us. But the problem comes when we
00:07:02
denature that piece of fruit. Meaning if we remove the fiber, for example, if we
00:07:06
take an orange and make an orange juice, what are we actually talking about here?
00:07:10
Actually, oranges are not even a natural fruit. They were invented thousands of years ago by breeding by crossing other
00:07:15
species of fruit. To make an orange juice, you throw away part of the orange. You throw away the solid part,
00:07:20
which is the fiber. So, you're left with the sugar of a very sugary fruit, water,
00:07:26
and no fiber. As a result, you're getting a very unnatural amount of sugar in your bloodstream with no fiber to
00:07:33
protect the spike. So, a big big glucose spike. And people often say, "Oh, well,
00:07:37
you know, fruit has vitamins in it, so therefore orange juice must be better for you than Coca-Cola." That's actually
00:07:44
a total myth. If you compare a glass of orange juice to a glass of Coca-Cola, it's the same amount of sugar, about 25
00:07:51
grams. and the sugar in the can of Coke and the sugar in the glass of orange juice, they're exactly the same. They're
00:07:58
glucose and fructose molecules, and your body absorbs them in the exact same way.
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Your body does not make a difference between sugar from an orange and sugar from a sugar beat that's now in a can of
00:08:07
Coca-Cola. I I hope that orange juice disappears from school lunches, from hospital meals. The World Health
00:08:15
Organization recommends 25 gram of sugar per day or less. So, with just one glass
00:08:20
of orange juice in the morning that you squeeze at home that you think is good for you, you're already at the maximum
00:08:25
limit of sugar recommendation. And most people drink this glass of orange juice thinking it's good for them. Most people
00:08:31
with diabetes drink this glass of orange juice thinking it's helping them with
00:08:35
their condition. And that's really where I want to act. I want to help people
00:08:38
understand what they actually need to do to feel better so they don't fall victim
00:08:41
to marketing. >> We talked there about glucose crashes and what that causes in terms of
00:08:45
behavior. I was wondering if also causes other compulsive behaviors. Does it make
00:08:50
me more likely to want to doom scroll on the internet if I have been eating lots
00:08:57
of sugar? >> Well, that's a great question. Why does sugar feel good? Because it releases
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dopamine in our brain. Dopamine is the pleasure molecule. It makes us feel good. So if I were to drink this glass
00:09:07
of orange juice, which you would have to pay me a lot of money for me to drink this, but my brain would let out so many
00:09:15
dopamine molecules and I would feel this wave of pleasure. Now the problem is people confuse that with energy. It's
00:09:21
not energy, it's dopamine. And dopamine is the same exact molecule that gets
00:09:25
released when you're scrolling on Instagram. You look for the next post, you look for the next video. Every time
00:09:30
you get something new and interesting, bam, a dopamine signal as well in your brain. So, if you're constantly
00:09:36
triggering dopamine in your brain, you're going to constantly crash. You're
00:09:39
going to have dopamine spikes, dopamine crashes, and become more and more addicted to it. So, I don't know about
00:09:43
studies showing glucose spikes, and for example, doom scrolling. But if you look
00:09:47
at just the biology of it, they're triggering the same center in your brain. So, for sure, I can imagine that
00:09:53
if you are on a dopamine binging or dopamine addiction cycle, both an orange juice and a glucose spike and doom
00:10:01
scrolling can go hand in hand. I was just looking at some research here and it says yes, you're significantly more
00:10:06
likely to doom scroll during a glucose crash. And it explains that that's because of something called the energy
00:10:10
crisis in the prefrontal cortex where your prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for willpower and
00:10:14
decision-m and saying no to things like doom scrolling in the case where glucose
00:10:19
drops. This area is first to dim the lights to save energy for vital functions. The result is you lose your
00:10:24
executive function, making it nearly impossible to resist the hit of dopamine that social media provides. But it also
00:10:28
says the second reason is this dopamine trap. And the third is generally your emotional regulation goes out of the
00:10:34
window. I I think this in part because I notice in myself that when I am on a higher glucose diet, I'm more likely to
00:10:42
get involved in like compulsive behaviors that I otherwise don't like. >> Yeah.
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>> Like doing scrolling on the internet. >> You have less willpower, less control.
00:10:50
>> Yeah. I have less willower. >> You feel more addicted. >> Yeah. Like I have less control over my
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life. >> And the first thing that people notice is that when they are on a glucose
00:10:58
roller coaster, they feel addicted to sugar. like it's no longer a choice to
00:11:01
go after that cookie, it feels like a compulsive behavior like I need sugar right now because that glucose crash is
00:11:06
triggering a biological mechanism that is nearly impossible to override. So when you tell somebody just eat less
00:11:11
sugar, that's that's BS. You can't just eat less sugar. You have to go fix the
00:11:16
underlying cause, which is usually the glucose crash. You can't override that
00:11:20
feeling of craving that comes from deep inside your brain when you have a glucose crash. You need to fix the
00:11:24
spike, reduce the spike, and then naturally the spike also reduces and you feel fewer cravings. There's this theory
00:11:30
called the protein leverage hypothesis. And this this theory says that your body
00:11:34
will keep you hungry and keep you seeking food until you've given it enough protein. So if in the morning you
00:11:40
have uh I don't know some oats and toast and jam, very little protein, your body's going to be like, "Okay, we
00:11:46
didn't get any protein. We need to get more protein." So you stay more and more
00:11:49
hungry. At 10 a.m. you're hungry again. If you have a cookie, again, no protein.
00:11:53
Your body will keep you hungry. If all of a sudden you have 40 grams of protein, then that craving dissipates
00:11:59
and that feeling of seeking out food sort of calms down because your body got what he actually needed, which was
00:12:06
protein. >> People send you lots of messages. You have a enormous online following. If I
00:12:12
was to peer into those DMs you get, what would be the essence of what people are
00:12:15
saying to you? >> They're asking me about specific foods. They're saying, "Are lentils okay? Can I
00:12:21
eat three eggs a day? what kind of vinegar should I use? And often it's people trying to navigate the marketing
00:12:28
messages they're seeing on the packaging of things. They'll be like, "This can of
00:12:32
tea that says zero grams of sugar, is it good for me?" They're trying to decode
00:12:37
what these food products actually contain and whether they're actually good for them.
00:12:42
>> And is there any real standout marketing messages that are deceptive? >> Yeah.
00:12:47
No added sugars. That is so deceptive because this glass of orange juice has no added sugars in it because the sugar
00:12:57
was there at the beginning. It came from the orange from the original ingredient.
00:13:01
So on a can of orange juice, you can say no added sugar even though it contains 25 grams of sugar, which is the maximum
00:13:07
limit the recommends for your daily sugar intake. So that's a really really bad one. Another one would be something
00:13:14
that says gluten-free or vegan. It's not because it's gluten-free veating vegan
00:13:18
that it's good for you, but we're being tricked. You know, food manufacturers do
00:13:21
everything they can to make you buy their products. I think I'm in the season of life where I'm thinking a lot
00:13:26
about fertility, both my fertility, my fiance's fertility, and how my diet, the
00:13:31
things I eat has an impact on that. What what what what is it we need to know about you, if we're trying to conceive,
00:13:37
if we want to have we want to have a family, um is it really the case that I need to start thinking about my own
00:13:41
fertility in the leadup to putting that sperm into that egg? Yes, both the males
00:13:48
and the females need to be thinking about fertility and nutrition plays a big role and health plays a big role in
00:13:54
the quality of your sperm for example. So a good idea would be to reduce before you want to have a kid if you're the man
00:14:00
you know reduce alcohol, exercise more, eat better so that your sperm are high quality. So the sperm turnover is about
00:14:06
three months. So if you do like a threemon sort of intense uh my sperm are getting in shape kind of situation, it's
00:14:14
a good idea for women. It's different. So, our eggs are present from before we're born, but the quality of our diet,
00:14:20
of our nutrient reserves, is going to impact our ability to have kids also. And it's going to impact what our baby
00:14:25
gets in the first trimester of pregnancy. >> You've just given birth. >> Eight months ago. Yeah. Feels like just
00:14:30
last week, but yeah, eight months ago. >> And um I guess that's somewhat linked to
00:14:35
why you've written this new book, which is titled Nine Months That Counts Forever: How Your Pregnancy Diet Shapes
00:14:41
Your Baby's Future. You could have written about anything, Jesse, and people would have bought the book um
00:14:46
because people are so fascinated by you and the work that you do. Why of all the
00:14:50
subjects you could have written about was this the subject that meant the most to you to commit a long period of your
00:14:55
life to? >> Because it is a subject where there's such a big gap, Stephen, between what
00:15:01
science knows and what parents are told. It felt like there was a just canyon between information in the studies
00:15:10
that's been there for decades and what I as a pregnant woman went through and
00:15:14
what advice I was given, what's available out there to pregnant moms. So even though I was pregnant and I was
00:15:20
tired, I felt I need to write this book because people need to know the power that they have. So today, science knows
00:15:27
that you're not just an oven when you're pregnant. Have you heard this thing
00:15:31
being a bun in the oven? It's an American expression. Uh, I think I've heard it once or twice. Yeah.
00:15:36
>> Okay. So, often if you're pregnant, people will say, "Oh, you have a bun in
00:15:39
the oven. That's so cute." It's like an expression. And I feel like this is
00:15:43
where all of our problems started because it implies so many misleading things. It implies that when you're
00:15:48
pregnant, you are an oven, meaning you're just there to provide heat and time. And people often say, "Just relax,
00:15:55
you know, let nature do its thing." So, it implies that you're passive, that you
00:15:59
have no agency, no power. You're just a vessel of heat and time. That's the
00:16:04
first problem. The second problem is that it implies that just like a chocolate cake that you put in the oven,
00:16:11
it implies that your baby, the moment the sperm meets the egg, your baby is set in stone. Like if you're making a
00:16:18
cake, when you make the brownie and you put it in the oven, the oven is not going to change the brownie into banana
00:16:24
bread. The oven is just cooking the brownie. Well, actually, it's very different with pregnancy. Your baby is
00:16:30
not set in stone at conception. What happens during the nine months of pregnancy is co-creating your baby's
00:16:37
plan. And depending on what you eat, a different baby will come out. So, we've
00:16:43
been lying to pregnant moms, telling them they have no agency, they have no power, they should just relax and let
00:16:49
nature do its thing. So, that's why I wrote this book because the science is
00:16:52
fascinating. >> So, where where are pregnant women being let down in this regard? Is it that
00:16:57
there's just not enough information out there? Is there's there's not been
00:17:00
enough research out there? Is it bad advice currently on the internet? >> This is the fault of our food system.
00:17:05
This is the fault of society. This is the fault of the food industry that we were just talking about the marketing
00:17:09
messages. For everybody today in developed countries, we are being fed processed, unhealthy foods that are
00:17:17
hurting us. Whether we get diabetes or heart disease, there's a link to food.
00:17:21
And today, even pregnant moms are being let down by the food system and are eating a diet without knowing it that's
00:17:26
not giving them the nutrients their baby needs. So, the moment I became pregnant
00:17:31
the first time, I started researching. I went to Google Scholar and I just opened
00:17:35
about a thousand tabs on my computer, which is usually what I do when I'm researching a new topic. And I looked at
00:17:40
the big review studies, the metaanalyses of how nutrition during pregnancy impacts our baby's development. I read
00:17:46
probably 2,000 scientific papers and I just went deep, deep, deep into the research. And out of it, I saw these
00:17:53
four big themes coming out of these four nutrients that most moms are not getting
00:17:59
enough of in their diet or too much of in their diet. And I wanted to create this guide to help parents navigate that
00:18:05
food system and see easy things they can do in the mom's diet to help their baby's development. So while your baby's
00:18:13
DNA is set the moment the sperm meets the egg with your diet during pregnancy, you're programming that DNA. Have you
00:18:21
heard of epigenetics? >> Yes. >> Okay. So epigenetics are like these
00:18:25
little dimmer switches that sit on your DNA and that say activate this gene or silence this gene. And so during
00:18:33
pregnancy, you're putting these little switches on your baby's DNA. And this is
00:18:36
going to have an impact on your baby's development and on his future risk of
00:18:41
disease. I'll give you a very simple example. If you have very high glucose levels during pregnancy, scientists have
00:18:49
found that your baby's DNA will have epigenetic switches that are programming
00:18:54
him towards having a higher vulnerability to develop diabetes himself in his lifetime. So if you have
00:19:01
high glucose levels, your baby will be programmed to be more likely to then have high glucose levels himself
00:19:07
throughout his life as a kid, a teenager, and an adult. That's epigenetic programming. And depending on
00:19:12
your diet as the mom, you can program your kids differently. But nobody tells moms about this. And that's what I'm
00:19:18
trying to change. >> What do I need to know as someone that knows very little about pregnancy to
00:19:22
really understand the like basics of what's going on? >> What time frame matters? What happens
00:19:27
when? So females have a uterus which is an organ and the uterus is where the baby develops and the uterus grows as
00:19:35
pregnancy progresses and then when you give birth the baby comes out of the uterus and the uterus stays in the mom.
00:19:40
So that's important when conception happens. So you have the sperm meets the egg that little packet
00:19:47
of cells will implant in one of the walls of the uterus and start growing. And pregnancy is divided into three
00:19:53
trimesters. It's about nine months. So months 1 to 3 is the first trimester. 4
00:19:58
5 6 is the second trimester. 7 8 9 is the third trimester. And what we're going to talk about today is about
00:20:05
nutrition and how your baby's getting the building blocks that he needs to develop in your womb as the female.
00:20:12
Because your baby needs to grow from a single cell to 40 trillion cells by the time he's born, right? He grows from
00:20:18
like nothing to three or four kilos. And that has to come from somewhere. It doesn't just come out of thin air. All
00:20:23
those building blocks, all that matter is coming from you, from what you're eating. What you eat becomes your baby.
00:20:31
So your baby is what you eat. >> In the first trimester, your baby's getting food from the sort of milk that
00:20:37
your uterus creates. So it's uterine secretions. And then from the second trimester onwards, something incredible
00:20:44
happens. And >> when's the second trimester? That's >> it starts at four months.
00:20:48
>> Okay. And so for the second and third trimesters, there's another organ that
00:20:52
you create inside your uterus. It's called the placenta. And the placenta's
00:20:56
job is to bring your baby's bloodstream and your bloodstream as the mom in really close contact. And all of a
00:21:04
sudden, symbiosis is established. And your bloodstream and your baby's bloodstream are then going to exchange
00:21:09
nutrients and waste. So your baby's going to get all his nutrition directly from your bloodstream. And Stephen,
00:21:16
here's a main myth that people believe. They believe that your baby will just
00:21:20
get what he needs from you during pregnancy. That's something moms are told. Don't worry, your baby will get
00:21:25
what he needs from you. This is a lie. Depending on what you eat, your baby will have different access to important
00:21:32
nutrients. So, your baby doesn't get what he needs. He gets what's there and
00:21:36
what you give him. So, let's take a simple example. One of the nutrients that is really important is called
00:21:42
choline. Have you heard about choline before? Is that in eggs? >> Yes, exactly. It's in the egg yolk. So,
00:21:48
choline is super important. It forms your baby's brain in the womb. So, your
00:21:53
baby your baby's brain has these cells that are forming called neurons, which
00:21:57
are the ones that process information. And choline is important to creating those neurons. And choline creates the
00:22:03
parts of your baby's brain that have to do with memory, learning, and attention.
00:22:07
So that egg that you're holding contains about 125 milligs of choline and it's an
00:22:12
incredible incredible substance. The thing is if you don't eat enough choline your baby's brain is not going
00:22:19
to get enough choline and this can have an impact on the development of your child. So much so that the American
00:22:27
Association of Pediatrics says failure to provide choline during this time can result in lifelong brain deficits in the
00:22:34
baby. Today, 90% of moms are not getting enough choline during pregnancy. 90% of
00:22:41
moms are not getting enough choline during pregnancy. >> Why? >> Because nobody is telling them about it.
00:22:46
And because today we don't eat very nutritious nutritious foods anymore that
00:22:50
contain a lot of choline. They're present in eggs. So four eggs a day gives you all the choline that you need.
00:22:56
But choline is also present in organ meats like liver. Nobody eats liver anymore. Most of the foods that we eat
00:23:01
today, cupcakes, dried fruits, burgers, chips, they don't contain a lot of choline. We need to be eating eggs. This
00:23:09
is the simplest way to give enough choline to our baby. And scientists do these animal studies where they deprive
00:23:15
moms from choline. And they look at the impact on the brain. And they see that brain development in the baby stops
00:23:22
earlier than it should. And those babies are born with fewer neurons. The amount
00:23:27
of choline in your diet during pregnancy is going to be impacting your child's
00:23:31
brain development. And nobody's telling moms about this. It's really messed up.
00:23:36
>> So, how many eggs a day do I need to eat while I'm pregnant to get enough
00:23:39
choline? >> Four is the golden number. So, here I think we have 28 eggs. So, every day
00:23:46
during pregnancy, I ate four eggs. So, this is the amount of eggs that I ate per week during the nine months of
00:23:52
pregnancy. That's a lot of eggs. But as I was doing this, I knew I was giving my
00:23:57
baby all the choline that he needed, which is about 450 mg per day. And this is not very expensive. 28 eggs is about
00:24:04
$7. So for $1 a day, you're getting all the choline that your baby needs to form
00:24:10
his brain. >> Mothers are often told to avoid liver. >> Yeah. >> While they're pregnant.
00:24:15
>> Yeah. >> Why? Why is that? And you're saying that that's not the correct advice.
00:24:19
>> So liver contains a lot of vitamin A, quite high levels of vitamin A. And
00:24:24
there's some older studies that show that liver and high vitamin A can cause
00:24:28
issues to the baby. That's why liver is not usually recommended during pregnancy. I would say check with your
00:24:33
doctor. Different countries have different thresholds of how much liver is allowed. And honestly, I don't like
00:24:39
liver. So I I prefer to have eggs, but liver is super super high in choline. It's quite impressive. You can also take
00:24:45
choline supplements, but eggs are the cheapest, easiest source. And for example in the supplement world, so
00:24:51
scientists have done this study at Cornell. They gave one group of moms the bare minimum amount of choline that is
00:24:59
recommended. So 450 milligrams in supplements. And then they wondered, well, if a baby's brain needs choline,
00:25:05
what happens if he has a lot of choline available? Does his brain form even better? So they gave the other group of
00:25:11
mom double the bare minimum recommended amount. And then they brought the kids in during their first year of age for
00:25:19
some tests. And the main test that was used is you basically plop the baby on his mom's lap in front of a computer
00:25:25
screen and you flash images on that screen and you measure how quickly the baby reacts the new images. So how
00:25:32
quickly he moves his eyes. And the reason they do this is because this test is correlated to adult IQ. Meaning the
00:25:40
faster a baby reacts to images in the first year of age, the higher his adult IQ. That's the association. And so they
00:25:46
were wondering, could we see a difference in the baby's reaction time depending on the mom's choline level in
00:25:53
the womb? And they found that the babies who were born to the high choline moms had 10% faster reaction time to this
00:26:00
test. >> People talk a lot about breastfeeding as well, whether it's good, bad,
00:26:03
indifferent, um whether you can breastfeed too much, etc. And obviously there's um there's lots of
00:26:08
practicalities that make breastfeeding quite difficult for a lot of mothers which we probably should acknowledge.
00:26:12
But otherwise what is um what does the research say about breastfeeding? >> So the difference main difference
00:26:18
between breast milk and formula is that breast milk is alive. It's alive with
00:26:24
information. It's alive with little molecules that are going to continue that DNA programming. Formula is inert.
00:26:31
It It's not alive. It's not doing that programming. So yes, breastfeeding has
00:26:36
advantages for the mom and for the baby, but formula is nutritionally complete and it's very useful for many moms who
00:26:43
are not able or want to breastfeed. And if you're using formula, you actually
00:26:48
have to check because today not all formulas have choline in them. So check in the ingredients for choline. Also
00:26:53
check in the ingredients for omega-3s, which is something that we'll cover in a
00:26:57
bit. Look for that choline omega-3s in your formula to make sure that your baby is getting what he needs in those
00:27:03
respects. I was reading about a study in the pediatric research journal that says
00:27:07
a 2013 Dutch study of 120 children found that less breastfeeding was linked to a
00:27:13
silencing of the gene for leptin, >> the hormone that signals fullness. >> So that's a good example of epigenetic
00:27:20
programming. So we have this gene that codes for leptin, which is a protein. And leptin is the one of the molecules
00:27:26
that makes you feel full. So you and I both have this leptin gene, but depending on our epigenetic programming
00:27:32
on that gene, you might be producing more of it and I might be producing less of it. So for the same meal, you might
00:27:38
feel more full and I might feel less full after that same exact meal. And so in this study, they saw that if you're
00:27:44
not breastfed very long, your leptin gene is act deactivated. So you feel less full after eating. Now, these are
00:27:51
small associations, but they show you that there's a difference here and that
00:27:54
potentially breastfeeding could help your baby be more satiated after eating. >> What about sugar during pregnancy?
00:28:01
>> So, sugar is fascinating. When you eat sugar, your baby is also receiving that sugar because that
00:28:08
placenta lets the sugar through. And your baby doesn't need any sugar during
00:28:12
pregnancy. He needs a little bit of glucose, which is different. But sugar, as in the very sweet molecule of
00:28:18
fructose that is in chocolate, that is in these cupcakes, that is in dried fruit, your baby needs none of it. And
00:28:25
the most interesting study on sugar in pregnancy actually came from the UK. So from 1940 to 1953, I don't know if you
00:28:33
know this, but in the UK, there was a governmentmandated sugar ration, meaning for 13 years, the government controlled
00:28:42
how much sugar people had access to. It was during the war and they were trying to manage resources. So everybody in the
00:28:48
UK got 10 sugar cubes per day. That's it. And this is down from what people usually ate before the sugar ration,
00:28:55
which was about 20 sugar cubes per day. So everybody, including pregnant moms, for 13 years had a capped amount of
00:29:02
sugar. At the end of the sugar ration, after 13 years, bam, everybody went back up to eating more sugar. And so
00:29:09
scientists in the early 2000s thought, well, that's really interesting. This
00:29:13
means we have two groups of pregnant moms during the sugar ration and right after the sugar ration who had babies
00:29:20
develop in their womb either with 40 grams of sugar per day or around 80 grams of sugar per day. And the
00:29:26
scientists wondered, can this small difference be making an impact on the baby's long-term health? So, they called
00:29:33
up 60,000 people who were born either just before the ration ended or just after and they asked them about their
00:29:40
health. They were like, "Do you have diabetes? Do you have heart disease? How
00:29:43
are you feeling? What's your weight? And they saw that the babies who were born
00:29:47
and who were in the mother's womb during the sugar ration had 15% lower likelihood of having developed
00:29:54
type 2 diabetes in their lifetime. So what does this mean? It means that the amount of sugar during pregnancy can be
00:30:01
slightly increasing or decreasing your baby's vulnerability to getting type 2
00:30:06
diabetes later in life. And today scientists look at the epigenetics of babies who are born to moms with very
00:30:13
high glucose levels and they see that the genes that are related to diabetes are activated. So we have a full picture
00:30:20
now of data. We have epigenetics. We have this long-term interesting study and we now see that the amount of sugar
00:30:26
that we eat during pregnancy is subtly programming our baby. So Stephen, I don't know if you know this, but when I
00:30:32
was 25, I was on the cusp of pre-diabetes. I almost had pre-diabetes when I was 25. I had very high glucose
00:30:38
levels. So, I had a vulnerability to diabetes. And as I was reading the studies, I was like, "Oh my god, maybe
00:30:46
this has something to do with what my mother was eating when she was pregnant with me." Because pregnancy is this
00:30:51
window of outsized influence in somebody's health. So, I called up my mom. I was like, "Mom, what did you eat
00:30:58
when you were pregnant?" She was like, "Oh, it was the ' 90s. You know, I ate
00:31:01
very little protein, very low fat. And in the morning, every morning, I had a big glass of orange juice and I had
00:31:07
special case cereal with about a half a cup of table sugar on top. I was like, "Huh, that's pretty interesting." So, I
00:31:14
wonder, I will never know. I wonder if maybe my vulnerability to diabetes had some roots in the womb.
00:31:20
>> And the science suggests that it does have a correlation. >> Absolutely. So, the science suggests
00:31:27
that the amount of sugar that you're eating during pregnancy is having an impact on your baby's epigenetics. And
00:31:33
today, so as I was mentioning, the WHO recommends 25 grams of sugar per day, but most moms are eating 80 grams of
00:31:41
sugar per day. 80 grams, which is usually more than what they eat when they're not pregnant, because of this
00:31:48
collective myth that you should eat for two, that pregnancy you're going to gain
00:31:52
weight anyway, so eat as much sugar as you want. really we're failing moms because we're not telling them about the
00:31:58
incredible opportunity they have by just being a bit mindful of how much sugar they eat of being able to help their
00:32:04
baby be less vulnerable to diabetes. >> It's not just diabetes though, is it?
00:32:08
>> No. >> I was just looking at some of the studies. Um there's a study here in the
00:32:12
JAMAMA network. It says a Danish study found that children born to mothers with diabetes had a 15% higher risk of
00:32:19
psychiatric disorders with schizophrenia risk being 55% higher. intellectual disability 29% higher and um a
00:32:29
connection to autism and ADHD. A 2025 review of 200 studies which is 56 million mother baby pairs found a 25%
00:32:40
higher risk of autism when um mothers had diabetes during pregnancy. >> Yeah.
00:32:44
>> From the Lancet diabetes and endocrinology report. And it's important
00:32:49
to note that these studies show correlation not causation. And a 25% increase in absolute terms only raises
00:32:54
the prevalence from one in 100 to around 1.25 in 100 children. So there's some
00:33:00
nuance to be had on that. >> There is some nuance, but that association holds very strongly. And as
00:33:04
you said, 56 million mom baby pairs. So across the world, we see that when a mom
00:33:10
has diabetes during pregnancy, her baby has a higher risk of psychiatric disorders. And the main theory that
00:33:17
could explain this association has to do with the baby's brain. So your baby is
00:33:23
forming his brain in the room. And today, Stephen, you have about a hundred billion neurons in your brain and they
00:33:29
are the exact same neurons that you had the day you were born. Neurons never get
00:33:34
replaced. So what does this mean? It means that your neurons that you have for life are formed during pregnancy in
00:33:40
your mother's uterus. Now you have these neurons in the baby's brain being formed
00:33:45
250,000 per minute. Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, neurons everywhere. And next to the
00:33:49
neurons, you have another type of cell. This cell is called the micro ga. And it
00:33:53
kind of looks like a starfish, and it's patrolling the baby's brain. And it's
00:33:58
job is to make sure that the neurons are forming properly. So what micro ga do, they're a cell from the immune system,
00:34:04
is they are on the lookout for any neurons that are being damaged or not formed properly. And as soon as they
00:34:10
find a neuron that is not ideal, they go over to it and they eat it and they destroy it. So they're pruning the brain
00:34:17
and they're looking out for damage and making sure everything develops normally. Now if the mother has high
00:34:24
inflammation levels during pregnancy and this can be caused by a number of things. It can be caused by high glucose
00:34:29
levels. It can be caused by infection. It can be caused by chemicals. High inflammation seems to be making these
00:34:36
micro ga overactive. Now all of a sudden they become a bit deregulated and they start eating and destroying neurons that
00:34:44
don't need to be destroyed. They start destroying healthy neurons and as a result the brain is forming in a
00:34:52
slightly suboptimal fashion. And scientists believe this to be the leading theory behind why we see the
00:34:57
association between gestational diabetes, so diabetes of pregnancy and a higher risk of psychiatric disorders.
00:35:04
They believe it has to do with the inflammation levels going on in the baby's brain during pregnancy. And so
00:35:10
what does this tell us? This tells us that when we're pregnant, we're influencing the amount of inflammation
00:35:15
in our baby's body. And this should be something that we tell women about because if they can have power over
00:35:22
their inflammation levels, for example, by reducing their glucose spikes, they could also give their baby a benefit to
00:35:30
its brain formation. Do you think it's useful for women during pregnancy to wear those continuous glucose monitors?
00:35:36
>> I did. I did the whole time. Is it useful? Depends on what you want to do.
00:35:42
I think it's really interesting. It helped me a lot. Maybe just for two weeks could be cool. So, you can kind of
00:35:48
see what's going on and learn about your glucose spikes. And I think one of the
00:35:52
issues we see during pregnancy is that your glucose levels are usually tested in the third trimester with the diabetes
00:35:58
test, >> but by that time like you've already been going going along for 6 months with
00:36:03
your glucose levels. I think we should be testing glucose levels much much earlier like in the first trimester
00:36:08
because your glucose levels in the first trimester actually can predict very well
00:36:11
whether you're going to get gestational diabetes or not. So, I think we should
00:36:15
maybe put a glucose monitor on all pregnant moms in the first trimester or even pre-reg to help them understand
00:36:21
their glucose spikes and show them about these easy tools and habits and hacks that you can put in place to reduce your
00:36:27
glucose spikes. >> I was reading about a study from Diabetes Care that said they put um
00:36:32
these continuous glucose monitors on 700 women and found that if they did it in the first trimester, they could
00:36:38
accurately predict who would develop gestational diabetes at 24 to 28 weeks. >> Yeah. And so that's really interesting
00:36:44
because a lot of people used to think that gestational diabetes, meaning diabetes during pregnancy, is kind of
00:36:50
random. It was like, "Oh, you get it, but we don't know why. It's random. Your
00:36:53
body's just doing this." And now we have evidence that suggests that actually
00:36:57
it's correlated to your glucose levels in the first trimester. Now, in the first trimester, your glucose levels are
00:37:03
pretty much the same as when you're not pregnant. As pregnancy progresses, hormones come into play and things start
00:37:09
shifting. Glucose spikes get bigger and longer. fasting glucose levels becomes lower. But that first trimester, your
00:37:16
glucose spikes and your glucose levels are similar to pre-preg. This means that essentially your non-pregant glucose
00:37:22
levels can predict whether or not you're going to get gestational diabetes. Which
00:37:26
means that gestational diabetes is not random. It actually has roots in what was happening before pregnancy. Meaning
00:37:33
that if you had high glucose levels before pregnancy, you're more likely to get gestational diabetes. Gestational
00:37:39
diabetes could actually just be a symptom of having high glucose levels before pregnancy but just not knowing
00:37:46
about it. >> You know, when we say high glucose levels, is that a very individual thing?
00:37:50
>> No, >> it's not an individual thing. >> No, we have very clear cut offs. So, for
00:37:54
example, if you're not pregnant like you and I, 100 milligrams per deciliter is
00:37:59
the cut off between healthy and pre-diabetes. So, that's fasting glucose level, your
00:38:05
glucose level first thing in the morning. If you're pregnant, that changes. Anything above 92 milligrams
00:38:11
per deciliter is considered diabetes of pregnancy. So high glucose levels, it's
00:38:16
it's very well segmented. We have these very specific ranges that say normal,
00:38:22
too high, much too high. >> But if me and you both have this um a teaspoon of this honey that I have here
00:38:28
on the desk, our responses to this honey are going to be completely different, right?
00:38:32
>> Yeah. The glucose spike we experience is going to be different for a bunch of
00:38:37
reasons. Our microbiome, our genetics, how much muscle mass we have, how hydrated, how stressed, how tired we we
00:38:43
are. So maybe you're going to get a spike of like, I don't know, 30 30 milligrams and maybe I'll get a 45
00:38:49
milligram spike because I'm tired. Now, what does that mean? It doesn't mean
00:38:54
that honey is necessarily better for you than it is for me. It just means that my
00:38:58
body today is more or less good at managing this influx of glucose >> today.
00:39:03
>> Today. Yeah. Today. And it also means something very important, which is that
00:39:07
if you and I both used a glucose hack. So, for example, if you and I both had a chicken breast before the honey, both
00:39:14
you and I would have a smaller glucose spike from that same honey. So, glucose hacks and ways to reduce your glucose
00:39:21
spikes work in everyone. The exact absolute values after eating something, these can vary. But one thing that is
00:39:30
true for everybody is that you're fasting glucose. So glucose before you eat anything. That is something we can
00:39:37
compare. So if you and I both at 7 a.m. before we eat anything and we had our fasting glucose levels checked, we could
00:39:43
compare. We could say, "Oh, Jesse is very close to pre-diabetes and Steven is
00:39:47
not very close to pre-diabetes." Those are very easy numbers to compare. the
00:39:51
spikes after eating. These can vary. >> So, if I put on a little bit more muscle, that means that I'll tolerate
00:39:57
glucose better. >> Yeah. Because your muscles are an amazing sink where your body is soaking
00:40:02
up glucose from your bloodstream. And that's why we see that even during pregnancy, having high muscle mass is
00:40:08
protective against diabetes. So, women with higher muscle mass in pregnancy are less likely to have gestational
00:40:14
diabetes. Let me give you an example. So, we we eat this honey. What happens? The honey goes from our mouth to our
00:40:21
stomach to our intestine and then it goes through our intestinal wall into our bloodstream. So all these glucose
00:40:26
molecules are arriving into our bloodstream. Now there's two options. Either we stay here and we don't move.
00:40:32
In that case, glucose is going to rise in our bloodstream, big glucose spike, and then crash. Or we say, "Okay, let's
00:40:37
go outside and go for a walk right after we eat this honey." We're walking. Our
00:40:41
muscles are contracting. Our leg muscles are contracting. Our arm muscles are contracting. And these muscles as
00:40:47
they're contracting, they're looking for energy. And the first place they look is
00:40:50
in the bloodstream. They look for glucose in the bloodstream. Which is why if you move after you eat glucose, you
00:40:57
will get a smaller glucose spike because some of that glucose is being used by your muscles for energy.
00:41:03
>> I've heard you tell people that they should uh do some stuff with their
00:41:06
calves. >> Calf raises. Yeah. Okay. So, put your feet on the ground, Stephen. Yeah.
00:41:10
>> And just do some calf push-ups. Calf raises. So you go up onto the ends of
00:41:14
your feet and back down. >> Okay. So you got it. I'm going up. I'm
00:41:17
lifting my heels. >> Exactly. Lift your heels up and down. So as you do this, there's a muscle in your
00:41:22
calf called the soles muscle. Can you feel it contract? It's your calf muscle.
00:41:25
>> Yeah. >> Okay. So this muscle is very good at soaking up glucose from your
00:41:30
bloodstream. So easy hack you can do after you eat something sweet is you just do some calf raises at your desk
00:41:36
like this. Nobody can notice. Five minutes and that's going to help reduce the glucose spike of what you just ate.
00:41:42
I mean five five minutes. >> Yeah, I mean you can do five minutes. In the studies they do sometimes hours of
00:41:46
this but even just one minute is better than nothing to reduce your glucose spike.
00:41:53
>> I mean this is probably why a lot of cultures go for a walk after dinner.
00:41:56
Right. >> Completely. And a lot of the glucose hacks that I've talked about, they
00:42:01
actually mirror a lot of traditions. So for example, the glucose hack of having your vegetables at the beginning of your
00:42:08
meal. This is incredibly powerful, pregnancy or not pregnancy, because vegetables contain fiber. And when you
00:42:14
have them at the beginning of your meal, they create this protective mesh in your
00:42:19
intestine that slows down the glucose molecules from carbs and makes the glucose molecules arrive more slowly
00:42:27
into your bloodstream, meaning smaller spike. Now, eating veggies at the beginning of a meal, that's something
00:42:32
that we call kurite in France, which means raw veggies at the beginning of your meal.
00:42:37
What other simple exercises do you recommend if I've just eaten something that's high in glucose that I can do
00:42:44
quickly to help bring down my glucose spike? Right? That's ultimately what it's going to do. Bring down the spike.
00:42:49
>> The best thing to do is to move your body. So get up, find a spot in your
00:42:54
apartment that needs to be tidied. Find a place you got to vacuum. Find some find some laundry to do and do that
00:42:59
within 90 minutes after eating. Your muscles are your best ally in reducing your glucose spikes after you've eaten.
00:43:06
So, what's going on there? I I start eating a cake. I finish eating the cake.
00:43:11
How long have I got to get that cake into my muscles? >> That's a great way to put it. You have
00:43:17
about 90 minutes. So, an hour and a half. >> Okay. >> That's when the spike is usually going
00:43:21
to be at at its maximum. >> So, if I start squatting, >> yeah, squats are a great great tool.
00:43:26
>> I want to go for a big muscle, right? >> Yeah, absolutely. So there's some
00:43:29
studies showing that if you do I think it's five squats or 10 squats every 5
00:43:34
minutes that is a very very powerful way to get your glucose spike down. Now you
00:43:38
don't always have the space to do some squats but if you're alone and at home
00:43:43
go for it. That's one of the best ones. >> So what's going on in my body there is
00:43:46
my I start squatting I'm working my glutes. >> Yeah. So your glutes are looking for
00:43:50
energy and the first place they look is in your blood. They're looking for glucose
00:43:54
>> because glucose is the energy that your muscles are using. Okay. Well, do you
00:43:59
use standing desks? I've really got into it. >> Yeah, I do. I have a desk at home that
00:44:03
moves up and down. >> Same. >> Yeah. But sometimes if I'm tired, I just
00:44:06
are more tired with the standing desk. So, I have to have a bit of energy left over. Do you always use a standing desk?
00:44:10
>> I mean, I kind of oscillate between standing and sitting. But I think especially in like the morning, I find
00:44:15
it to be really, really good. >> You just gave me an idea for a glucose test. I should do the same muffin and
00:44:22
afterwards standing desk for 30 minutes or sitting at the desk for 30 minutes. That's a great test.
00:44:28
>> Well, we need to put some uh Stella glucose monitors on before. But yes, we
00:44:31
can do it. We should do it. So, I will eat a muffin first thing in the morning, then stand for 30 minutes, and the next
00:44:37
day I will eat a muffin first thing in the morning, and then sit for 30 minutes, and I'll send you the spike,
00:44:41
and we can see we can see how much glucose is being burned when we're standing at our desk.
00:44:47
>> Okay. Well, we're gonna put that the results in the episode. Okay, great.
00:44:50
Now, so what you see on the screen, if you're watching, is the results of Jesse
00:44:56
standing after having a muffin, and then these results, which you see on the screen, are Jesse sitting after
00:45:05
having a muffin. >> And either we'll see that the spikes are very similar,
00:45:10
>> which means that standing doesn't use much more muscle energy than sitting, or
00:45:15
we will see that standing is using up some of the glucose from my bloodstream. and therefore the spike is smaller after
00:45:21
the muffin. >> On that point of exercise, mothers are given conflicting advice about what to
00:45:26
do when they're pregnant. Um, some people say exercise is not good. Some people say it's great. What's your
00:45:34
position from all the research you've done as to whether mothers should be doing exercise during pregnancy?
00:45:38
>> Exercise is incredibly good for your baby's development. And there's one
00:45:42
study done in animals because we can't do many studies in in humans when it comes to pregnancy for obvious ethical
00:45:49
reasons, but there's this incredible study which I think is my favorite study
00:45:52
in the book. So scientists took two groups of pregnant rats and they gave them the exact same housing conditions,
00:46:00
diet, lighting, everything. The only difference is that one group also had these tiny little treadmills that they
00:46:09
had to walk on for 30 minutes a day every day during pregnancy. So, same exact conditions. The only difference is
00:46:15
one group of pregnant rats is moving 30 minutes a day on these tiny treadmills. Then they wait for the babies to be born
00:46:21
and they put the babies in these mazes to kind of measure how quickly they're
00:46:26
solving the maze. And they also measure the baby's anxiety levels. They found
00:46:30
that the babies that were born to the moms who were exercising solved the maze twice as fast and had fewer anxiety
00:46:40
symptoms. So they found this strong association between a mom exercising during pregnancy and the outcomes of the baby's
00:46:49
brain. >> H >> and the main theory is that when we exercise, there's this molecule produced
00:46:56
in our brain called BDNF. And it's got a complicated name, but what it does is
00:47:00
that it helps neuroplasticity. It helps your neurons create new connections. And
00:47:04
we know that in humans when we exercise, that's one of the reasons exercise is
00:47:08
good for the brain because it increases BDNF. And in these pregnant rats, they found not only were the mom's BDNFs
00:47:15
higher, but the baby's BDNF levels inside of the wombs was also higher. and they believe that is why they saw this
00:47:25
impact on the baby's brain development after birth. So what happens in the womb
00:47:30
is really setting up a strong foundation for your baby's brain. It's laying out
00:47:35
the basic architecture, which is why it's so important to do these simple hacks to give your baby's brain the
00:47:43
optimal nutrients that it needs to form properly. >> What is um there's a little metaphor
00:47:48
over there, those two plant pots. What is the metaphor? Okay, so both of these plants come from identical
00:47:58
seeds. The only difference is what they were planted in. So, one of these plants
00:48:05
was planted in basically little rocks and gravel with a tiny bit of soil in it. The other seed was planted in rich
00:48:14
fertilized soil. What is this showing us? We intuitively understand that when we're planting a seed, the soil we
00:48:21
choose is important, right? We understand that the same seed is not going to lead to the same tree depending
00:48:26
on where we plant it. And I think for pregnancy, we've lost this intuition because your baby is a seed. You as the
00:48:35
mother's body, you are the soil and the soil is going to co-create your baby's
00:48:40
plan. So, when you're pregnant, you have this little baby with his DNA plan, but
00:48:45
depending on depending on the nutrients you provide, he's going to grow into a
00:48:49
different tree. He's either going to grow in a super optimal tree that has all the nutrients he needed, or he's
00:48:56
going to have to adapt to what's available and grow into a slightly different tree. Now, the main difference
00:49:01
is that humans are not plants. So, humans are very resilient. your baby will probably be okay. Even if like 90%
00:49:09
of us you don't have enough choline, even if like 75% of us you don't have
00:49:13
enough omega-3s, even if like 70% of us you don't have enough protein, and even
00:49:18
if like most of us you're eating more than the recommended amount of sugar, your baby will probably be fine, but he
00:49:25
will be adapting to a slightly sub-optimal nutrient environment. So that's what this metaphor is all about.
00:49:32
You're co-creating the plan of your baby with your diet during pregnancy and it's
00:49:36
shaping him and he's adapting and calibrating to what you're giving him.
00:49:42
>> Steve, what you doing? >> Uh, just making myself a delicious coffee
00:49:46
>> from the freezer. >> From the freezer? Have you not heard about CompTI?
00:49:50
>> No. >> Oh my gosh, this is going to change your life. A couple of months ago, the
00:49:54
founder of this business called Matt sent a big shipment of this coffee to our office in London. This coffee is
00:50:00
like nothing you've ever seen before. What most people don't know is that the
00:50:03
processing of coffee takes out a lot of the taste. So what they do is they flash
00:50:07
freeze it at the optimal moment when it's most tasty and they send you in the
00:50:12
post the coffee in these little frozen ice cubes. Now Matt sent a big shipment to my office. I moved it to the kitchen.
00:50:18
I said to the team, "Knock yourselves out. Give this a try." And then I saw so
00:50:21
many messages in our Slack channel of people going, "Oh my god, what the hell
00:50:25
is that? It's so delicious. All I have to do is pop it out in the morning using
00:50:29
the little button on the back of this thing. I pour my hot water in and I mix it and that is done. You can get $30 off
00:50:38
your first order of cometier coffee if you go to cometier.com/stephven and it won't be available for long. So
00:50:45
get that discount while you can. I I'm not going to be a pregnant mother in my
00:50:49
life, but I am going to have a fiance hopefully at some point who is a pregnant mother. So, I would really like
00:50:56
to know how I can help as a partner, but also I'm sure she's going to listen to
00:51:01
this. So, what she can do to make sure that the soil in which my baby grows is optimal. We've talked about a few of the
00:51:07
things so far like choline and we've al also talked about sugar and glucose levels throughout pregnancy to avoid
00:51:13
gestational diabetes. We've talked about exercise as well. What about alcohol?
00:51:18
>> Not a good idea because as I explained, your bloodstream and your baby's
00:51:22
bloodstream are basically connected. So when you drink alcohol during pregnancy,
00:51:26
your blood alcohol level rises and then your baby's blood alcohol level in your
00:51:34
uterus also rises. There's no filter protecting your baby from alcohol. So when you have a glass of wine, your
00:51:40
baby's also having a glass of wine in the womb. And we know that alcohol is not good for our brains. And this also
00:51:47
goes for babies. So, you wouldn't put red wine in your baby's bottle after
00:51:53
birth and give him red wine to drink, but that's kind of what's going on when
00:51:56
you're drinking alcohol when you're pregnant. And there's been a lot of a
00:52:01
lot of stuff online about, oh, alcohol during pregnancy is fine in small quantities. I think when you understand
00:52:06
how alcohol is toxic to the brain biologically, it makes no sense to pregnant moms that a little bit of
00:52:12
alcohol is okay. It's best if you can to avoid alcohol entirely. >> So, complete abstinence. Yeah,
00:52:18
>> there was actually a study that came out in February last year, which is quite
00:52:21
recent, from the University of Melbourne, where they used highresolution 3D imaging to reveal that
00:52:27
even low doses of alcohol cause facial morphing, consistent changes in the shape of the eyes and nose at 12 months,
00:52:34
persisting up to age 8, and weaker connections in the in the right um anterior singulate part of the brain,
00:52:41
the region critical for emotional regulation and impulse control, even if the mother drank only occasionally.
00:52:48
which is very um surprising because I think for a long time we've always thought that heavy consumption of
00:52:58
alcohol was a problem >> and we know that. Yeah. >> But even low doses are suboptimal.
00:53:02
>> It's kind of it kind of goes for all adults, right? We thought for a long
00:53:05
time that one glass of wine per day was good for the heart. Now we understand that the ideal amount of alcohol is
00:53:12
zero. Like there's no benefit to alcohol. Now, is that to say that one glass of wine during pregnancy is going
00:53:18
to, you know, indelibly impact your baby's brain? Probably not. But if you can avoid it, this is the best time to
00:53:25
avoid it entirely. >> What about when you're breastfeeding? >> Oo. Well, you have much more leeway then
00:53:30
because the amount of alcohol in your breast milk mirrors the amount of alcohol in your bloodstream. So, for
00:53:36
example, if you have a glass of wine, two and a half to three hours later, you have pretty much no more alcohol in your
00:53:42
bloodstream, which means your breast milk is also pretty much devoid of alcohol. So, if you time it right,
00:53:48
you're going to be able to have a glass of wine without it actually going into
00:53:52
your breast milk. But, it's all about timing. >> Caffeine, >> the recommendation is to stay under two
00:53:57
cups of coffee per day during pregnancy. Um, it's not a neurotoxin like alcohol,
00:54:02
right? But caffeine does go to your baby's bloodstream. And some studies show that babies are more active in the
00:54:08
womb after the mother drinks caffeine and it has no benefit. So listen, you do what you can. I reduced a little bit my
00:54:15
caffeine intake. Instead of having like two fat whites, I had maybe half a flat white or a decaf fat white when I could.
00:54:22
But some days I just really wanted a coffee, so I had a coffee. >> Have they ever done any studies on
00:54:26
caffeine and pregnancy? Well, we can't do any studies on caffeine in pregnancy
00:54:31
in humans. It's unethical to test anything in pregnant moms. We have associations and the associations don't
00:54:37
show much difference. Like we don't have studies that show caffeine intake in
00:54:41
moms leads to this kind of bad outcome in the kids. It seems pretty neutral at low doses. If you have really high doses
00:54:47
of caffeine, there is an impact on the baby's well associative impact on the
00:54:52
baby's temperament. But for one or two cups a day, there's no impact that we
00:54:56
find. >> And they've done animal studies. Yeah, they've done animal studies. Low doses
00:54:59
also fine. Very high doses, we start to see changes in the baby's behavior. >> You talk about this in the book. In
00:55:04
certain animal studies, they show um during pregnancy leads to smaller offspring, altered heart development,
00:55:08
and delayed brain growth. Um but you explain that we don't have direct clinical trial data on the long-term
00:55:14
impact of caffeine during human pregnancy. >> And also those studies are very high
00:55:17
doses of caffeine. >> Okay. Yeah. And the World Health Organization recommends that women who
00:55:21
consume more than 300 milligrams of coffee a day, which is roughly three cups, reduce their daily intake during
00:55:26
pregnancy. >> Yeah. So, probably one cup a day is not harming your baby. >> Fermented foods in the gut. What about
00:55:33
that? Yeah. >> What should I be thinking about there? >> Well, this is very early research, but
00:55:36
showing that potentially if a mother has fermented food during pregnancy, it's
00:55:41
also seeding her baby's gut microbiome. But this is very, very early stuff. But
00:55:45
if you can include some kefir or some sauerkraut during pregnancy, it's helpful.
00:55:51
>> What What about bread? Do you think much about bread? >> Do I think much about bread? I mean, I'm
00:55:55
French, so I think about bread all the time. >> In terms of um your recommendations on
00:56:01
the type of bread one should be eating. >> Well, bread is interesting because bread
00:56:04
is a carb that contains mostly glucose. And we know that in the third trimester of pregnancy, your baby actually needs
00:56:11
more glucose cuz he's developing and he also needs energy. Your baby needs about
00:56:15
70 gram of glucose per day at the very end of pregnancy. So, as a pregnant mom, you should be eating 70 grams of glucose
00:56:24
more than you usually do at the end of pregnancy. For the first and second trimesters, you don't need to be eating
00:56:29
much more glucose. So, you could have that via bread. You could have that via rice, for example. So 70 gram of glucose
00:56:36
is about three slices of bread or a cup and a half of rice. In terms of the type
00:56:41
of bread you should be eating, it's always better for your glucose levels to
00:56:44
have bread that is full of seeds. But to be honest, there's not a huge difference
00:56:49
between like sprouted grain bread versus white bread. It's all just glucose >> because there there is a I guess there's
00:56:55
a a risk that mothers might get a little bit scared of having sugary foods during
00:57:01
pregnancy. And then you've just said the baby does need glucose. >> Yeah. So there's a difference. So
00:57:06
glucose is present in carbs and starches, meaning bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, oats. So starches contain
00:57:14
glucose, but starches are different to sugars. So on this plate, we only have sugars. These are the sweet foods that
00:57:23
contain glucose, but also another molecule that makes them sweet called fructose. Your baby needs no fructose
00:57:31
during pregnancy ever. So your baby does not need any sugar from dessert, from chocolate, from muffins, from cupcakes.
00:57:38
Your baby needs none of this. But your baby does need glucose, which is healthier to get from starches like
00:57:44
bread, pasta, rice, potatoes. >> What about the ketogenic diet while you're pregnant?
00:57:50
>> I don't think there's enough evidence to tell us whether it's okay or not. It's
00:57:53
very early. It's quite rare. Um, and it seems that since your baby does need
00:57:59
glucose during pregnancy, it's just easier to eat glucose and to eat starches when you're pregnant. And whole
00:58:05
fruit is also a good way of getting the glucose that you need because thanks to the fiber in the water, the amount of
00:58:11
fructose in the fruit is not leading to such a big fructose spike. >> There's a study on the G1D Foundation
00:58:18
that basically says for 99% of pregnancies, a strict ketogenic diet is considered dangerous. doctors in instead
00:58:23
recommend a low glycemic index diet. >> And low glycemic diets mean a diet with
00:58:29
smaller glucose spikes. And this is really helpful for people with gestational diabetes. It helps them
00:58:34
manage their spikes and reduce the need for medication. But also for any pregnant mom, it's important to think
00:58:40
about your glucose spikes because when you have a glucose spike, your baby has a glucose spike. And glucose spikes are
00:58:45
not good news. It's better to give your baby slow rolling hills of glucose and
00:58:50
not these big spikes that can lead to more inflammation. And as we talked about, more inflammation can impact the
00:58:55
baby's brain development. >> Do you recommend that mothers take certain supplements? Did you take
00:59:01
supplements throughout your pregnancy? >> Yeah, I took omega-3s. And the reason is
00:59:06
I took omega-3 supplements is because omega-3s also form the baby's brain and
00:59:10
they come from algae in the ocean and fish. Now, omega-3s and in particular one omega-3 called DHA, it helps your
00:59:19
baby's neurons connect with each other. And this is really important. And in
00:59:24
animal studies, when scientists restrict how much DHA a mother has access to, they see measurable impact on the baby's
00:59:32
brain. They see brains that are less efficient. They see babies who find the exit of mazes with much more time.
00:59:38
There's an impact on the brain development. Now, the easiest way to get enough DHA is to eat fish or to eat
00:59:44
sardines that we have here. So, the recommendation is fatty fish twice a week. I would say fatty fish three times
00:59:53
a week if you can. And this is also it's amazing because it's very cheap. So,
00:59:57
these three cans of sardines are your three servings of fish per week. This gets gives you all the omega-3s your
01:00:03
baby needs. And this cost about in total like $67. So, for $67 per week and for another $7 of eggs per week, you're
01:00:13
getting all the choline and all the omega-3s your baby needs. Yeah. You're opening it. Are you going to eat it?
01:00:23
>> Okay. No. You want to know how I have them? >> How? >> Okay. Are you going to eat it?
01:00:26
>> Yeah. >> Go for it. So, I open the can. I put it in a bowl. I put mustard in it. I put
01:00:32
sea salt, a little bit of feta, >> some herbs, and I make this sort of nice
01:00:37
little paste, and then I toast a piece of bread, and I put it on top of the bread, and I have like a nice little
01:00:43
sardine mash on my bread. >> It is quite nice. >> Yeah. And it's really good for you. Lots
01:00:48
of omega-3s. And so, for omega-3s, I also supplemented with additional omega-3s because I think the
01:00:54
recommendation of fatty fish two, three times a day is lacking. Most moms don't
01:00:59
have enough omega-3s in their body to give their baby everything that he needs. So, I did this three times a week
01:01:05
plus two grams of DHA supplement per day. >> What else was in your supplement stack?
01:01:12
>> Then, uh, in the third trimester, I took iron because my iron levels were very
01:01:16
low. This often happens during pregnancy, even though I was eating a lot of meat because your baby is pulling
01:01:20
a lot of iron from you. And then I had a sort of normal prenatal supplement, but
01:01:25
I made sure it had choline in it. And I made sure it had a type of folic acid called metylated folate which is better
01:01:32
absorbed. And folate is very important to prevent miscarriage. You talked about your first pregnancy and you said we'll
01:01:38
talk about that later. >> Mhm. >> You went through miscarriage. >> Yes. Correct. So I got pregnant the
01:01:46
first time and I thought everything would be totally fine but I found out at the 3mon scan that the embryo had
01:01:54
stopped developing. I had what's called a silent miscarriage. So, usually when
01:01:59
you miscarry, you start to lose blood, you have cramps, you know something's wrong. I
01:02:05
had a silent miscarriage, which is more rare, meaning the embryo stopped developing. The embryo was dead. My body
01:02:11
did not expulse it. So, I found out that I had lost the pregnancy at the scan at
01:02:18
the doctor's office. And I found out that I had been walking around for a month with an embryo that had stopped
01:02:25
developing and I had no idea. I thought I was still pregnant. What What is What is that like for
01:02:32
someone like me that has never experienced um such news? What are the range of emotions and thoughts um that
01:02:40
occur when you get news like that? >> Listen, for me it was so devastating. It
01:02:48
was so so difficult. I didn't I didn't want to believe it. I was screaming. I
01:02:52
remember like falling to the floor in my living room and saying to whatever god or the universe like that I wanted my
01:02:58
baby back. I was I was not okay. It was very very difficult. Um I felt a lot of anger. I felt a lot of despair. I felt a
01:03:07
sense of injustice like why me? I felt like I had done everything right. Like I was eating the choline. I was taking the
01:03:14
right supplements. you know, I was not like smoking crack and I still had a miscarriage and I I didn't know this
01:03:22
happened. I I didn't have it in my consciousness that it could happen to me. So, I felt from very very high. It
01:03:28
was it was probably one of the most difficult experiences in my life. >> Is this more common?
01:03:32
>> One in five pregnancies and in miscarriage. >> That's really high. Like way higher than
01:03:37
I thought it was. >> Yeah. >> And is it usually in the >> in the first trimester? if I was still,
01:03:43
>> but it can happen later also. >> Yeah. And I felt so isolated and I
01:03:50
didn't feel like people around me knew how to how to handle it cuz it's kind of
01:03:55
taboo. And then when I miscarried, I started talking to people about it. And I found out that so many people around
01:04:01
me had gone through it but had never told me about it. >> When was your first pregnancy?
01:04:07
So, I got pregnant in February 2024. So, the miscarriage was in spring 2024. And then I got pregnant again
01:04:21
in August 2025. No, 2024. And my son was born in May 2025. So, I got pregnant quite quickly
01:04:30
afterwards. Um, but it was difficult because I was still carrying the grief of the miscarriage. So, I had a very
01:04:37
anxious pregnancy. I was very anxious the whole time that something bad would happen again, that I would miscarry
01:04:42
again and not know about it. It was very difficult. >> It's a trial of the heart, man.
01:04:54
>> It's Yeah, the numbers way higher than I expected. Just just much higher than I
01:04:58
expected. And it's it's scary scary to think about. >> Yeah. Yeah.
01:05:01
>> And that's why people usually wait until the third month mark to tell their
01:05:05
friends and family that they're pregnant. >> And for some reason, I had no conception
01:05:09
of that. So the moment I got that first pregnancy test, I told everybody. >> Mhm.
01:05:13
>> So it made it quite complicated to have to announce the miscarriage to like 50
01:05:20
people. >> Um but at the same time, I felt less alone than I would have felt if nobody
01:05:25
knew I was pregnant in the first place. >> Mhm. >> But yeah, it was very very challenging.
01:05:29
And it's more common than we think and it happens to more people than we know
01:05:33
about. >> Is there anything you wish you knew earlier in life about I mean we've
01:05:38
talked about many of the things specifically around diet and you know and pregnancy but is there anything else
01:05:42
you wish someone had said to you as a woman earlier um that you didn't hear?
01:05:49
>> Yeah. I think I wish I wish my mom had told me about her miscarriages. She had
01:05:53
not. >> Oh, really? >> Until I miscarried. Yep. I wish my grandmother had told me. I had I did not
01:05:58
know. I wish people had told me more about their experiences because that way I would have understood that it happens
01:06:04
to a lot of people. Maybe I would have been more prepared and maybe it would have made the experience a little bit
01:06:09
less painful. >> Mhm. >> Instead of feeling so so isolated or at least I would have maybe been a bit more
01:06:16
cautious >> cuz you said one of the feelings and emotions you had was why did this happen
01:06:21
to me? >> Yes. I was like why me? Why me? And then I realized it happens to many people and
01:06:27
it's not necessarily a reason. It's nothing you've done. It can be just a
01:06:30
chromosomeal abnormality and the embryo just can't develop anymore. It can be
01:06:34
something we don't understand yet. >> It's hard, isn't it? Getting pregnant.
01:06:38
>> Yeah, >> it's hard. I think I don't know what lawyer I was living under, but I just
01:06:42
assumed that getting pregnant was have sex unprotected. >> I know. Because your whole life you're
01:06:47
told do all these things to not get pregnant because it might happen without you expecting it. And then when you try
01:06:52
to get pregnant, you realize, oh, it's not at all as easy as I thought it was.
01:06:57
>> It's it's it's a lot. And I was lucky I got pregnant after, you know, two three
01:07:01
cycles both times. So that's very very quick. But some of my friends, it's
01:07:05
taken them years to conceive. >> How has becoming a mother changed you? >> Um, it's made me happier. I feel like my
01:07:14
baseline happiness is higher. I don't have I used to have this like 10% kind
01:07:20
of melancholy or or spleen or sort of like oh maybe my life could be better if I did X or Y or like questioning you
01:07:27
know do I need more how do I how do I find happiness and that's gone like with
01:07:31
my son that has that has been filled and I didn't expect it to be filled so that's been amazing and it's made me
01:07:39
very efficient because now when I have 42 minutes I use this 42 minutes like I cannot imagine Imagine how much time I
01:07:46
used to have. Like, what did I used to do? And I thought I was busy. Now I'm
01:07:50
really busy. It's so funny to look back at my life before and what I used to
01:07:54
think and realize that I was completely wrong. I was so wrong. I thought I was busy and I thought I was tired.
01:08:02
I wasn't. Now I am. >> You feel very busy, right? >> I feel so busy.
01:08:09
>> And you feel tired. >> I do. I do sometimes ask myself, you know, because again, I'm in that season
01:08:13
of life. I do like where am I going to get the where's the time going to come
01:08:16
from cuz like >> you just prioritize so many things you just delegate or you don't do anymore
01:08:22
>> and you find the time cuz your baby is the most important thing >> and I I think I've become better at my
01:08:28
work because I'm more efficient and I thought I was pretty efficient before but now I'm like super human. On that
01:08:35
point of parenting and pregnancy and everything we've been talking about, you
01:08:39
said that you spoke to your mother about the diet she had and her lifestyle when
01:08:44
she was growing you inside her. Uh, if your parents did have a suboptimal lifestyle in diet,
01:08:54
>> this is a bit of a strange question to ask, but is there something that I can
01:08:58
do now as an adult to reverse that? >> Totally. Well, first of all, my mom was
01:09:03
eating a lot of sugar, but it wasn't her fault. Like, culture around her was
01:09:06
telling her fat is bad. Eat low-fat foods. Like, she was just a product of her time, like we all are. So, our diet
01:09:11
today is just a function of what food marketing is going on. So, again, it's
01:09:15
not our fault. We're just kind of swimming in this sea of the food industry and marketing and we do the
01:09:20
best we can. Pregnancy is important. It has an outsized effect on our vulnerability to
01:09:27
disease, but it's not everything. So, I told you at 25 I was on the cusp of pre-diabetes. Well, I implemented the
01:09:34
glucose hacks. I found all the science and I never got pre-diabetes. So, you're
01:09:39
probably going to be fine. It's more of the difference between like, so I have
01:09:42
two friends. I have Gabriel and Nicholas and they both work out the same and eat
01:09:47
the same. One of them builds muscle really easily and has a lot of muscle mass. The other one doesn't. They're not
01:09:52
equal. However, it doesn't mean that they both can't build muscle. It might
01:09:56
just be a little bit more difficult for one than for the other. Same thing with diabetes. One person may get diabetes
01:10:02
with the same diet as another person who doesn't get it. Well, when you apply
01:10:06
things, when you change your diet, you can change the course of your life. You can change what diseases you you face.
01:10:12
But you might be more or less vulnerable. So, we always have agency. We always have power, no matter our age,
01:10:18
no matter where we are in life, to take back control. >> Cravings. >> Mhm.
01:10:23
>> Cravings are where it all begins. You know, you can know everything. >> Wait, say more about that. What do you
01:10:28
mean? >> Like you can know, you can have all the information. I'm sure that there's
01:10:31
people that listen to this podcast, including me, who know a lot about this stuff, but it doesn't necessarily mean
01:10:38
that you have the control to take action. Because when your brain starts saying, "Go on, eat that thing. Go on.
01:10:44
It'll be so tasty." And you know what? You can do your calf raises after it.
01:10:48
It'll be fine. Like that voice in your head that talks you into things that you
01:10:51
don't really want to do, and then 10 minutes later, you feel really guilty that you did it. M
01:10:55
>> I'm just wondering if you think much about the psychology of being in the
01:10:59
things I can do upstream to either fend off the cravings or to have better agency and control over the cravings.
01:11:04
>> So let's talk about that voice because that voice comes in two flavors.
01:11:09
For some the voice is m that cookie looks really really good. Chocolate chip with sea salt that looks tasty. I'm
01:11:15
going to probably buy it after the end of this meeting. That is the voice of pleasure and enjoyment. There's another
01:11:21
voice that might be in your brain which is like, "Oh my god, I need sugar right
01:11:24
now. What's in the kitchen? I'm going to open the cupboards. Whatever there is.
01:11:27
Oh, this weird old cookie. I need to have it right now. I need sugar otherwise I'm not going to feel good."
01:11:32
Those are two very different voices. That second voice is a voice of control and of almost being like a victim to
01:11:37
sugar addiction. I want to help people go from the sugar addiction voice to the enjoyment voice because I think it's
01:11:43
fine to have cravings of or to want to eat something delicious. I just want to make sure people are not controlled by
01:11:50
that voice. Do you see what I mean? I want it to be something you enjoy, not something you are victim to. So, how do
01:11:56
we separate these two things out? >> We need to balance our glucose levels so
01:12:00
that that voice comes from a place of happiness and not a place of a glucose crash that is making you feel controlled
01:12:06
by a biological impulse that is stronger than you. So, protein in the morning, a
01:12:10
savory breakfast, super super important. Then, a veggie starter before your lunch
01:12:14
and your dinner when you can. avoiding sugar on an empty stomach to not kick off a roller coaster of blood sugar ups
01:12:21
and downs that's going to make you crave more and more of this of this sweet
01:12:25
stuff. But the voice that you just mentioned, which is like, "Oh, that looks really good. I'm going to do some
01:12:29
calf raises afterwards." I think that's fine. To me, that doesn't sound like
01:12:32
you're being controlled by it. It sounds like you kind of want to eat delicious
01:12:35
stuff, >> but I regret it 10 minutes after. And I go, "Why?" Because I think,
01:12:40
>> you know, especially if it's at like 10 p.m. >> Yeah. Because then it messes up your
01:12:45
sleep. It messes up my next day. >> Yeah. >> I know. Why the hell did I do that? I
01:12:49
knew I shouldn't eat it. Yeah. >> But the craving was too strong. >> And listen, sometimes that's the
01:12:53
situation we're in. I do that too sometimes. Like sometimes it is 11:00 p.m. I'm exhausted. I know my son's
01:12:57
probably going to wake up at 4:00 a.m., >> but I want that cookie. And I just I
01:13:01
just have it. Maybe I have some vinegar or some antispect before, but it's okay
01:13:05
to give into these things. I don't think we have to feel guilty about them. Like,
01:13:08
that's just life. Sometimes we can't do the glucose hacks and sometimes we're
01:13:11
tired and the cookie looks good, so eat the cookie. But it annoys me because I then feel the next day and I go,
01:13:16
"Well, you know, >> was it worth it?" Absolutely not. Objectively, absolutely not.
01:13:20
>> Yeah. So, maybe if you had had that cookie after some almonds or if after
01:13:25
the cookie you could do some laundry or move around a little bit to reduce the spike, maybe you could help with your
01:13:30
deep sleep during that night, >> but sometimes you can't. >> I think as well the subject of sleep and
01:13:35
glucose is one we we don't talk about enough because some people really struggle with their sleep. Yeah.
01:13:44
>> I'm flying, I'm waking up early at 4 a.m., fly, fly, go to, wherever,
01:13:49
>> my ability to control >> cravings is significantly reduced. And weirdly, I noticed that when I wake up
01:13:57
at say I I had, I don't know, I had dinner at 9:00 p.m. the night before, if
01:14:01
I'm woken up at like 3:00 or 4:00 a.m., I wake up really hungry. >> Interesting. Have you worn a glucose
01:14:09
monitor to see if you're not crashing in the middle of the night? >> No. But I've I've always been so curious
01:14:13
as to why that is. Because I know that if id slept for 4 hours more, I would have been like today where the first
01:14:18
thing I've eaten today and it's what 2 p.m. is that sardine >> because I just wasn't hungry this
01:14:23
morning. >> But if I'd woken up early, I mean, I've looked a little bit into
01:14:28
>> I have a question. Do you think it's the time you wake up that is causing you to
01:14:32
be more or less hungry? Or it's the dinner you had the night before that is causing a crash that is causing you to
01:14:36
wake up? >> Like what's the chicken, what's the egg? Because it sounds to me like maybe at
01:14:41
3:00 a.m. if you're having a glucose crash because you had a big carb heavy dinner. Then it's your body waking you
01:14:46
up and making you feel very hungry. For me, it's kind of similar like in the
01:14:50
morning if I feel extremely hungry, it's usually because I went to bed and I had
01:14:54
just had a bunch of carbs before bed. Well, thanks to the ability to do very quick research, I now know the answer,
01:15:00
or at least a solid hypothesis, and the leading answer as to why when you're
01:15:04
sleep deprived, you end up eating worse is because of the hormone imbalance of leptin and grein.
01:15:09
>> Sleep deprivation directly alters the hunger hormones produced in your gut and
01:15:12
fat cells. >> If grein increases, known as hung, ghrein signals the brain that it's time
01:15:17
to eat. Studies from Stanford University showing for only 5 hours increases grein
01:15:21
by approximately 15%. Leptin decreases. Um the satiety hormone tells your brain you are full. The same sleep loss
01:15:29
decreases leptin by approximately 15%. And therefore the result is that your brain receives a loud I am starving
01:15:35
signal and a very weak I'm full signal simultaneously. >> And leptin is the hormone we talked
01:15:40
about at the beginning which when you're breastfed as a baby, you're epigenetically making more leptin. And
01:15:46
this setting can stay with you for life. So, it's possible that also there's some
01:15:49
stuff going on in early life that makes you more or less hungry. >> To speak to my mom,
01:15:57
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For the first 10 years that I was a founder, I didn't prioritize getting a good night's sleep at all. But over
01:17:01
time, I started to realize that it was the key metric that influenced everything in my life. My mood, my
01:17:05
focus, my ability to show up and to think clearly and to lead well. So now with my lifestyle being pretty crazy,
01:17:10
traveling across time zones, working late, training late, I still fight to protect my sleep, which sometimes means
01:17:14
starting the day a little bit later. It was my Whoop that helped me to make this
01:17:18
connection. They are one of my sponsors for the show, and for the last four years, every day, my Whoop has given me
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01:17:53
1 month free. join.woop.com/co. Make sure you keep what I'm about to say to yourself. I'm inviting 10,000 of you
01:18:01
to come even deeper into the diary of a CEO. Welcome to my inner circle. This is
01:18:06
a brand new private community that I'm launching to the world. We have so many
01:18:10
incredible things that happen that you are never shown. We have the briefs that are on my iPad when I'm recording the
01:18:16
conversation. We have clips we've never released. We have behindthe-scenes conversations with the guests and also
01:18:21
the episodes that we've never ever released. and so much more. In the circle, you'll have direct access to me.
01:18:28
You can tell us what you want this show to be, who you want us to interview, and
01:18:31
the types of conversations you would love us to have. But remember, for now, we're only inviting the first 10,000
01:18:38
people that join before it closes. So, if you want to join our private closed community, head to the link in the
01:18:42
description below or go to daccircle.com. I will speak to you then. What is the the most important thing we
01:18:57
haven't talked about as it relates to nine months that count forever, your new
01:19:00
book, that we should have talked about? >> I think protein. >> Protein.
01:19:04
>> Yeah. By the time your baby's born, he is about 50% protein if you exclude
01:19:10
water. So protein is not just for your muscles. Protein forms your immune system, your skin, your organs, many
01:19:17
many tissues, many many signaling molecules in your body. So when you're pregnant, you need to eat more protein
01:19:22
to give more protein to your baby. And animal studies show something fascinating, Stephen. They show that
01:19:27
when a mom is slightly protein restricted, meaning she's eating a bit less protein than she needs to, there's
01:19:35
a little epigenetic switch happening in the baby that says, "Dear baby, keep
01:19:40
your muscles small because there's not a lot of protein in the world you're about
01:19:43
to be born into." So what we're eating during pregnancy is in essence sending a
01:19:49
little postcard to our baby in our uterus telling him what kind of nutrients will be available in the world
01:19:55
that he's about to be born into. And so these animal studies suggest that if you
01:20:00
have a low protein diet, your baby will be programmed to stay smaller and have smaller muscle mass throughout his life.
01:20:07
And the thing is, Stephen, you need a lot of protein when you're pregnant because your baby is very protein
01:20:12
hungry. So here I have four chicken breasts, which is basically the amount of protein that I needed to eat every
01:20:18
single day. >> Day >> in the third trimester of pregnancy. >> Yeah. Day.
01:20:22
>> Yeah. Per day. >> Per day. It's a lot. >> So I would have four eggs in the
01:20:27
morning. That's about 30 grams of protein. And then I would have to have three good servings of protein
01:20:33
represented by the three chicken breasts here. So I would have fish at lunch, probably a meat or a chicken at dinner,
01:20:40
and then a high protein snack. For example, Greek yogurt. I would add some whey protein powder in there to make
01:20:45
sure I was having enough protein. So, you need about 1.6 gram of protein per kilo of body weight per day in the third
01:20:52
trimester of pregnancy. And this is where most of us fall short because nobody's telling moms they need to eat
01:20:57
more protein. So, the result is that moms lose their muscle mass because the muscles are being broken down to give
01:21:03
protein to the baby. But there's a limit to it. like you can't your muscle mass
01:21:08
cannot compensate for a low protein diet. And this is why we see across all women, all studies, low protein diets
01:21:17
lead to smaller babies and potentially this epigenetic programming of staying smaller throughout life. So protein is
01:21:24
key. >> On that subject of muscle loss, have you thought much about the impact of GLP1s,
01:21:30
these sort of fat loss drugs during pregnancy? >> Oh wow. I don't think they're
01:21:35
recommended during pregnancy. I hope not because they prevent you from feeling your hunger hormones. They prevent you
01:21:41
from feeling hungry. So, pregnancy would be a very dangerous time to take these because during pregnancy, you need to
01:21:48
eat a little bit more in terms of quantity and calories, but also you need to eat differently. So, you need to
01:21:53
learn about the protein, the choline, the omega-3s, and I think it'll be quite
01:21:57
dangerous to take a GLP1 during pregnancy. Do you do you know that the vinegar thing you talked about to me before
01:22:03
where you said you have vinegar before eating something that's high in glucose?
01:22:07
>> Yeah. >> Do you recommend that for mothers as well? >> You can, but if you're going to do that,
01:22:12
you need to make sure the vinegar is pasteurized because you want to make sure that during pregnancy people are
01:22:16
like only eat pasteurized foods because you want to prevent any food contamination. So make sure you look on
01:22:22
the back of the vinegar bottle and make sure it's pasteurized. Apple cider vinegar is usually not pasteurized. So,
01:22:28
do I recommend it? I think it's okay to do. Like, vinegar is fine during pregnancy, especially if
01:22:35
you really want like a cookie or a muffin. It could be helpful to reduce the glucose spike. But truly, pregnancy
01:22:40
is kind of the moment where you need to be eating as little sugar as possible because it's impacting your baby's
01:22:46
development. So, ideally, you don't have to use the vinegar hack. You know, I've often seen people talk
01:22:53
about like an obesity gene and stuff and ask if obesity is genetic. >> I guess one of the things I've kind of
01:23:00
deduced from today is that the genetic component might be that during pregnancy our mother um had a certain lifestyle or
01:23:08
diet and that increased our predisposition to having a different reaction to certain foods
01:23:17
>> completely and the studies show that. So in animal studies, when a mom has a lot
01:23:21
of sugar during pregnancy, there's little epigenetic switches in the baby's
01:23:24
DNA that encourage fat storage. >> Oh, okay. >> So why is that? Because if you eat
01:23:29
sugar, your baby's getting sugar in his bloodstream. And how does the baby protect himself from high sugar levels?
01:23:36
By turning the sugar into fat. So by eating a high sugar diet, you're sending
01:23:41
a little postcard to your baby being like, "Hey baby, you're going to be born
01:23:43
into a world with a lot of sugar. So become really good at turning that sugar into fat to protect yourself. And this
01:23:49
is why we see across studies on tens of thousands of moms that the higher a mom's glucose levels during pregnancy,
01:23:57
the more fat mass a baby is born with. >> Higher glucose during pregnancy, baby
01:24:03
had to turn that glucose into fat to protect himself. So he's born with more
01:24:07
fat mass. And it doesn't just stop after birth. Studies show that this continues.
01:24:11
Babies born to high glucose mothers are more likely to have obesity as children,
01:24:16
as teenagers, and as adults. So, the cycle continues. The programming of storing a lot of fat continues even
01:24:23
though they're no longer connected to their mom's bloodstream. >> In the process of producing this book,
01:24:29
did did you think much about the evolutionary sort of backstory of where we came from and how our ancestors used
01:24:34
to eat? Did you >> consider, I don't know, the orangutang where we share most of our DNA? I think
01:24:39
it's like 98% of our DNA >> because if you look at sort of what we used to eat, meaning nutrient-rich organ
01:24:45
meats and not just like a chicken breast, which is just muscle, which is actually very poor nutrients. If you
01:24:51
think about how we didn't used to eat processed foods, we had a diet that was
01:24:55
much more conducive to baby having more of what he needed in the womb. Today, our food system is failing us. We're all
01:25:02
deprived of proper nutrition with what we're eating with all these ultrarocessed foods, and that includes
01:25:07
pregnant moms. So, I tried to write a book that was going to help people navigate this very toxic food landscape
01:25:14
to see these four simple things they could do to try to optimize a little bit what the baby was getting. But it's a
01:25:20
lot to think about. And also being pregnant comes with, I think, innate pressure. Like I felt pressure during
01:25:26
pregnancy. I'm like, man, I'm making another human. Like, this is a lot. And
01:25:30
then you're bombarded by messages online and Instagram what to do, what not to
01:25:33
do. And it feels like whatever you do, you feel guilty. >> Mhm. So, I'm hoping this book gives
01:25:38
clear science, scientific evidence to help people navigate that pressure. But listen, I just want babies to be
01:25:43
healthy. Like, I want my baby to be healthy. I want everybody's baby to be healthy. I want moms to feel as little
01:25:49
stress as possible. And that's just the truth. So, I'm hoping that this book
01:25:53
brings a little bit of reassurance and light in this complicated world we live in.
01:26:01
Stress is something we haven't talked about, but I guess that also is an important factor in this the story of
01:26:06
raising a healthy child. >> I was extremely stressed my entire pregnancy because of my miscarriage.
01:26:13
Like I probably the nine months of my pregnancy with my son were the nine most anxious months of my life. And that's
01:26:19
probably not very good for my baby. But hey, you do what you can, you know? I I tried everything to reduce my stress
01:26:25
levels. I just couldn't. I was so nervous about losing the pregnancy. >> You tried everything?
01:26:29
>> Yeah, I mean everything. I didn't take anxiety medication, but I was, you know,
01:26:32
doing yoga and breath work and working out and talking to my therapist and blah blah blah, but I was still anxious
01:26:38
because I really didn't want to lose the pregnancy and I was scared I would.
01:26:44
Why are you smiling? >> But you didn't. No, I didn't. >> Yeah. And you have a happy, healthy
01:26:49
>> Yeah. >> little baby. >> Yeah. >> You want to have more babies?
01:26:54
>> I would love to, but man, now it's like logistics. It's like, okay, so I'm doing
01:26:59
this project and that project and this work thing. So, where can I find nine months plus 6 months where I can't
01:27:04
really work >> in in this crazy schedule that I create for myself. By the way, I'm I'm I just
01:27:11
love my work. So, I'm always planning new things. >> When you look at products in the
01:27:14
supermarket, >> I think we all have a different thing we go straight to on the label. Yeah.
01:27:19
>> You know, sometimes people go to calories, sometimes they look at protein, sometimes they're looking at is
01:27:22
it gluten-free, sometimes they look at the carbohydrates or the sugars. What do you look for?
01:27:27
>> Ingredients. I go straight to the ingredients list. Yeah, because in the
01:27:31
ingredients list, things are ordered by weight. So, the first ingredient is going to be what there is the most of in
01:27:38
that food. >> Oh, I had no idea. >> Yeah. So, they're ordered by weight. So,
01:27:42
if there is sugar or any other type of sweet thing in the first five ingredients, like dates, like fruit
01:27:50
juice, like molluses, like uh orange syrup, whatever. I know that's a dessert. And so I put it in my mind,
01:27:59
okay, this is a food for enjoyment for dessert. So if you look at the sardines ingredients, sardine, olive oil, salt,
01:28:05
natural flavor. So I would try to look for one that doesn't have natural flavor
01:28:09
cuz I don't know what that means. I don't think it's necessary. But as you
01:28:12
can see, there's no sugar in here. So this is not dessert. This sardine can is
01:28:15
not dessert. >> Good. >> Isn't that helpful? >> Cuz I often just look at the back of
01:28:20
labels and I just go straight for the carbs and sugar level. >> Really? >> Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why I always
01:28:25
look at the the sugar level. I think it's cuz I've done keto for a little
01:28:27
while. So, >> kind of depends though because if you're looking at like carbon sugars for a pack
01:28:31
of um table sugar versus I don't know like a >> protein shake. >> Yeah, a protein shake.
01:28:39
>> I mean, it's it's a helpful place to look. That's also where I look because
01:28:42
carbs carbs and sugars will tell you a lot about what the food is going to do to you. But also, it depends on the
01:28:47
ratio, right? If there's a lot of protein also, then having carbs in there is not going to create that big of a
01:28:52
glucose spike. If it's a product that has just carbs, then yes, >> a lot of people look at the calories.
01:28:56
>> Yeah. But calories are a very bad way of assessing a food because two foods can
01:29:03
have the exact same number of calories and be completely different in terms of what they do to your body. So an avocado
01:29:08
and a donut, both 200 calories, vastly different impact. It's like saying two
01:29:14
books are the same because they have the same number of pages. >> Calories and pages tell you nothing
01:29:20
about what's inside the food or inside the book. We have to learn about molecules. Which is why your reflex of
01:29:25
going to carbs and sugars is much smarter because you're seeing what's actually going to happen when you eat
01:29:30
the food. For example, avocado and donut. The avocado mostly fat fiber going to keep your glucose levels nice
01:29:37
and steady. Going to give your food healthy fat, your body healthy fats. Donut mostly sugars is going to create a
01:29:44
big glucose spike. Inflammation, aging, crash, cravings, fatigue, it's going to
01:29:49
have a vastly different impact on your body. So only looking at your diet through the lens of calories is a very
01:29:55
bad idea because two diets can have the exact same number of calories and you can have a completely different
01:30:02
experience of life depending on what you're actually eating. >> And what's your um diet generally? Like
01:30:08
what time do you eat in the morning? Do you do fasting or anything like that? >> So no, I don't do fasting. So I'll have
01:30:14
breakfast in the morning always eggs. Right now my my current kick is a bacon and egg quadilla. super good. Um, with
01:30:21
coffee always with whole milk that I love. Then for lunch, I'll have a veggie
01:30:26
starter if I'm having some carb heavy lunch or I'll have like a collared green
01:30:32
chicken wrap with avocado and peppers. >> Mhm. >> After lunch, I always usually have
01:30:37
something sweet because I love sugar. I love sugar. So, I'll have like some chocolate or a nice cookie that I had
01:30:42
and then I'll try to move my body if I can. This is the main thing that can get
01:30:45
a bit difficult. And then the evening is when I have most carbs. I love having rice or pasta at night. It just makes me
01:30:52
feel cozy. >> What time? >> As early as I can. I'm very unfrench in
01:30:56
that way. If I could have dinner at 5:00 p.m., I would. Um, but I would have no more social life. So, maybe after my
01:31:03
baby's in bed, so like 7:30, 8. >> And are you having vinegar before that
01:31:07
meal? >> Um, it depends. If I don't have a veggie starter, yeah, if I have a veggie
01:31:11
starter, I'll put some vinegar on the veggie starter. >> What else are you working on? What's
01:31:15
next for you, Jesse? One is mental health because I have a deep passion for mental health. It's the reason I got
01:31:21
into glucose in the first place. So, I want to see if I can start putting together some mental health packs based
01:31:29
on studies. This is something that's been in the back of my mind for a long time and I'm trying to find the time to
01:31:33
go there. And I'm working on new types of content. I'm I'm just endlessly
01:31:39
inspired by what I'm able to to do and how lucky I am to like dream up something and be able to to put it
01:31:45
together. So, lots of surprises coming. >> As you know, we have a closing treat on
01:31:51
this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next. >> I do know.
01:31:54
>> And the question left for you is, if you could make the world a better place in
01:31:59
one way, what would you change? How could you make the most impact? >> I would maybe outlaw food marketing or
01:32:07
maybe outlaw sugary breakfast foods. Something about making very bad foods that are that look
01:32:16
healthy, making those illegal. It would be illegal to put any health claims on a
01:32:22
product. For example, no added sugars or vegan or gluten-free. I would outlaw all
01:32:26
of those to help people navigate a bit better. Or if I could have like one magic wand to do one thing, maybe I
01:32:31
would say no more fruit juice in schools. Even that would be really cool. >> Nine months that count forever. How your
01:32:38
pregnancy diet shapes your baby's future. What is the um what is the closing message, Jesse, for for pregnant
01:32:44
couples and um anybody who was who was once conceived of themselves? >> The closing message is pregnancy is
01:32:54
complicated. The food system we live in is complicated and toxic. And this is a very simple four-step trimester by
01:33:01
trimester plan that doesn't require a lot of money that is going to help you
01:33:05
give your baby the best foundation during development. Do you think there's things from a
01:33:10
legislation perspective that can be done? You know, >> yeah, the most important is for the
01:33:13
system, the support system around the moms to help make it really easy for them to eat eggs and sardines and
01:33:22
vegetables and healthy fats. We have to all support moms because they're creating the next generation and they
01:33:28
they can't change the food industry. Things have to shift around them to make
01:33:31
it easier. I think it's also about education. For example, choline, you know, I said 90% of moms are not getting
01:33:36
enough. And when people run surveys to see whether doctors are talking to moms about choline, only six% of doctors are
01:33:45
talking to moms about choline during pregnancy. So there's also just a big information gap somewhere. Things are
01:33:51
broken in lots of different areas. And maybe it's like, oh, moms can't handle
01:33:55
it. Or maybe it's just that doctors are focused on very short-term like emergency things to manage. Maybe they
01:34:01
don't have time to talk about nutrition. I don't know. But there's a real gap.
01:34:04
And I'm hoping this book will fill it. I'm hoping like this is pie in the sky.
01:34:10
Like why don't we prescribe nine months that count forever to every parent that
01:34:15
gets pregnant. >> This will be a very good nutrition guide for them and very simple.
01:34:20
>> I have many people in my life that are currently pregnant, people that are
01:34:23
very, very close to me. And um it's funny because you hear the conversations
01:34:26
they're having and it does kind of sometimes feel like horoscopes and guessing.
01:34:31
No offense to people that love horoscopes, but it does feel a little bit sort of pie in the sky. Yeah, I
01:34:38
know. like this is You don't know your sign. I'm Virgo, I think. >> Okay,
01:34:41
>> people. I knew he was a Virgo. I'm not really on Sagittarius, but it is it's it's it's confusing
01:34:48
because there's so much information out there. So, it's wonderful to have a
01:34:51
manual like this that demystifies an area where there's just so much information coming at you and there's so
01:34:57
much conflicting information. And your book is so importantly based on scientific consensus and and facts and
01:35:04
studies versus just experience alone. And I think that's why it's so important. And whenever the time comes
01:35:11
that me and my fiance are fortunate enough hopefully to have our own baby, um we're both going to reread this book
01:35:20
because it's hard to find books on this subject that are so succinct that break
01:35:23
it down stage by stage. And uh you as an author, you have a wonderful way of making things accessible. Even in this
01:35:30
conversation, you you I don't need to ask you to define complicated words and
01:35:33
that's reflected in all the work that you do in everything that you write. So,
01:35:36
highly recommend. Great book to buy for someone as a gift if you just found out that someone in your life is pregnant,
01:35:41
but also a great book to buy for you and your partner if you're going through
01:35:44
your own pregnancy journey or thinking about getting pregnant soon. >> It's also a good book to buy for your
01:35:48
kids for all the grandparents to be out there. It's a good book to buy for your
01:35:53
kids if they're going to have a baby soon. >> Amen, Jesse. Thank you. >> Thank you so much for having me back,
01:35:58
Stephen. It's always a pleasure. >> YouTube have this new crazy algorithm
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where they know exactly what video you would like to watch next based on AI and all of your viewing behavior. And the
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algorithm says that this video is the perfect video for you. It's different for everybody looking right now. Check
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this video out and I bet you you might love