Giles Yeo: The #1 Reason You’re NOT Losing Weight (Follow THIS Diet and Start Losing Weight TODAY!) | On Purpose with Jay Shetty

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Why is it so difficult to lose weight?

Because your brain hates it when you lose weight.

You're fighting biology.

Dr. John Zale, welcome.

Thank you so much. So if calories are such a myth, how come so many people have used it as a strategy for weight loss?

People get so obsessed with just the number, that when they're cutting calories they're considering the quality of the food that they're eating.

The major issue is not the quantity, it is the quality.

So what truly is healthier?

How do we know what healthy actually is?

Calories are not all equal.

For every 100 calories of protein you eat, we are only ever able to use 70 calories.

Protein counts are 30 % wrong everywhere.

So if you could encourage people to change part of their diet, what should they be focused on?

Those are the three numbers I would use.

Deploy it to your culture, your type of diet.

If you actually focus on those three numbers, your diet will automatically become healthier.

So we have to go do some shopping, which my wife will be very mad at me for.

I've brought things into this house that she would never allow me to have. You see here, berets.

These are called incidental virtuous foods.

Automatically made everyone lower their calorie estimates by 10%.

If you're predisposed, because of your genetics, to being overweight, are you stuck?

The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty.

Jay Shetty. The one, the only, Jay Shetty.

Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier, and more healed.

I'm so grateful that you tuned back in.

Make sure you subscribe if you haven't already.

And today's guest I know is going to be someone who's going to answer a lot of your questions.

We've been reading the comments.

I've been reading all of the things that you've been asking about, posting about when you're sharing the podcast. And this episode is dedicated to you.

Today's guest is Giles Yeo, a geneticist, author, and professor at the University of Cambridge, where he studies how our genes influence hunger and body weight.

He's the author of Gene Eating and Why Calories Don't Count.

This is the book that we're discussing today.

If you're listening and you're loving the information, go and grab your copy.

And he's one of the leading voices in challenging diet myths through science.

We all know there's a ton of diet myths out there right now.

Today, we're going to bust them.

And Giles also hosts the podcast, Choose the Fat.

Go and subscribe if you haven't already.

Please welcome to On Purpose, Giles Yeo.

Giles, it's great to have you here.

Jay, thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, I'm so grateful for the work you're doing and excited to be educated and illuminated, surprised today with everything you have to share.

But the first thing I want to ask you that I want to dive in with you is, do calories actually matter?

The book obviously says why calories don't count.

And every time I say that, people think I'm anti -physics, but particularly the gym bros, like the guys who are all counting calories, they think I'm anti -physics.

I'm not anti -physics.

I know that 200 calories of chips is twice the portion of 100 calories of chips.

I do understand that.

But so is 200 grams of chips, twice the portion of 100 grams of chips.

And no one is trying to compare 200 grams of chips to 200 grams of carrots.

I think ultimately that is it.

So we eat food. Our body then extracts the calories.

And depending on what we eat, your body has to work more or less hard to extract the calories.

So when does our body have to work more hard and when does it have to work less hard?

Primarily if food has more protein in it and if food has more fiber in it, fiber only comes from plants, obviously, then your body has to work harder in order to get, you know, to get out the The carbs get out the fat and get everything out of there.

It's if there's less protein and less fiber, then your body finds it far easier to actually extract those calories, put simplistically.

But that's not always good for us.

No, that's not always good for us.

So I think it depends why you need the calories, how healthy or unhealthy you are as you are actually eating to get the calories.

It probably was good for us 50 ,000 years ago.

You can imagine if you've taken down the antelope, okay and you're sitting there and eating raw meat okay you've taken really a lot of energy to take the antelope and you're eating the raw meat and so you're getting a certain amount of calories from it until someone suddenly invented fire okay and so when you then put the raw meat into the fire you suddenly have a kebab okay and you eat it the cooking makes it easier for your body to extract the calories so in that sense for x number of energy you've taken to chase down the antelope you're now getting more energy, more calories.

So in that sense, it kept us alive.

In fact, people think that at around the time when we had fire and then suddenly were able to cook food, that is when our brain began to grow more, okay?

Because we then had time not to always think about food, but we could then get more energy from the food that we were currently eating.

So at that point, excellent.

Today, less good. So if calories is such a myth, how come so many of the gym bros or the people have used it as a strategy for weight loss for so long?

You know, calorie counting has been around for a long time.

It has been around since the early 1900s.

There was a doctor called Lou Hunt -Peters, based here, Los Angeles, okay?

Los Angeles -based clinician in 19 -whatever time, right after World War II, larger lady, and she began to realize that actually she needed to lose weight, okay?

And I realized obesity wasn't a problem at a time.

But she began to say that, you know what, you can't imagine yourself lighter.

You have to really begin to think about how much you're eating.

And so calories were a new science at the time.

And what she did was she decided that, and I read the book, it's a good book.

If you look up Lulu Han Peters, and what she would say is, don't think about eating a slice of pie.

Don't think about eating bacon.

Think about eating a hundred calories of pie.

Think about eating a 100 calories of bacon.

And she published this book, New York Times bestseller for five years running.

Okay, in 1917 or something like that, she was the first calorie counter.

The thing about calories is sure, okay, if you are cutting calories in a balanced way, so say your diet is actually fine, but you're eating too much of the diet, hence you have obesity.

Well then if you didn't take a sort of a balanced way of reducing your calories, it does work.

The problem we have today is people get so obsessed with just the number, that calorie 400, 500, 600, that when they're cutting calories, they are no longer cutting it either evenly, but they're also not even considering the quality of the food that they're eating.

Just thinking, okay, if I only have to have 400 calories, I'm going to have it as a shake.

I'm going to have it as a this, as a that, rather than thinking more in terms of nutritional quality of the food.

That is my major issue with calories.

Right. So it's almost like The age -old quantity versus quality issue.

Absolutely. Quantity does matter to a degree, clearly.

Of course. But I think today the major issue to my mind is not the quantity.

It is the quality. I think our diets, on average, have not improved.

In fact, they've gotten worse as a quality of diet.

We get far more calories now.

Calories have never been cheaper.

In the UK, which is where I'm based, you can get a thousand calories of chips.

French fries, okay.

For less than a pound, okay, which is what?

A dollar, a buck 30 or something like that.

Excuse me, really? So it is very cheap, but are they good for you?

Okay, do those calories really, really matter?

Are you getting all the micronutrients?

Are you getting everything that you actually need?

Think about the quality of the food.

The quantity matters, but it's a secondary concern to me.

What is different between 500 calories of French fries, because that's probably what it is, right?

if it's fried as well and the oil and everything that you add to it versus what would you compare that to in our head?

What are the mistakes people are making when they're just calorie counting?

When they're only looking at quantity, what are they comparing to be equal almost that isn't really equal from a micronutrient level?

Let me give you a more extreme example first. Okay.

The same food, corn on a cob, sweet corn.

Now, if you had a hundred calories of corn on a and then you you looked in the blue the next day it's quite clear you haven't absorbed anywhere close to 100 calories of sweet corn but when you take sweet corn exactly the same corn you desiccate it you know you you sort of you turn it into a muscle you make a corn tortilla you make corn bread suddenly a far greater percentage of the calories are made available to you but you always started with 100 calories of sweet corn okay so that so that is the two thing where processing gets you more calories think about a steak okay where you have a steak

just a normal steak 400 calories of a steak say you cook medium rare so it took five minutes eight minutes to cook imagine that same steak murdered okay so you then mince it up you put it into a ragout bolognese sauce which you have to cook for two hours then you layer that into a lasagna you cook it again for another three hours suddenly the same 400 calories has been cooked for three hours before you eat it you're gonna get more calories out of that not more than 400 calories You just have to work very hard to get the 400 calories compared to getting something which has been cooked for three

to four hours. So it's not, when you take the same food and think about how you prepare the food, then the different calorie counts then begin to matter.

The moment you then cross -compare food, if you're trying to compare chips to a steak, then it's very, very difficult to do.

Because now you're talking about this iron in steak, you know, there's obviously a lot of protein in steak.

There was some fat in steak as well.

All these things that have happened.

Whereas if you're now looking at French fries, it's a lot of fat.

Obviously, there's a lot of carbohydrates.

There's nothing wrong with carbohydrates.

We need carbohydrates.

But comparing 400 to 500 calories of each of them, very, very, very different.

And you're saying that most of us look at them as the same.

Because we're looking at quantity, we're ultimately saying 500 calories of this and 500 calories of this.

Now you got to go, certainly it's true in the UK as well.

I think it's true here in the US.

you go to any of the big food manufacturers, not manufacturers, the restaurants, okay, big chain restaurants, and you open it up and you see the calorie counts.

Now, when you see the calorie counts by the meal, you're going, no, this is a thousand calories.

I don't eat that. Oh, wait a minute.

I'm going to go with this one.

It's got 800 calories, it's 200 calories.

And most people just look at that and don't even really consider, well, is it 800 calories of a salad versus this?

How much dressing in a salad?

No one is thinking about these things When they're just comparing the 800 versus the 1 ,000 and thinking, I'm going for 800 because that is healthier because it's a smaller number.

And a lot of us do this.

That's the danger of obsessing over one individual number.

So what truly is healthier?

How do we know what healthy actually is?

That is a very difficult question because it depends.

Now, clearly, if you are a child, clearly, if you are an Olympic athlete and exercising, or if you are an old person in a hospital in bed, you know, and you're trying very, very difficult to absorb calories.

Then from that specific scenario, you need a lot of energy that you can metabolize easily.

easily, okay? Now, if you're Joe Schmoe, like me, sat on the couch, okay?

Or if you're doing, or you're an office worker, well, then your needs, what is considered healthy, then becomes very, very different to someone else.

So what is healthy really does depend not only on who you are in terms of your age, your ethnicity, you know, your sex, right?

But it also does matter what you're doing at the time.

So it does depend. When did obesity start to become a real problem and Why?

It's obviously a spectrum.

I don't think suddenly one day we woke up and said, ah, it's obesity.

I think people began collecting numbers, the United States in particular, in around 1984.

So if you go back and look, prior to 1984, there was not a great deal of data.

Obviously, some people were still collecting data.

There had always been people who had obesity.

This is not a unique thing, but very few.

Around 1984, and coincidentally, that's also when Domino's Pizza made it to the UK.

okay, we'll leave that alone.

Okay, from that, but 1984 appears to be the ground zero for when people began to collect data.

And so I think that most people accept that the mid 80s was when we began to see a problem.

And it's only gotten worse and worse since the mid 80s.

When was the rise of fast food?

When did that really begin?

Do you know? I'm intrigued now.

So I think the first true, well, it depends what you mean by fast food, right?

I mean, I mean, like when we just started to be able to go buy a burger or buy a pizza in the same way as you said.

So the first of the big fast food manufacturers was obviously, well, one of the first was McDonald's.

McDonald's, yeah. And I think there's a movie about that.

Oh, it's a great movie.

You know, how it's fine, how they work it out.

But he didn't set out to make unhealthy food.

He was setting out to make a consistent product that people could afford and enjoy to eat.

Okay, and at the time, obesity wasn't a problem.

So trying to increase access to foods that at the time were only available to people with more money, you know, was a positive thing.

As we begin to value convenience more, and also oddly enough, begin to value portion sizes more.

I like a big steak like anybody else.

But now portion size has also overwhelming become, you know, part of the goodness of a meal.

So it's very, very difficult to say.

But I think it went drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.

And then suddenly we're in a situation we are now.

Then boosted, I want to point out, completely boosted by the deliverers and Uber Eats of the world.

Where suddenly, where at least, okay, in fact, let's back away.

First of all, you could drive through.

Okay, so that was probably the first of the true conveniences.

Oh, I can drive through.

Okay, you don't even get out of the car.

Then I think, then we obviously had the situation.

Then they supersized me.

Actually, it was a marketing ploy where you can add that in.

Then, you have Deliveroo Uber Eats, where now you don't have to get off your couch. I can go beep, beep, beep, beep, and someone will actually deliver the food to my door.

It has been amplified.

So, each step has amplified it more.

Until today, we're sat here.

If we wanted to eat whatever, I mean, 20 minutes, suddenly we'll have a whole fast food feast in front of us.

So I think it wasn't one single thing, but each of these, each of these things suddenly increased our ability and ease of getting, of getting these foods.

The foods also became cheaper.

Yeah. That's the problem today.

Yeah. And so since we've started measuring, we are putting on more weight.

We are. Yeah. We are, we are as a whole, on the whole, we're just pretty, humans are just putting on more weight.

We are putting on more weight and not - In an unhealthy way.

And exactly. And not the good weight.

You know, we're not putting on muscle.

Interestingly, actually, if you go back to the time when we were working more physical jobs, none of us really works physical, you know what I mean?

We sat on our backsides and doing things.

We have dishwashers and stuff like that.

Actually, if you go around to the turn of the 18th to the 19th century, Victorian times, people were probably eating more calories then.

Actually, physically more calories, but people were doing coal mining.

They were working in, you know, in the steel mills and et cetera, et cetera.

So they would probably be on average, certainly in Victorian era in the UK, people were doing 3000 average calories a day, but that's because they were coal miners.

That's because they were washing clothes.

That's because they were doing everything else.

So we, on average, are probably eating fewer calories, but where they come from have really, really changed, right?

The type of food we're eating.

See, calories are not all equal.

Yeah. And you say the body digests, obviously, carbs, fats, and proteins absolutely differently.

Correct. Why is that important and tell us the difference?

Okay, there are three things.

So these are obviously fats, the macronutrients, okay?

So fat, carbs, and protein are primarily made.

In fact, fats and carbs are only made of three atoms. Okay, so carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, but in different configurations, okay?

Protein, however, has carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, but it's also full of nitrogen, about 16 % of protein is nitrogen.

So whenever our body is dealing with the stuff, it is far easier for your body to digest and then metabolize, which is two different steps, right?

So digestion means the food is converted, the fat is converted to fatty acids, protein is converted to amino acids, and carbs are converted to sugars, unless you're eating sugars.

And then it passes across the gut wall.

That is digestion. That's when that happens.

Metabolism is when those individual amino acids, fatty acids, sugars are transported to the cell and your cell then converts it to energy.

That's metabolism. metabolism.

So each of those two stages takes time, takes energy, and your body has to invest energy into it.

So protein is the most complicated.

So for every 100 calories of protein you eat, pure protein calories, we are only ever able to use 70 calories, seven zero.

So protein counts are 30 % wrong everywhere because we give it off as heat, as part of the energy we put in to sorting out protein.

Fat is nearly a hundred percent available, so to speak, because it's very, very dense.

Carbs, this is where the fiber comes in.

So if you have refined carbohydrates, no, if you have sugar, if you have sugar, that's 98, 99 % available.

Okay, so let's not ignore sugar, but sugar is a very simple carbohydrate.

But if we have something starchy, now, if you had white bread, so polished, where the fiber has been stripped out, then it probably takes five calories for every hundred, so 5 % to deal with carbohydrates without fiber.

Whereas if you put in fiber, if you have whole meal, if what have you, then it takes 10 % of energy to deal with it.

Your body's just dealing with it.

So calorie counts are probably 5 % to 10 % wrong everywhere because of the amount of energy it takes to metabolize these macronutrients.

Yeah. I think you said that, you write that that we absorb fewer calories from almonds than the packaging actually says.

Yes. Far, far, far, far, far fewer.

Explain that. So because almonds are, you know, they're a whole food, you've got to bite through them, there's obviously fiber in them, there's all kinds of things.

And so what, okay, in fact, let's back away.

So how do you calculate how many calories there are in a product?

A guy called Atwater, Atwater.

And this Atwater was a professor of biochemistry in Connecticut between 1880 and 1900.

So this was a while ago.

Okay. He used a technique called bomb calorimetry.

And in effect, what you do is you take food, you burn it in a sealed container, and then you measure how much heat it gives off through a water and the temperature.

So how much heat it goes up.

So one calorie is the amount of temperature it takes to raise one liter of water, one degree celsius at sea level so that's a calorie and so what he did at water did was he took almonds celery carrot steak he burnt them and figured out how many total calories were in there he also knew how much fat and protein he then fed the almonds carrots and to people and then he okay for for 20 years he did this and from there that is where he came up with the at water general So for all of us who have done high school biology, four calories for a gram of carb, four calories for a gram of protein, and nine

calories for a gram of fat.

So that came from at -water and what it was doing.

The issue is obviously that when you actually burn all of it, everything goes away.

And so all the calories are there.

Whereas when you have to metabolize it and it goes into your body, then your body begins to metabolize.

energy has to go in in order to extract stuff out I'll give you another example actually celery okay now celery famously people have said has negative calories that's not quite true don't make me hate celery no no no I'm not eating celery so like a medium stick of celery like you might get with buffalo wings or something right that is probably you may get raw you may get 6 calories out of it if you're lucky if you cook that stick however you chop it up you put it into a stew what have you suddenly cooking it you get 30 calories from it celery A stick of celery.

That's exactly the same stick of celery.

Right. You're not adding energy to it.

It's because the fiber and everything like that is just very difficult to extract calories out.

Whereas when you cook it and you process it, okay, suddenly it's easier for you to get that calorie out.

So therefore, an almond, which is not a process item, right, because the only thing you've done is to take it off the skin, okay, and then you eat it.

Now, if you make almond milk, if you actually put down and put an almond powder and do things things like that, then you begin to get more calories out of the, out of the almond.

Got it. So I have to ask you this because every summer, a lot of people from the States will go to Europe and they'll say, I ate pasta, I ate pizza and I lost weight.

But when I eat that in America, it's never going to happen.

Is that true? Like, why is it that people feel when they go to Europe, they can eat all the things they can eat bread, they can eat pasta and they're not putting on weight they're not feeling the same i think they're probably two different reasons for okay okay so i think first of all i think they're walking more because because when you go when you go to europe and you're doing things you're not going to drive around rome right i mean you're going to be you're going to be walking you're going to be doing this so i think there's a walking element here try and walk around here in in la impossible

so i think there's probably that as well but everything there is made by hand and from scratch no that's not a lot that's obviously Obviously, you can go to fast food places as well.

But if you're going to Rome or you're going to Sicily, you're going to go to the mom and pop shop.

You're going to go to what they're doing.

The local place. Exactly, the local places.

And so they would have cooked the food for less.

They would have used other techniques.

And so things just, you are going to get less calories out because they're less processed.

Processing of food, there's nothing wrong with processed foods per se because everything that you do to a food is processed.

So cooking is a process, fermentation is a process.

Ultra -processing, the super -processing of food, that's another story entirely, because obviously what then happens is those are industrial processes.

And I think a lot of the food that we eat, 50 % of the calories, okay, that we get, certainly in the UK as well and in the US, 50 % come from pre -packaged foods, okay?

Our so -called, quote -unquote, ultra -processed foods.

This is less so in somewhere like Italy.

They're more likely to make the pizza from scratch. You're more likely, no one's going to serve you a frozen pizza.

You're going to get it It's going to come out of the oven It's going to be fed to you The pasta's going to be Dried in a specific way That's going to be doing All kinds of things So I think The way they make the food Does matter But you need to then Take that into account That if you're on holiday In Europe You're probably walking as well Yeah yeah No because I think You just hear it all the time And I'm like Wait is this Is this real And even my wife says I mean When we saw the difference In water quality Even in England Versus here Food quality for sure So much stuff Bread quality Bread quality,

for sure. Is it that everything here is being ultra processed?

Is that your challenge?

Like are just normal foods being like, what about tomatoes and they taste different.

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I remember one year I was in when i spent more time in india i remember the vegetables just taste different like they have flavor whereas here every cucumber tastes the same you won't you won't notice anything different okay so i think the flavor really really does matter i think nutritionally i mean people say that then the vegetables here or if you grow them in a certain way you get less nutrients from them that's probably overstating it i don't think that's necessarily interesting i do think however however, that if you are growing vegetables, first of all, using more natural techniques rather

than intensive techniques, you are going to get less pesticides and less things.

So just on that, that's better for you already, right?

Because you're not eating so many chemicals.

I do think that they are more intense in flavor, okay?

And does flavor mean more minerals and more things?

Probably a little bit of that.

But ultimately, I don't think the vegetables here are bad for you.

They just are not as tasty.

And depending on what you're eating, I think are going to be full of pesticides and other things that we probably don't want to eat that much of.

I don't think that actually there are fewer good things in the vegetables here.

They just don't taste as nice.

Yeah. How is it that another thing I hear a lot is, hey, I'm eating the same exact thing as this other person over here, but they have a six pack and I can't even lose weight.

Why is that happening?

I'm sure you hear this too.

i do i do hear this so an there is an element of truth there that we deal with calories differently so there are two there are two elements um of it so obviously there's this you can break down why someone gains weight into a number of different things first of all how much do they eat that is my expertise that's primarily what i study but even if you ate exactly the same thing once it gets into you there are two elements that's first of all the your efficiency so in other words, for every given calorie, how many, for amount of protein, for what have you, how efficient are you at releasing the calories?

That's going to differ between you and me, that's the first thing.

The second thing is what we call nutrient partitioning.

So when it comes in, how much do you burn, how much do you store?

And crucially, when you store it, where do you store it?

And so all of those have genetic elements to it, which means that they explain differences between different people.

And so undoubtedly, it's going to be a case where some people can eat more than someone else and not actually gain as much weight.

The six -pack element to it, probably overstated, the six -pack element would obviously be more of an exercise thing.

But yes, it is true that people can eat more and maintain the same weight as other people.

Okay. And what do I do about that?

Because that obviously doesn't feel good when you're like, hey, I'm trying to do the thing.

I think it is not the reason for the obesity epidemic that we're facing.

That is down to eating.

I think that the energy expenditure and the metabolism these things play a small role and that we have nothing there's very little we can actually do about it right because the own interestingly the easiest way to increase your metabolism is to gain weight and people think it's counterintuitive right but if you take a mini a small tiny mini car it is always going to have a lower fuel consumption than a big SUV okay ultimately that's the case so the easiest way to increase your energy expenditure is to gain weight, but then that's not the aim of the game.

And the other thing is when you lose weight, your body also reduces its metabolism, right?

So that is going to be an issue.

So the only way is to try and increase your metabolism temporarily.

There are no foods that can increase your metabolism.

Coffee probably does it briefly, okay?

Chilis don't do that, okay, briefly.

Exercise is probably the thing that most effectively increases your metabolism, at least temporarily, so when you're doing it and then there's a tail -off as you stop so you're continuing burning, that's the first thing and second is building muscle mass because your muscle, your lean mass is more metabolically active than fat mass so you could be of the same weight but if you have more muscle in your body as a ratio, then you will have a higher metabolism but your underlying metabolism, if you divide your metabolism by the amount of muscle you're carrying that cannot change that won't change until

you get older so ultimately that's what you're trying to do you're trying to say well okay i've got a lower metabolism than you for example well then maybe i need to make sure i gain a bit more muscle to sort of to sort of mitigate against that got it so how does someone get rid of that stubborn belly fat see that's an excellent question and you cannot direct where you lose fat it's very very very very very frustrating so you know you go to classes and there's booty busting and there's what have you and then we know and you know what the deal is the only way to get rid of the belly fat is to eat less

and probably exercise more as well and people are going whatever i'm coming onto this podcast to hear that it is because it's because it's it's physics okay it's difficult to do but it's physics no your weight will go on to where genetically it's going to go and will come off from that you know what size of your boobs what's the size of your bum what's the size of your belly.

People wish they could direct where they get the weight loss from.

I want it from my tummy.

You know, for example, when I gain weight, I know I get a bit jowly.

Okay. This is where it goes on first. My wife always tells me this.

Why? No clue. No clue.

And it's also, it does go off first when I begin to lose weight.

But so you, it's very difficult to get rid of the stubborn fat by trying to do sit -ups.

But what you have to do is, you do actually have to sort of shift your eating patterns in order to lose belly fat.

Let's talk about the genetics piece, because I think that's the hard part.

If you're predisposed because of your genetics to being overweight, are you stuck?

If you are predisposed genetically to eating more because you are more driven to food for a number of different reasons, then it will always be harder for you to lose weight, okay?

Ultimately, that is true.

There's no need to sugarcoat it.

But I guess the analogy I'll use is this.

I will never, ever be able to run as fast as Usain Bolt.

Okay, because it's my genes.

But it doesn't mean that if I train, I won't run faster than I do now.

So I think ultimately, that's it, right?

None of us here are going to become an Olympic athlete.

But if we train, we'll get fitter, we'll get better.

And so you've got to sort of deal with the genes you have. You can't blame it.

You can blame your parents.

That's where the genes have come from.

But ultimately, you deal with the hand of cards you have. I wish I looked like Brad Pitt.

But there are many, many reasons why that is not going to happen.

And so you deal with the hand of cards you are dealt, but even with a more difficult hand of cards, so to speak, a more difficult set of genes when it comes to being overweight, it doesn't mean that you can't do anything about it.

What are you seeing in terms of gene limitations?

Do you see demographics having certain gene limitations and drawbacks compared to others?

Like, I know as a South Asian man, generally putting on weight is easy, building muscle is hard. And a lot of South Asian men will have that conversation with each other and say, hey, it's quite easy for us to be lean and skinny, but it's easy to put on weight around our stomach. like you said you put on what what do you see when you look at the genes and the genetic research so the genes telling us why people gain weight tend to be quite universal so they're eating too much genes where the different ethnicities come from comes into the consequences of gaining that weight yes that's muscle building

that's that's you're right right because chinese people i'm ethnically i'm chinese we're smaller framed individuals we too cannot get that much weight gain that much weight before we actually tilt into disease.

But the genes underlying why we eat are quite universal.

But why we get specific diseases, very, very genetically driven, very ethnically driven.

As you said, South Asian, East Asians, the moment we don't have to go anywhere close to a BMI of 30, and we are suddenly increasing our risk of a number of different metabolic diseases.

So we, compared to white people who can always gain a bit more weight, compared to Polynesians.

A colleague of mine, actually, I was in New Zealand giving a lecture, and I saw there's a big South Asian diaspora in New Zealand.

And so I saw a diabetologist, a diabetes doctor, who is South Asian, giving a talk in which she was comparing BMI and rates of type 2 diabetes in the local Polynesian population versus the South Asian diaspora.

And the local Polynesian population could get to something like nearly twice the BMI before actually reaching the same risk of type 2 diabetes.

It is down to, I guess, how much muscle you can put on a little bit.

It's down to how much fat we all can store safely.

And so that is a crucial bit of information.

How much fat can you store safely?

Can I store safely?

The safest place to store fat is in your fat cells, okay?

They're like balloons.

They grow bigger, they grow smaller.

You don't gain fat fat cells.

But they get full. And the moment they get full, that's when the fat goes into your liver, your muscles, places that are not designed to store fat in large amounts.

And that's when you become ill.

So that, very, very genetic.

And it also comes to body shape, where you put your fat also matters, right?

Because then you can look at different populations and realize, oh my God, all these people are completely different shapes.

They are. Because where you put your fat also also influences how much fat you can store safely.

So that bit, very genetic.

Yeah. So if you could encourage people to change part of their diet, what should they be focused on?

And what are the mistakes that you think people are making right now when it comes to what we eat, what we put into our mouths?

What are the mistakes people are making?

And what would you encourage people to think about differently if it isn't calories?

Then it is a very, very culturally specific, but I think there's probably some universal rules in order to follow.

You know, like a lot of South Asians, well, I mean, there are a lot of vegetarians in South Asia, people in the Mediterranean eat Mediterranean diet, try delivering a Mediterranean diet to Texans.

That's just not going to happen.

So culturally, it does make a difference.

I do think there's some relatively simple quote -unquote rules.

I hate to use the word rules.

I think we need to eat enough protein, I think most importantly.

So I think about 16 % of the energy in your diet needs to come from protein.

It is possible to eat too much much because we have to use the protein we eat.

If we don't use it, we don't store protein, okay?

All the muscles in us, all the protein in our body is active.

So if you eat a lot of protein, but don't use it, it gets converted to fat, okay?

And then it begins to stress out your kidneys and stuff as well, right?

And your liver, unless you're lifting or doing something else.

So 16 % protein, okay?

We need to eat way more fiber, way more fiber.

We need to double the amount of fiber we eat.

Fiber only comes from fruit and vegetables.

So we pretty much need to double the amount of fruit and vegetables that we actually eat.

And we probably need to limit the free sugars we eat.

Now, free sugars are sugars, sugar, anything that's been detached from fiber.

So orange juice is a free sugar.

Honey is a free sugar.

Maple syrup is a free sugar.

We probably need to - All the good stuff.

all the good stuff but the sugar is all the same it tastes nicer for any number of different reasons but all the good stuff you probably need to limit it to 5 % of energy or less now if you take those three numbers right 16 % of protein 30 grams double the amount of fiber and keep your free sugars you can eat as much fruit and vegetables as you want but free sugars from 5 % and less you can deploy it to any culture because the protein I'm not only talking steaks right I mean this is what people think here when I say protein steaks but no, I mean, tofu, beans, vegetables, it doesn't matter the source of the protein.

Those are the three numbers I would use.

Deploy it to your culture, your type of diet you wish to actually eat.

Then obviously you can tweak it.

But I think if you actually focus on those three numbers, I think your diet will automatically become healthier.

So 16 % protein, 30 % fiber.

30 grams fiber. 30 grams fiber.

So double the amount of fiber.

On average, in the United States and North America, in the United States and in the UK, okay, we're probably only having 15 grams of fiber a day.

It's difficult. I think this is part of the problem of focusing on calories.

What does that mean when I tell you 16 % protein and what have you?

So I do these things.

I speak to people like you.

I speak to industry.

I do this to try and push back and say, can we highlight different things on your prepackaged food?

I mean, highlighting the calories, useless, right?

Whereas if you highlight how much protein it is, how much fiber is in it, how much free sugar is in a traffic light system or something.

I think that's easier for you to actually do.

Let's actually talk about that.

So we had to go do some shopping, which my wife will be very mad at me for, because I've brought things into this house that she would never allow me to have in the house.

And so I've got to make sure that I give this out to someone else afterwards.

Don't give it to me.

If she thinks I've been eating it, she'll be mad.

But we brought in some products that people are eating because I think partly the issue is when you go out and you buy something, once you're educated, so my wife trained me in this and I want to help pass it on and learn from you as well in how to actually read food labels.

Because I used to just be like, yeah, that's 50 calories.

I'll have that. That's a hundred calories.

It's easy. So I'm going to throw you some products and, you know, you can tell us whether this is actually healthy or not and just walk us through all the packaging on the front and the back.

So a couple of things about this.

So before we start, are.

I think I see where this is going.

One of the things that annoys me the most about food and advertising for food is the health halo, right?

This is what we're talking about, the health halo.

No one thinks that drinking Coca -Cola and eating thingies is healthy for you, but we do it because it's a treat.

We do it. But I'm not thinking I'm having a health drink.

And so most Most of us take the precautions.

Now, no one thinks that when you get a many tortilla chip, brands are available.

Let's look at this one.

First of all, it's green in packaging.

It has this, I am green, okay, from all the things.

Okay, tortilla style protein chips.

What the freaking hell is that?

Let's see where the protein comes from.

Okay, I don't know.

Does it tell you where the protein comes from?

They added milk protein, isolate whey protein.

So they're trying to increase the amount of protein you actually get.

And so, hence, they're telling you that this is a healthier option.

But you're still eating a tortilla chip, right?

If you look at the...

It's still fried, right?

It is. Let's have a look at the back here.

I'm not... It should be fried.

I mean, sometimes they bake it, I guess.

But tortillas tend to be fried.

Oh, this one says it's baked.

Okay, so that does make a difference, but it is still a, but they're trying to sell this as a health food.

Okay. And you would say it's not a health food.

I don't, I am not anti tortilla chips, but I know why they've done, the packaging as they've done here.

So people will go and says, oh, these are the terrible tortilla chips.

I'm going to buy this one because these are going to be tortilla chips that are going to be better for me because it's in a green packaging and because it's this high protein, high protein for it.

it. So, I don't know, you know, it's still a tortilla chip.

And ultimately, so this is the kind of thing.

What is the difference between baked and fried?

Because I don't, I speak to a lot of people about this, and I don't think they, people even think to think about that.

So baked would mean that you use less oil.

Okay. And because things like tortilla chips and potato chips and all the kinds of things you get are very porous.

So in other words, they absorb a lot of fat to crisp up okay a fried tortilla will taste better than a baked tortilla so undoubtedly they will have they'll have more more fat i'm not saying that this isn't slightly better for you it's still not a health food though yeah so that's the difference the difference is that when you fry something it more the fat gets absorbed into it whereas you bake it you sort of you do put oil in it you have to because otherwise it's like using an airfryer why do you use an airfryer you use an airfryer because you put in a little bit of oil it then heats up the oil

and then mists the oil so so that what you're doing is you're frying with less oil that's why you're getting you're getting less of the fat that that are actually uh out there got it okay i'm gonna pull out some more we had a lot of bags of chips in here but let me lay this one out oh all right so this is shredded wheat okay let's have a look at this actually now they're always oh wait a minute this is so if you look at so a couple of things before we go to the back whenever you look at a cereal you see here for example in the front berries all right no one ever does no one ever does it i mean i

have shredded i'm not i'm not against this but i eat it do you know what these things are called within the within the field of of sort of food science these are called incidental virtuous foods okay so someone did an experiment where what they did was they asked a few thousand people all right and they put a burger just a normal standard burger and they They asked everyone to sort of estimate how many calories are in the burger.

And, you know, obviously you get people getting it right, people getting it completely wrong.

Then they took the burger and they put a stick of celery next to the burger.

That stick of celery, same burger, that stick of celery automatically made everyone lower on average their calorie estimates by 10%.

Just the presence of it.

Now, if you, in fact, we'll go back to that.

We'll go back to the chip, okay?

So here is a tortilla chip.

And obviously, there is lime, there is chili.

I appreciate they probably flavored it for some, nevertheless.

But here, cereal is one of these things.

That is why the berries are there.

Go into your favorite supermarket.

Look, anything you buy.

Once again, this is not anti -shredded wheat, okay?

Anything you buy, they'll always have these things because it automatically makes it a virtuous food.

Why do people, when you watch an advert or something, why is there a little bit of coriander, a bit of watercress, you know, over the steak?

Like, really? Incidental virtuous foods.

Okay, so that's the first thing to note.

Yeah, really great note.

Now, if you're going to look in the back, let's look at the sugar.

I mean, this may be perfectly healthy.

I'm not entirely sure.

Okay, so this has no added sugar, which is fine, which is good.

so I do think that that's the one thing you want to look at so that's when we're reading a label when you're reading a label what do you want to focus on now clearly this is shredded wheat I'm not eating this for protein okay so you can look at the back of the protein but the amount of protein on here where does it say polyunsaturated where's the protein oh no there is protein so seven grams of seven grams of protein so it's quite high surprisingly high for the amount of stuff that is here what you want to do however on this is not worry too much about the protein because you're eating a shredded

wheat, is to look at the sugar.

Because, oh my God, I mean, if you actually look at some of the cereals, including some varieties of shredded wheat, you may as well be eating a chocolate bar, as far as I can gather, the amount of sugar that's in there.

So this, you would look at it, and broadly speaking, it's probably a relatively healthy thing to eat.

Got it. Except for the incidental virtue sweets.

All right, very good.

Well, you spoke about this earlier, so let's take a look at it.

We might as well. okay OJ now what makes it light very interesting so let me just yeah what does it say on it tell us it's an orange juice that tells us 50 % less sugars and calories than OJ then how did they make it because OJ is OJ should be OJ you should take juice you squeeze it out maybe you put some heat in it to to make sure it lasts longer what have they done to it to reduce the amount of sugar and calories ah so what they've done here so first of all, is they have concentrated the orange juice.

So, in other words, they have just...

This is, in effect, orange juice mixed with water.

So, can I say something?

Can I please say something?

Save your cash, buy an actual bottle of...

If you want to drink orange juice, buy an actual bottle of orange juice and dilute it with water.

Same effect. Because it says here, the first thing on here is filtered water.

First ingredient list. It's fine, okay?

But now you're buying half the amount of orange juice for the same amount of cash, whereas you could buy exactly the same amount of orange juice and use water.

Now, what else is there?

Okay, now let's have a look.

No pulp. Why is this a good thing?

So here's the issue with OJ, right?

So OJ, the full concentrated OJ, has the same effect.

We'll read it out just to make sure.

So total carbohydrates here are 10%, okay?

So 5%, so it has 5 % because it's half.

Coca -Cola has a sugar content about 11%, okay?

In a can of Coca -Cola.

So OJ actually has the same amount of sugar as Coca -Cola.

This is diluted. We've already established this.

And it's the same sugar.

It's not because it's natural sugar.

It's healthier for you.

You squeeze it out of the orange.

So the pulp was the only good thing about this.

There's probably vitamin C and stuff.

But the pulp was the only good thing because that was the fiber.

So what this has said is that we have made extra sure there is no fiber in this orange juice.

That's what this is telling you.

Right, right. I have no problems with OJ as a small thing.

but people think it's a health food and people will then drink a ton of this and you have to treat it like you're drinking a high sugar drink eat the orange because when you eat the orange you're chewing it there's fiber your body takes longer to release the sugar exactly the same amount of sugar because orange juice actually comes from comes from there you get a lot more goodness out of eating the orange if you have to drink orange juice drink you know do it in moderation this is a waste of money because as it says in the bank it's diluted orange juice for pete's sake so so so it's good analysis this is useful this is useful

all right all right this is fun all right yeah yeah that's it let's do let's do this one because this these are great where did you get these from this is all from i won't say Now, just, can I please say, dried apricots, these are wonderful for you, okay?

Because obviously they're full of fiber.

And yeah, you might say, well, aren't they high in sugar?

Yeah, but then they're all tied up in the fiber.

How much of a risk are you really going to eat anyway?

Wonderful for you, okay?

You shouldn't need to enhance it with any probiotic apricots.

Now, what have they made it?

So probiotic means, that's prebiotic and that's probiotic.

and prebiotic is adding fiber, probiotic is taking the bugs because this is what confused me when I was looking at this.

So this is probiotic because they've taken normal apricots, which is full of fiber, and added bacteria.

Now this sounds a bit dodgy because they're telling me that the bugs cannot be alive.

I don't think because they're in this thing.

What is the shelf life of this?

March 2026. It's sterile, right, in here.

So they say they've put the bugs in, but the bugs cannot be alive.

so it is not going to be probiotic if the bugs are dead and they have to be dead because this thing is not going to rot in a sealed container and it's good till march 2026 so this the bugs have got to be alive when you're eating yogurt yogurt if you're eating you know kombucha the bugs are alive that is why they work because they pass you need you need those actually to to to to survive the gut and go in in order to survive these are dead bugs they won't be bs interesting wow wow I love how shocked you are right now all right let's do this as the last one because all the other versions of this but okay

let's let me just let me see let me see what the back is per serving so 65 grams holy cow all right so this is a bar now I know what this is this is for the gym bros right but but if you actually look at the uh first of all it tells you the amount of protein so they're selling this as a health food bar by its very definition because we're not we're not dealing with it but if you actually look at the at the back yes there's more protein in it okay for that but it's 22 percent sugar it's 22 percent sugar okay uh 14 14 % fat, of which 13 % is saturated fat.

And the protein amount is 13 % protein.

So actually, I'm saying we need 16%.

It's already below the actual what you should be eating in your total diet anyway.

I don't understand this bar.

I do understand it if you are taking it as a recovery bar.

Fair, okay? If you've just done a workout or if maybe you're cycling, you're trying to do that.

I can dig that. the problem is if it's there in a supermarket shelf and you're coming and thinking this is going to be healthy for me but you're not working out you're not doing any buy and eat it this is far worse for you than eating a chocolate bar unless you're exercising at the same time yeah I mean the sugar in that's high 22 it's really high it's high oh my god is this even edible I I used to so I used to eat those nearly every day until I looked at the back no no no until I looked then you went dude yeah and I realized even when I am working out I don't need no you don't need 22 % sugar

I mean yeah you want more protein probably actually than that I've shifted to one that does only one gram of sugar now because you do need some sugar you need some carbs obviously you do but not that not that good analysis so walk us through two questions I have one is how can people read food labels better what were you doing that was making it effective for you to figure it out that quickly because the challenge is we have little time we look at the back there's like 50 ingredients the major problem I have with this is this isn't a lack of information problem because all the information is there

but you need bright lights I need to have my reading glasses with me but what you would do I think ultimately in order to better do it the industry needs to change what they label but I don't have the power to do that so I think what I would do is I would focus on first of all the amount of depending on what you're eating the amount of protein the amount of fiber do they put fiber?

they do put fiber the amount of fiber that's actually in there and the amount of sugars protein, fiber, sugar protein, fiber, sugar those are three things to look at And what you don't want is to see an equal balance of all three.

You want to try and see the percentages you said earlier.

Exactly. That's what I would do.

Yeah. And of course, it won't be, you're not expecting to get all your protein from a bar anyway.

No. So I think what you want to do as well is not concern, okay, not obsess about one item of food.

What you should do is be thinking about your diet over a week.

A week's a good period because there are work days, there are weekend days, you may have a birthday, you go to the restaurant for your friends and you're eating on the to run or what have you.

So over a week, how much protein fiber and things have you been eating?

That's better because then that allows you to go to the pub, the restaurants, your child's birthday, and then they say, well, I had my child's birthday party last night, so I'm going to do something else.

So you need to consider that, but over the context of a full week, rather than obsessing over one individual bar would be what I would say.

And what are the three hidden ingredients that you think people should watch out for on food labels?

I think sugar is probably the big, the biggest thing to look for because they, my wife sent me to the supermarket to buy.

She goes, can you get me some beetroot?

I want to make a salad.

Okay. And so I went into a supermarket chain in the UK and I bought their finest, because I'm a mug.

Okay. I bought their finest item and I brought it back and she yelled at me.

She goes, did you see the amount of sugar on here?

Why didn't you get the one made with vinegar?

Why didn't you get one?

And so sugar is the thing that they they shuffle in the most because it improves the flavor so quickly and they put it into a beetroot.

It's a beetroot. Why do you have to boil it in sugar?

It's completely ridiculous.

Sugar is probably the easiest thing to shovel in, so to watch that.

How addictive is sugar?

I don't think sugar is addictive.

I don't think there is such a thing as food addiction.

If you speak to addiction biologists, they do hijack certain pathways.

Which ones? So the part of the brain that makes things feel nice, your rewarding part of the brain, It's the same part of the brain for everything.

It doesn't matter if we're talking about food, sex, or drugs, or alcohol, okay?

It hits the same place.

The roots to it are different, but it's the same.

It's the same part of the brain.

And so I think that clearly sugar tickles the nice part of the brain, because why would it not?

But it is not crack cocaine.

People say it's worse for you than crack, but it isn't, okay?

Because you clearly get used to it.

You like it. There are addictive behaviors, but sugar in of itself is not addictive.

If I took sugar away from you, you're not going to go into cold turkey.

Okay, you're not. You might think, oh, I want to eat that and what have you.

You're not. So it's not addictive, but we need to eat less of it.

And clearly there is an addictive behavior of getting used to eating sugars as well.

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And back to our episode.

Is healthier food more expensive to produce?

Or what is the reason that healthy food has become expensive?

So I think there's a marketing element to it.

So therefore healthy food, they can make money from it.

But then what then happens is there are cultural differences as well, right?

Because then what happens is people say lentils are cheap, which is true, But that's a culturally specific thing.

If you go to India, you go to South, everyone knows how to cook lentils.

So lentils are cheap because everyone can do it.

But other things are not.

Here, okay, here or in the UK for that matter, first of all, do people know how to cook lentils who are not South Asian, for example?

That's the first thing.

The second is it will always require half an hour on the electricity or gas.

And it's always cheaper to stick a pre -meal into the microwave and put two minutes in order to do it.

So you have to take the whole life cycle of the food and also the amount of time and effort and education you actually have about that specific food so it's a holistic view of how expensive something is yeah it could be expensive in terms of time as well exactly yeah some people don't some people don't have the time and culturally it does make a difference because like lentils are cheap yeah obviously and and you go to some countries exactly those are those are but if you buy them from scratch you need to know how to soak them overnight you need to then boil them for a period of time and if this is part

of your culture and you always have beans pre -ready to cook and everything is ready, perfect.

And you have the spice mix ready, perfect.

But for a lot of us, that's not the case.

Great answers. That was fun.

I'm glad we did that.

That was really cool.

I wanted to ask about this idea of, you say that weight is biology, not laziness.

Let's talk about that.

Okay. I think weight is more biology than people think.

How about that? Okay.

So if we actually look at the genetics, heritability.

Okay, so what percentage does genetics actually play into body weight.

And we can use that by looking at twins, identical twins and non -identical twins.

Then actually, the heritability of fat mass, of weight, is around 40 to 70%.

So in other words, let's take the average, 50 -50.

So 50 % is going to be driven by biology and 50 % by non -biology.

And in the non -biology, it could be socioeconomic status, how rich or poor you are, it could be your culture, it could be any number of different things.

So weight is probably about about 50%.

Now, within that 50%, it does play a pretty powerful role.

And I guess the one example I'll give is this.

We do not gain or lose weight overnight.

We just don't. Any meal, no matter how big, is not going to perceptibly change your body weight, okay?

Your body weight is the function of thousands of feeding events that have happened over the past couple of years, okay?

Now, imagine, however, if because of your genetic hand of cards that you've been given, you are slightly less likely to say no. 5%.

That's the kind of scale we're looking at.

So, one out of every 20 times, you say, hang it, I'm going to have the extra slice of pizza or what have you.

5%, over thousands of feeding events, is hundreds of thousands of calories.

So, over the period of time that food intake does begin to influence your body weight, it is not a choice.

In casino terms, the house will always win if the die is weighted a certain way.

In that sense, there is a lot of biology, But clearly, if you take the top 20 % socioeconomically versus the bottom 20%, the bottom 20 % are more than twice as likely to have obesity, and most diseases, to be fair, as the top 20%.

There's no genetic difference between rich and poor people.

It's an accident of birth.

And so there, your environment really, really, really does matter.

So even with the same genes, your same genetic burden and drive, if I live in a leafy Cambridge village, which I live so far out that delivery won't deliver to my village.

And so this is a true story.

Okay. Then if I'm hungry and I don't have a corner shop, I have to drive to the next village.

If I'm hungry on a Sunday night, well, either I have to get in my car and drive somewhere or I have to open my fridge and eat the carrots or hummus that's in my fridge.

Right. Whereas if I lived in a city, if I live above a chicken shop, if I live above, then exactly the same genetic drive will make me go, and I'll make different decisions, different things will be made.

So there's a huge genetic drive, undoubtedly, but the environment also matters.

How much is willpower involved?

What is willpower? What is it?

I think willpower is an interesting term.

I think that if we're talking about food intake, which means to say that, oh, I'm not going to eat the chocolate bar or pizza or something today.

I think willpower is simply the physiological manifestation of how much you want that item of food and whether or not you say yes or no. So willpower is simply part of the biology that drives you or stops you from eating it.

So that's what I think is willpower.

So if that plays a role, yes, willpower plays a role because it's part of your biology.

It's almost like a sense of, I like the word discipline more.

So as someone who grew up eating, and I've spoken about this on the show before, I literally grew up eating every day a chocolate bar, a chocolate biscuit, a chocolate yogurt, and a chocolate ice cream every day.

Because that's how I was raised in my house.

And I was overweight growing up.

And then in my teens, I started playing a lot of sports.

I lost lots of weight.

But then still, even when I was at university, I drank a sugary soda every single day and had a chocolate bar every day.

And because of my genetics or my metabolism, I was lean throughout college and all the rest of it.

But I wasn't doing doing anything healthy.

And what I found was that I had to create discipline at one point in my life because my natural instinct is to want sugar to solve my fatigue or energy or whatever it may be, because that's what I've been taught or at least trained to believe is that sugar will solve my lack of energy right now, not realizing that actually I could get that from a healthier place.

I mean, I guess discipline is one way.

I mean, I don't like the term lifestyle.

A lot of people this is a lifestyle problem because lifestyle makes means choice but i do think that many of us need to make behavioral changes so that's the terminology i'd like to use because ultimately this is this is the issue it doesn't matter whether or not the genetic drives makes it easier or less easy for you to lose weight it doesn't matter ultimately because if you carry too much fat you're the one that's going to suffer right so i think life's unfair okay and sometimes sometimes biologically unfair and, and, and what have you.

So I think what we've got to do is for a lot of us, we do need to think about behavioral changes and you're absolutely right.

We need to be more educated about certain things.

We need to just this conversation we've had, right?

I mean, just look, look, looking at these things.

And if you then begin to notice, so even just what I've said, if you notice a couple of these little things and you incrementally make a better, you buy a better bar, you buy a better, you know, bag of chips or anything like that, but then that's a positive thing.

These are behavioral changes, but we need to sort of get the word out there, right?

Where it's not always, they're obvious things, but the not obvious things also matter.

I think for me, one of the behavioral changes that has helped so much is out of sight, out of mind.

What you just said, like when you walk in and look at your refrigerator and there's only carrots and hummus, like I said, like I bought this bag in today for this episode, but we wouldn't have this available.

So do I want those chips?

Of course I want tortilla chips.

I would rather eat tortilla chips than any whole foods because that's what I'm conditioned to want.

But when they're not available in our snack drawer, you know, then I have to think I've got to wait 20 minutes.

So, so now that is very true, right?

So I think we have to control the environment we have control over, which broadly speaking is our household.

And so same for me, my wife bans me from buying.

So she loves chocolate and she, I mean, me, me, me, chocolate, I like chocolate.

But if it, if there was a chocolate bar there, for example, I would eat a piece and then I will continue talking to you.

Yeah, I couldn't do that.

I'd eat the whole thing.

So my wife says, please don't buy chocolate in the house.

So if we go to a restaurant, we go to a meal, that's different, right?

Because we're outside, but within our house, like you said, there are no, and I love crisps, so I don't buy crisps in the house because I know that if it's there and I hear the rustling, I'll eat it.

Out of sight, out of mind is a good way of handling it.

Yeah, that's been one big thing for me.

And the other one that's really helped me is having a plan for when that craving comes.

Strategy. Strategize.

Rather than feeling like, oh, I'm in a good discipline mode.

I'm not going to have the craving today.

It's like, no, I know that at 8 p .m. at night, I'm going to get a craving.

And so let me have a plan B option available that is healthier, better, more natural than putting myself into grabbing one of the ultra processed foods.

So whenever I talk to people and then someone come up to me and whatever their genetic drive, they says, oh, you know, I need to lose weight.

How would you do it?

I said, look, if you know you need to lose weight for whatever reason, then what you've got to do, the easiest thing to do, okay?

okay? Don't go take a genetic test, anything like that.

It's free, okay? Is be honest with why you eat, when you eat.

And some people eat when they get stressed.

Other people don't.

Some people have a craving for chocolate at eight o 'clock.

Understand this. And the moment you understand that, put a strategy in place to kind of mitigate against that.

And that is your way into dealing with your biology.

Don't worry about the fact that, well, when I go to my friend's house, anything like that, that's fine because you live in your house.

So fix your house first. then everything else, you can kind of take it day by day, fix what you have in your house.

Absolutely. Those two things have helped me out of sight, out of mind, and making sure that I have a plan for the things I know are going to happen, not hoping that they don't happen.

Yeah, exactly. Don't lie to yourself.

Do not lie to yourself.

Yeah, exactly. Because yeah, I've lied to myself too many times and then ended up overeating or over sugaring or whatever it may be because I didn't have a plan.

And so I fell to my devices.

I was intrigued to something you write about is, why is it so difficult to lose weight?

Because your brain hates it when you lose weight.

So it thinks, I'm losing weight, this is lowering my chances of survival.

In a world where there's not enough food, this is not true now.

But in a caveman brain that is actually dealing with this thinking, I'm losing weight, I need to put the weight back on.

And so your brain does everything in its power.

It does two things.

It makes you hungrier.

As you know, when anyone who's dieted, you feel hungry.

and more insidiously, because this you don't know, it lowers your metabolism.

Okay? So imagine if I were, I'm an 80 kilo human being.

Okay? Imagine if I used to be 90 kilograms and I've lost, so I've lost 10 % of my body weight.

Okay? The previously that me who lost 10 % of the weight versus me never been 90 kilos.

He has to eat less than me to maintain the same weight as me.

Okay? 80 and 80, but he used to be because he's lost that weight and the brain is trying to drag him back, kicking and screaming back up to the weight he was before.

Your brain hates it when you lose weight and it puts into homeostatic measures, the soul, to make sure you gain the weight back again.

It's very depressing.

I know it's very depressing, but it's, yeah, you're fighting biology.

Yeah. And as we get older, we're putting on more weight naturally.

You do for a couple of different reasons.

I think I would have given you a different answer five years ago, but new work has shown that actually you don't begin to drop your metabolism metabolism per gram of muscle in you all right just to be clear so in other words how much muscle you're carrying really to your mid -60s so people thought it happened earlier it doesn't okay the problem is when you get into middle age okay is this first of all we tend to get richer not rich but richer we're set on our backsides we have more money we have more money we don't we eat richer food we're not gonna eat less right we're moving less we tend to exercise

less i'm sorry that's true, which means that your muscle mass begins to lower.

So a mix of all that, you have more money, you eat better food, you exercise less.

Okay. And that is the toxic mix that then ends up with you gaining weight, middle -aged bread, et cetera, et cetera.

How do we stop that?

I think the most important thing, if we're dealing with actually zeroing in, clearly we can say we need to improve our diets and things.

This is all true. The most important thing about health span rather than longevity, right?

Who the hell wants to live of forever, you know, with tubes and you just don't, okay?

But people want to live healthy for longer.

The marker that most predicts your health span is the amount, your percent, your ratio to muscle to fat heading into your late 60s and into your 70s, okay?

It doesn't matter very many, clearly how heavy you are matters, okay?

But more importantly, how much muscle are you taking into that period of time?

The more muscle mean lean mass you actually have going in particular into to your 70s, the healthier you're likely to be.

So do not neglect, do not neglect moving and keeping your muscles in shape, particularly as you get older.

And that is the way to fight all the bad things that can happen.

Yeah, what's really interesting is that as a society, I feel like we've been struggling with weight loss for so long.

And that's why we've obviously seen the rise of weight loss drugs, and especially more recently with Ozempic.

And it's become commonplace now, it seems at least, I don't know in the UK, but definitely in the States and people are open about their usage.

There's a debate over whether it's good or bad and people have different views on it for different reasons, but there has been this almost pressure that we've placed on people, not always from a health point, but from a vanity point to lose weight.

Whereas what we're talking about today is a healthy, yeah.

We're talking about health.

And I think, look, there is nothing nothing wrong with these drugs as long as the right people get them.

I think ultimately that's true.

Now, if you have a lot of fat, you have severe obesity, then the drug is for you because you're ill.

You are getting diabetes.

The drug is for you.

The drugs are not a cosmetic drug.

So these drugs are modified gut hormones.

They're modified versions of natural hormones that we actually have. So in one way of looking at things, we could say that, well, I've only tweaked one hormone in your body and suddenly you eat less.

Then you can argue that a lot of people with with obesity, probably just have a hormonal deficiency that you're trying to fix.

However, the reason these drugs are good is because they're powerful and they work.

The reason these drugs are bad is because they're powerful and they work for everybody.

They make you feel fuller, whether or not you're 300 pounds looking to lose 100, or whether or not you are a 16 -year -old girl who's 75 pounds.

That is the problem.

It will still make you eat less.

So they're not cosmetic drugs.

They're powerful drugs.

They should be used as drugs, not at the red carpet tool.

So you're saying that there are a group of people who it's healthier for them to use it, and there's a group of people that shouldn't be using it.

Correct. Because I think everyone who needs the drug should get the drug.

And these are people who, in fact, there's more nuance about this.

At the moment, certainly in the UK, there are rules about what your BMI, what your weight should be before you're allowed the drug.

And it's above a certain amount, et cetera, et cetera.

We've already discussed, for example, that South South Asians and East Asians, we can't get that much weight before we get risk of disease.

So we need to be more nuanced about who gets the drug and the person, the people that get the drug need to be closing in on a, on their disease state.

Okay. They should get the drug.

Okay. So in other words, you could be a little bit heavier, but actually be perfectly healthy.

Do you need the drug?

Right. Whereas maybe a South Asian man who's BMI 27, but actually is already close to being being type 2 diabetic, maybe he should get it.

So I think at the moment, people draw a line in the sand about your BMI.

I think we need to be more, in fact, just talking about obesity in general, we need to be more nuanced.

Yeah, it's really hard because people say, well, I feel more confident now that I've taken it.

And, you know, I feel better about myself now that I've taken it.

I mean, OK, as a game, if we game it in our head, do I see if these drugs were shown to be fully, fully, fully, fully safe over a long period of time.

And broadly speaking, we know the right people will get it.

Can I or do I think that if I can walk into a drugstore, because at the moment, for example, we go in and buy Tylenol, okay?

We give it to our kids, right?

Now, we also know that if I had a whole bottle of Tylenol, I may endanger my liver.

Okay, so there, right?

It can be toxic as well.

But now society has accepted that this is something that we can choose to self -medicate with without a prescription.

If we can get to that level of safeness for these weight loss drugs, why not, I guess.

Please, I am not saying we will get there, and I'm not saying it's possible to get there for the reasons which I've told you.

But I think as a principle, I don't mind doing that as long as it's safe and only the right people get it.

Those are the two critical things.

What are the dangers of weight loss drugs like Ozempic?

Like, what are the actual ramifications?

The ramifications are the wrong people get it.

And I think very rarely, I think there are certain things that could happen extremely, extremely rarely.

The biggest danger is the people who are taking it for cosmetic reasons and don't have a lot of fat to lose and take too much of it.

And then what then happens is they then lose too much weight.

And what are they damaging?

What are the consequences?

Because what these drugs do, because they make you feel fuller, the drugs itself don't do a great, you know, positive effects to the drugs.

They just make you eat less.

So if you are already skinny and take it, you are in effect starving yourself.

That's the one thing.

Starvation is not a good thing.

Okay, for that. Now, equally, if you take the drug and don't improve your diet, because these drugs also don't improve your diet.

They just make you feel full.

So if your diet was crap to begin with, and you're eating chips and Oreos all the time, what these drugs will do is to make you eat less chips and Oreos.

And so actually what happens is you could end up malnourished.

So even yes, you're losing weight because you're now eating calorie -wise less food.

So I'm losing weight.

Look at me, I'm good.

But then if that's all you're eating, you're not doing your fiber, your protein and all that jazz, right?

And micronutrients, then you're going to be skinny and malnourished at the same time on the drug.

So the drug is a silver bullet for the feeling full of it.

It doesn't improve your behavior.

It doesn't improve your diet.

It doesn't stop people from not taking it who shouldn't be taking it.

So I'm pro -drug for the people who need it.

Got it. really I appreciate that I wanted to ask you this question because I think you've alluded to it but if you could put a warning label on one part of the diet industry what would it be I can I have two things yeah of course so I think I think that we've already alluded to it I think two two things the first which is most important is don't obsess over one item of food because look sometimes life demands a chocolate bar sometimes life demands a banana it depends what you're doing okay can you make a healthier chocolate bar and actually over the period of time we don't eat chocolate we shouldn't

eat chocolate bars every day so that's the first thing we shouldn't we shouldn't eat chocolate bars every well we shouldn't why should we it's like saying we shouldn't eat burgers every day it's very normal though that people do that right that's common but we shouldn't it is common though right no no i think it probably is quite common it is common is it i don't i assume so i mean you're right i mean they're full of them yeah exactly yeah exactly so so i think what you got to do is i did up until i was 21 every day so that's what you got to do what you've got to do is there's nothing wrong with a chocolate

bar you got to think about your whole your whole diet with those numbers that are right so that's the the second are those numbers that were that i actually telling you about that the numbers that just focusing on the calories i i really wish that if they make it in small numbers i think maybe the genie is out of the bottle and we can't get those calories i think obsessing over the calories is the wrong thing to obsess about out because it doesn't improve the quality of our diet.

To me, the big thing that I think I really want people to take away is this idea of look at the protein, look at the fiber and look at the sugars.

Yes. Because that solves it.

Right. Like I'm thinking of right now, if someone's feeling overwhelmed right now, they're listening to watching.

They're just thinking right now, like, Charles, I want to do this, but I don't even know how to have time to do it.

Where would you suggest they start?

Is that where you'd suggest they start?

Yes. Yes. Me too. I think that's a really clear way of looking at is think about your diet as protein intake fiber intake and sugar intake in the percentages that Giles broke down 16 % of protein 30 grams of fiber and 5 % sugar or less and all of a sudden now you're hopefully going to feel healthier have more energy and naturally eat less yes or eat less eat less crap yeah you're going to eat better and you might say that well wait a minute they don't label fruits and vegetables and they don't label meat because they don't need to ultimately if you get if you're actually eating a piece of meat and some

fruit and vegetables in which there's no labeling and it's just how do i know i don't know if you're eating that you don't need to know that is the point because if you're cooking a steak and you're having broccoli and you're you're doing the things and you're peeling the potato and boiling it and you're then concerned about well i don't know how much sugar they put in it but it's because you You have to add sugar if you want to do it.

And you want to do...

So the moment you're cooking from scratch, not everybody can cook from scratch, which is what this is, right?

So, but if you are eating foods with no labels, then they tend to be fresh stuff.

Then... That's a great point.

Right? That the foods that don't have labels...

Correct. Is because they don't need them.

Correct. That, I've never even thought about it like that.

It sounds so simple, but that's a really good point.

And if you're eating that way, then generally you're going to be healthier, safer, more secure.

Yes, there's still danger of eating too much. of course but as a general rule if we're looking at a general rule I think that's going to be amazing Charles it's been so great talking to you today we end every On Purpose episode with a final five these questions have to be answered in one word or one sentence maximum so Charles yo yo you look prepared here's your final five the first question is what is the best health advice you've ever heard received or given you don't want move more that's a great one uh question number two what is the worst health advice advice you've ever heard or received?

Count calories. Question number three, something you used to believe was true about health, but now you know it's not true.

I used to think that the moment you hit your 40s or 50s, your metabolism dropped.

And that's not, that's not true.

It's only because your muscle mass dropped.

So I think this metabolism thing, your metabolism stays stable through your life.

That was a very long answer.

I'm so sorry. But I used to think that five years ago, and now I don't think that anymore.

What's the most recent study or research that you've read about the work that you do that blew your mind or fascinated you or something that made you really curious and interested?

When I first learned that this lowering on metabolism when you lose weight is pretty much permanent, right?

And so in other words, this is why it's so difficult for you to lose weight.

This is probably, it's probably 10 years old.

So it's not new. It's part of the reason why your brain hates it when you lose weight or why it's so difficult to actually lose way.

So once again, this is, so I'm 80 kilos.

If I used, and I'm not, I've always been, okay.

So, but imagine if exactly the same, my twin got to 90 kilos and then came back down to 80 kilos.

Then from a physics perspective, you think, well, this is an 80 kilo gentleman.

I'm an 80 kilo gentleman.

We should be able to eat exactly the same thing.

We can't. He will always have to eat less than me to maintain the same body weight because he has a brain that used to be 90 kilos and it's dragging them back up and I remember seeing the very very first time seeing those studies I was going this is depressing but then you think well how do we mitigate against these things and how do you do it I mean the drugs do a job for that for example people who exercise so exercise is terrible for weight loss because we don't exercise enough but very good for weight maintenance for that very reason right where when you exercise your expenditure goes up and it

mitigates against this loss of metabolism so this is not a brand new study but I found it very interesting Is there a way to trick your brain?

There is a way to trick your brain in a bad way.

So in other words, if you gain weight and stay there for a long enough time, your brain begins to defend that higher weight, okay?

Whereas if you lose weight, your brain, from what we know so far, never defends that lower weight because evolutionarily, there was no reason to do that, right?

Because this is less likely of survival.

So your brain can train in the other direction, vicious cycle, not in losing weight.

And fifth and final question, question we asked this to every guest who's ever been on the show if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow what would it be i think that healthy food should always be the cheaper option wherever you go at the moment that's not true it's very uneven where at the moment unhealthy food is cheaper and so if we want to cure diseases and obesity equitably across the the world, regardless of how rich or poor you are, then by default, the food that you eat must be healthy.

Charles, thank you so much for your time and energy.

So grateful to connect with you today and learn so many things from you.

You blew my mind multiple times and everyone who's been listening or watching, go and grab the book, Why Calories Don't Count, How We Got the Science of Weight Loss Wrong.

Follow Charles across his podcast and social media if you don't already.

ready. And make sure you tag us on TikTok and Instagram and let us know what you're connecting with, what you're experimenting with and what you're trying.

I love to see how you're putting all of this insight into action.

Thank you so much again, Jal.

Such a pleasure. Grateful to meet you.

Thanks for having me.

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[Why Calories Don't Count: Busting Diet Myths with Geneticist Giles Yeo]-[Giles Yeo: The #1 Reason You’re NOT Losing Weight (Follow THIS Diet and Start Losing Weight TODAY!)]

📋 Summary

The Calorie Myth and the Quality of Nutrition

The Role of Genetics and Biology in Weight Management

Practical Strategies for a Healthier Diet

Debunking Modern Diet Culture

Conclusion: Moving Toward Health Span

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript