Dhru Purohit Show - #205: We Got it Wrong When it Comes to Weight Loss with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

Episode Date: April 8, 2021

Our culture puts a lot of emphasis on blame when it comes to being overweight. People are villainized for being lazy or unaware of the “right” way. But there is no one right way to lose weight, and when we take steps to improve our overall wellness, weight loss comes as an added bonus.  Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru talks to our good friend Dr. Rangan Chatterjee about creating a customized weight loss plan and digging into the real reasons we struggle with weight (hint: it’s not a lack of willpower).  Dr. Chatterjee is regarded as one of the most influential medical doctors in the UK and wants to change how medicine will be practiced for years to come. His mission is to help 100 million people around the globe live better lives. He hosts the most listened to health podcast in the UK and Europe, Feel Better, Live More—which regularly tops the Apple Podcast charts and is listened to by over 2 million people every single month. Each of Dr. Chatterjee’s four books have been Sunday Times bestsellers including his latest, Feel Great, Lose Weight, which was just published in the US and Canada. In this episode, we dive into:  -Getting off the blame game when it comes to weight loss (4:32)  -Why what you eat might not be the most important thing when it comes to weight loss (24:14) -Eating behavior and stress response (29:44) -The connection between trauma and obesity (31:24) -Why we continue to eat foods that we know are sabotaging our efforts, despite our best intentions (38:06)  -The Freedom Exercise to overcome cravings (43:26)  -Foods that are hijacking our ability to make good decisions (49:21) -Why weight loss is not about willpower (52:51) -How food is engineered to be addictive (55:51)  -How sleep impacts our eating habits (1:00:33) For more on Dr. Chatterjee you can follow him on Instagram @drchatterjee, on Facebook @drchatterjee, on Twitter @drchatterjeeuk, on YouTube @drranganchatterjee, and through his website https://drchatterjee.com/. Check out his podcast, Feel Better, Life More. Get his book, Feel Great Lose Weight: Simple Habits for Lasting and Sustainable Weight Loss at https://drchatterjee.com/feel-great-lose-weight/. For more on Dhru Purohit, be sure to follow him on Instagram @dhrupurohit, on Facebook @dhruxpurohit, on Twitter @dhrupurohit, and on YouTube @dhrupurohit. You can also text Dhru at [phone] or click here https://my.community.com/dhrupurohit. Interested in joining Dhru’s Broken Brain Podcast Facebook Community? Submit your request to join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2819627591487473/. This episode is brought to you by Thrive Market and Birch Living. Thrive Market makes it so easy to stay stocked with healthy ingredients. Right now, Thrive is offering all my listeners an amazing deal. When you sign up for a new membership, you will receive a free gift. And, any time you spend more than $49, you’ll get free carbon-neutral shipping from one of their zero-waste warehouses. Go to thrivemarket.com/dhru to sign-up. I recently upgraded to a Birch mattress by Helix. The Birch is made right here in the US, out of 4 non-toxic, natural materials: organic latex, organic cotton, New Zealand wool, and American steel springs. If you’re looking for a new mattress, I highly recommend checking out the Birch. Right now they are giving my community $200 off all mattresses, plus 2 free eco-rest pillows. Just head over to https://birchliving.com/dhru. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I think a lot of these short-term plans are great to help educate people and help them understand how good they could feel if they did A, B, and C. But at some point, I think you've got to stop following the plan and you've got to be in charge of how you're living your life. Hi, everyone, Drew Brod here. Today's interview is with my dear friend, Dr. Rungan Chatterjee, top podcast host and best-selling author. And we're here to talk about weight loss. So much of what our modern understanding is around weight loss on a societal level is completely wrong and maybe even ass backwards. We're going to talk about the latest science on this topic and the best practices that Dr. Chatterjee is collected in his newest book. It's a fantastic and layered conversation on the topic of weight loss.

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that are good for you and good for the planet. Just head over to Thrivemarket.com slash Drew to use the offer. That's Thrivemarket.com slash D-H-R-U. The other day I was with a doctor who specializes in environmental toxins, and they told me that the most toxic item in our house is actually, get this, our mattress. I'm sure many of you are as shocked as I was to hear that. This is especially scary, considering that the average person spends 26 years of their life sleeping. We spend so much time in bed, but we're more likely to splurge on expensive cars and clothes. That's just crazy.

Well, I'm advocating for a better matter. mattress. Most mattresses on the market contain harmful ingredients in polyurethane foam, which emits things like volatile organic compounds or VOCs. I'm sure you've heard about it on our podcast before. They've been linked to respiratory issues, reproductive damages, and they can even damage your immune system. I spent a ton of time looking for the perfect organic mattress, and I was so happy to find the birch matrix by Helix. The birch is made right here in the United States. out of four non-toxic natural materials, organic latex, organic cotton, New Zealand wool, and American Steel Springs. It feels so great to know that I'm sleeping on a mattress that uses zero polyurethane-based phones.

That means no off-gassing, that nasty smell that you get when you first open up a mattress that comes that's not organic and not toxin-free. I can sleep so much better knowing that I'm not exposing myself to harmful chemicals day in and day up. So if you're looking for a new mattress, I highly recommend checking out Birch. Right now, they're giving my community $200 off all mattresses plus two free eco-rest pillows. Just head over to birchliving.com slash Drew. Again, that's $200 off and two free eco-rest pillows at Birch Living, B-I-R-C-H-Living.com slash D-H-R-U. If you're worried about trying a new mattress, don't worry. They have a 25-year warranty.

you can try the mattress risk-free for 100 nights. Birch also ships directly to your door for free with no contact required, and they'll pick it up for free if you don't love it, but I know you will. Now back to this week's episode. Well, a new year, a new pivotal book that you've brought out into the world, and a lot of really great conversations for us to have. And the book is called Feel Great, Lose Weight, Simple Habits for Last, sustainable weight loss. And I really feel that there couldn't be a better time for this conversation.

You know, the conversation is so much bigger than the book because I'm going to go into a little bit of a monologue to sort of set up our interview for our listeners, if that's okay. And I feel like the current state that we're in, there's so many layers around the world of weight loss, right? And I'm going to just put out all the cards out on the table so I can just identify some of those layers know there are layers that you talk about in the book, but you're also aware of like the largest societal layers. There's one that people genuinely, right, well-meaning people are interested in weight loss and it's their right to pursue that. If they want to know what are the best practices and the latest science and people want to lose weight, they should be able to do that, right?

There's another conversation that happens online, especially on Instagram and social media, which is how dare you tell people or give solutions around weight loss, body positivity, all sizes matter at every size that people are. They're perfect the way they are, which is also true, right? It's like not the how dare you part, but it's like, of course, any size you are, you're perfect the way you are, right? And it's also perfect if people actually have ambition to want to be healthier, whether it's for vanity.

there's nothing wrong with that. What got me into the world of health was the vanity of wanting to get rid of my acne. I had really bad acne in high school. And who's to say that that's not my right to not want to have acne, which took me to the journey that I'm in. So there's that piece. And then there's the larger piece, which is the changing science out with the old guard and in with the new around the science of weight loss, which also means something so important, which is getting out of the whole blood. blame game. This is not a blaming opportunity for people. It's not a moral failing that people cannot lose weight. So that's a little bit of the lay of the land. Our audience is a pretty sophisticated audience. We've had many conversations on this topic. And I want to just put that out there so that you can just dive right in. And the place that I want to dive right in into is that no blame zone that you start the book off in. What do you mean by that? Let's expand. I think you touched upon so many crucial aspects, yes, around weight loss street, but also around health at large, because what you were speaking to there is this idea that we should all have

autonomy, we should all have autonomy and sovereignty over how we wish to live. What do we want to do, as you say, if you want to do something for vanity, yeah, the conventional wisdom would say, no, you shouldn't be doing it for that reason. But even that word should is problematic, isn't it? Because we're all individuals. We've all got the right to pursue help, to pursue weight loss, to pursue happiness in whatever way we choose to. And, you know, that point about you're in a no blame zone. The reason I started the book with that is because it really, it really plays into why I wrote this book in the first place true, which was this idea that you see a lot. I see it in my profession. I see it on social media that there is one way to lose

weight. And if you cannot lose weight that way, then you're a failure. And not only will society give you this subliminal message that you're a failure, you believe, that you are a failure. So the typical case I would see is in January, someone decides, right, I'm going to lose weight this year. I'm going to take charge of my health. And they will buy the latest diet book that's on the shelf. They'll choose one of the 10 or 20 books that are out at that time of year. Okay, I don't think it matters which one you choose to a certain degree, because I think all of them will work for two or three weeks if you actually follow what's in them. I think all of them will tend to work.

But I don't think that that's what people are after. I don't think people are wanting, you know, short-term weight loss. Really, in my 20 years experience of seeing patients true, people want real transformation. Yes, some want transformation in their physique, but many people want transformation in their energy levels, in the quality of their lives, in how they show up at work, how they show open their relationships. And what I would see, Drew, is that people would go on the diets in January. And by March, by February or March, they'd be back in my clinic saying, Dr. Chatschi, in January, I went on this diet. I did lose a little bit of weight. But now, not only have I gone

back to where I've started, I'm now a little bit heavier. But that's not the worst thing, Drew. the worst thing is, is that they don't blame the diet. They blame themselves. They think that they're the failures, that I couldn't do it. I couldn't follow the formula. I'm weak. And then they start to feel shame. And shame is a toxic emotion.

Shame never helps anybody change in the long term. Sure, it can help you in the short term. It very rarely helps you in the long term. So when I start the book saying you're not to blame, it's to really just say, hey, look, right at the start, it's to say, hey, look, I get it. It's tough. You have tried before. You may not have succeeded, but that's okay.

I'm not going to blame you. Not only am I not going to blame you. There is no need to blame yourself because I'm going to walk you through the real culprits here, the real reason why you are struggling to maintain your health and maintain your weight. but it's not about willpower. It's not about a moral failing that you have. It's not about the fact that you're weak when people around you are absolutely fine. No, your biology has changed. You probably were exposed to certain things in the environment that you weren't aware of that has changed your biology, has changed the way you feel. And now you've ended up carrying excess weight.

So you're not to blame. I'm here now to help you. And the sort of calling line at the top line of this book really drew is that you can always you can almost always help somebody lose weight in a sustainable way in a scientifically responsible way once you find the right approach for them and that is what the entire book is about it's it's basically saying I want to help you find the right approach for you yeah it may be that you you may be that you need a new diet. But it may not. It may mean you need to, it may mean you need to improve your sleep. It may mean you need to work on your emotions or your stress or your environment. But, you know, whatever it is, I'm going to hold your hand through all the various aspects. And by the

end of it, I'm going to help you figure out what you need to do to help you. And Drew, you know, it's interesting. The title of the book is not Lose Weight Feel Great. It's feel great, lose weight. That was done for, you know, a very, very important reason. And, you know, I had long pushback with the publisher over this. That's the truth. And I'm going to help people feel great straight away. The weight loss is coming as a side effect. The weight loss is coming as a side effect of focusing on the creation of health. So there's quite a few things there. Drew, I guess, that we could expand upon. Yeah.

And I think we'll, a lot of layers and we'll continue the conversation here. I wanted to interject with a little bit of, I pulled up a definition between the difference between knowledge and wisdom. And I want to read it here to you and to our listeners because I feel like as I was going through your writings and your conversations on this and you've been talking about the subject for a while, we even talked about it a little bit on the last time we went into this, around really how the old way and the old ideas and the old science around weight loss is just all antiquated. We need a different way of thinking about this. So I want to read this definition here

that I pulled up from dictionary.com about knowledge and wisdom. And then I'll comment on it and I want to get your perspective on it. So the primary difference between these two words is that wisdom involves a healthy dose of perspective and the ability to make sound judgments about a subject, while knowledge is simply knowing. Anyone can become knowledgeable about a subject by reading, researching, and especially memorizing facts. It's wisdom, however, there requires much more of an understanding and the ability to determine which facts are relevant in certain situation.

Wisdom takes knowledge and applies it with discernment based on experience, evaluation, and lessons learned. When I was reading your book, the overwhelming feeling that I had was that this is weight loss wisdom. There's a lot of knowledge that's out there. But this is wisdom. And my perspective is that it really takes a person, doesn't have to be a medical doctor. It could be some practitioner that's actually, could be a nurse, could be some practitioner,

nutritionist that is actually working with patients one-on-one, not just writing books, not just having theories on Instagram, not just having their own end of one experience. I feel personally that it takes a doctor who is working with a lot of people from a lot of backgrounds and they come to some conclusion that everything ends up working, but what works for you has to be based on what your uniques are. Would love your thoughts on that. Yeah, I mean, that was wonderful. So much there for me to reflect on.

I mean, if we just go back to those definitions for a second, which, you know, we're really quite thought-provoking because we are living in a world, aren't we, where information and knowledge is freely available. It's widely available. We all consume knowledge on a daily basis, all of us. You know, we kind of, we become our own little experts. We go on our Instagram and we read a few posts and we, you know, we're always getting these new inputs of knowledge on a daily basis. And it's very easy to think that we have become knowledgeable or now we or as you say, we have wisdom. But the two things from your wisdom definition that really struck out to me was the word perspective.

Wisdom requires a certain level of perspective. Wisdom also requires us to determine what facts are relevant. And it's really wonderful to hear that because actually in many levels, it really speaks. it really speaks to what evidence-based medicine actually is. Evidence-based medicine is really about wisdom, because evidence-based medicine has got three components to it. It is not just the published evidence, which many people believe it to be, and many people, particularly when we argue on social media or online,

we're trying to argue with research and published evidence. And of course, that has real value. But evidence-based medicine is actually the intersection of three things. The published research evidence, patient preference, and clinical expertise and clinical experience, right? Those three things. It's where those three things meet in the middle. That is what evidence-based medicine is. And I feel this really speaks to what you were trying to get at, which is, you know, I've been seeing patients now for 20 years, Drew. So that's tens of thousands of patients. And you see enough patience with an open mind. And you realize actually that no one's the same. Everyone's got a different life story. Everyone's got a different relationship with health, with food, with stress, with sleep. Everyone's got different. cultural beliefs about what the right way is to look after themselves and to live a healthy and happy life. And actually the only way that I can help them is by absorbing all of that and determining, as you say in your definition, which facts are relevant here. You can go and see

the study on low carb versus low fats. I go, well, actually, it's clear cuts that this particular diet works better than that diet. Okay, fine. That's that's. That's one research trial within that. There will be some people who did better on the other diets because these trials are just giving us an average. They're giving us an overall on balance. We feel that this particular diet does better than that one. But there's going to be outliers in each case. And so I would like to think that what I have put together in this book is an accumulation of 20 years of experience, including things that I have got wrong in the past or things that my patients have taught me. And I thought, oh, wow, you know, I don't feel I can have a

bias towards one particular diet because I don't feel it's my role as a doctor to do that. Because if my, if my bias is, let's say, carnivore, right? It's not, but let's say it was. And a patient comes in and that patient really doesn't want to, you know, in their mind, harm any animals and they believe that they shouldn't be eating any animal products. And they want to be a vegan or they want to only eat plant foods, that I've got a problem as a dot set, because if my bias is carnivore and my patient doesn't want to consume animal products, that I've got a real issue there in terms of trying to help them. And vice versa, you know, my bias might be whole food plant based. And then if someone, you know, has got a friend who went on carnivore and their autoimmune

problems got better and their skin got better and they've got more energy than they've ever had before and they're saying, hey, doctor, look, I feel absolutely fantastic. And then I'm trying to say to them, yeah, but I think you should stop eating all animal products. There's going to be a complete dissonance and a disconnect between what I'm trying to do as a doctor and what that patient wants to hear. So for me, it always comes down to listening to the patient. What is it that they want? What is their current belief system? And then my job is to put it all to together with something that's actionable and manageable for them. And I feel that, you know, I couldn't have written this book, Drew, 10 years ago, maybe not even five years ago,

because, you know, I really try to simplify weight loss in a very readable way. And the thing with simplicity is, and I realize this having written four books now, is that simplicity is actually the hardest thing. Try to simplify concepts down so they're easy to read. You know, it's something I work very, very hard on. And it, I think it's, I think it's deceiving sometimes when you reads or when one reads things that are simplified and thinking, oh, you know, that's obvious. I get that. I hope it does come across like that because that's the idea. But I guess I sort of feel I've gone off your questions slightly. But I think wisdom is the key. Many of us think we're experts now, including myself in various things, right? But the truth is, you really want to be in the field for a

period of time. And I tell you where I see this a lot, Drew. I see a lot of younger healthcare professionals or certainly in the UK's medical doctors fresh out of med school. And they have the best, I've got to be careful how I say this. I don't want to be condescending to anyone. You can see that they have the best intentions in the world, but sometimes they see things very black and white. I was taught this at medical school. This is what the LAS research says. This is the way to be. And you can sometimes see that. I go, you know what? I wonder if you'll still be thinking the same thing in 10 years' time, because when you have seen real life patients with real life problems, you realize that you need to suddenly get flexible up in your brain.

You need to start improvising. You need to find alternative different approaches for different people. And what I'd like to think I do with the framework I put together and feel great, lose weight is to bring all of that together in one place and say, listen, I can help you. Let me hold your hand through all the aspects that may be at play here. and then I'm going to help you figure out what is the right approach for you. And Drew, I'd just say a little story.

Before this book went to print, and in the UK, it went on to the printers last September, right, September 2020. And I'd edited the manuscript about 20 times. And Penguin in the UK was saying, look, this has to go to print now, or we're going to miss getting the books in stock for publication. And I was reading it through, and I email Penguin quickly. I said, listen, guys, I know I said I was done, but there is one more line that has to go in the book. And, you know, I'm putting my foot down. It can't go to print until I put this in. And it's on the penultimate page of the book drew.

And it said something like this. And when your friends ask you what plan you're following, you can tell them that you no longer follow other people's plans. because you've been empowered to create your own. And it was only after six or nine months of working on the book that I actually got that line. And I was like, that's it. That's what makes this different is that I'm not giving you the Dr. Chatsy plan. I'm not giving you the Dr. Chatsy Diet.

I'm saying these are the areas I want you to look at in your life. And I'm going to give you a little toolkit at the end to figure out which ones are for you. And then this is going to be your plan. You're going to own this plan. And I think that's controversial a little bit true because some people will say that if people want to be told what to do, and I think they do to a certain degree. And I help people with that. But Drew, I don't know what you think about this, but I found over and over again that you can follow someone else's plan for a few weeks, maybe two or three months.

But at some point, if that plan doesn't convert and change to being your own where you feel empowered and you feel, I love that aspect of the plan. That really works for me. That bit's not working so well for me. I don't feel you can make that long-lasting change. And I know you've been involved in many books in the past. And I think a lot of these short-term plans are great to help educate people and help them understand how good they could feel if they did A, B, and C. But at some point, I think you've got to stop following the plan and you've got to be in charge of how you're living your life. Yeah, and I think it's really the sophistication of where wellness is now. Those were great when maybe people didn't think that there was a difference between whole foods and processed foods, right?

Like those were like, those can be great. Just like it's kind of like vanity. Vanity could kickstart you off and there's no judgment on getting started. But if the primary reason that you're doing anything is for vanity or for maximization of, let's say, cash in business, If the primary reason that you're doing something is external, it's not going to be sustaining because, as Mike Tyson says, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. And life punches us in the face a lot, right? You have kids and all of a sudden your sleep schedules off.

And then you need to do this. A family member goes through a health crisis. A pandemic happens. And you find yourself as you've opened up, you know, eating more sugar and, you know, trying to like balance things out. Like life happens. anything can get you kick started. A lot of things work for a period of time.

And what I was sharing about earlier when you were talking, when I was talking about wisdom versus knowledge, I think books that help you teach how to think are much more helpful in the long term so that you can use your own inner wisdom to then personalize it. And I think a great place to start is traditionally, right, let's take the classic sort of government line, health ministry line, which is it's kind of a calories in and a calories out game, right? Eat less, exercise more has been the motto for many health institutions. And then as the movement of the whole food started coming in, it's like, look, no,

it's really not just about calories in and out. It's about the quality. You know, food is information, food is medicine. That's fantastic. A new piece of the puzzle that's new for a lot of people that I feel that you're bringing into this book is that actually, when it comes to the topic of weight loss, what you actually put into your mouth might not be the most important thing. And I feel like that's a deeper layer of sophistication that we're now bringing. Tell us what that means and how you arrive to that conclusion to put that

advice inside of the book. The book is split up right into five parts, which is what I think was my fresh take on this topic because I didn't want to write something that had already been written. I wanted to contribute something to the world that I felt was fresh or it's certainly a different perspective and a take on this topic. And there's, you know, what you eat, what you eat, why you eat, how you eat, when you eat and where you eat. As a way of really thinking about this at a slightly different way. And what you're talking to, is what you're speaking to there, Drew, is my favorite part of the book, which is the Why We Eat section, which I think gets missed out of the entire conversation, yes, around weight loss,

but even around health. It's like, this is what you should be doing. You should be eating this. You should be moving this way. You want to be doing this. And it's like, well, a few years ago, I asked myself the question, I think most people who are trying to lose weight or improve their health at the moment, probably know that eating chips or sugar or pastries or ice cream on the sofa in the evening whilst watching television is probably not going to be helping them. I think most people, not everyone, but a lot of people who are trying to lose weight know that already. So I thought they already know that.

They've already got that information. They've already got that knowledge, right, in their brains. yet despite them wanting to improve their health, despite them knowing that this is not helping them, they're still engaging in it. We see this all the time. We all, you know, myself included, you mentioned the pandemic there and how there was a period of time where my sugar intake really went up for a few weeks, which was quite surprising to me because it hadn't been like that for many, many years. And, you know, there's some deep bruised layers there, which I'm very happy to talk about later if you want to. But it was really interesting that,

I thought, well, telling people what they should be doing is not enough. Why are people engaging in behaviors that their rational brain will tell you that they don't want to be? And it's because of stress. It's because of emotions. And this whole piece of emotions is something that I don't feel we're talking about enough. I think there are really great spiritual books on emotions. There are really deep books that go into emotions. But what I think, what I like to think I bring to the wellness space is, you know, I like to think of myself as an expert generalist. So I feel instead of getting super specialised into an area, it's like I want to take that 30,000 foot view and put it all together for someone and go, okay, look, yeah, I'm going to talk to you about your diet,

but I'm also going to talk to you about stress, your emotional health, your sleep quality, movement, how you're eating, mindful eating, the timing of eating, the environment. I wanted to put it all together for people. So on that subject, it's off emotions, Drew, it's kind of like this pandemic is a prime example because in the UK and I know in the US as well, many people have been putting on weight during this time, many people, including people in the wellness space. And I know different parts of the world have got different restrictions as we record this conversation, Drew, we are still in a full UK lockdown that has been in place maybe since. I'm going to guess the 28th, 29th, December.

I mean, that is a long time in the British winter. It's been dark. It's been cold. And we've been on a full on lockdown. That's our third lockdown. This impacts people's wealth. Being it impacts their stress, of course, many people will have put on weight. And the media have all these terms, the Corona Stone, the quarantine 15.

And people are beating themselves up and they're going, I know that I shouldn't be putting on weight at the moment. I know I'm seeing that if I carry excess weight or I'm obese, then I'm at high risk of complications from COVID or any other problem, or most other health problems I should say. Yet I can't stop when I'm putting on weight. But let's look at what the data actually says to you. The data has been saying for a number of years.

And depending on which trial you look at, it will give you slightly different figures. But roughly speaking, 85% of us change our eating behavior in response to stress. About 45, maybe nearly 50% of us eat more. And about 35 up to 40% or so eat less. Okay. So most of us change our eating behavior in response to stress.

Not all of us. Some of us eat more. Almost half the population eat more. So if you are someone who has found yourself eating ice cream, eating the sweets, eating the chips on the sofa, eating more than you want to, do you need a new diet book telling you that that's not good? Is that really the problem? Well, if it's stress and your emotions that's driving the eating behavior, well, maybe you need help with your stress and your emotions. Maybe you don't need a new diet

book. And this goes back to your first question, which is the whole conversation around weight loss has become far too one-dimensional. Eat less, move more. A, it's not quite factually correct with the new science, number one, but number two, it's misleading and it makes people feel worse because if somebody is eating less and moving more and they're not losing weight, then they've got a big problem. It's like, I am following the advice that I am being told, yet I'm getting heavier and heavier. There must be something wrong with me. Or I need to push myself harder.

I need to deprive more. I need to punish myself more. I need to restrict more. And I've seen this. I talk about this case study in the book, which probably illustrates this. I mean, it's quite deep. But I think these conversations need to be had.

Because there's a lot of people out there who are trying their best to follow the conventional health advice. and they are struggling. So you probably know the ACEs study, the adverse childhood experiences study that Dr. Vincent Felitti did a few years ago. And he showed a very powerful correlation between having adverse childhood experiences, whether that's physical abuse or emotional abuse or mental abuse and obesity later on in life, right? That's incredible. We, you know, we haven't really been talking much about that. And it reminds me of a patient I saw a few years ago. And I think I started seeing her when she was about 19 or 20 years old. And she had been trying to lose weight for a number

of years. She suddenly became overweight when she was 16, never had a problem before that. And she was trying all kinds of different diets. She was making herself feel really bad about herself. She couldn't lose any weight and she came to see me for help. And I would see her regularly. And the more I got to talk to her, Drew, the more I started to realize there's something else going on here. You know, you just get that smell as a clinician that there's something else going on here. And as we started to unpick things, it turned out that when she was 16 years old, right, when she was 16 years old, she was in an abusive relationship. Right. She was in a relationship with it, with a, with a older man who would abuse her physically. And she got quite

tearful talking about this. And I felt very strongly that there was something going on at play here with her emotions, which was linked to her weight loss. So I sent her for some therapy. And it turns out that in that therapy, I recourse for a number of sessions, she would see the therapy, she would see me, but we managed to unpick that actually for her, what happened was this. At the age of 16, she finds herself in an unsafe situation. She doesn't like it. When she's out of that situation, in her head, she never wants to be put in that position ever again. So what does she do? Her subconscious mind determines that for her, if she puts on weight, if she becomes fatter, okay, if she carries all this excess weight, in her mind, she was no longer going to be

attractive to men and therefore she would never be in that situation again. Now, once we managed to unpick that, everything started to become clear. She was getting therapy. She started to deal and process with those emotions. No kidding. Over the next 12 to 18 months, she started to lose significant amounts of weight. And she wasn't even really trying that hard. It was emotional baggage that she was holding on to Drew. And some people may think that that's quite an extreme case, but it is a lot more common than people think. And I tell you, Drew, I, you know, I thought long and hard before putting that in because, you know, there are whole books written on this topic where you have to go through, like, you know, Gabel Matte, you know, I love Gabel. You know, he's written some great books exploring

all this, but they are deep books, right? You have to go deep and explore it. And I thought, okay, great. But there's a lot of people out there who won't be going into a Gabon-Mate book. So I want to write a very easy to read book that's based on a lot of experience, a lot of science, but really bring that to life. And Drew, I can tell you the amount of messages I have had on Instagram, a lot of private messages from women in particular saying, Dr. Chastichy, I just want to say thank you for sharing that story. There's one lady, I can remember clearly, this is back in January when the book came out in the UK. She said, I can now clearly see why I've not been able to lose weight for 20 years. That is a carbon copy of my life. And because of reading that story, I phoned my doctor

yesterday and have an appointment with a therapist. Thank you so much because I'm now determined to go and tackle something that I've suppressed for the last 25 years. Wow. Incredible. Yeah, I mean, But Drew, it's kind of, that is at one extreme, sure. But I also don't know, I don't know if it is an extreme. I think sometimes people think it's an extreme, just like you were alluding to earlier. And yes, her story and her circumstances of being in an abusive relationship at 16 with the older person, sure, okay, maybe that not everybody can relate to that. But there's so many people that in other ways, you know, you've done so many episodes on your podcast about inner work,

whether it's with Gabor Mote or Peter Crone or, you know, these other folks. I've had a lot of them on my podcast too. You've been very vocal in your last books. I think the thing that isn't extreme is we all have stuff. And that stuff can lead to imprints on our subconscious. And when we don't see or aren't aware of it, those patterns continue to play out in ways where we feel, why does this keep on happening to me? And I think it's important and it's a message that I feel like I'm strongly getting inside of your book, which is, look, let's take a step back. It's not just. Yes,

what we are putting in our mouth is actually important. And there's a lot of low-hanging fruits that are there. We'll touch on some of them. But it's not the only component. Yes, sleep, yes, exercise. Yes, these other components are there. But emotions is not getting and spiritual work internet work is not getting the love that it deserves. And I feel like it's finally starting to come in to the world of health and wellness, which is really exciting. Yeah. And what's interesting there for me, Drew, is it's certainly not getting the love that it needs

in the health and wellness space, although I think that's changing. But particularly in the weight loss space, right? Because weight loss has been seen as a very simple equation. And you get that equation, right? with calories in and calories out, and you're fine. That's the narrative. And we can unpick that in terms of where that can go wrong sometimes. But I'd ask everyone listening now, just to think about this for a second. And I'm sure a lot of people who are into wellness, Drew, listen to the show, right? And they're probably trying to engage in a lot of things that you talk about. But ask yourself,

do you always manage to stay to a whole food diet? Do you always, do you always? get those eight hours of sleep, do you always switch off your phone 90 minutes before bed? Or does sometimes life get in the way? Because I think many of us, if we're really honest with ourselves, go, actually, you know what? Yeah, when everything's okay and life's going the right way, sure, I can stick to my sleep, my stress management, my diet. But when things start to get thrown off a little bit, what are my response patterns? What are my defaults? What do I go to? Why did I have a four-week period? I think it was last summer where I was suddenly having huge amounts of sugar every day, right? And true, I'll say the old me five years ago, I would have been too scared to admit

that on a public forum like this. I would have been thinking, hold on a minute, I'm writing books on wellness. I've written about sugar before. I'm trying to inspire people. what does that say about me if I do that? But actually, I've realized that actually that was a false construct of an identity that wasn't helpful because actually owning up being vulnerable and saying, hey, you know what? Yeah, I've sold over half a million books, right? I know this stuff, but I'm still a human being. I'm still a human being who struggles just like anyone else. And so when the pressure went up for me, right, what did I turn to? I turn to sugar to help me manage my stress.

Even though my logical brain, my rational brain, I know that that's not going to be helpful for me. But that wasn't a logical rational decision. It was an emotional decision. It was coming from a different part of the body. And what was interesting is at that time, I was actually processing some stuff from my childhoods. And I remember in that time I was thinking back to,

you know, I remember if I used to feel down when I was a kid, Me and my brother, when my parents went around, we'd sneak into the kitchen. There was this like cookie jar there. And there were sweets and chocolate. So we would just sit there. And I would just sit there eating it. And I didn't know it at the time. I just thought, whatever.

I'm just eating chocolate and sweets because I'm a kid. Now I can look back with clarity. Go, oh, wow. You were soothing your emotions. You were, you know, as I write in the book, I say many of us now. we used to eat to fill a hole in our stomachs. Now we eat to fill a hole in our hearts. I had a hole in my heart that I was trying to fill the void with sugar.

And in processing things again last summer, when I was feeling very raw for a few weeks, I couldn't stop eating sugar. And if I could interject one thing on that, the other layer to it is that, I mean, I feel like you shared that, you know, you saw that pattern and it being connected to your childhood, but also with the way that you live your life now and the, you know, working out regularly and other stuff, there's no judgment on that, right? It's not a good or bad. And also, too, there's times where it's like you eat sugar and it's like, wow, that felt great. And I'm doing it consciously knowing that I'm more stressed out right now. I'm reaching for the sugar. I'm

going to enjoy it. And I'm okay with the other side of the repercussions with it. Yeah. And Drew, you just nailed it. That's the key point. This time when it happened, I did not beat myself up. I was like, oh, I get it. That's my way of managing it. I was trying to resist, but I couldn't. And it's that lack of judgment to it now that allows it to be a short-term blip, if you want to call it that. But let's not even call it a blip. It was a short-term mechanism that I needed to get me through, and now I don't need it anymore. Because I didn't attach judgment and shame and guilt to it. I didn't wake up. The truth is, I honestly, I knew what was happening. I was like, oh, okay, this is interesting. Okay, fine. I'm not going to beat myself up. I'm not going to wake up the next thing and go, wow, right.

You're now going on an extreme detox for two weeks to make up for that. No, I was like, no, I'm over that. I don't need to do that anymore because actually I understand what that behavior was doing. And I feel we all need to really understand that every behavior we engage in, it serves a role. It's there for a reason, right? But too many times we buy the diet book and say, right, for the next 30 days, I'm not going to eat this, this and this. I'm only going to eat these foods. Okay, great. I've nothing against that.

I have done that before. I've used that approach to my patients before. Nothing wrong with that. The problem is, is it at some point. you need to not be looking externally for the answer. You need to, you know, turn it around a little bit, put the mirror there and look at actually, well, what's going on here? You know, why do I turn to these certain behaviors at certain times? And I've got this really nice exercise in the book that I call the freedom exercise or the three Fs that I think, well, I think it'll be very

powerful for the listeners because you can apply it to food. You can apply it to alcohol and social media use. You can apply it to anything really. But let's say somebody listening or watching this true gets those sugar cravings at times. Let's say it's a dark evening. It's 9 p.m. You've got something on the television. You're watching a film and you feel like some ice cream, right? This is a fairly common scenario. So the first F is feel. Okay, so before you have the ice cream, just take a quick pause. You can journal it if you want or you can just think about it. What am I really feeling? Am I really feeling hungry for food or am I hungry for something else? Am I lonely? Am I bored? Am I stressed? Has the, you know, what is that feeling? And just ask yourself and then go

ahead and eat it, right? But you're just starting to build in awareness. Awareness is always necessary for long-term change, not short-term change, long-term change. It just starts to build on that awareness. The second F is feed. Okay, so next time it happens, go, okay, what am I feeling? Okay, I'm feeling, I'm feeling stress. Okay. How does your chosen food feed that feeling that you've just identified? Oh, okay. Oh, I was feeling stress. When I eat ice cream, I feel less stressed. Okay, great. Go ahead and have it. But now you're just starting to join the dots in your mind about what's really going on. And then the third F is find. So the first of us, now that you know what the feeling is, now that you know how food feeds that feeling, the final F is fine. Can you find a non-food behavior to feed that feeling? So if it is that, you know, you, you're sort of, I don't know, let's say you're, you're feeling really lonely. You're, you're stuck at home. You can't go out. You've not seen anyone all day. And in the evening, you're feeling lonely so that ice cream is going to make you feel better. Okay, maybe instead of that,

you can phone a friend or, you know, let's say you're feeling stressed and you would turn to chocolate to deal with your stress. Actually, you know what? Maybe I can run myself a bath or maybe I can do 10 minutes of yoga on YouTube, or maybe I can, you know, phone a friend or maybe I've not spent much time with my partner. You know what, instead of having this chocolate, let me go and get my partner, I give her or him a cuddle. You know, the point is, once you understand what the behavior is and how food plugs that hole, you can go, ah, well, maybe I don't always need food. And then the converse is true. Well, maybe sometimes you go, yeah, you know what? I still want the ice cream anyway. okay, great, but at least now you're doing it intentionally. You're doing it with knowledge by

understanding your emotions. Again, yeah, you know what? Life is, you know, at the moment in the UK, Drew, the truth is this, I don't think anyone is bothered about weight loss, right? It's our third lockdown. It's been dark. It's been cold. And people can't go out. The restaurants and cafes are shut. you know, until a few days ago, schools had been shut for three months. So people are, you know, parents are trying to homeschool. They're trying to work. They're trying to look after their kids. I mean, I think at the moment, food for many people is the only pleasure that they perceive themselves to have at night. You know, so in the evening, it's like, no, you know what? Screw it. I mean, what I want because there's nothing else to do at the moment. And you know what? If that is

the case, the old meat, I think. would have had a very different perspective because I think it's okay to understand that. Now, I'm not saying we should ignore our health. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is, I care about people's healths, right? I care about people making better decisions. But what I've realized is that you can't change people just by lecturing them, by trying to, you know, give them information more and more information. We need to understand. We need to help people understand. because when you when you build in that awareness, I found over and over again, Drew,

that people make changes. It's so true. It's the simplest thing. It's the most direct intervention. And yet it's the toughest because the way that our brains were designed and the multiple layers of operating systems that are in our brain, you know, our lizard brain and our prefrontal cortex.

And there's just there's all these things that are competing for short-term pleasure, long-term gain, emotional fulfillment, you know, our subconscious mind and how it plays in. So we're awareness is always the answer, and yet we need, you know, a long-format conversation to talk about it because it's kind of like that old quote I've shared on the podcast before, but it's, you know, I don't know who discovered water, but it wasn't a fish, right? I don't know if you ever heard that quote before,

but basically it's like awareness, we think we are aware. We think that because we think we're aware of everything that goes on our life. And yet, because we are, have so much momentum from one situation to the next in life and also modern living with technology, so many beautiful things that come with technology, but it makes it easier to not have a break to sort of take a step back and actually ask herself, what do I really want right now and what do I need right now? It's just easy to go from one meeting to the next to the snack that we don't necessarily want to eat that's not going to make us feel the best to the next thing. And then on top of that,

the other layer that I'd love you to chime in on is yes, inner work is important. Yes, ultimately the most long-term thing is awareness. And there are foods, both in the wellness space, there's processed foods, and for just the regular fast food world, consumption world, there are foods that are actually hijacking our ability to make decisions. Can you chat about the science side? So we've talked about the emotional work and the inner work side. Let's talk about the side, which is, I feel, doesn't get a lot of attention from traditional medicine when it comes to weight loss. It's sort of all calories are equal. Let's just touch on that briefly. Yeah, look, the quality of the food that we eat absolutely matters. Even it matters for our emotions.

You're right, that word hijack is so key because if we're constantly eating highly processed foods, it does change our biology. It changes the chemistry in our body, which then makes it more likely that we're going to consume more of those foods. And when we go to eating more, you know, real food, real whole foods, we get all kinds of benefits, right? You know, there's three big benefits to me. number one, you feel less hungry. Number two, your body will start to manage your weight for you. And number three, you'll be less tempted to consume what I call blissy foods.

Now, these blissy foods are these highly tempting foods that are very, very hard for us to resist. And the majority of them have been engineered that way by food scientists. You know, these specific combinations of fat, sugar and salt together, which, you know, spike that bliss point in the brain where we have lots of the chemical dopamine being released. And dopamine is a very, very important chemical for us to understand because dopamine does many different things in the body. But one of the things that it does is it helps teach us to satisfy important emotions like hunger. Some people call dopamine the learning molecule. So if you, for example, when you're feeling stressed and low, consume a pastry or a muffin or a cookie,

right? And you start to teach your body what's going on. Oh, when I feel down, when I feel low, I have this big head of dopamine, I start to feel better. Now, you start to, you know, dopamine is the learning molecule. You're teaching yourself that, oh, next time I feel low, I'll also have another cookie because I know that gives me that dopamine spike. And the problem is with dopamine is that the more often you consume foods, that spike dopamine, then your body starts to release dopamine in anticipation of eating those foods, even just the smell of the food or the sight of that food. You start to release it because your brain is always trying to help you.

And I think a lot of people, many of my patients, didn't quite realize that if they have had many years on a highly processed food diet, a lot of junk food, a lot of ready meals. You know what? It's going to be tricky. It is going to be tricky initially until you start to reprogram that system,

which you can do. You absolutely can do once you start to consume more real whole foods. A patient has just come to mind, Drew, who I think illustrates this quite nicely. She was, I can't remember what her exact job was, but she was an office worker. and she had been trying to lose weight and improve her health for a number of years. She tried all kinds of different things.

And, you know, I was helping her. I put her on a whole food diet. She was making some changes. She was starting to feel better. But she had plateaued. And she came to see me once. And I said, what goes on? What, you know, when are those times in the week when you really struggle?

She says, it's really clear for me. I sometimes finished work at about 7 p.m. This is pre-pandemic, right? she finished work at 7 p.m. And she would drive home and a drive home would take her maybe 20, 25 minutes to drive home. There was one roundabout where she would stop at. You guys call them roundabouts as well, right? Yeah, we don't have many of them, but yes. Okay, just checking everyone knows what I'm talking about. But she would have to go through a roundabout on the way home. And there would be lots of these fast food restaurants around it. And she said there was at that roundabout,

sometimes she would smell the food and the feeling would be overwhelming for her, that she would be tired at the end of a day, stressed out, it would be late. She says, I just can't resist. I would just pull in to the drive-through. I'd order what I need and I'd eat it. I wouldn't feel good later. I wouldn't sleep well. I thought a bit groggy the next day, but I can't help it. That's why I said, and she goes, Doc, you know, I can't help it. I just don't have the willpower for this. And I said to this is this is not a willpower issue right this is changing your biology you've eaten so many of those meals in your life that the smell of that food is spiking dopamine in your body and that is driving you to actually buying it and not going home and actually cooking a whole food meal and I said

look is there another route by which you can drive home he said yeah I can take a different road home but it would just take me about 10 minutes longer I said look, for the next few weeks, I want you to drive home on the longer route and see what happens. And I kid you not true, it was like night and day. She came back a few weeks later. She was like, Dostjcchi, it's just so easy. She doesn't have to resist anymore. She finishes work late. She comes home and then she does what she wants to do. She cooks a whole food meal. She's, you know, she's taught herself a few five or six simple whole food meals at take about 15, 20 minutes to cook.

And over the next few months, yes, she lost weight, but her life improved, her energy got better, her mood improved, her sleep improved. And the only thing I really did for her was tell her to drive a different route home. And that's the power of these foods, or these, we should say, these food-like products that have been engineered.

They do things to our brain. It is not people's fault. Going back to the start of this conversation, do. They're not at fault. They're not to blame. The food is engineered that way. They're just responding perfectly naturally to their biology. So we can help people. And you know, True, what I really like about that story. Yes, it works for her health. But it really, you know, having explained this to many patients, they really like it, true. You can see that the lights go off in their brain. they go, oh, I get it now. I understand. Oh, it's not me. Oh, I, like, it really helps change how they

feel about themselves when they realized that they weren't weak and failures, that they actually were just responding to their biology. Yeah. It's like, it's not just me, right? So I am making decisions that are there because I want to make sure that I remember that I'm empowered to make other decisions, but it's also the environment sometimes, just like anybody who works in an office environment, again pre-pandemic, somebody brings in sweets into the office and you're not a sweet eater, you find yourself eating those things just because they're there. So our environment constantly impacts us. And it's that duality of like, hey, yes, let's re-engineer our environment.

If we're around negative people all the time, great. We need to maybe think, like, which are the friends that we want to spend more time with and which are the ones that maybe we want to pull back from a little bit or have an honest conversation of like, your negativity is bringing me, you know, down. The other theme that I feel like I get from that story is that these tiny habits to talk about a mutual friend of ours, right, these little tiny habits, BJ Fogg and his book, he was on your podcast, our podcast, you did his workshop. I did his workshop. We think sometimes we have to go all in, as you've shared before. We have to go all in and we need to change every

single component of our life top to bottom. Sometimes that happens. But more often, long sustainable change, especially in a category of our life that is more difficult to us to figure out how to improve change, happens through these little tiny habits just as this woman was doing in her life by avoiding that one little roundabout or, as we say sometimes, intersection. Yeah, it's also, you know, any positive habit is great and starts to build momentum in your life. But it's also trying to identify, are there any keystone habits, small ones? They can be tiny, but they can be really influential, like for that lady. That was a small thing, right? Just an extra 10 minutes on her way home. She can listen to music. She can listen to podcast.

You know, okay, it may not be small for some people. I get it. But still, it's a one change that has a positive ripple effect. Because she avoids that temptation, her mood is better, her self-esteem is better. She starts to eat better food, which in turn starts to recondition her system. So she starts to remind herself what it's, remind her body what it's like when she is consuming real whole food. She's having to use less of her willpower to resist in the future because she's now to retrain her taste buds. So I'm a huge fan of time. tiny habits, I think sometimes we can really think about, well, is there a keystone tiny habit that's going to actually be really important? So I think for her, focusing all in on that one habit,

had so many knock on effects. Now, I could have instead chosen four other areas in her life, which I felt would have helped her. And she would have put a lot of effort into four different things. I want to move my body this much each day. I'm going to practice his 3F exercise. I'm going to journal before bed. I'm going to practice gratitude. I'm going to do all these things, which take effort. And I know they're simple things, but for her, just taking a different route home,

all those things started to happen as a consequence of that. And that's the thing with her within months. Because of the knock on effect, she was doing a lot of the other things that I wanted her to do. But that was the thing that kicked it all off for her. Momentum builds momentum. We take one tiny key habit, a pillar habit, and that makes us more excited for everything else. I heard this in another interview that you did. And I don't know if you mentioned in the book as well.

I might have missed it. But we talked about another area that, you know, we talk about the importance of sleep, but people don't often understand the connection of sleep and weight loss. And you were sharing about some of the research that's in that field. And this is again, another tiny habit of maybe figuring one way that we can improve our sleep that could potentially have an impact on our weight if that was something that somebody wanted to pay attention to. Can you expand on that a little bit more? Yeah, it goes back to the overall concept, Drew, which I'm trying to get across, which is if you're trying to improve your health,

and yes, if you're trying to improve your weights as well, although you may not, you know, that may not be your goal. You've got to find what is the right. area to tackle because you can waste a lot of time and energy on the wrong things. And I think sleep is one of those big ticket items that the biological changes in your body after you have slept well are so profound. They make everything else in your life easier. So if we talk about weight loss in particular, many people who are trying to lose weight are trying to eat less, right? They are trying, whether it's through calorie counting, whether it's through smaller meals, trying to resist things when they're feeling hungry,

snacking less, they're trying. Now, here's the thing with the science, which has been shown pretty clearly again and again. If you compare somebody, let's say you sleep seven to eight hours a night. If you sleep five and a half hours a night compared to eight hours a night, on average, you will consume 22% more calories the following day, right? That is a not insignificant amount. That means five days of sleeping five and a half hours a night. You may well consume a whole extra day's worth of calories, right?

A whole extra day just of not sleeping. It is crazy. And why is that? Because sleep has an effect on your hormone. So it affects two very important hormones in your body, leptin and grelin. Grelin is the hunger hormone, right? So after you haven't slept, grellin goes up. So it means you're even hungrier than you would have been ordinarily.

Leptin, which is one of the satiety hormones, which helps to signify if you've had enough to eat. It's more long term than straight after a meal. But nonetheless, it sends some very important signals to your body in terms of hunger. And whether you feel full, that goes down after you have. haven't slept. So after you've not slept, you're hungrier and you don't feel full. What else happens? You become more emotionally reactive when you haven't slept. It's harder for you to resist temptation when you haven't slept. And we know that feeling. I'm sure you know that feeling to you. I know that feeling when we haven't slept well, you know what? Walking past that pastry is not quite as

easy when you're feeling tired. But when you're, you know, as I said earlier on, when you're, when you're feeling good, when life is going great, you know, health and wellness is easy, right? But we need to, you know, we cannot plan for life to be going great all the time. We have to understand what is our Achilles heel. I know when I haven't slept well, I crave sugar, right? And from a take steps. I was sorry. And from an evolutionary standpoint, your body is doing exactly what it's designed to do. You're tired. You don't have as much energy. It's looking for the most efficient form of calories in the short term. So it's not even that our body is having a moral failing. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do. Yeah, that's a great point.

Your body is not trying to harm you. It's trying to save your life, basically. That's what it's always trying to do. It's trying to help you. And so I kind of feel that, you know, and you can expand it even further. What are your relationships like when you haven't slept well? You know, what do you like with your partner, with your children, with your work colleagues? Are you as patient? Are you as attentive? Or are you a bit ratty? You get annoyed quickly.

Why is that important? Well, because that stress often leads to stress eating, right? Not sleeping well is one of the most significant stresses in the body and increases inflammation. It changes genetic expression. But I have so many patients, true. I have helped them to lose weight sustainably and improve their health. and I didn't touch their diet. The diet was already pretty good.

I just got them sleeping well because when you sleep well, you automatically start to make better choices. Again, I'm not saying that is the right approach for everyone, but if someone's listening to this and they are struggling to sort out their food, if they keep trying different diets, but they're only sleeping five and a half hours a night, I would say, hey, listen, you might want to just take a pause on that diet at the moment. Put all of your attention into your sleep. You know, what are you doing? Are you having caffeine past noon? Are you agitated and wired before bed? Are you looking at screens before bed? Could you

try, you know, yoga? Could you try a hot bath or a hot shower one hour before beds? So many little things. Maybe you need to cut down on alcohol in the evening. You think that's helping you relax and switch off, but you're not realizing it's impacting the quality of your sleep. It's impacting your dream sleep, which is one of the most restorative forms of sleep. So for someone, they could go all in on sleep and they may find they're making better choices as a consequence. And this is what I'm so passionate about Drew, it's like, I want to help every single person. I don't think health and even weight loss is as complicated as we've made it. But we need to, yes, empower people with knowledge, but as you pointed out at the start, knowledge isn't enough, right? We need to turn that

knowledge into wisdom. And of course, we don't all have that wisdom. There's many areas in life what I learn about, I read about, but I don't have wisdom. I'm a learner. I'm a student of that topic and I'm trying to learn more and more. I hope that I can empower people with this information, but also provide a little sprinkling of wisdom on the top and say, hey, listen, I've been here before. I have seen tens of thousands of patients. I can tell you that there's always a way. Let me help you find the right way for you? It's such an important message because ultimately we're all trying to cultivate that inner wisdom and the people that I personally like to learn from are individuals who, well,

I'll tell you who I don't like to learn from. I typically don't like to learn from. I don't really resonate with people who are like, this is exactly the way. And you know what? That was exactly the way for them. It doesn't even mean that they're not true. It just means it's kind of like getting advice about parenting from somebody who doesn't have kids, right? They might have some interesting thoughts and ideas, but it's a whole different thing when people actually have kids. As every parent will tell you, I'm not a parent yet, but I know enough to know that I have a lot of theories on parenting, but it would be the first person to say, I don't have kids.

When I do, shit is going to hit the fan and then your theory is kind of some stick, but a lot don't. And I think the same thing goes with getting advice on weight loss from somebody who said, look, the truth is this. I've seen enough of what works and what doesn't work to give you these consistent themes. Number one, your environment matters. Number two, stop blaming yourself. Your judgment is just going to keep you on this perpetual cycle. Number three, food is important. Let's talk about why it's important, but also let's talk about the fact that every diet,

ultimately can work and be modified a little bit, especially if you're getting away from processed foods. Next one, where you eat, right? I don't know. I might be a little bit out of order. Where you eat is also important. Who you eat with is also important. When you eat is important and how you eat is important. So thinking about all those in the context of you as tools in the toolbox will help you come up with the formula that both helps you meet your goals. goals, but not just in the short term in the long term as well. And I think you've done that super eloquently inside the book. Rangan is filled with a ton of wisdom. And I just want to say, hats off to you, my friend, another bestseller that's out there in the world that's making a

difference in a way that is not gimmicky, in a way that's really sophisticated in taking the reader down the journey. So just wanted to share that with you. I do appreciate that man I always you know you're someone who I highly highly respect um and you know having you as a friend in my life is honestly one of one of the great pleasures for me it really is and I really appreciate the feedback and the words there um you know as you were talking then and it's something you said at the start of this conversation I was kind of taken back to why I wrote this book in the first place, which I think is quite interesting because weight loss has become very controversial, certainly here in the UK. I don't know if it's the

same in the US. I suspect it probably is. It's very controversial. As you were saying in your monologue at the start, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's like everything has become black and white. You can either talk about it or you can't. It's like I love a lot of what the body positivity movements say about we shouldn't be shaming anyone. We should be. We should be, accepting everybody for who they are, no matter what their size, that's completely fine. But I feel that there are certain elements within that movement who go that one step further and say we shouldn't help encourage people to lose weight or help them if that's what they want to do. They should be happy just as the way they are. And for me, it was like, well, no, no, no, hold on. I don't want to

shame anyone. I don't want anybody to feel bad about their current weight at all, but also as a daughter, I feel a slight obligation to say, listen, there are things that you may want to consider doing that actually will improve the quality of your life and decrease your health risk. You'll probably live longer. Your mental health will probably be better. And it was really interesting, Drew, because I didn't naturally want to write a book on weight loss, because I felt that my first three books, if people follow the plan on them, and I know from people who have, you will lose weight without focusing on weights, right? The reason I wrote this truth is because I thought, you know,

the easy thing for me to do would have been not to write it. I don't want to go in that device of toxic area. I don't need to go there. That would have been much simpler. But I was having a long chat about this, and I was really thinking about why do you do what you do wrong in? You know, if you want to be true to your mission to help 100 million people improve their health over the course of your career,

you've got to start talking to people who haven't heard your existing message. There is a significant proportion of the British and US population who have been conditioned to think that health is weight loss. And they will only pick up a book which says weight loss on the cover. That is true. There's a lot of market research on that. There is lots of people who won't pick up a book. They won't pick up my first three because it doesn't sell.

them weight loss. Now, I'm not trying to mislead anyone, right? But the truth is, yes, this says feel great, lose weight. It will help people lose weight. But frankly, I apply a lot of the principles in that book in my life. You know, that 3F exercise, that helps me understand my own behaviors and change my own behaviors for the better. And this is where, you know, it gets tricky. You know, when you're trying to help people, you've got to go, well, it's all very well what's going on in my head. I had a few messages, you know, when I announced the publication from some of my fans, true, who said, Dr. Chatsy, I've loved everything you've done so far. I loved your TV series. I love your podcast, your three books. I'm really, really disappointed in you

that you've written a book on weight loss. And it was really interesting for me, because I sat with that and, you know, I could really see underneath what was going on there. They had an image of me. They hadn't, this is before the book was out, an image of what was in that book. There was an assumption that it was a diet thing. It was a deprivation plan. Of course, there's no diets in the book. There's nothing of the sort in there. But the judgments that came from the title. And it was really interesting me because I had to go deeper and go wrong. And if you want to hit these 100 million people, you've got to go out there and you've got to go and reach people who aren't getting wellness messages. You've got to reach people who think,

health is about weight loss, right? Get them in in the first place, let them read it and then very quickly start changing their perspective and going, oh, wow. Oh, it's about so much more than just the food that I'm eating. And so I had to do a lot of inner work to actually get comfortable with writing a book on weight loss because the truth is true, I didn't need to do it, but I really felt a deep obligation to do it. And it's part of what's needed on our pathway of change and also making health more accessible is if it's the right fit for people. And again, you are so lucky, I mean, not lucky, you are in this extremely privileged place where you've worked hard. And the market in the UK and Europe especially and now growing in America has really

responded. And it's been hard work. I've seen you labor over the years, right? And you're in this very powerful place and privileged pace. And you're in this very powerful place and privileged pace. And you're unique space where you've done all the work to really earn that trust and that message of, of, of, you know, the audience that's there. And it's like, okay, do I want to keep on talking to that same community? Or do I want to also expand this to the people who need this, need it the most? So let's give them what they want, but in the process actually truly give them what they need, what they may not even knew that they really need, which is ultimately, regardless of where they are with their weight, I think the universal message of the book is if you let go of the

judgment and the cycle of external circumstances continuously influencing your thoughts, your diet, your relationships, everything else, you're going to be a happier and healthier person. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And it's, you know, it's not either write a book for your existing audience or write one for a new one. It can be both. It's a constant evolution. It's a total progression this book from my last few. I feel there's a lot of new information in there. But yes, it's also written in a way that hopefully I can attract a new audience to go, oh, right, I get it. Oh, it's about these simple daily habits that I can do that I don't need to punish myself and deprive myself and restrict myself. And you know, you've worked with many authors. You've got a lot of

friends, your authors, you know, it's those messages you get for all, then there hasn't been that much negativity, if I'm honest. You know, I'm not the sort of personality who courts negativity. I don't engage with it. I don't put out messages by and large that actually are inflammatory. It's just not the way I want to do things. I'm all about compassion, about kindness, about empathy, about understanding. That is what I try with everything that I do, whether it's a personal interaction, a professional interaction, a book, a podcast. You know, I'm not a perfect human being, so I'm sure I fall short from time to time. But I certainly try to. But those messages like the one I shared with you from that lady who now is going to go back into her life and address

an abusive relationship from 25 years ago, I think if for all that nine months of slog to write that book, if the only thing you did with that was help that one lady go and transform her life, well actually you know what that's worth it because that lady understanding herself better letting go of some of that baggage that will impact her relationships with her friends it will impact the way she parents her children it will impact it will be that ripple effect you know and I love the phrase by Gandhi about you know be the change you want to see in the world right I I I really hold that dear to me I I want everything I do I don't want to spread negativity. I don't want to intentionally do that. I want to spread positivity all of us through,

whether you're an author, podcaster, or whether you're just, you know, not just, whether you're, whether you don't have a profile like that and you're just getting on with your life, right? We've all got the power to make a difference. If we make a difference with ourselves, the way we put out messages, that ripples around the people around us. If you, if you're a mom and you start behaving in a different way with your kids. That ripples out to them and their friends. And, you know, I've really been thinking a lot these days, Drew, about this, this final thought, which is that the way you put out a message is just as important as the content of the message. And I think that's something that I would love to see change out there because it's not good enough to have the right

science and have the right quality of information, the tone in which you communicate it, I would say is even more important. It's so true. It's so true because that tone is also the question is like, are you going to help humanity step into that awareness when you come in with a different tone and you're picking a fight, right, which is there's a lot of that that's there. and I have nothing but compassion for those folks because obviously they've been impacted by their environment, their upbringing, other stuff.

When you are approaching it with your own awareness and putting out the message, that's actually how you can support people and society in the world, not just you as an author and a podcast host, not just me as a podcast host, but everybody who's listening in any way when we can approach life, when we can be successful in our health, in our, in our, in our, families and our business and our communities and we do it through the pathway of awareness. It just, that's actually how society changes. Yeah. Couldn't agree.

Couldn't agree anymore, man. Brother, man, it's been a pleasure to have you on to have another fantastic conversation. The book came out in January in the UK. It's done fantastically. And you've been now coming on podcasts and everything to promote it out here in the, in the U.S. So any places that you want to send to our audience, we have the link to the book in the show notes to grab it here on Amazon. Feel great. Lose weight. Simple habits for lasting and sustainable weight loss. Where else do you want to send our audience to? Hey, well, you know, I mean, I'm not difficult to find online. But if you like the sort of things me and Drew spoken about, you know, there's there's my podcast, feel better live more. Probably if you want to connect with me on social, Instagram or Twitter, it's, probably the best place. Although, true, you're getting me into a clubhouse. So you may start seeing a lot more of me on Clubhouse. But yeah, usual places like that are absolutely fine. And

if there's any questions people have that I didn't answer or you have any queries, you know, shoot me a note on social media. And I'll see if I can get back to you. Rangan, you're a force for good in the world, my friend. And can't wait to see all the ripple effects of this book and the continued messages from your podcast have in the world. It's been a pleasure to watch you unfold in the journey and making your difference to impact those hundred million lives. I appreciate you, my friend. Thanks, Drew. You too, buddy.