Dhru Purohit Show - 80% of People Who Lose Weight Will Regain It – Here Are 4 Evidence-Based Ways to Burn Fat and Keep It Off for Good

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

This episode is brought to you by Levels, Fatty15, and Momentous.  The majority of people who attempt to lose weight end up regaining it—not due to a lack of effort, but because of crash diets and unsustainable eating habits. However, we know that consistency and focusing on the basics are the keys to long-term success. Today’s guest is here to share his expertise on the top habits for effective weight loss.   Today, on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with his friend Dr. Rupy Aujla to discuss the top four daily habits that lead to sustainable weight loss. Dr. Rupy distinguishes between weight and fat loss and highlights the medical benefits of maintaining an optimal weight. He also shares the biggest mistakes people make when trying to lose weight and offers insights on how to implement fasting safely. Additionally, Dr. Rupy provides tips and tricks he’s learned from years of training in Nutritional Medicine.  Dr. Rupy Aujla is one of the most influential medical doctors in the UK. He has completed a master’s in nutritional medicine while sharing practical insights into healthy eating and thoughtful recipes through his Instagram, website, and podcast platform. Dr. Rupy founded The Doctor’s Kitchen, which strives to inspire and educate about the power of food as medicine and how to cook delicious recipes using carefully selected evidence-based ingredients.  In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Rupy dive into:  Confusing weight loss with fat loss (01:01) The most critical macronutrient for weight loss (03:57) Optimal protein consumption and signs you're under-consuming protein (12:30) Medical benefits of maintaining optimal weight (23:30) Dr. Rupy’s tips and tricks for optimal protein intake (35:11) The critical role of fiber, optimal intake, and gut health (41:10) When to eat dinner (56:53) Updated research on fasting and the proper way to fast (01:03:38) Why even temporarily tracking calories can be helpful (01:14:32) Final thoughts (01:20:59) Also mentioned in this episode: Doctor’s Kitchen App  Dr. Rhonda Patrick's Masterclass on Microplastics  Brami-Lupini Beans  Dr. Rupy’s video on Olive Oil  For more on Dr. Rupy, follow him on Instagram, X/Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, or his website. This episode is brought to you by Levels, Fatty15, and Momentous. Right now, Levels is offering my listeners an additional 2 FREE months of the Levels annual Membership when you use my link, levels.link/DHRU. Make moves on your metabolic health with Levels today.  Fatty15 is offering an additional 15% off its 90-day subscription Starter Kit. Go to fatty15.com/dhru and use code DHRU to replenish your C15 levels for long-term health. Optimize your energy and mental clarity with the purest form of creatine made by and used by the best. Go to livemomentous.com and enter promo code DHRU to get 20% off any order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rupy, so good to have you here. You know, today we're talking about an inconvenient truth. And that truth is that more than 80% of people who lose weight will ultimately end up regaining that weight within a few years. And some actually gain even more weight after that time than when they started. And that's not because they lack willpower as you talk about. It's often because they haven't found the simple, sustainable. habits that lead to sustainable weight loss that works for them long term.

So we're excited to have you on the show today to talk about the four simple daily habits that you practice personally and that you recommend to your patients that you've seen have worked for the long term. So to kick us off, I would love for you to start off with an important distinction. Tell us why when most people say they want weight loss, what they really mean is they want fat loss. This is a really good place to start, I think, because we need to make that distinction between what people assume

other people think they mean and actually what we want to avoid. So when people say weight loss, I believe we're talking about fat loss. People can lose weight in very unhealthy ways that actually is at the detriment to their overall health, particularly their metabolic health.

So as fasting becomes a very popular tool, and look, I'm a fan of fasting and I think we would go into fasting in a little bit later on today, it can get to the point where your fasting regime actually leads you to lose muscle mass. And that's something that weighs a lot, but it's definitely not something that you want to be doing, particularly as you age, because that is going to be the expense of your metabolic health.

We're going to talk a bit about how your muscles are sinks for glucose or blood sugar, and that's something that you want to preserve as you age for a number of other reasons. reasons as well. There are loads of unhealthy ways to lose crude weight, but actually what we want to be focusing on is losing fat. And I'm talking about specific types of fat, the white adipose tissue, the visceral fat that coats your organs, that is metabolically active and healthy, and you can predispose to things like type 2 diabetes and other inflammation producing conditions, and also the adipose tissue as well. So when we talk about, about weight loss for the remainder of this conversation, we're really diving into fat loss,

rather than crude measures of weight that can be gamified to actually be an unhealthy thing to aim for, an unhealthy goal. We're going to go into a little bit later with restrictive diets that look at calories in isolation. Now, I'm not saying that a calorie deficit is going to lead to an unhealthy outcome. But I think the extreme and the way in which you put into practice a calorie restrictive diet can actually lead to negative outcomes. And the other thing that I think we need to move away from, particularly in the research field, is BMI as a crude measure of weight loss because whilst BMI can go down, so that's

body mass index, that isn't always in line with metabolic health. So I think we need to separate out those and focusing on the quality elements of the diet can ensure that you're going to be losing weight in a healthy way. When I say that, we're talking really about fat loss, not overall weight. So with that set up, let's jump into the first recommendation, the first habit that you want people to focus on, that you practice personally, that you talk to your patients about, and that's regarding the topic of protein.

What do you want people to do when it comes to protein and their diet? Proteins are really interesting. And I think, you know, I eat largely plant-based myself. I have lots of legumes and lots of different vegetables in my diet. And I think in this trend toward plant-focused diets, we've forgotten about protein as one of the most critical macronutrients, a critical molecule collection of molecules that are important for a number of of different areas of the body.

So when people think about protein and ensuring protein consumption, I think most people equate that with muscle building. And whilst that is true, only about 25% of the protein that you consume actually goes towards your muscles. The rest of it is your enzymes, hormones, bone density, cartilage. Protein is one of the most critical biomolecules that we have in our body. and the other effect of increasing your protein consumption is that I can help you lose weight in a sustainable way. So there are several long-term clinical trials of around 6 to 12 months,

and they show that compared to other diets, participants given a high-protein diet, lose body weight, but specifically fat mass, and they show less weight regain after that weight loss. They also improve what's called their body composition by decreasing this fat mass, whilst preserving fat-free mass. So that's essentially muscle mass. That's something that we want to be preserving as we age in particular. Now, why might this be?

Well, when you consume protein, it's very satiating. So it has an effect on the GOP-1. So your listeners might have heard of GOP-1 a lot of this has been banned around at the moment. GOP1 agonists like a Zempeg and Mugovie and CEMC, we naturally produce GOP-1 in our body. In fact, our microbes that are responsive. for improving the mucin layer, not large intestine. They produce little pulses of GOP1 that signal to your brain, you've had enough food.

And protein may also have this effect. It also has an impact on different hormones, something that we won't need to go into. They have long and windy names like CCK and PYY. But protein has a very satiating effect. So you're less likely to consume excess energy in the form of calories if you've had a enough protein. I want your listeners and viewers to think about the first meal of the day. What is typically recommended as breakfast food, things like cereals, you guys love your Pop-Tart, you have croissants or we have croissants in Europe. We have lots of carb-rich foods. And actually, when you break it

down, a lot of this turns to sugar very, very quickly. And there isn't that much protein and there isn't that much fiber in those types of foods. So what you have is that lack of satiation. because you don't have those building blocks of what makes a complete meal, and then you tend to get quite hungry mid-morning as well. So this is why you have this increase in weight because you're over-consuming calories essentially. If you have enough protein, particularly in the morning, you're less likely to go on that roller coaster of eating and then having a trough in your blood glucose levels

and then having that hunger pang again and then eating again. So you can see why, in a practical sense, without going into the funky terminology and the different mechanisms, that just ensuring that you have enough protein in the morning, in particular every meal time, is going to ensure that you're going to have better weight outcomes as well. And the other thing about protein, and we're going to exactly how much protein I'm referring to a little bit later as well,

is that it preserves your lean mass. So when you're exercising or just throughout the day, you're constantly breaking down your protein, and recycling them into new brand spanking proteins. And what happens when you have enough protein every single day is that that process is essentially preserved. You need to have protein every single day because we don't have a storage mechanism for protein.

We can store fat, we can store sugar, but we can't store protein. You need to have protein every single day, which is why it's so important, particularly for plant-based eaters out there to be cognizant of how much protein they're having every single day. There is a marginally increased effect of protein when you consume it.

So it has something called a higher thermic effect. So 20 to 30% of the calories from protein are actually used to digest that protein itself compared to a much lower amount for fats and carbohydrates. In fact, when you have fat, you pretty much digest that straightaway. You're not using any of the excess calories from fat to digest it. Your body can absorb that straight away. protein because these are big structures you've got to break this down you've got to like you've got to recruit your enzymes you're going to recruit some energy in the form of heat you're going to break these

proteins down so they can be absorbed into the bloodstream and then utilized around the body so it has what's called a high thermic effect even though you're consuming calories in the form of of the protein rich foods that you're consuming you're not going to be absorbing all of that so the calories count less if you see what I mean and even though that's a marginally increase of In fact, over time, if you're having enough protein, you can see how these gains compound and you're not going to be putting on weight and it can help you on your weight loss journey as well. Let's do a little bit of pulling on some threads that you mentioned.

Let's start off with the first one. How much protein are you recommending that people get? And what are the top signs that someone isn't eating enough protein, whether they're plant-based or whether they eat everything? Like, how do you know if your patients are getting enough? protein or if they're under-proteined? That's a really good question. And because protein is literally the most important molecule for life,

I think there are more extreme signs of protein deprivation, which you'd only see really in very malnourished communities and countries that are still developing. You have quashicose, you have big bellies because of fluid accumulation. This is the extreme signs of protein deficiency that I don't think any. of your viewers or listeners would ever be suffering or ever have seen, and we certainly haven't seen that or I haven't seen that in the NHS and UK healthcare system. But the other sort of poignant signs of protein deficiency, like I said, could be quite vague. It could be hair that's breaking quite easily. It could be nails that are brittle. It could be poor energy.

It could be lack of muscle mass. So you can be quite wasted. You could still be quite big and you have a lot of visceral fat, the actual protein, your muscle stores are actually quite low. If you put that person through a Dexas scan, you actually look at their body composition. So some of those sort of indolent signs, those nagging, vague signs could be an indication of lack of protein consumption. One thing that I've definitely noticed, particularly in those who are vegetarian or vegan, is that a lot of people fall off those diets because they're not having enough protein. So it might not be that they're not adapted to a vegan diet, let's say. It might just be simply because they're not getting enough of the temper and the tofu and the corn and the other great sources of protein

that they have available to them because they're not really consuming enough. And let's be fair, when I go into the amounts of protein that you should be consuming every single day, the penny will drop. It will be like, oh, okay, I can't get three to 400 grams of cooked beans into my diet every single day because that's actually quite bloating for me. And that's why I can't tolerate. So maybe I need to diversify my protein stores or I need my printing consumption or I need to think about a different diet for my own health reasons. So because protein is so important, it's very hard actually to pinpoint that's a protein deficient sign because they can be quite a bit. But some of those are the another one I'd be rest of it if I didn't say is skin, skin condition. So dry skin, bristle skin, wrinkles in the skin.

These are very vague, like I said, there can be loads of other reasons, but that can be one of the reasons why one of the signs of lack of protein. Let's go into your recommendations. How much are you shooting for personally? And what do you recommend to your patients? Yeah, so my opinion on this has actually changed quite a bit. I used to be of the opinion that we only needed around 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight, and that's for both sexes.

This is something that is still recommended by many nutrition societies. I believe it's pretty much in line with what the American nutrition advice is as well. And these were based on studies like metabolic ward studies. So that's where they control the environment and they feed fixed meal and they look at nitrogen balance. So they were rigorously done. But what they were looking at is ensuring that there wasn't protein deficiency. They did a good spread and they gave a sense. safe amount of protein to consume to prevent a deficiency.

Most of your viewers and listeners probably aren't worried about deficiency. They're looking at what the optimum level is. And looking at the latest research, it looks like it's anywhere between 1.2 and 1.6 grams at as minimum, maybe even high depending on your exercise tolerance and your exercise activity. So I would say for most people, 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight is what you want to be aiming for both sexes. I would aim for higher if you're in older age category, so 1.6 grams per kilogram if you're over the age of 50, let's say, or postmenopausal. And if you're really exercising hard or you're in the athlete category, I'd be looking at 1.8 to 2 grams per kilogram.

Why are older people more, why would I recommend a higher amount for older people? You tend to absorb less protein. You're, you want to. to preserve more muscle and we tend not to be able to consume as much as we require because that appetite tends to reduce as well. So it can be quite hard for that older population to get the amount of protein there that require. If you're exercising, you shoot at least three to four times per week. I'd be looking at getting at least 1.6 grams, a kilogram per body weight. So that's personally what I go for. So putting this into a practical example, let's say for, for, arguments say you're 100 kilograms you are of either a little bit overweight or you're looking to

lose a bit of weight you still use that kilogram that that amount of body weight in kilograms you're looking for 160 grams of protein broken into whatever you're eating pattern is whether it's twice a day or three times a day you still need to get that amount of protein in and so you're going to be looking at getting it first thing in the morning lunch dinner and also looking at snacks and combinations if you need to as well. Yeah, that's great. And for our US-based listeners, an easy sort of formula that you hear a lot of people recommend on this podcast previously is about a gram of protein for your ideal target lean

mass that you have. Yeah. And like your healthy body weight, sorry, lean mass might be something different, but your healthy body weight that you're shooting for, you want to have a gram of that. So if somebody's ideal target body weight, let's say, you know, there's a guy. that's listening and it's like 165 pounds, you know, that's 165 grams of protein a day that you're consuming. And when people realize that, that the latest recommendations and research and longevity experts like Peter Atia are highlighting this, you realize that 99% of people are under eating

on protein to maintain muscle mass. And I think the stat that Dr. Gabrielle Lyon came on this podcast and blew my mind on was after the age of 40 for both men and women, every decade you lose about 10% of your lean muscle mass is the average that's out there. And so if we're not working against that through resistance training and having optimal levels of protein, you see how you can end up being somebody in your 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond as you're becoming very frail. And we want to avoid that frailty if we really care about longevity. Yeah, absolutely.

And I think just to accentia at that point, when you actually break down, when people actually realize how much protein they need to consume and they figure out how little protein there is in their beans and legumes, I'm not saying that you should be eating those. You should definitely be eating those. But then the penny drops and you realize, gosh, I can't rely on just getting my white beans and my lentils as my main proteins or every single day, I've really got to think about combinations.

So, and just to go through the averages here, your typical bean that's cooked, like a black bean, a zuki bean, haraqa bean, or a lentil, is around 6 to 8% protein. So to hit just 60 grams of protein from those sources, you need to be having around 5 to,

600 grams of this food. And that's just 60 grams, right? So you're going to be thinking about nuts and seeds, which are slightly higher. These can be anywhere between 15 to 20%. You're going to be thinking about tempe and tofu. These are around 20 to 25%. And then when you look at meat, you realize, ah, this is why a lot of bodybuilders and a lot of professional athletes rely on meat

as a very easy, absorbable source of protein that is convenient for them, that won't overload their gut and won't, you know, lead them to constantly having to be eating throughout the whole day because these are in the range of 25 to 35 grams of protein, of lean, lean proteins. And that's why, you know, so many people rely on meat. So my opinion on this has changed quite a lot over the last couple of years. They used to think you'd be able to get most of your protein consumption from plants alone. And whilst it is true, you definitely need to be a lot more regimented about it.

and you need to be thinking about combinations of where you get them from and ensuring you're getting enough across a 25-hour period every single day. Yeah, that's such a great point. You know, you and I have chatted about this. I've shared with my podcast community, but I grew up vegetarian, largely for like religious beliefs and then more just like cultural. We just didn't eat meat. And my parents said you could eat whatever you want, but I just had been doing it for a long time. And then I was vegan for a few years. And definitely I was somebody. who also being South Asian, I was skinny fat, undermuscled. And then when I finally started eating meat, and then when I turned around 40 years old,

prioritizing lean mass, I saw that it was very difficult to get the level of protein that I needed while also not over-consuming calories. And then there's my own bio-individuality, which is I don't do well on a lot of grains. I don't do well on a lot of beans. You've been on the podcast before. You do great on those foods, right? And I don't handle them digestively so well, maybe over antibiotic usage, maybe some leaky gut, whatever it is. So, you know, I have to figure out what's there for me. And also my parents have been on this journey. While I want anybody to eat however they want to, my parents started switching from like a very strict carbotarian vegetarian diet, which is very common in our community,

to including things like lean cuts of meat, fatty fishes that are there. And it was so much easier for them to hit their targets while also not overconsuming on their total level of calories in the day so they could drop and get into a more ideal body composition. Because a huge part of this discussion today and something that you tell your audience on a regular basis is that one of the reasons that fat loss in particular is so important It's not just about looking good and there's nothing wrong with that.

It's actually the medical benefits to being in an ideal body composition. Can you remind our audience about some of the medical reasons why we want to actually not be over fat? One of the foundations, I think, of many chronic diseases that we see in modern medicine is inflammation. inflammation underpins everything from tati diabetes, mesabolic conditions, cardiovascular disease, dementia as well. And one of the issues when you have too much in the way of fat is that it is pro-inflammatory. And so re-addressing that balance from the perspective of inflammation

stands to reason that you'd be doing a great job at trying to prevent those conditions that we see so much of. The other thing is ensuring that you don't have as much of the fat on you, and you've got enough protein like you were alluding to earlier, means that you're less likely to suffer some of the diseases that we see quite a bit associated with aging. To sarcopenia, which is essentially that process of losing muscle and having too much fat, which is pro-inflammatory.

It puts you at higher risk of fractures. It means that you have less balance, which again can put you at high risk of falls. And also, notwithstanding the metabolic effects of ensuring that you are, are sufficiently muscled. So that's to say that you have enough muscle on your bones. Because these muscles are not just there for looks like you said. They're not just there to make you feel strong and energetic.

They're sinks for your glucose. So sugar needs somewhere to be stored. We tend to store them in three main places, our liver, our muscles, and fat. And you want to be ensuring that you're storing them as much as possible in muscle. If you have too much sugar in your liver, it can be converted into glycogen as a storage molecule. But when that is over fulfilled, then it tends into fat. And that's how we get fatty liver as well. So ensuring that you've got enough muscle, I think is critical from a perspective of information,

falls and the practical elements of it as well. But it's one of those things that you have to fight against. And obviously, you can't just put on muscle by eating enough protein. you have to do the exercise with it. And I know you've spoken to a number of different people in your podcast. Like Dr. Louise, for example, who's on recently. I thought it's a fad podcast talking about the different exercises that we should be encouraging everyone at every age to do

because it encourages what's called muscle protein synthesis, which is the development of muscle that requires both the exercise stimulus but also the proteins there to the building blocks to build that muscle in the first place. That's a great reminder. You know, on a personal level, I saw that when I went on a journey of improving my lean mass, which is a slow process when you're not, you know, 15 or 16 years old where your body just responds so well and you're creating so much human growth hormone, you know, trying to add lean muscle mass at the age of 40. It's a slow and steady process.

So the first thing that my trainer did is he had me having about 180 grams of protein a day. So right now, about 184 grams of protein a day. And then on top of that, I'm training three to four days a week in the gym, which is just down the street from my office. And that resistance training, based on the work of Dr. Donald Lehman and other experts in this field, resistance training is about 75% of it. And that 25% is that protein that we eat if we're trying to add muscle mass, not just preserve it. And one of the things that I saw is that it just a slow and steady process, But it happened.

You know, it happened. And in a period of about a year when I went on this journey turning 40 from 40 to 41, I added almost about nine pounds of pure lean muscle mass based on my Dexas scan. And that was with a lot of effort and energy. But the surprising thing that came away from it is I actually was eating even more carbohydrates and foods that I previously would have shied away from. And my metabolic health, including my fasting. insulin improved. And that largely came from, this is again, my N of one, but so many people

have had this experience, that largely came from the fact that muscle mass is so metabolically active. It's like a savings account that earns incredible interest rates and is constantly working for you throughout the day. So there was a period of time where I was on the low carb train, just like everybody else, but I actually saw when I added lean muscle mass from prioritizing protein and working out, I got to eat more carbohydrates. I performed better in the gym. And I actually saw my metabolic health numbers improve even a little bit more than where they were previously. So that's just my own experience. I don't know if you have any anecdotes about protein. You've always been pretty fit as long as I've known you. You've always had good muscle mass.

I'm trying to catch up for you and look like you. But any anecdotes with protein on your end? You know what? It's funny because I realized that through a period of my life, this is probably when I became a lot more into health and fitness already. And I was definitely going down the more sort of part-based route. I now look back on my training regime and realize that I was under-fueling because I was so focused on training and training like five, six times a day. And I do it more so for the mental health benefits than the aesthetics, although the aesthetics is obviously a nice thing to have

and ensure transparency when you have that muscle bulk you do need to continue to fuel because what happens is under-fueling and that's where you have the energy dips that's where it can affect your sleep, that's where it can actually be a negative thing so ensuring that you're getting enough protein

will prevent that and I think having the carbohydrates on board as well will certainly power you through those different forms of exercise and you're probably, you know, mixing it up now you're doing the resistance training for the hypertrophy benefits, then you're doing the long sort of cardiovascular aerobic exercises or fashionally now known as Zone 2, what's always been known as Zone 2,

but a lot more people are aware of Zone 2 and the benefits to mitochondrine and the resilience of your muscle. You know, that is really energy intensive, so you definitely need to fuel enough. And this is where I was speaking to a few sports nutritionists, And whilst we should all be aware of ultra-processed food, we, in the general population, we consume way too much of this. You know, it's 70 to 80% of our supermarkets. It's definitely not a good thing to have in our food supply chain.

But from the perspective of certain athletes, and I'm talking about endurance athletes, cyclists, even footballers, having some ultra-process foods in their diet is actually a necessary, evil to have to fuel some of their workouts, obviously ensuring that they're getting enough protein and fibre, but actually having enough ultra-processed food is going to be a necessary evil because they need to consume so much in the form of calories that if they were together from whole foods, it would actually cause a lot of gastro discomfort. So there's this sort of nuance and murky field, and I think it's an interesting sort of side tab, but not something that I think the general population would actually benefit from. But it's speaks to your point about ensuring that you're having enough energy so you can actually fuel those

workouts. So we've done a deep dive on the topic of protein, but just want from your perspective to kind close us out, what are some of the tips, tricks that you do, especially when you're talking about having enough protein early in the morning? Walk us through a little bit of your day and some of the, it doesn't have to be the specific foods, although people always like to hear about some of those, but what's some of the mentality to make sure that you hit your protein goals in a day? Start us off with the morning. What is Dr. Rupi eating in the morning? I'll talk to literally the last three breakfast that I've had.

And the first hack, I think, is lessover for breakfast. So I mean, you're from an Asian background, you know, that savory breakfast sort of thing. In fact, in most cultures, breakfasts are a savory affair. It's a modern-day phenomenon that they should be sweet. and that's what's advertised to us. In reality, savory breakfast, like leftover breakfast that actually incorporate things like your lean meats or your toast or your beans and that kind of stuff, or fish, like this is normal. And that's what I absolutely love to have.

So my breakfast the other day was literally the leftover pulled chicken and beans and Cavalonero that we had, kale that we had like a stew and I had that for breakfast. Sometimes you'll have like a leftover curry or just crack a couple of eggs on salt. and put that on some seeded toast. So that's literally like what I would have and that ensures that I'm getting 30 to 35 grams of protein in the morning. And that sets me off for the day. I'm not peckish.

I don't have any hunger pounds. I don't have any dips in my energy. I can keep focus when I'm in the studio and I generally don't eat until much later in the afternoon because I'm fueled. I'm adequately fueled. And particularly if you've just done a workout, I think that's a really important thing to bear in mind.

So breakfast, you know, it doesn't need to be as fancy of that sometimes i have this um this nut and seed loaf that i made from scratch uh you find it on the doctor's kitchen app and um you uh you pound all these different elements together it's like cillium husk sunflower seeds pumpkin seeds warm rats uh chia soak it and then you you pound it put it in the oven and then uh i basically slice that and toast it in the mornings i keep it in the freezer this is about six to eight grams of protein per slice i just top that with some sauerkraut some hummus, some tomatoes, avocado, whatever I've got really, and maybe some eggs or maybe some sliced smoked tofu or something like that. That is my breakfast in the morning. And again,

hugely satiated, it's got tons of fiber. It's great for your gut. And it will keep me focused as well. So getting breakfast protein, I think, is really, really important. For those who struggle to get their protein from food, and I think a lot of people would do, particularly if they has quite high requirements and you want to be cognizant of not consuming, over-consuming calories that we'll get to a little bit later. There are some protein supplements and shakes that I would say, you know, probably worth it. I tend to stay clear of them because a lot of them are ultra-processed.

There's a lot of sweeteners, emulsifies that I think are great for your guts. And the types of proteins aren't always the best. But if you are going to go for one, I would go for an unflavored version. Um, weight protein has the best evidence in terms of muscle protein synthesis. Um, and I would go for a grass fed weight if you can. If you can, you can source them. There are generally some great brands out there. I'm probably, I'm sure you've probably come across loads in the States.

And if you are vegan or vegetarian or you don't eat, uh, dairy for whatever reason, uh, corn, rice flour and, um, uh, there's a pea isolate as well. Again, going for organic sources. Those are generally, um, isolate. and they're generally pretty clean. They don't have any mulsifies or flavors. Add that, and I would always add it so that could be a banana, some spinach, some hemp seeds, nut butter,

I blend that all together with a bit of water. It's nice and thick and it's a delicious shake. So make it yourself. Don't rely on other shakes that are pre-flavored for you because they tend to be quite ultra-processed themselves. That's great advice. And on that topic of making it yourself, you know, a huge part of keeping weight off for the long term is the more meals you can make

yourself, the more in control you're going to be over your diet. Because the reality is, is that when you order food from the outside, fast food, or even healthier restaurants, you don't know how much added sauce and the amount of calories go in there. Anybody who's tracked their calories for even two weeks, even if it's not a long-term solution. We'll chat more about this later on. You see that calories can add up so quickly from unexpected sources.

So I would love to actually give a little bit of a plug to your app because your app is all about making it easy for people. When you're asking the question like, what the hell should I eat? You have an incredible app that has recipes, step-by-step breakdowns. It's called The Doctor's Kitchen. We have a little screen share over here. I don't have my iPhone. Otherwise, I would show my iPhone of it.

What's the app and who's it for? Before we go into your second tip when it comes to keeping weight off for the long term, tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, so the app is you can find it on the Doctors Kitchen.com or the app store. You have an onboarding questionnaire where we personalize the recipes according to your health goals.

And we look at the dietary patterns and the ingredients that align with that health goal so you can be confident in the food and the recipes that you're eating that are actually personalized to you. You can put your diatries in there. You can put your allergens or anything that you don't like. And yeah, we have tasty recipes. They're all like one-pound meals, super easy, super fast, step-by-step images

so you don't get lost with your recipes. And yeah, it's great. We've had some great feedback in loads of American users, which is awesome. I believe it's on Apple and Android, right? So people can download it on their own. You can also sign up on the website. Super easy. Check out the show notes below for the link.

And it's a great app. Can't recommend it more. All right, Ruby, let's go into our second recommendation. I say our, but it's really your second recommendation. And that's the topic of increasing fiber. Talk to us about fiber and why it's so important for sustained weight loss. Fiber is one of my favorite topics. And like I was saying before, I think we've everyone's a lot more aware of gut health

and ensuring that you're having enough of these ingredients that are going to be feeding this population of microbes that live in our own body on our skin, our mouths, our lungs, but largely concentrated in the large intestine. And these microbes create metabolites. They create these short-chain fatty acids. They nourish the colonic cells. They provide you with energy. They're reducing inflammation. They're supporting your immune system. They're responsible for a huge proportion of your immune system. But they're also uniquely involved in your appetite control. your weight control as well. So there's actually a study published in nature where calorie intake was controlled

across two diets, but dietary fibal is increased in one of the diets. And this diet was labelled as the microbiome supporting diets. And what happened is these participants actually absorbed fewer calories. Now, it could be due to the matrix effect, so the way in which the food was actually built that you actually can't absorb said calories. But I think there's some other things going on as well. We do have some research around this. So when you consume fiber, and I'm talking about plants, nuts and seeds,

I'm not just talking about bran and whole grain, even though they do have some fiber. The best sorts of fibers are things like your lentils, your pulses, chickpeas, beans, all these different things. They keep you really satiated. They keep you full of longer. And we talked a little bit about GOP1 agonists a bit earlier. there are some microbes that live in your digestive tract, and they produce these short-chain fatty acids, like I said,

they're also responsible for nourishing what's called the mucin layer. The mucin layer is something that coats the inner lining of your digestive tract, and it protects that very thin lining of your gut from the interior of your digestive tract. A lot of people don't realize that something that's in your gut, that is this long tube that starts from your gut, mouth all the way down to the anus is technically outside of your body you're going to think of yourself like a really long donut if you put anything in the middle of that donut let me just put your

finger your finger's not in the donut so think of yourself as this really long donut and anything inside the donut it's technically get outside of the donut it's not in the body of that round donut so when you're when you've got this mucin layer it's protecting anything that's inside from actually crossing that gut barrier and going into the bloodstream So in this mucent layer, you have these microbes that produce gLP1. And this signals to your brain that you're full. If you're not consuming enough fiber, you're not getting that signal. And so basically, downstairs in your digestive tract, you're just getting a signal that we're not happy yet.

We're not satisfied. You need to keep on eating. And so there's this evolutionary link between this lack of fiber and not being, not having that signal that you're satiated. So fiber in and of itself just keeps you fuller for longer. So the most simplest explanation is that when you increase fiber, you eat less calories. The other thing is when you consume these dense whole, largely plant-based foods, it slows down your eating rate, these coarse, textures foods. You're not going to be able to munch through them as quickly as you would do something

that is ultra-processed or refined or something like a bun. You can chow down that super easily. When something is like as dense and fibrous as fiber, it's going to slow down that eating weight. So you're not going to consume it as quickly. So you're going to get that satiety signal a lot quicker than if you are guzzling down food or guzzling down sugar, speaking, beverage, for example. So that signal gets relayed to your brain that you actually slow down. And again, simple explanation, you're generally going to eat less food as well. And then there are some other extras as well, but I love talking about with regards,

to fiber that can improve your cholesterol metabolism. It can improve your glucose levels because you're going to absorb sugar slower into your blood sugar, into your bloodstream, can improve your insulin sensitivity, which can again further reduce the weight gain via this carbohydrate insulin model that is still a bit shaky on the science, but I think there's definitely some benefits there. And I just think the more fiber you consume, the less like you're going to be having the refined cobal hydrants, which is why overall you're going to be consuming less calories, and then you're going to improve your weight control as well. So fiber is one of the things that, you know, you always see me talk about, but in combination now

by just accentuating the fact that whilst we definitely want fiber, we don't want to forget about protein. Ah, it's so true. And, you know, with health becoming mainstream, along with that comes a lot of, quote-unquote, healthy snacks, you know, at Whole Foods or other grocery stores that are out there, even mainstream grocery stores. And the tendency is for a lot of these healthier snacks, actually a lot of them are devoid of fiber. So it creates a situation where we tend to overeat, even if we think of these foods as being a little bit better than their ultra-processed counterparts. So that's why it's so

important for us to make sure that we maintain the fiber in our diet. Otherwise, it's so easy to overeat on the carbs and it's so easy to overeat on the fat as well. Here's a lot of added bonus. We'll link to the show notes, but there was a fantastic masterclass on microplastics that was done by Dr. Rhonda Patrick last week. I'm still going through it. It's so fascinating. But one of the key points is in addition to sweating through exercise or the sauna and having evidence-based supplements like sulfurophrane, which you can also get from broccoli sprouts, one of the times, one of the top ways to get rid of the microplastics that we're all exposed to in our diet. And our goal should be to just minimize them. One of the best ways to get rid of them is to make sure we have adequate

levels of fiber throughout the week and throughout the day because those things are going to be removing to the best degree they can, the microplastics and other toxins that are building up in the digestive system. So that's a little added bonus of something that I learned in the past week. Yeah. You know what? Fiber's got these little bonuses every way you look. You know, it's There was a recent conversation I had with OBGYN, Dr. Nitu, and she was talking about how for PCOS sufferers, so politic overrary syndrome, a very, very common condition affecting women across the world. There's a preponderance for women of Asian and African origin. But the more fiber you consume, the more excess estrogen and veno-estrogen.

So these are the estrogens that you find from plastics. like you're saying in other environmental pollutants are better removed from the body, so they're not going to be absorbed into that bloodstream by the mechanism that I was describing earlier with the mucent layer. So fiber has this additional benefit of ensuring that you're not being over exposed to exogenous hormones and then the hormones that we have as well. And then they're like, you know, just anything that improves that diversity of your microbiota has got added benefits to your mental health, there's inflammation,

levels, it prevents type of diabetes, there's so many benefits of having fiber. So, you know, I'd love to put that as like my top recommendation for weight loss. Whilst there is some evidence there, it's not the best, but, you know, it's definitely something that I would say is important for everyone to consider considering that, I mean, in the States, I know it's less than 10 grams of fiber per day when it should be, you know, 30 grams as a minimum. I think it should be a lot higher than that. And the same thing in the UK, you know, it's, it's dwindling down at the, end of low tea as the average consumption of fibre. So getting more plants in, always thinking to yourself, just more, can I get just on more fruit, vegetable, nut or seed every meal time,

and not falling for some of those food marketing tactics where they have a flag or a little sign on their bread from the supermarket that says whole grain, high fiber. That's unfortunately, like a very typical marketing ploy that tricks people into thinking that they're doing the great thing of like increasing the fiber, just like Dr. Rupi said on that podcast with Drew, but actually you want to be going straight to the source and getting it from the whole food. That's where you get real fiber. What are your targets, benchmarks? You kind of mentioned it a little bit, you know, shooting for at least 30 grams of fiber in a day. That sounds like a great start for especially people who are lacking a lot of fiber. Is there any other formulas you,

give to your patients for how much fiber they should be consuming? Yeah, I always just say you're going to tick off your BBGs every single day. So these are beans, berries, greens, seeds and nuts every single day. And so for the doses of those, you want to be thinking about a handful of cooked beans or lentils throughout the day. You want to be looking for a handful of berries. There's been studies that show improved cognition, which is having a handful of berries every single day, but they add this unique different type of fiber. And then greens, again, they also have fiber, particularly in the stalks, like broccoli stalks. They have prebiotics, things like artatopes and chicory, fantastic sources.

And then also seeds and nuts. The seeds and nuts have got fatty acids. They're largely fats, but they also have protein and fiber, which is why I refer to them. There's almost like nature's perfect food because they've just got everything you need in them. And if you're getting, again, a handful of each of those, you're definitely here. hitting those fiber targets if you're having whole foods and your meals as well. So ticking off those BBGs every single day, I think just a great way of ensuring that you're getting enough fiber. I love that. I'd love to just build on that with some my own anecdotal experiences.

I don't do great with a lot of beans. If they are pressure cooked, I can do a little bit better with them. In the U.S., there is this one type of bean. I have no affiliation with the company at all. For whatever reason, I've given it to a bunch of friends, and they've all done really well with it. And it's called the Lupini bean. I don't know if you've heard of this before. Yeah, they love it in Australia as well. Okay, okay. So I didn't really know about this bean. There's one particular company, again, no affiliation at all. It's just one of the most popular brands that are here in the States. I don't know if it's in the UK or in the EU, but it's called Brami, B-R-A-M-I. And they have these little packets of Lupini beans that they sell.

And I do great with them. And I've given them to a lot of people who have more compromised digestive systems. And they do fantastic. They have some plant protein inside of them too. But they also have a lot of fiber. I think of one cup of lupini beans contains 26 grams of protein and 34 grams of fiber. So one entire cup. So I'll have, you know, a cup of these a day, maybe like a quarter of a cup sprinkled

on top of my big fat salad that I have for lunch with some wild salmon and some other fibers. So it's a great way to like get to those fiber goals, especially for people, you know, who have maybe more sensitive guts like myself. The other one that I love that people sleep on a lot is actually avocado. Now, avocados obviously have a lot of fat, but one large avocado has almost 13 and a half grams of fiber inside of it. And I love avocados. They taste great. Again, you got to watch out if you're looking at your total level of calories. You're going to have four avocados a day. That's going to be a lot of fiber, but that's going to be a lot of fat that's going to be along with it, the healthy type of fat,

but it's easy to overeat on things like fats and carbs. So just have it in check. So there's are two things that, two ways that I've made sure that I can keep my fiber levels high and get all the benefits, but make sure that I honor my own bio-individuality of not having the strongest gut for black beans and kidney beans and some of these other things that you mentioned. That's a really good point. And I want to riff off that because I want to be respectful of people who have sensitive guts or, you know, they are in turn of high amounts of lectins and other sort of irritants to the gut. There are a few tactics apart from, you know, trying different beans and a lot of people haven't found there's so many pulses out there that we just don't have

on the supermarket shelves and in the UK there's a bit of relations going on for finding these sort of old beans. There's carlin peas, cow peas, pigeon peas, there's queen chickpeas and some of these are more digestible than others because they have different sort of levels of these sugars like raffinos and verbinos. These can be quite troublesome for certain folks. But there are a couple of other things. You alluded to one which is pressure cooking. A lot of the beans that people consume just haven't been cooked properly, even the ones that you're finding cans,

because they need to be cooked, they need to be soaked before that. They need to sometimes have to be germinated. And that process basically reduces some of these antinutrients that cause this troublesome digestive discomfort. I remember when I was growing up, my mom and my family would always, soak, they'll always cook it from scratch, first of all, source the pulses, whatever they were, that soaked them, they would then cook them in a big sort of steel pressure cooker.

Hours and hours and hours and then you'd be left with quite a protein-rich ingredient at the end of it, but a lot of those natural troublesome sugars and the insecticides and the pectin of lectins, those had been removed. That can certainly help people who have these digestive issues torrent some of these and I'd always say go slow. So perhaps start off with the cup or the sort of handful of cooked beans, maybe just a few sprinkling on your big fat salad with some chicken or anchovies or whatever you like as your protein source and then just titrate it upwards so you build up that resilience with your digestive system.

So it's a really important point. So that's the topic of fiber, which was your second recommendation of how to lose fat through simple lifestyle habits, but they're simple, but they're doable. Because ultimately, the diet that you can keep up and the lifestyle habits that you can keep and maintain is the way that you keep fat off for the long term and get all the benefits of being closer and closer to the ideal body composition for health, longevity, and avoiding chronic disease. Now, those are two sort of macronutrient categories, protein and fiber.

But there's also some major lifestyle tips that are part of your recommendations. So the next tip, number three, is this idea of something that anybody can do and it's eating an earlier dinner. Talk to us about that. Earlier dinners or just simply changing when you eat, not necessarily what you eat is one of the biggest motivational strategies I think I've had in clinical practice. I remember having patients sat in front of me, you know, tried all the diets or they just weren't motivated to do anything different or they had difficult sort of day to days and busy kids to look after, etc. And when I turned around to them, I just said, look, don't change what you eat.

I don't care whether you want to go to McDonald's or you want to grab the supermarket breads or whatever. Just don't change where you eat. Just change when you eat as a first step and just see how you feel. And there is research that shows that intermittent fasting can lead to this 3 to 8% weight loss after 3 to 24 weeks. With a significant portion of that being fat, how on earth is this possible? Well, first, we'll just rewind. Intimitive fasting is actually quite a vague term. Fasting in general is actually quite vague because they can refer to alternate day fasting.

It can refer to 5-2, it can refer to, you know, weeks of fasting even as well. When I talk about this earlier dinner, what we're really diving into is time-restricted eating or time-restricted feeding. You'll see these two different terms of the academic literature. And why might just changing when you eat have this dramatic effect on weight loss? Well, the Occam's Razor approach or the simplest explanation is that it prevents time when you're bored and you're eating just out of habit or out of emotions or just because, It's habituated that you sit in front of the TV and you start snacking. The simplest explanation is just being a little bit regimented of when you consume food will actually reduce the amount of calories that you consume in a 24-hour period.

And that compounding over time will need to the weight loss that we see. And so the popular methods and the one that I would recommend to start up with is a simple 12-hour window. 12-hour window of let's say you start eating at 8 a.m. That's your breakfast. and then you finish eating at 8pm. Very, very simple for people to get a head around. And what happens, like I've just mentioned, you're not going to be snacking as much in the later evenings,

and that has a great effect because you're not going to be disturbing your sleep. So what happens when you consume food later in the evening is that it can affect the speed of which you've fought asleep. It can affect your sleep hormone, so something called melatonin, which is known colloquial is the sleepy hormone, but it's actually a powerful antioxidant and we know that we need this big dose of melatonin across the nighttime period

to prevent us from cancer and it improves our immune responses as well but it also leads to quantity sleep and if you have quantity sleep during that time period you're less likely to be hungry and you're less likely to have these erroneous appetite signals

the following day which means that the benefits compound again and again and again so earlier dinner or just having this time restricted eating window is something I think is one of the best hacks possible. Now some people find that, you know, APMs probably not early enough, go for a 10-hour window.

And actually personally, I use a 10-hour window because that keeps me on the straight and narrow. It means that I'm not going to be stacking late at the evening. And I tend to wake up quite early as well, so I prefer that sort of mechanism. But it's a real sort of smorgasbord. You choose what fits with your convenience, what fits with your lifestyle.

and it has been showed to have these benefits and less damaging than a more rigorous fasting regime, which can involve 24 hours of not eating anything. And the reason why, this sort of goes back to what we were talking about earlier in terms of ensuring that you're having protein every single day, I don't doubt that there are benefits of fasting folks, whether it be, you know, during cancer therapy, improving autoimmune conditions, maybe even doing something that resets your gut and your guts tolerance to certain foods. There can certainly be benefits in that respect. But as a weight loss tool, I don't think these prolonged periods of fasting are going to be beneficial

because, like I said right at the start, you need protein every single day because that preserves your lean muscle mass. And if you're not preserving that lean muscle mass, you're using that lean muscle mass. So you might achieve weight loss, but it's going to be at the expense of those muscles, like we just talked about earlier. You want to maintain that muscle last as much as possible, particularly in your older age, just because it's very hard to build up that muscle store again. So earlier dinner, the research is there.

The simplest explanation is that it means that you consume less calories, but you're doing it in a way that kind of tricks you into thinking that you're not really doing anything that different. And in reality, you're not really. You're just doing something that's super easy. fits into most people's lifestyles. That's great. I love that recommendation.

And on the topic of fasting, you've really seen this shift of how people talk about fasting in our community where a lot of people who were huge proponents of it have talked about especially as you age and especially for women, why you have to be careful about the addiction to want to lose weight in almost a little bit of a crash diet, but through crash fasting. and what you lose every time you do it. One of my friends, Cynthia Thurlow, an incredible advocate of intermittent fasting and still talks about how you can use intermittent fasting

in a healthy way, much similarly to how you broke it down. She says that she just doesn't do fasting anymore or prolong fast the way she used to because in her early 50s and as she continues to age, every time she fasted, she lost so much lean muscle mass and it was so hard to get it back.

So now she just doesn't go down that route and instead uses other parameters to just make sure that she stays in an ideal body composition. And of course, eating largely a diet of whole foods is staying away from a lot of the things that would be throwing off her metabolic health in the first way. So I love that. We in fact just published right before this interview came out, we just published an episode on how a lot of the experts that have been on this podcast have changed their mind over the years. And one of the top areas that people change their mind on is this topic of fasting and how to do

it in a healthy way and not in a way that sacrifices all your hard work and gains, especially when it comes to lean mass. Yeah, absolutely. And when you think about it through the lens of protein, it becomes pretty clear. I can understand why people got really excited about fasting. to those sort of like, you know, 24-hour periods, what are you at periods? Because when you see the research and it shows you, you know, weight loss, amazing. People feel great, amazing.

But what's the cost? And it's only until you put them through an MRI, or you do a dexter scan and you look at the composition. You're like, hang on a minute. Then muscle mass has gone down and the adiposteotian and visceral fats slightly gone up. What's going on here? And then you think about it through the lens of protein. You're like, oh, okay, so you need protein every single day. If you're not having protein for 24-hour periods, what does your body do?

Well, your body will break down muscle because it needs that protein. So it will start breaking down muscle into those components of amino acids and then rebuilding those into the structures it requires for your hormones, for enzymes, because your evolution is geared towards procreation and ensuring your survival. So if it needs to break down your muscle, even though it's very important for you for healthy aging, at that moment in time you need that protein, you're going to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be. be stripping that down and rebuilding it. So this is why over time, if you're doing this fasting practice over and over again,

you can see why you get lessy muscle and then you get high amounts of visceral fat. It's just one of those consequences. Now, and just to the round up this point about those benefits to focus and cognition, I completely understand what people get on the fasting tray because it is wonderful. when you tap into that that metabolic flexibility you start burning ketones and those fatty acids you see the weight kind of come off and you have this incredible focus that is kind of where you were just mentioning that that addiction that sort of like you know you want to tap into again again because you just feel incredible just be wary of that that's an evolutionary mechanism

for survival that's our survival time like when you don't have any food and you couldn't feed yourself enough protein you needed to be focused to go and and gather or hunt and kill and be hyper alert so you can actually feed yourself. Yeah, that's great. Great reminder. Great breakdown. All right, Ruby, as we're winding down here, you have one more main habit and sort of concept that you want people to pay attention to.

And for a lot of people in the sort of traditional wellness space, they have an interesting relationship with this topic. And it's the topic of calorie control. But I feel like the way that you break it down. is that happy medium where we both respect, you know, the laws of thermodynamics, right? You eat more calories than you burn. You're going to end up gaining weight, even if it's from healthy food. And there's a mindful way to approach this topic.

So let's talk about your fourth recommendation, which is calorie control. It's sort of been peppered into everything that I've suggested so far, but I just haven't explicitly said it. And I think it's important that we're just very. really honest about what's really going on here, right? Everything that I've talked about, increasing protein, early dinner, fiber, all boils down to consuming less energy, which means that you're not going to be putting on weight. And if you're consuming less energy, you're going to be losing weight as well. You're going to be preferentially burning those excess fatty acids, those stores of energy.

So you're going to be losing fat, not just your muscle mass, which is what we want to emphasize. So limiting calories is basically what we want to try and do. And if you're going to be eating whole on-processed food, it's very hard to over-consume calories. It's still possible, but harder to over-consume those calories. So the first thing I always say is if you remove ultra-processed foods, you're most likely going to achieve your weight. So you don't really need to think about calories.

But from folks who want that explanation, I think we have to be honest about the law of thermodynamics and the fact that it really does boil down to limiting calories. So in my world, as someone who doesn't have an unhealthy obsession with weight loss or healthy eating, I personally would get an idea of my choleric burn. Because I'm a medic and I love investigations, I would do that in the lab environment that basically looks at my resting metabolic rate. I would get an exact number of how much I'm burning at rest.

And that will give me an idea of how much I should be consuming to make sure that I'm not overfueling, but probably more so in my case of someone who exercises most days and eat to a relatively healthy diet, make sure that I'm not under-fueling for my workouts and my training regimes and my muscle goals. you can also use a calculator that basically incorporates your activity and that will give you a ballpark figure. It won't be accurate. It might be 5 to 10% out, but it will give you a ballpark figure and it doesn't cost you anything. You just go online and you just type in calorie counts or online. There's a whole bunch there.

What I would do in terms of weight loss is calculate that 5 to 10% deficit in an eating pattern and a meal plan. And the reason why I say 5 to 10% deficit is because that is unlikely to shock your body and make it a lot easier for you to adhere to as well. So when people go on crash diets, so when they go on calorie deficits of 15, 20%, your body goes into shock mode. Your body will start producing cortisol or will start producing hormones. They'll actually keep hold of that weight. it will keep hold of the fat and everything because you're shocking it into something that it is

evolutionary designed to fight against. Going back to that evolutionary sort of mechanism that we have, we're designed to survive and we're designed to hold on weight. And your body is a very, very smart machine. If you're going to be feeding it less, it's going to start burning less. I sort of think about it like through the lens of a startup entrepreneur, right? So every month, you've got some cash coming in and you're spending cash every month. If suddenly your revenue or your cash coming in goes down, what does a smart entrepreneur do?

It starts thinking about making sure that it's not burning as much energy. It's not burning as much cash. So it's going to start reducing your spend. Your body's smarter than an entrepreneur. If you reduce the amount of calories that comes in, your body's going to start burning less. And this is where people find that they start on this. lovely trajectory down in terms of the weight and they may plateaued. The body's figured out, you're not giving them as much, so it's going to burn less.

It's just a fact that we see time and time again. So if you're doing a slight caloric deficit, you're less likely to find that plateau and you're more likely to ensure that your body will adapt in a healthy way rather than fighting against the lack of calories that you're consuming. And so I think it's, you know, in Paul and that we're honest about calories and limiting calories as probably the most effective way, which is why bodybuilders and athletes are so on this. But it requires a lot of motivation. It requires that sort of that mind that's happy with numbers and happy with measuring foods. And I think personally, that's probably an unhealthy way of doing it.

And you want to be a lot more, you want to lean into some of the healthier habits and the whole on-prudence. as foods that we love to talk about. That's well said. You know, a happy medium that a lot of guests have shared on my podcast and that I've recommended to people that's worked well is that you may not want to calorie track forever. That's not going to be for most people. But at least if you've never done this before, track your calories for one to two weeks. And you don't even have to get even more sophisticated yet and look at sort of your your base

burn rate of calories. just look at what you are eating and track it now that will require a couple things it'll probably require you signing up for an app because there's a lot of really great apps that are out there a ton of them that are free like my fitness pal and that also requires getting a food scale and so when you're making especially when it comes to um any kind of added uh foods even healthy foods healthy processed foods that are out there, like dressings and sauces and olive oil, when you're adding that to your salads or you're adding that to your meal, you're weighing it out. Even if you did this for four days, you'll be astonished at how that pore of olive oil that you thought was a serving. And

olive oil, by the way, is super healthy. And if you're watching one video after this, please watch Dr. Rupee's breakdown of all the health benefits of olive oil. We're going to link to it in the show notes as well, many people realize that that serving of olive oil is actually easily four servings of olive oil. And instead of it being maybe 100 calories, now it's 350 calories just from a pour of olive oil. And those things add up. One of my favorite dressings is this company called Primal Kitchen. It's made by Mark Sisson. And I invested in it a long time ago. And they They're made with avocado oil. I love avocado oil.

They're so well seasoned. And you see that a serving is two tablespoons. And when I started tracking my calories, I saw that easily in a day between my morning breakfast, I'd put a little bit on my big fat salad at lunch, sometimes at dinner. I thought I was having maybe two servings of it in a day. I was actually having more like five to six servings. And it's not good or bad when it comes to, you know, these sources of where calories come from. If they're coming from whole food sources, it's more that we just tend to underestimate.

So anybody who tracks their food, even for four days, if you can't do two weeks, sees, they're overeating on many categories of even healthy foods that are out there. And they're under eating, typically, you're eating a lot less protein. than you think you're eating. So just for a short period of time, if you can track your calories, doesn't mean you have to do it forever, it brings this sense of awareness

to the foods that you're having on a regular basis. Any thoughts about that? Yeah, yeah. I remember, I think on a last conversation, I mentioned one of the things that I've been thinking about differently and doing differently is actually experiments you're tracking calories because it is pretty mind-boggling.

I mean, for me, the biggest culprit is peanut butter. So, you know, I'll go to the kitchen and I'll just grab a table with sweet, a peanut butter, and I just don't really think about it. And luckily, I've been getting away with it, probably because I've been under fueling this whole time. But now I'm getting my protein requirements in, I'm definitely more complacent of not doing that habit and just like, you know, eating and sacking as I go along because that's out of boredom. That's like an emotional sort of habit, rod. And I just want to caveat a couple of things with calorie counting because it can be a bit of a mind. field for certain people who will spiral into the unhealthy obsession.

I've seen this a lot with men and women where they can't look at a banana anymore because all they see is the calorie count. They can't look at a steak or a chicken without seeing the calorie count. And they can't sort of rid themselves of those numbers. So I think it's an experiment for a week. Don't read into it. Don't memorize those numbers. You use an app.

Make sure that that sort of information is off-borded. that's a healthy way of doing it. The other thing is, calories particularly on processed foods, can be really inaccurate. Food companies and nutrition databases, they're not actually required to verify every product. And I actually allowed a 20% margin of error on labeling, which I thought was pretty wild. We found this out because when we created our Dr's Kitchen app, we decided to put nutrition labels on our system. You can actually hide them if you, you don't, if you're triggered by nutrition labels. But we looked at the databases for a lot of these very popular companies, and we realized

it was really inaccurate. You put the same food in, the same meal in, one app, and it will give you one set of calories, and then you put in for another completely different, like how anything is possible. And you just dig, dig deeper and deeper, and you realize that the source of truth has so many variations of what a sweet potato is. So there are 40 different types of sweet potato. So depending on brand, depending on how it's been cooked, is it sauteed, is it steamed, is it boiled? And this all has a different nutritional profile.

And all those minute differences when you collect those up into a full meal, they make a big difference. And this is why they're allowed this margin of error because there's just so much inaccuracy across the entire networking information. So it's just one of those things to be cautious about, don't read too much into it. And I think the reason why a lot of athletes and bodybuilders stick to the same foods is because they know how their body reacts to brown rice, chicken, broccoli, sweet potato. And that's why you see those meals time and time again for people who need to be very complacent of every inch of fat on their body. And you don't want to go down that route because you want diversity, you want those different

types of fibres, you want to support your gut health. You know, this is something that we want to lean into. rather than just being completely calorie-focused. And the other thing about calories is you can have the same products, but depending on the processing that that product has gone through, means that you're going to absorb those calories in that product completely differently. So using my favorite example of peanut butter, because I love peanut butter, but I have whole peanuts versus peanut butter that's crunchy versus peanut flour.

it's going to be the same calories across the entire spectrum of those foods, but the amount that I'm going to absorb from each different food is going to be widely different. In the most processed version, the flour, I'm going to absorb near 95% of it. And the whole form, because it's structured with those fibers and those complex proteins

that I actually have to digest and break down if I consume that whole product, I'm actually going to absorb less calories even though it's exactly the same product. So processing also comes into the sort of the big caveat when it comes to to calorie counting. But overall, I think it's a good exercise. I think people should be aware of it, but just be aware not to get too hyper-focused in the numbers, which I see time and time again.

That's great advice. You know, we live in an unnatural environment, how we're surrounded by food, especially hyper palatable food that's designed to hijack our brain and hijack our taste buds. So we need these tips. We need these tricks. We need to be learning from evidence-based resources that have real world experience built into them. And that's one of the reasons, Rupee, that I'm such a huge fan of your content, is that not only do you have the nutrition background that you got in your degree in culinary nutrition, and medical nutrition, but you're also a practicing physician.

And then on top of that, you're a chef. So you add all those things together. You have all the things of like what actually really works. You have a great understanding of the literature. It's why truly your YouTube channel and your podcast are one of the top resources that I recommend to people. In fact, if you are not subscribed to the doctor's kitchen today, please, community, check it out. I have a link in the show notes here. it's the doctor's kitchen YouTube page as well as the podcast, the app.

These are incredible resources. We need all the support to fight against this sort of unnatural world that we live in to actually live a healthy life. I always say, you know, being unhealthy is normal. And so in a way, we all need to be a little bit weird. And so we need the tools and the tips and the tricks that are out there to help us do that and double down on the basics. And you definitely are one of the top educators in that space. Rupi, I want to pass it out to you to give us any final words here and how our audience can follow

along if they want to continue this journey of focusing on the basics, but mastering them so that they can be in an optimal state of health for the rest of their life. Think about the other things that can also have an impact. So sleep optimization, stress reduction, reducing exposure to obesogens. So I personally use glass, ceramic, stainless steel and cast iron in my kitchen to minimize

my exposure to these pollutants that have shown to have abysogenic property. So they promote fat gain and they promote inflammation as well. So these are all things that we also need to be considerate of as well as those major things

that I've mentioned with calories, protein and fiber and ensuring that you're having as whole a diet as possible. An interesting addition, I would say, are hydration. So ensuring that you have enough water during the day can actually improve your calorie control without even having to count anything at all because thirst and hunger can also be mistaken for each other.

So particularly if you're in the afternoon, you're thinking, no, I might have like a little snack here. Think about how much water you've actually consumed that day. Have you had a big jug of water in the morning? You've already gone to the bathroom. And actually you've just forgotten to hydrate in the afternoon, which actually happens to me quite a lot. So I have to be cognizant myself of making sure that I'm having enough water to make sure that I'm staking off my inappropriate hunger signals.

And I think there are a few extra sort of elements of our diet that we can have fun with. We can play with it to drink. So one of my favorite things to talk to people about, I'm a big coffee fan. I think coffee is just like having an absolute moment right now. We know that it is important for on gut health, it actually has a free biotic effect.

So it's a specialized fibre that supports our gut microbes. We know that certain liver physicians are actually recommending it to their patients for what we used to call non-acoholic fatty liver disease. It's now called something different. It's got a longer name or fatty liver. liver because it's got these benefits of reducing fat in the liver and improving your metabolic health. And this is before, you know, you're going to the cognitive benefits.

And if you're sensitive to caffeine, the decaf versions also have as many benefits as well. And, you know, the other drinks that I absolutely love talking about are like a hibiscus tea. That's also shown to have some anti-abesity effect, as has green tea. It's got these wonderful chemicals, ECGC, that are. are incredible reducing fat and increasing your fat burning ability. And chocolate. Chocolate is one of my favorite ingredients. You know, you introduce me as a chef, a culinary medicine guy.

I've got to end with the foods that I love with. I love the most, right? And chocolate is right up there. I know you're a big chocolate fan. 80, 85% plus is what I would go for. That's the highest number for, well, the highest number. is going to be 100% for flavonols, but the nice sort of level of sweetness and bitterness that chocolate gives you.

And you want to be looking for a single origin chocolate that has high amounts of flavonols. You can look online to ensure that you're not getting exposure to high amounts of mercury and cadmium because certain chocolate growers, unfortunately, grow in an area where there are high amounts of heavy metals. But these are great for your brain health. Again, they have pre-botics.

They actually have a lot of protein in as well. So I actually in my protein shape that I have every now and then have a 100% cacao, and that's high in flabinol. They source it from, I think it's Garnaya. It's a brand here called a Duna. I don't have any affiliation with them, but I think they're great. That actually gives me 25 grams of protein per 100 grams for the powder it comes in. So there are so many other ingredients that we can introduce into our daily. repertoire that can improve our brain, improve our weight control naturally without having to be

as didactic and without having to be as regimented as we're led to believe by the weight loss industry. So enjoy your food. Make sure you're having a whole lump process as much as possible and explore the variety of ingredients that we have because it's an incredible world of ingredients we have out there. You know, I remember you gave me the Greek tea, the melted tea. It's part of my wedding gift for me, Rochelle. And that was wonderful.

And actually looking at the research for that, it's pretty phenomenal as well. So dive into cultures, get out there, enjoy your food because they're healthful and their life-affirming. That's a great reminder. You know, this podcast has been very serious up until now. And it's the reminder that we need to have fun through this process. Throughout history, cooking was a sign of joy. It was a sign of fun, ingredients.

It was a sign of community. So explore new ingredients, download the doctor's kitchen app, and make some food with some friends. You know, what better way to experience life than to do that. Rupi, this was great. We got to have you on on a regular basis. So many more things that you talked about that we could dive deeper into and we definitely will. Please, community, subscribe to the doctor's kitchen app and podcast. It was a pleasure to have you on.

Thank you for sharing these simple habits that we can all, incorporate into our life starting today. We really appreciate you, brother. My pleasure, man. My pleasure. It's been super fun. Hi, everyone. Drew here. Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share it with a friend. Share it with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to tell you about

something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly newsletter, and it's called Try This. Every Friday, yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I send out an easy-to-digest protocol of simple steps that you or anyone you love can follow to optimize your own health. We cover everything from nutrition to mindset, to metabolic health, sleep, community, longevity, and so much more. If you want to get on this email list, which is, by the way, free and get my weekly step-by-step protocols for whole body health and optimization, click the link in the show notes that's called Try This or just go to Drew Perot.com. That's D-H-R-U-P-U-R-O-H-I-T dot com and click on the tab that says, try this.