Dhru Purohit Show - Are You On A Weight Loss Rollercoaster? Try These Evidence-Based Tips To Lose Weight and Keep It Off Long Term with Dr. Rupy Aujla

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

This episode is brought to you by Birch Living, Our Place, Cozy Earth, and Levels. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by conflicting health advice or trends on social media, this episode is for you. We’re cutting through the noise to help you understand which habits actually support long-term health and which might be doing more harm than good. Whether you're focused on weight loss, energy, or aging well, this conversation offers clarity and actionable guidance for real life. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with Dr. Rupy Aujla to explore the best and worst habits for losing weight, staying full, and aging well. Using a tier-ranking system, they break down key lifestyle habits and explore which ones truly move the needle. Dr. Rupy also shares his top four habit-stacking strategies, which include simple, automatic actions that support a healthy lifestyle without requiring extra effort. Additionally, they delve into the nuances of calorie tracking, diet soda, and fasting, separating fact from fiction. This episode is packed with practical, real-world strategies designed to help you thrive in today’s fast-paced, modern world. Dr. Rupy Aujla is one of the most influential medical doctors in the UK. He has completed a master’s degree in nutritional medicine, 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:  Weighing yourself: It’s not just about the number on the scale (00:18) Why skipping breakfast can be so detrimental to your health (3:33) The history of fasting and how to age in the right direction (8:53) What snacking after meals can signify (13:03) The myth about avoiding fats and overconsumption (23:49) Microplastics, their impact on cardiovascular health (40:11) Why OMAD (One Meal a Day) isn’t sustainable for long-term weight loss (48:12) Understanding your true caloric needs (53:28) Dr. Rupy’s four strategies for sustained, effortless weight loss (1:02:05) The diet soda debate (1:04:17) Signs of low fiber intake and practical ways to get more fiber (1:11:31) Adequate protein at breakfast and eating an earlier dinner (1:32:39) How simple habit stacking can lead to major health shifts (1:35:49) Where to follow Dr. Rupy’s work (1:39:31) Also mentioned in this episode: The Doctor's Kitchen: Healthy High Protein: Supercharge your energy, feel stronger and live longer The Doctor's Kitchen App: Apple Store, Google Play TruDiagnostic testing  For more on Dr. Aujla, follow him on Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or visit his Website. This episode is brought to you by Birch Living, Our Place, Cozy Earth, and Levels. Get 25% off your Birch Living mattress during their Summer Sale—just head to birchliving.com/dhru today!  Reduce your toxic load by upgrading your cookware! Go to fromourplace.com today and use promo code DHRU at checkout to receive 10% off any order. Right now, Cozy Earth is having its Cozy Days summer sale, get 45% off your Cozy Earth sheets and sleepwear. Just head over to cozyearth.com/dhru and use code DHRUP.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. Sign up for Dhru’s Try This Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Rupi, welcome back to the podcast. Today, we're ranking the best and worst habits on the topic of losing weight, feeling full, and aging strong. And one of the first ones that we're going to chat about is something that might surprise people. Yeah, yeah. So like, Drew, there is this one habit, right, that so many people do every single day. They don't miss it. They do this all the time. And it seems so innocent and it's so simple,

but it could be really detrimental. Spoiler, it is weighing themselves on scales every morning. Now, I'm going to talk to you about why this can be a good thing for certain people, but a really bad thing, I think, for most people, right? And before you get into it, we're going to rank it and then you're going to tell us why. I'm going to rank it, yeah. So I'm going to give this a D. And I can tell you why I'm giving it a D because I think for most people,

what weighing yourself on scales does is it develops a relationship with the number that isn't necessarily reflective of your underlying health. It will give you your total weight, but it doesn't give you the composition. It doesn't tell you whether that weight's coming from muscles or fat. And if you see that number going the wrong direction, can be really demotivating for a lot of people. And that's not all you want on your weight loss journey. Now, for some people, you know, for whom they've done a dexter scan,

they know their body composition, their calories are dialed in. I get it. You know, having a marker every morning after you've expelled your, you've done your bowel motion, you've expelled urine from your bladder, before you've eaten, before you've had any water. I can see why this is something that is very easy. to track and is something that is what they want to look forward to,

what they actually want to do just to keep a track because we can't do dexas scans every single day. But for most people, I would say this is a really detrimental habit. They look at the number and they often feel bummed because the weight fluctuates day to day for all sorts of different reasons based on how much water you had,

what you had the day before, if you had a bowel movement, if you didn't have a bowel movement, and they decide how to feel and that can eat at, momentum. And momentum is one of the most important things when it comes to your body composition journey. Momentum is everything. And I think a lot of people don't realize that even if they do all the right things, right, they have a bowel motion, they expel urine. Your body fluctuates

largely because of water, depending on what time of month it might be for a woman who is menstruating. You can hold on to a lot of water, depending on your stress levels. You can hold on to a lot of weight. there are so many other things that are going on in someone's body that is not reflective of that number on the scale. So I think this is actually one of those things that I would highly, highly recommend people do not do only if you are really into body composition and competitions, that kind of stuff. That's something, okay, fine, I give it more of like a B. But for most people, this is definitely a D and I don't think this is a useful exercise.

Okay, this is a big one that a lot of people still. do. So many people do this because they think that it's going to help them on their journey of losing weight, improving body composition. And that's skipping breakfast. Yeah. Let's talk about that. Well, skipping breakfast is a great way to cut your calories. And if you are, and we're probably going to talk about calorie counting in a second. But if you are looking to simply reduce energy, then I can understand why skipping breakfast is a convenient option for most people. It means that you ring fence the rest of your meals. It means that you're cutting out a big proportion of it. But I would say after you fasted overnight essentially, which is what we all do

when we go to bed, and you want to break your fast. You want to be replenishing the amino acids that have broken down overnight. So overnight, a bunch of different multibolic processes are going on. Your liver is rebuilding and breaking down proteins. You want to give it a good dose of protein in the morning so it actually keeps you saciated. Your energy levels are high and your focus is improved. So when we skip breakfast, what we're doing is we're prolonging our hunger. There may be some marginal benefits for that, but what ends up happening is that you just get snack happy and you break your fast with something that is quick, convenient and in a lot of cases, quite sugary. And I've seen this quite a bit. I mean, when I used to skip breakfast out of just the lack of time in the morning because I was working in hospitals, I would just grab and go whatever I could find. And that's usually something that is high in refined sugars and high in refined starches. So I would say skipping breakfast is probably not the best thing to do for most people because, and we'll get into this a little bit later, you also want to give yourself an opportunity to consume enough protein.

And if you shave off the number of meals by 30% or a third, then you're making it harder for the other meals to do the majority of the work by providing you with enough protein in your 24 hours. So if you had to rank it, where would you put it? Done the wrong way, right, where people are then not eating enough calories and go super hungry, don't feel satiated. Yeah. Where would you put that?

process of skipping breakfast. I would say this is probably going to be a C for me, for the majority of people. But to your point, and we should always add nuance to these conversations, for the right person who is skipping breakfast purely because they want to extend that fasting window and perhaps dip into some of those nutritional benefits of diving into a bit of nutritional ketosis, relying on some ketones, and then appropriately breaking their breakfast with something that is high fiber and high protein, then this could be slightly higher up the ranking for someone who is actually able to do that. It could be something like more of a B or an A. So it really depends on the individual. And if you are utilizing skipping breakfast or a two meal a day strategy appropriately. Yeah. This really goes back

to a lot of the themes that are inside of your new book, Healthy High Protein, which is available in the US now. You guys launch in the UK. So please everybody check it out. Is that yes, you can skip breakfast. but if you don't audit how much high quality protein you're getting in your life as a whole. And I've generally seen that this tends to be, it's a men and women issue, but I think women struggle with it even more than men. You end up being in a position

where you're not even actually consuming enough protein to maintain all the things that you need, especially lean muscle mass, to allow you to age in the right direction. We'll be chatting about that a little bit more. But I think fasting can feel, exciting because it's like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I'm immediately losing weight. I'm skipping breakfast. I'm not eating that much. But then what are you sacrificing is the question? And is it

worth that? And are there other ways to get there, which is what we're going to be talking about today? And it is really interesting because for certain people who are doing it the right way, let's just assume someone who is listening to this is really into the health. They know that they're not going to be eating something like a sugary donuts or whatever, first thing after breaking their fast, they push their breakfast to something more like 11 a.m. or 12 p.m. Or they are practicing something called time restricted eating, which is where they still have two or three meals in a day,

but it's just pushed into an eight or ten hour window. For those individuals, this might be a strategy to improve metabolic flexibility. What is metabolic flexibility? essentially where your body is easily able to flip between burning fats and burning carbohydrates. So when you are prolonging that period of fasting, your body has to dip into the other energy stores like fats and then burn these fatty acids off and burning off ketones. And this is actually something that is quite metabolically healthy for that individual.

And then when you do get the availability of carbohydrates and fiber, etc., then you go to switching carbohydrates. So this ability to flex between these two fuel systems is actually quite healthy. Some strategies where they skip breakfast might be able to enhance that. But for the majority of people, I would say this is probably not the best thing to be doing.

Are you familiar at all with like the work of Walter Longo and some of the researches done fasting? An interesting thing that he said on the podcast was when we look at fasting historically and outside of the Western societies, of the UK and America and the Western world, fasting was typically something that was done in the evening. Right?

It was typically you skip dinner. There's not really a lot of cultures. He didn't mention any where people skip breakfast. And I asked him, why is that? Why does he think that is? And he said, my thoughts on why that is is because generally when we wake up in the morning, most societies throughout history,

you were going to be outside, walking outside, farming, cultivating, doing something. And to turn your brain on and to get your body ready for the day and prolonged work that you're going to have to do, which is often manual labor, you actually need fuel that was there. And if people were fasting for health reasons,

religious reasons, usually those things were kind of tied in together. It would be that they would, at periods of time, skip dinner, which is a lot easier because typically later on the day, there's not as much activity demands that are on the body and on the brain as well. He would say that when people don't eat in the morning sometimes, long term, anybody can do things.

Hopefully you can do things for short term. You get in this position where you can just feel a little bit more sluggish. So all this is great because these are all just the nuances where people can think about what works for them. And typically, I've seen that intermittent fasting works well when people have maybe, a significant amount of weight, right? They might be in the obese category. They have a significant amount of weight. And it's another form that's easy for them to stick to

that allows them to control calories. And then for the average person, that might have 5, 10, 15 pounds of fat that they want to do, the question with all these things, which is why we have you here because you're the expert is, are these things sustain things that you can keep up? Because anybody can lose weight in the short term. But can you actually keep it off long term

and age in the right direction while also preserving your lean muscle mass inside your body. And you know what? I love the evolutionary perspective on our health because I just think there's so much to learn from how our bodies have evolved,

what machinery we're dealing with, and the stresses that we actually have to opt into to actually turn on some of these metabolic processes that kept us. of surviving in such harsh conditions. So I love Waterlonger's work. He's been on the pod a couple of times as well. And we might disagree on a few things with regards to protein.

Right. He has a different view on that. He's a different view on protein, which is fine. But I had Dr. Leo Probram on my podcast recently, and he's coined this term called Intimitive Living, which is where you essentially live in accordance with some ancient stresses that have been essentially comforted out of our lives. So we don't no longer need to experience thirst anymore because we always have water.

But in reality, you know, thousands of years ago, we would have had to walk for like tens of miles to get to the nearest watering hole. Same thing with food. We wouldn't have had food at every single opportunity. Same thing with heat and cold. And so sometimes we need to opt into some difficult things and do hard things for the rewards. And actually our body responds really healthily to that. I love that.

I love that. All right. Let's go into the next thing. And everybody stay tuned because some of these things that we're talking about are trends that are out there, old ideas. There's some nuance that's there. They could be good for some people, bad for others. But then we're also going to get into four of the strategies that you have, which are sometimes counterintuitive. Yeah.

But they're going to be helpful for people who are looking for, again, sustained fat loss, which is different than short-term weight loss. All right. The next one that we have is snacking. after dinner. Another Western phenomenon that's there. Where would you rank that on our tiered list? This episode is powered by Birch because your health starts with how you sleep and we all know that. Here's a thing. You filter your water. You've swapped out your skincare and your cleaning products. But what about the eight hours you spend in bed every single night? The thing is, most mattresses are loaded with flame retardants, polyurethane foams and synthetic glues. materials that can off gas harmful chemicals into your home for years.

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I would say it's either a D or an F. Let's put it as an F because I think there are not going to be too many Fs here. But this is just wrong on so many levels, right? So A, you're increasing the amount of calories that you're consuming. And I think in the wider context of things, if we think about the issues with our health in a very binary way, we just eat too much. I think everyone can agree that we eat far too much. And so if we literally whip this down to consuming more energy after you've just had a full meal, I think this is definitely not a good idea. The other thing is if you're slacking straight after your meal, you're also not allowing your body to actually recognize

its satiation signals. There is a time period, depending on how quick you consume your food, whereby your body will recognize that you're digesting food, it will signal to your brain via various mechanisms that you should stop eating, and then you will no longer have the appetized signals. You will have the satiation signals, i.e., I've had enough food. So if you're snacking straight after food, you're not really giving your body that opportunity to do so. Another reason why I feel that people snack after meals, particularly after breakfast,

is because they haven't consumed enough protein. So there is something called the protein leverage hypothesis that I think is getting a lot more attention these days, which is where your body will continue to tell you that it is hungry if you have not satisfied your personal protein requirements. What are your personal protein requirements? We're going to see a little bit later, but it's much high than what we are recommending currently in the guidelines. if you don't consume enough protein, because it's so essential for so many different

physiological processes in your body, not just muscle health, but bone health, collagen, immune cells, your hormones, etc., your body will be telling you, you've got to go out, you've got to get some more food. Hence why a lot of people find themselves snacking mid-morning, because they've had quite a big breakfast, it might be a refined cereus, it could be croissants, it could be sandwich, could be juice, whatever it might be. but because those are all relatively low protein, you're still going to be hungry a couple of hours later. So snacking off the meals, I would say definitely stop.

Another lens of this, you know, aside from calories, energy, protein is your gut. So your gut is tasked with breaking down food. So your gut, you know, nine meter long tube from the mouth to the anus. The majority of the action is going on in the large intestine, which is the latter portion of your digestive. of tract. There you have trillions of microbes, largely bacteria, but you've also got viruses, fungi, nematodes. They're all working to break down food, create metabolites, nourish the gut cells, reduce inflammation, etc. They're absorbing food across a very small barrier called the gut barrier where it goes on the other side to your bloodstream and then the nutrients

are transported around your body. If you are constantly working them in between meals, snacking after your meals, you're never really giving them a rest. The other thing that happens, which is completely normal, is intestinal permeability, otherwise leak your gut. So your gut has to become somewhat leaky. So just for the audio listeners, I've got my fingers interlocked here. And then you've got to think of it like as a sieve or you guys call it a mesh or a strainer. You've got like tiny holes in the gut lining that widen when you just consume food. So it lets in certain nutrients. It lets in certain particles so you can be transported around the body. When you're consuming that of any food, that leakness increases. That's normal. We want that to

happen. But let's see you're grazing the whole day. Well, your gut is constantly being made to be leaky because you're telling it to consume food. Whereas actually we want periods of time where it's not permeable, where it's closed. So we can actually keep things in the gut that shouldn't be in the bloodstream. And so this grazing, this snacking, this constantly like consuming outside of meal times is something that could lead to excessive inflammation. And that may be one of the reasons as to why people are suffering with so many different conditions as well.

It could be an added layer of what is causing ill health for people. So again, another reason why I think snacking after meals probably not the best idea. Yeah. And I think most people listen, they're like, yeah. I know I don't want a snack after a meal, but they may not understand why. And so I so appreciate you going into the why of the behavior. Yeah.

If you're eating enough healthy, high protein foods, you're eating enough fiber, which is another thing we're going to talk about as well, and you're not, you know, crazy restricting carbs unless there's some sort of medical component that's there. You're going to find yourself in a position where hopefully you are just automatically not wanting to snack.

It's not willpower that's driving you. That's a big lesson that I think a lot of people can take away from your book. Let's continue down this list. But before we do, just give us like the quick, you know,

32nd minute background for those that are not familiar with you. You're not only a physician from the UK, but you also have a background in nutrition. Yeah, yeah. So I've been working as a doctor for over 15 years, general practice, A&E, ITU,

I worked in Australia for a bit. I came to my realization around food as medicine from my own personal experience. I used to suffer from atrial fibrillation, which is an irregular heart rhythm. No one could really figure out why. And then I essentially put myself on an anti-inflammatory Mediterranean-style diet, started doing yoga meditation and was able to reverse my own condition. And that kind of led me to explore food as medicine, sleep as medicine, other lifestyle medicine. That's helped me and you connected over 10 years ago at a functional medicine conference

because I got interested in functional medicine as an alternative or complementary way of thinking about how we can help people, particularly in this day and age where a lot of people are suffering with metabolic disease. And I've also done a master's in nutrition as well. So I'm not only only am I qualified as a medical doctor, but I'm also a nutritionist and we do research and all the other good stuff we do at the doctor's kitchen. So that's a little, 60 second intro into me and the kind of stuff that I do. That's great. And you have a new book out?

Yeah. Healthy eye protein. Yeah. Yeah. And the brand is called The Doctor's Kitchen. Also the podcast. Yeah. So people can check it out and subscribe on YouTube.

Yeah. Love it. All right. With your background in nutrition, a master's in nutrition, hopefully you can give some thoughts on the next one that we have here, which is something that a lot of people do when they're thinking that they might want to lose weight. And there's probably a lot of layers to this conversation. but it's the idea of avoiding fats in your diet.

Let's talk about that. Yeah. So this is a real hangover, I think, from the last 40 or 50 years where there was a lot of demonizing fats, okay? Now, the reason why people demonize fats is because, A, there was a belief that some fats are lumped in with cholesterol, and this fat is going to cause cardiovascular disease. it's the root cause of why so many people are suffering with heart attacks, etc. So there's this sort of like demonisation there.

It's also highly calerific. And again, another hangover from that era of time where calories were just above everything else. And I still think we do have a hang up about that as well rather than looking at the quality of calories. But then, you know, now we think about fats in a completely different light. There are good fats that are bad fats. there are whole food fats, there are refined fats, there are the fats that you can consume holistically within your diet that are going to be net beneficial. And there are certain fats

that you consume usually packaged or added to other refined products that we call ultra-processed foods that are going to be net harmful to multiple areas of our health, not just cardiovascular disease, but metabolic health, etc. So, you know, this idea of, of what, avoiding fats altogether, I think it's just, you know, the wrong approach. It's almost like avoiding exercise because you've heard something bad about hit training, high intensity interval training. It was actually there's different grades of exercise. There's so many different types of exercise that might be more appropriate for you. So if you are someone who has bad knees, then maybe you should be doing something like yoga or Pilates instead of something like box jumps

and squats and lunges. You know, there's all sorts of nuance to this conversation. So this idea that you should be avoiding fats altogether, I just think is really, really naive and it's potentially detrimental as well. There's also this other side of it, which is that once a group of people found out, accurately so as you've demonstrated,

I was also in this category at one point in time that, hey, we shouldn't be afraid of fats. I went completely in the opposite direction and I was pouring without really noticing it because I wasn't really tracking or even knew what to look for. I sometimes was adding, you know, 100, 200, 400, 500 calories of fats to a meal.

Yeah. With like a heavy pour of olive oil and a ton of avocados and those things are great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But not having awareness about fats and the energy load that they place on your body was something that I went through personally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think that a lot of people are also waking up to that, hey, you can gain weight on a healthy diet. You can eat at whole foods or air one or wherever and overeat on any foods, but especially the foods that taste really great like healthy fats. Yeah, yeah. And you could be eating organic and you could still be putting on weight. Totally. Do you want to talk about that for a second? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, particularly in the case of oils, because these are refined products, I mean, they're minimally refined.

You know, there's different grades of this. You've got coal press. you've got mechanical means of extraction, etc. But yeah, it's very easy to overconsume energy, particularly in that very absorbable form of energy, i.e. in oil, compared to, let's say, you're getting nuts and seeds or you're getting avocados. Like these have fiber in them as well,

so they are naturally satiating. It's actually quite hard to consume that. If you're eating smooth peanut butter, yeah, that's quite easy to overconsume as well. a lot of people will be adding a lot of calories to their meals because of that reason as well. There's also that there was the trend of like, I mean, I think there still is a trend of putting oil in your coffee and, you know, just blending it all up and like drinking. Bulletproof coffee.

Bulletproof coffee, yeah. And you know what? Like, I can see the appeal of that and I can see the use of that for certain people who have really high caloric needs, right? Like athletes, for example, who need to be consuming four or five thousand calories every single a day, they need to rely on some processed foods and some quite unhealthy activities just to maintain the output that these guys are putting out there, men and women. So, you know, for certain people, that's okay. For the majority of people, not great at all. So yeah,

I appreciate the nuance of that because I think it's important to get to hit home that whilst, yes, there are absolutely good fats that we should be consuming, all other things, being in court, we need to be cognizant of the fact that we need to be making sure that we're not over-consuming energy. Yeah, for many form, but fats is one of the easiest forms to over-consume. Yeah, yeah, very much. So in the traditional sense, people saying, hey, I'm going to lose weight by avoiding fats. Yeah.

Right. And even if they're healthy, I'm going to try to do my best. I'm going to eat a traditional sort of, you know, low-fat diet. If you had to rank that, where would that be? This episode is brought to you by Cozy Earth. You've heard about Prime Day, but Cozy Earth, is bringing in the real heat with their cozy days sale. 45% off sitewide on the softest, coolest sheets you've ever slept on.

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levels is one of the most powerful tools out there. Not to mention, it can also help you feel more energized and help you dial in your body composition and weight loss goals too. So to recap, for just $1.99 a year, you get the blood test, full access to the app, recipes, goal tracking, habit coaching, and more. It's one of the most powerful ways that I've found to take control of my health and actually see the impact of my daily choices. Right now, Levels is offering my listeners two free months off their annual membership when

you sign up using my link. Levels.com. Link slash Drew. If you've been waiting to take your health seriously, now is the time. Get clarity, get control, and start improving your health with levels today. Just go to Levels, L-E-V-E-E-L-S dot L-I-N-K-S-Drew to get two free months off their annual membership today. A low-fat diet? Yeah. I would say that's probably a D.

Okay, great. So we're going to put that there. I would definitely say that's a D. Yeah. I think most people would benefit from having some fats in their diet. So avoiding fats would be quite low down the list. There are certain examples of people who will struggle to digest. gest fats, you know, people who have had their gallbladder removed, they might have digestive

enzyme issues, gastric disorders, in which case, supplementation and certain other types of medical fats would be useful for those people. But yeah, for the majority of people, I would say avoiding fats is not a good thing. The reason why is because, I mean, if you take the example of oily fish, herring, mackerel, salmon would be in that category, but anchovies and sardines are my favorites. Those contain these long chain omega-3 fatty acids, right? The EPA and DHA. What these are really good for are things like resolvins,

certain immune cells where they actually resolve inflammation. That's why we see when people consume these types of foods, we have an anti-inflammatory effect. Even things like nuts and seeds, aside from the fact that you're consuming good quality sources of fiber and you're getting some protein in there as well, you're getting vitamin E, you're getting some other minerals, and you're getting these really good healthy fats that are mono-unsaturated

that we know can actually reduce your cholesterol or at least keep that in balance. And so there are all these things that people don't realize that they're cutting out of their diet if they're avoiding all fats in mortality. That's a great, that's a great, great point. You know, going back to the fat conversation, the whole putting coconut oil in your coffee and MCT oil, I got really into that trend. Yeah. We have just down the street not too far away from here.

I think you've been there before. Yeah, yeah. There was a cafe. It's no longer there anymore. That was started by Dave Asprey. It's called Bulletproof Cafe. And I was a huge fan. And they had a lot of really great things.

And I like their coffee. And it tastes great when you add MCT oil and you blend it. It's super creamy. And then, like, after like six months of doing that, I went and got my Boston Heart test. Oh, yeah. Which is a common test that we have here. I don't know if you guys run that.

Yeah. It gives you all sorts of markers. around your lipids and so many different things. And at the time, I had no idea that I've always known that genetically my family has higher LDL. But I didn't know what was going on. Much, much later on, I found out that I did this genetic test. I think it's called, we'll put in the show notes, but I think it's called like true

diagnostic something, but it's a genetic screening around your genetics around heart disease and how you process lipids and what's going on and etc and through that I saw my cardiologist ordered it Michael Twyman I saw I saw I'm a hyper reabsorber right of cholesterol yeah I always thought I was a hyper producer because that's just what our family thought but I'm a hyper reabsorber yeah and my LDL shot up to like something crazy like 250 280 yeah yeah that translates into yeah that's high the UK in terms over there and I was like what is going on And even at a period of time, I'm okay to admit this. I thought, oh, it's not a big deal.

Yeah, right? And now I've kind of like changed my mind on those things. We've done a lot of episodes and talked about that. But it was crazy how just through having coconut oil, MCT oil, in your coffee every morning for a period of time, I had this skyrocketed rate of LDL, which I'm not so afraid of LDL, but I think long term having a high LDL in APOB from added fats is not a good thing. something that I want to bet on for the future of my heart health. So that's a little anecdote on my end. It's a really good illustrative anecdote because I think a lot of people were of that

opinion and some people even when they got their lipids done sort of ignored the fact that their LDLC was high or their non-HDL was off, which is like the poor man's version of APA Lopropropretin B if you can't get an APOB test and which is quite hard in the UK because we don't do it in the NHS. So there is, you know, a real shift in people's thinking around cholesterol now. Because, you know, it's like, oh, well, it depends on the size and it depends on the big, fluffy ones. Well, actually, I think, holistically, if you think about LDLC or these markers of lipoproteins

in the blood, it is really important to make sure that your exposure to these is mitigated as much as possible because you could be walking around with a very high cholesterol for many years before you succumb to something like a heart attack or a stroke or whatever it might be. So I think it's really important to get this message out there that we want to reduce our exposure in the same way you would want to reduce your exposure to smoking. And if you were to have a couple of cigarettes every day, every week, you won't find any negative impacts immediately, but it's the long-term picture that people need to be thinking about.

And I think this is, you know, something that's getting out there in this preventative medicine space, which perhaps before was sort of muddied with lots of different opinions about it. Yeah, totally. It's definitely one of the most controversial areas on health. And my cardiologist who I've had on the podcast a couple times, Michael Twyman, great guy based out of St. Louis, he would say, the way he would talk about it is that it's not the full story, LDL and these lipids. It's not the full story, but it's a main part of the story. And we need to think about it as shots on goal. You could have a really incredible goalkeeper, right? In soccer, football, as you guys say. You can have an incredible goalkeeper who's really good at making

sure that people don't score. And that could be you have a very strong endothelial system. Your endothelial glycics, I think it's called glycics, is so strong because you have high levels of nitric oxide. You work out a lot, right? You do enough cardio that's there. You are, have a low stress lifestyle, right? You're, you're doing restorative things like meditation, etc. All those things are very protective. They make a really good goalkeeper. But still at the end of the day,

if somebody has a lot more shots on goal, they're going to have more of a chance to get there. So if you have a long term, a high APOB, high LDR long term, it will catch up to you. And then the other thing that we have to factor in, there's things that damage that endothelial lining, things that we all can't control

because they're so ubiquitous in our life. Microplastics. Right? I don't know if you saw that Italian study that came out last year, that the people that had the highest levels of plaque when they went into the plaque and they actually took it out and they looked at it, those individuals with the highest levels of plaque had the highest levels of plastics. Yeah.

They were inside of there. So microplastics, forever chemicals, all these things that even we do our best, we're still going to get exposed to them. Do we want to risk it? That's why I, even though I had a fantastic CT of the Lodagh, of the Lod, heart. And then even further, I did a clearly scan, which is a branded CCTV. Okay. Yeah. Where they actually look at soft plaque and heart plaque in your heart. And I scored like amazingly on there. Yeah. One of the cleanest that my cardiologist has ever seen. Oh, nice. I'm also young.

Right. I just turned 40 a few years ago. I'm about to turn 43. But comparatively for people my age, I was doing really well. The challenge is it's nuanced. Yeah. Right. I wasn't eating a lot of fat foods when I was younger. I was plant-based and vegan for a long time. I'm glad that I do eat things like fish and chicken and grass-fed beef now. Could that have been some aspect just because I didn't have really high levels of certain lipids floating around? And the other thing, too, is that between 40 and hopefully 100 plus, right, that we all want to live too, what is the other damage that's going to take? You know, that's potentially going to be coming in. So I made the decision to start, I've cheered with my audience,

I started on a Zetamide, Zetia. Yeah. And I take 10 milligrams a day. You know, it's not medical advice. That's what, you know, typically is kind of like a first line therapy that a lot of cardiologists will start people on. And amazingly, my APOB came down from around 180,

down to about like 80, 75. That's great. Which is I feel really comfortable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's some other things naturally that I take, too, to support it as well, too. But it was really, do I want to have a hundred shots at a time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Things that I can both control and not control that would be increasing my risk for the long term. It's a really good analogy. And I would say, you know, there are things that even if you do have a good goalkeeper will distract your keeper, one of which is, yeah, plastics, forever chemicals.

I think the other things, you can have a very clean lifestyle and have high stressure fats in your diet and not really worry about your lip of protein and say, well, I'm super healthy, I'm super jacked, I'm really lean. My MRI, my dex is great. But stress was going to catch up.

I think stress is a real big factor that is undervalued by most people because there isn't a really good way of measuring it. I know like, you know, there are tracking devices now that I'm trying to sort of give you a visual demonstration of how stress you are during the day. There isn't a very good way of tracking stress. Poor sleep. I've just, I've got an eight month old. You know, my sleep has never been this disturbed. And I can actually see that my average heart rate has increased by five. beats and you can see monthly trends and everything. It's completely out of my control because I

eat the same. I don't exercise as much just because of time. You know, I take my supplements, I do all the rest of it. But there are things that are outside of our control and this only gets worse and worse over time. Different stresses. Every time you look at social media, what you're consuming on the news, these are all having an impact on your cardiovascular health, all having an impact on your goalkeeper. So the best strategy is to give you a goalkeeper. So the best strategy is to give you a goalkeeper the best chance, you know, reduce those shots and go. Yeah, well said. I mean, we could go a whole of the episode into this, but I'm sure you saw the

drama around the keto study that happened. Oh, which one was a nurse? So there was that keto CTA study. Oh, yeah, Nick Norwitz. Yeah, Nick Norwitz and Dave Feldman, who are great guys. I've had them on the podcast. They talked about the study. It was very early on.

Yeah, yeah. And then it exploded on X, formerly called, you know, Twitter. Yeah. where the study got eviscerated. Yeah, yeah. That the lead was buried. And long story short, for those that not following, the study was a first of its kind where it looked at 100 participants who were in this category.

And for a long time, I felt like I was in this category, that you're a lean mass hyper responder. Yeah. These are individuals that have high levels of lipids, either they're hyperproducing or hyper absorbing typically. Yeah. And or it could just be coming straight from their diet as well. and they're usually on like a keto or a carnivore diet, right?

High fat, high protein, etc. And the question was, if you're metabolically healthy, does that offer some level of protection? Sure. And the study came out and it was like, yeah, this shows that basically the title of study was plaque, it gets plaque. Yeah.

That if you have baseline plaque already there from prior damage, lifestyle, could be whatever, then you're going to have more plaque progression on this type of diet, even if you're a lean mass hyperresponder. but the thing that wasn't talked about enough, and they've talked about the missteps they've made and how they could have done it better

and how they do a future study, where a lot of people sort of eviscerated them for it is that, on average, people that were participants in the study, even though these people are the best metabolic health that's out there, their plaque progression was higher than some of the worst case scenarios of even like diabetics that were there, right?

As a baseline. Yeah. And, you know, Dave Feldman and these guys, I'm not going to get into the weeds. They had some of their thoughts and it led to some controversies and other things like that. But long story short, I walked away from feeling hopeful when that study came out. I was like, oh, maybe this is one of the reasons why, right, even if I've had a high APOB, that because I'm metabolically healthy, it's still protective. And I left that study saying, okay, it's even more of a reason I feel good that I decided to start on ZETIA and take other measures like increasing fiber to, to not have my lipids out of control because I don't want to risk it long term to have a high APA B and LDL.

So that was some of the controversy that was there. That'll be a whole other podcast that we could do around that. Because Nick came on my podcast just before that came out and said, look, I'm going to give you already in some of the sort of the headlines of what the study is saying. And it was exactly what you said initially. And since the study has come out, yeah, there has been a lot of controversy around how is how it was discussed, how they should have done it better. I think what they're trying to do, and I don't want to speak for them,

is trying to offer some hope for people who are using this lifestyle as a means, or at least from Nick's perspective, this is my reading from it, give some hope to those who are using this lifestyle as a means to control their conditions. some hope that it's not going to lead to like negative things in other areas of the health down the line like cardiovascular health because I know Nick uses this lifestyle to control his IBD which is very open about other people are using this lifestyle because it could be fertility.

A lot of people use this to actually become pregnant. Other people are using it for chronic pain. But I think there's always going to be this tradeoff when you're going to these extremes unfortunately. And I think we need to. to be open and honest about that. I'm sure they will. I'm sure, yeah, we should definitely have a conversation again.

Yeah, they definitely addressed it. The question is just there's different views that might be there. One thing that they did find out from the study is that high APOB didn't correlate, was it immediately causal for everybody that was in there. There were examples of people that had high APOB that didn't proceed down the pathway of building up plaque in the way that the traditional system. would have said. Sure.

Right. So, okay, great. There's something to be investigated there. Yeah. I think the challenge, again, is as a whole, these individuals saw a lot of plaque progression, and it was only a year between their advanced CCTVs. Yeah.

And so people who are not using it for bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, IBD, other things, buyer beware. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That maybe there's not this protective element to being metabolically healthy. Yeah. That's there. Yeah. So, again, the details of the weeds.

that, I'd put it on a D. Well, there are other things that we have to rank. So let's come back to that. But it was all, you know, this is the reason we have podcasts and we can go into all these different things. Okay. You kind of talked about this before, but this was a thing that was popular a few years ago. There were some books written about it.

But you still, some people are doing it. Okay. And I'm sure there's some nuances around it. But, oh, mad. One meal a day. All right? Where are you going to rank that as a tool for a long-term weight loss? joy and satisfaction in life?

I probably rank this low. I would say it's, I would say it's definitely a D for me. Okay, we're going to put it as a D. Yeah, the reason why is because for most people, it is really hard to get the amount of energy that you require for your 24 hours into one meal, just like your gut is really going to struggle

with this amount of food all coming down at once. To consume enough protein and fiber for your daily requirements, in that one meal, we're pretty gigantic. I mean, my protein requirements personally are around 140 grams per day, okay? That's based on my weight, exercise, activity, all that kind of stuff. And my fiber requirements are 30 grams plus, which I thankfully get very easily just because of the diet that I choose to consume. If I was to have that all in one meal, I wouldn't feel great afterwards. I'd probably to lie down and have a sleep. And also the immense pressure on my diet, my digestion system to actually get through all that food in one sitting would be quite a lot.

Now, would I be able to adapt to that? Maybe, maybe. But again, it's very antithetical to our current system of how we work and live, like we go out for dinners, we eat and stuff. So the likelihood that I'm going to be able to maintain an omad style of eating is going to be pretty low, I would say. And I would say that's probably going to be the majority of people as well, which is why I would put this down, because I think you risk.

under-consuming protein for your daily requirements. You risk not consuming enough fiber. And you also risk sort of stepping outside of this very strict regimen when you're out and about and you're just trying to live within the modern world. So I wouldn't say this is a great way of consuming food. Now, context matters here. If you are trying to reduce calories, if you are trying to lose water, weight. Could this be a strategy? Maybe. But I wouldn't say that this is going to be something that

is it's got longevity at its forefront. I don't think this is something that is sustainable for the long term. I think that's the key word, sustainable. Because for even people who are losing weight, one of the things that they're trying to figure out, and I've helped a bunch of close friends that had a significant amount of weight to lose, is that you hear from them that one of the common things they struggle with is just the feeling of, I feel hungry right now. especially in that initial switch. Yeah. So if you're doing one meal a day

or you're doing really intense time restricted eating, right? The question is going to be, how are you avoiding the feelings of being hungry that people have initially? So there are tools. There are better foods that are more satiating. You have a recipe for a lot of them instead of the book that have high fiber, high protein,

that you can space out throughout the day and still head towards your weight loss goals and you're going to mitigate the idea that you're going to feel hungry all the time. And a lot of times people feel bored too. They're getting adjusted to the fact that like, I'm not eating anything right now.

Yeah, sure, long term, we don't want people to feel bored when they're not eating and you shouldn't have to use willpower or lack of boredom as a way to kind of control that. But in the beginning, it's really tough for individuals. So having something to eat as you transition and get towards your goals, it's still a helpful thing to do. And also, I just think the enjoyment of life as well.

I mean, like, maybe I'm biased because I'm a foodie, and I love, like, exploring different cultures. And I just think there's so much potential to explore the language of other people through shared meals that I think it's a real wasted opportunity in life, you know, just to maintain this way of eating because it's most in line with your beliefs or you're thinking about how we would have eaten ancestrally. Like, there's just so much more to that. And so I think we miss out on so much richness in life

by putting these strict regimens at the forefront of importance in terms of what's important to us. All right. We have one more that we're going to rank here on the habits. And then we have four strategies that we're going to rank that you've talked about. I mean, really, they're all S as and A's. but we're going to use our ranking as an opportunity to talk about them.

Okay, yeah, yeah. So everybody stay tuned. We're getting into these four evidence-based strategies that are going to help you break free of the bland. Break free of also strict calorie counting, which you have a lot to say about that. Yeah. Right? You do have to pay attention to your calories, but strict calorie counting often doesn't work for people long term. We're going to talk about that.

And step into joy, which is what we want for everybody at the end of the day, right? Okay, so the last one we have is that. It's calorie counting. So help us understand the idea of calorie counting, tracking your calories regularly, you know, being really maybe very strict, which is even weighing them on a scale. How would you rank that? I have like a love-hate relationship with calorie counting, I think, because on the one hand, I think it is a useful exercise, you know, just like you were talking about you with your

experience, you probably were unaware of just how much we're consuming in some of those shakes and smoothies and bulletproof coffees and all that kind of stuff on top of what you are consuming during your meals. And so I think from an awareness piece, it's really important to have some idea of how much you're consuming and how much that you should be consuming for your needs. So I think as an exercise, figuring out how much your body. burns every day and how much you should be consuming to lose, maintain, gain weight is a useful exercise for most people, for most people, I'd say. And how would you do that, by the way?

So there are the two main ways in which you can do it. The easy way is just using a calculator online. So very simple. You put in your age, your sex, your weight, activity levels. They use a number of different equations. Some of them are like, I'm going to butcher the name now, but there's the Mifflur equation. There's a whole bunch of others, but they roughly give you the same ballpark figure of how many calories should be consuming. So as an example, with mine, it's anywhere between 2,500 and 2,700 calories a day for maintenance. The more sort of scientific way of doing it is spending $100 or something. And you go and you get your resting metabolic rate tested by going to a lab, put a mask on, and they get you to lie down.

So this will be measuring your calorie burn at rest. And then they can figure out your basal metabolic rate, the amount that you're going to be burning during exercise, and it'll give you a more accurate picture of exactly how many calories you're consuming every single day. That I would say is a lot more useful for people who are really into this in terms of bodybuilders and people who are really interested in composition. athletes. I liked it because I, you know, I'm data driven. I like to know these things.

But I'm also very, very aware of the pitfalls of calorie counting. You can do ballpark equation. You can do the resting metabolic weight. And as an exercise, I would say for a couple of weeks, count your calories, figure out how much you're consuming from vegetables and nuts and seeds, how much you're consuming per day. It will give you an idea of the week to weeks. and how much you're actually eating in terms of the amount of energy you're consuming every single day as an exercise. As a long-term thing where you're constantly reading a menu and you're trying to figure out, like whether this is going to give you a calorie surplus or a calorie deficit, where you're measuring out the amount of nuts that you're consuming in a bowl,

where you are, you know, constantly looking up on My Fitness Power, whatever calorie counting app you've got. how many calories are in the sweet potato, I think this will spiral again into a very negative behavior and a negative relationship with food that I really want to avoid as much as possible. The reason why is because we know that the rates of eating disorders are on the rise. Orthorexia, which is this predisposition with healthy eating,

is on the rise. And calorie counting is not all to blame, but I think a large part of it is because of excessive calorie counting. and this is what I want people to avoid as much as possible. So it has benefits because it will give you a general understanding of energy consumption that we all need to be aware of, but it has a real negative consequence for some people who get really, really into it and can't eat food

without in knowing exactly how much they're consuming. And even within calorie counting, there's so many pitfalls. So A, the amount of calories in her food is fixed. I mean, we know this because the way in which we measure it is very accurate. We use something called a bomb calorometer. So we know exactly how much, how many calories are in, a nut or a food or sweet potato, whatever. But how many calories we actually absorb from consumption of that food

is really, really different. And actually, there were some studies looking at the differences in calorie consumption from different people, and it can vary as much as 150%. Some people will absorb 60,000. calories from a handful of a small handful of almonds. Some people absorb 100% of it. So, you know, 150 calories. So it's really dependent on the individual as well.

The calories on the label can be quite inaccurate of food, packaged food in particular. And I think there's so many other things that could be going on as well, the thermic effect of food, how much protein is there, how you combine different foods on their own. This can all have an impact on the number of calories that you're actually absorbed. So there is nuance to this conversation, even within this world. And this is why I'm on the fence about it. I think it's a good exercise for most people, but I wouldn't be a calorie counter per se for the rest of time.

I don't think that's a useful exercise. Yeah, some previous guests on this podcast have said that if you've never done it before, even if it's not for every meal, but trying it for two weeks, tracking your calories so that you have calorie awareness. Most people have no idea how much they're eating. and especially when it comes to things like protein, they have no idea how much they're under-eating until they start tracking and getting a sense of it.

So it could be a great two-week experiment. And then even if somebody is not struggling with orthorexia or a lot of anxiety around their food, it just also takes a decent amount of work. You know, you go to a restaurant and you're eating something and people feel like, well, how am I going to, sort of track this. The good thing, though, is that when you start doing it at home, you get better at eyeballing

things and you get better at ordering stuff that you know is going to fit into what your goals are, especially if you are focused on adding some more lean muscle mass, which is the priority of not just a lot of, you know, guys that are listening to this podcast, but women as well too. Yeah. They want to add some lean muscle mass. And you also get better at understanding that, okay, you know what, I'm going to avoid that maybe, you know, sauce at that restaurant that has all these different things. it, I'm just going to do my own version of a tablespoon of olive oil and maybe some balsamic

vinegar or regular vinegar as well. So traditional long-term calorie counting for people that may not be working with a trainer or other stuff, where would you rank that? So long-term calorie counting? I would say that's probably going to be a C for me. Okay, great. And then a two-week experiment to try it out. to get some calorie awareness, where would you rank that? I'd write that an A or a B. Okay, great. We don't have an image for that.

We'll put it up there. We'll put it up there as an AAB. Yeah, yeah, an A&B. I would say, yeah, it's probably, I would say it's definitely a worthwhile exercise for, the reason why I'm hesitating and giving it a full A's because I think for that 10, 15% of people where even that exercise could spiral. That's where I'm like, you know, my medical hat comes on. I'm like, oh, I don't know whether it's for everyone.

so that's why it's not a clear like A. So that's, I probably convinced myself it's a B. Well, the good thing is that that's not the only strategy and approach that's there. You have four strategies you talk about inside of the book and plenty of other tips that are inside of there where you go into how we can have a little bit of a different approach where, you know, we weren't counting calories throughout history.

People were lean. They had low risk of cardiovascular disease. They had a lot of lean muscle mass. generally speaking, you know, before our sort of modern Western diet high calories took over a lot of processed foods. So you have four things that we're going to chat about here. All right. So let's go to the first one.

And it's this idea of unprocessing your diet. Yeah. Why is that one of the main strategies that you have to break us into this place of sustained effortless weight loss? Yeah. I mean, unprocessing your diet is just such an. easy strategy for most people to get their head around because it means that you're consuming the whole food or all the entourage of components. You've got the proteins, fats and carbohydrates,

but you've also got nutrients, you've got fatty acids, you've got minerals. This is all perfectly aligned with what your body is expecting to consume. And the second we start refining and getting further and further away from that, your body really does know how to use it. It's a very simple example is something like white sugar. When you refine the original source, which could be beats, for example, you're getting further and further away from what the original product looked like, which is high in fiber, it had other nutrients in. It's something that's slower digesting. When you refined it to a product such as white sugar, you're just mainlining it into your liver and you're mainlining it into yourselves. And that's not how we should be consuming food. So there's a very

simple strategy. It's, it's, it's, umpressing your diet. It's just the easiest way to lose weight. And we also know that when you're consuming a lot more fiber, you are signaling to your body, GLP 1. So GLP 1 is actually produced naturally in the digestive tract. It's a signal that goes a peptide hormone that goes to your brain. It switches on the signal that says you can stop eating now, you're full, you're satiated. When you remove that, to remove the fiber from your diet, which unfortunately a lot of processed diets look like. You're removing that signal, which is why people find themselves

in this spiral of consuming and overeating food. So putting that back on is a very simple strategy, and that is eating whole and processed foods. Amazing. All right, I'm going to toss in a couple things in between these four strategies that I want to get your thoughts on. Yeah, yeah. So we actually have something to rank

because we know unprocessing your diet is an S. It's supreme. We're going to put it up there. Yeah. Here's one of the most controversial. Okay. things that relates to that when it comes to the topic of sustained weight loss. Okay.

And that is diet soda. Dyes. Are you aware of this debate that's out there? Yeah. So for people that are not aware, right? On one hand, you have individuals that are like diet soda is as processed as you can get. Yeah. Right?

Sure, it's diet. So it doesn't have traditional sugar. Yeah. It's typically zero to low to no calories that are there. But it's made with things like sucralose or crates or crates. or crazy sweeteners or other stuff like that. And on the other hand, you have individuals that say, dude, look at the data.

People who drink diet soda have more sustained weight loss. And for those that say, well, just drink water. What's the problem with that? Well, people aren't perfect and sometimes they still want something sweet. Yeah. And if diet soda is one of the worst things in their diet, and it still helps them avoid calories, especially from sugar sweetened beverages.

Yeah. why should we be demonizing that? Yeah. All right. So give us your thoughts and then I'm going to force you to rank it. Sure. Yeah. I mean, the audience probably recognizes that I'm not puritanical about these things.

And I don't think I'm pretty fearmongering about the negative, potential negative consequences of artificial sweeteners. So my perspective is if this is a gateway ingredient, if this is a gateway product to help you lose weight, because you can't switch to just water. and you need something that gives you that texture, that flavor, that reminder, the enjoyment of having a full fat. I don't know why we call it full fat, but full sugar soda. Do you guys call it full fat? Or is that a UK thing? That's a UK thing.

So a UK thing is when you get like a regular Coke and you call it full fat Coke. Got it. Give it the coat with the meat on it. All with the meat on it. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And then you've got the diet, which is obviously with the artificial sweetness and no sugar and low calorie as well.

So if people are going to be like wanting that sort of emotional connection with the full fat or the full sugar coke, then yeah, I can see why this is actually a good strategy for people. As, you know, you've eloquently centred there, the data demonstrates that people who are consuming this and actually have a low calorie diet. And if as long as it keeps them on the straight and narrow, then that's obviously going to be a good thing.

Now my perspective personally is I won't consume those products. Why? Because I'm a pragmatist and I have enough concern about artificial sweeteners and their impact on the gut microbiome, the impact on our metabolic health, the insulin spiking potential, that I would want to avoid those. And if I'm going to consume anything that is sweet, I'm just going to use small amounts of regular sugar. better the devil you know that's my perspective on things i use tiny bits of sugar to balance the flavor of a dressing i use tiny amounts of maple syrup sometimes to create a bit more of a crust or a malliard effect on food i'm not going to be using uh allelose or suclos or whatever aspartamine or any of those products because i don't know what they're going to be doing biologically

and i don't think we're going to know with clarity and assurance to a lot of further down the line. By that point, I don't want to have to expose myself to something that may be harmful. So my perspective is, look, if you need this to lose weight, that's fine. Try and mitigate it, but that's okay in my book. But if you don't need that, then ideally, yeah, just stick with water and try and use full fat sugar products in moderation, in the doses that are appropriate. So if it's something that is helpful for you, probably you've been having it for a while, right? Or maybe you've switched from regular soda to diet. Yeah.

And it's part of your weight loss journey. Don't buy into the demonization that's out there, the fear mongering, which there could be some concern, but it's not the worst thing in the world for you. So for those individuals, would you put it, what, like a B, a C? I would say it's a, I would say it's a B. Okay, great. Absolutely. And then for individual, you know, there's no reason to potentially seek it out. Yeah, exactly.

If you're not having it. Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't say that's a very good point. I would not seek this out as a means to lose weight. I would say it's a crutch if you need something that reminds you of that flavor, if you need something that, you know, if you have that choice between a while, I really get the high sugar pop, but, you know, there's a diet one here. Just go for the diet one.

That's fine. If you can't go for water, which is ideal. But I agree. You shouldn't seek it out as a means to lose weight. I like water, but I feel like tea for me is often ideal. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm a coffee drinker. Even herbal teas during the day.

Yeah. It's tough because there's not a lot of brands that like are made in the way that you want to without all the, you know, being in plastic bottle and other stuff. I'll make some in the morning. Yeah. And I'll have like, I'm a big fan of like organic India. So I'll have some of their teas, peak tea. Yeah.

They make a lot of really great ones. And so I'll have those throughout the day because sometimes you're like, oh, I don't just want water. I like sparkling water, but not enough to drink like two or three during the day. But I love to have a tea here and there.

You're getting the water and you're getting that. But I kind of cut off the caffeine right around like 11-ish, 12-ish, right around there. It's a really good point, you know, because I think we try and make this decision quite binary between diet and full sugar and water. But actually, there's so many other sort of opportunities now to consume beverages that give you. flavor and maybe even some health benefits.

So as long as you're drinking like a low sugar or no sugar fermented products, something like kombucha, you're actually consuming some of these antioxidants and polyphenols that might actually marginally improve your weight loss journey. Things like green tea and mildly catheter drinks or coffee, these can actually speed up your metabolism. That's been demonstrated. So if you consume them before 11, it's not going to disturb your sleep. then I would highly recommend people consume those products that aren't sweetened with anything.

And then, you know, some of my personal favorites are anti-inflammatory drinks, things like herbiscus tea with a bit of clovein. You can have mountain tea, which originates in Greece. And that was actually prized for its impact on brain health and cognition. You can have things like sage and rosemary, you know, sweetened with a tiny bit of like raw honey, for example. You know, this gives you that flavor, that enjoyment, and you're getting those extra benefits of polyphenols that we know are actually like mini fat burners as well.

So it's really interesting to see that we try and make this about diet and sugar and all this kind of stuff. But there are so many other drinks that we were traditionally consumed, not for weight loss reasons, but just for brain benefits, for health benefits, for cardiovascular benefits, for ideation that we should be leaning more into. I love it. Okay, you've hinted at this one, but I'm going to push you a little bit further to go into some of the details. Okay.

And that's fiber and the role of adding fiber, which is a key strategy and pillar that you talk about in your book. And where I want you to go into, because we know it's an S appropriately, right? With some context that's there, you know, some people don't do well with a lot of fiber right away. You might want to gradually get there, figure out the right fibers for you. but the thing that a lot of people who even know that fiber is good and want to be adding into their diet, they still struggle with practical ways to do that. And not only being a physician, but having your background in nutrition and being an incredible chef, I'd love for you to give us some examples after you set up fiber of practical sort of quick snacks that people can make

that are favorite sources of fiber that are there and ways that you might throughout your day get and hit those targets and maybe what some of those targets would be what would look like. So if we can get into a little bit of the nitty-gritty for fiber, that'd be great. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So ideally you want to be consuming

around 10 grams of fiber per meal. What that looks like, it could be a cup of, well, I'll talk about my strategies afterwards. The reason why you want fiber at every meal is because fiber does wonderful things for your body. And there are lots of different types of fiber. There isn't just one type of fiber.

There are multiple different types. So when you consume fiber goes into your digestive tract, you are providing food, also known as substrate, to the vast collection of microbes in your gut. All different types of bacteria. There are multiple different species and strains. And what this fiber does is the whole unprocessed fibers, foods that you consume are favored by the bacteria or the microbes. that crowd out the pathological microbes. So you're creating a better harmony of the ecosystem within your gut. So we all have E. coli. Some of us have salmonella.

These are some of the pathogenic bacteria. The reason why they're not causing infection or digestive upset or sepsis, is because they're crowded out by the quote-unquote good guys. And so when you're consuming a whole, varied types of fiber, this is what you're doing. You're creating harmony. It's almost like a nice peaceful environment. The other thing you're doing is you're creating metabolites as a result of short-chain fatty acid production from a lot of these producers, metabolite producers that you have in your gut,

many of which are anaerobes, so they don't require oxygen. And what these metabolites do are varied things in your body. They nourish your colonic cells. We'll get into that in a second. So they nourish, they provide energy for their cells that line your digestive tract. They reduce inflammation. They support your immune system. They can balance sugar.

They communicate to your brain. They improve your mood. They're just doing a whole bunch of different things. And the common short chain fatty acids are butyrate, propionate, and acetate. Another very important part of their role is supporting what we call the gut barrier. A lot of people just think of our gut as a single cell lining. And whilst that's true, there are multiple layers of protection in our gut. So we have something called the mucin layer, which is like a sticky layer of mucus that lines the gut cells. And most people think of mucus

as innate. Actually, it's full of immune cells, things like immunoglobulins that are constantly, again, keeping this harmony and making sure that everything is, and, you know, and anti-inflammatory in your digestive tract. It's ensuring that your microbes aren't getting too close to the cell walls where they can actually consume some of that lining and just cause damage. So again, it's keeping everything nice and balanced. And then even within the gut lining, you've got multiple layers between the cells that allow nutrients in and keep microbes out. So making sure that, again, you're not triggering that immune system. erroneously and inappropriately.

And so this is all happening because you're consuming enough fiber. When you don't consume enough fiber or you take an antibiotic and you remove all those bacteria, this is where the gut barrier can actually break down. It can lead to more inflammation. It can lead to over-stimulation of your immune system. It can lead to inflammatory particles in your bloodstream. And this can have downstream consequences on things that can. cardiovascular is in dementia, but also autoimmune conditions as well. So this is why fiber is so

important. And many of us, unfortunately, because of the rise of ultra-precious foods in our diet, don't consume enough. We consume enough energy, but we don't have a lot of that energy coming from fiber. The easiest way to get fiber in your diet, I have this little thing called BBGs, which is, yeah, beans, berries, greens, seeds and nuts every single day. The reason why I'm saying, saying BBG is so important is because they not only contain a lot of fiber, but they're also anti-inflammatory as well. Now, granted, I know a lot of people don't deal well with beans and lentils straight away, so you might want to go slow. And actually, there are strategies that can improve your tolerance of these products if you are not used to having fiber in your diet. But I would

say, ideally, you want to be having like a cup of cooked beans every single day. It doesn't need to be in every single meal. It doesn't need to be all in one. meal. It could just be spread out. But that's ideally what you're looking for. And around that gives you about eight to nine grams of fiber. I'm one of those people. Yeah. I've tried a lot of different things. Even though I'm Indian, just like you, we grew up eating lentils. We grew up eating stuff. Sometimes when my mom does like pressure cook made at home, I can do a little bit better. Yeah. But I always just get so gassy no matter what I do. Even if I try enzymes. Yeah. So I've kind of like just personally, given up on beans for myself.

Sure. I do, there's this type of bean that's actually from Italy. It's called the Lupini bean. For whatever reason, I do well with that. I thought it was because it was low on the FODMAP. But it turns out to be a high FodMap bean. So they summon these packages often at Whole Foods or other places you get at Costco. No affiliation with the brand.

This kind of one main brand in the U.S. I don't know why. I do well with that. So it just goes back to your. idea that you might have to play around a little bit with it. Definitely, yeah. Regular lentils, black beans, kidney beans, other stuff. I just don't do well with it.

So it's a really good point. And I think we have to be respectful of so many different people's experiences with these different types of products. Now, we tend to consume maybe 10, 15 different types of beans and lentils, green lentils, pre lentils, canolini, Pinto, Azuki, black bean, navy bean, etc. There are hundreds of different types of beans out there in the world. Yeah. Many of them have been, you know, ignored or like, you know, we have a lot of monoculture these days in our farming stores.

But there are so many different types of beans. And what different beans offer are various amounts of the macronutrients, like protein and fiber, etc. But different sugars as well. So some might be high in raffinos, some might be high in verbascos, some might be high in other polysaccharides. And those might be more appropriate or less appropriate for the individual that might have issues with consuming those products. The issue is, and I've spoken to multiple gut microbiome researches about this, we don't have an index of actually which beans have what degree of those different sugars in them that could be triggering people's issues. So, you know, low fub map is a

good example of like how someone might be able to eat high fiber, but not have issues because they're sensitive to these fermentable oligodicyccharides. But we don't have a good sort of index of these different beans and lentils that give people a lot more clarity about which ones they should be consuming more and less of. So within this, so let's say you might have issues with beans. There are a couple of strategies, A, going slow. B, cooking them from scratch. So you can cook them for a little bit longer, either in a pressure cooker

or in just like a typical saucepan and water. set up. Another way is ensuring that you're removing all the water that has been cooked in because that can actually be troublesome because a lot of those sugars actually concentrate in the water. If you're buying it from a can, making sure that you're rinsing it completely as well. So let's say those are the things that you can do with the actual product itself. Cooking yourself, removing the water, rinsing it and going very, very slow. Sometimes as slow as like a teaspoon of it once a day just to see how you react and just titrating that upwards. There are a couple of other things that we've done traditionally to improve our digestion of beans

and lentils. One is sprouting. So when you sprout lentils, so to give the audience an idea of how you sprout, you would soak the lentil overnight, not cooking it, not in hot water. and you would take it out, you change the water, and you do again and again, depending on the lentils. So for green lentils, I think it takes around five to six days. In a dry, cool environment, you suddenly see germination. That's where you see the little tail coming out. You might recognize it with alfalfa or broccoli sprouts. It's the same thing with lentils.

And then what happens is the sugar content is actually going down, and the digestibility of these products is actually increasing. And if you wanted to make it even more digestible, you can slightly cook those sprouted lentils as well. And that is a lot more tolerable and you actually get a lot more protein as well. Another way is fermenting it. So a fermented product that we're probably going to talk about in a bit is Tempe. So Tempe is actually a fermentation process. So it's typically made with soybeans that I'd always highly recommend people buy organic.

But with a soybean, you ferment it and that's how you get Tempe. and Tempe is wonderful from a protein perspective because it's more bioavailable than tofu. So fermenting is another way to reduce people's troublesome effects with the fiber. And the other thing is spices. So spices would have been like, you know, particularly come from the Indian background, the natural way in which to introduce digestive enzymes into our cooking. Because things like fennel, cumin, even fenugreek,

they have what's called carnative effects. So they improve the digestibility of some of these heavier products like beans and lentils. And that's why we typically tend to have them mixed into these different cuisines. So there are a few ways in which you can improve your tolerance of these products if you can't. But there are many other things that you can do to increase your fiber intake as well. I love it. So you were kind of going down the list. You can talk about a high level, but BBG?

Yeah, BBGs. Yeah. So BBGs. So we've got beans and lentils. Berries, wonderful ingredients. My favorite source of fire. Oh, man. It's amazing. They're amazing products. You can, you know, you can buy them frozen. You can get the fresh from the farmer's market if they're in season. You can even get these freeze-dried varieties. They're kind of expensive, but I would say because they're freeze-dried, they contain a lot of the fiber as well. So you just add them to smoothies or yoghirts or whatever you're consuming it with. There's the Haskba berry. I don't know if you've eaten that before. Haspa? Haspa. I don't know about that.

Oh man, it's really good. I think they originate from Canada, and they are one of the highest in anthocinans. You know, people go on about asailles from Brazil, but these are really, really high. And even black currents as well, black currents are a really good source of fiber in these anthocinins.

So definitely getting BBGs into your diet. So berries, greens, all different types of greens. Prociferous vegetables, ideally, kale, broccoli, tender stem, Brussels sprouts, cabbages. And you can have these in their fermented forms as well. So one thing that me and my wife do quite a bit is we get loads of fermented foods and we just keep them in the fridge because they'll last for weeks and weeks. And if we're having like a side of eggs or whatever or some of the doctor's kitchen

bread that I make, we'll just put like little cups of some of these fermented products on the side of our meals. And that way we're increasing our fiber intake. We're increasing our fermented vegetable intake. And we're getting some of these cruciferous vegetables like Napa cabbage and all these different cabbages as well. What's one of the number one signs for somebody listening today that they have low fiber in their diet? Typically, low fiber in the diet, I think sluggishness in the digestive tract, constipation, straining. Yeah, hard stall.

I'd say bloating could be related to lowbring. lack of fiber. I would say energy. Energy is a big one, you know. Also, don't forget that when you have bowel movements and regular bowel movements, it's one of the main ways in which we detoxify our bodies. And so the exposure to things like xenotestrogen, environmental pollutants that could be causing symptoms may also be a sign that you're not having enough fiber or there is a digestive complaint there as well. So yeah, those are. probably the ones, there's so many vague symptoms that mood, you know, pain, fatigue, anxiety, these all could be signs that you're not getting enough fiber in your diet and you're

after your digestive tract. Okay, amazing. So hopefully after that, everybody's excited to pay attention to their fiber. Yeah. A lot of people know it, but it's one of those things where they're lacking some of the practical tips, recipes. Yeah. You've shared some.

You have some more in your book. Yeah. Oh, and seeds and nuts. So the last one is just like a handful of seeds and nuts. and all different types of seeds, and that's great. You know, a handful of shared hem seeds is going to give you around 9 to 10 grams of protein, but it's also going to give you like 5 or 6 grams of fiber as well.

So these are all just really handy ways in which you can up your fiber without having to rely on a supplement. Well, speaking about protein, this is another major tip inside of the book. We talked about it the last time you were on the podcast, but it's having protein at breakfast. Yeah. and mostly adequate and typically higher protein than most people think that they might want to be having. That is another one, a strategy that we're going to put up here as S.

You don't even have to say it. I'll put it for you. But you're going to give us the Y. Yeah. So protein breakfast, I think, is really important for some of the reasons that we already discuss. So A, after your prolonged fast at night, you're breaking down your amino acids. You need a good collection of these amino acids to replenish what you need to build, your enzymes, your hormones, your muscles, your collagen, etc. And so giving yourself a good dose of protein in the morning is a great way to provide the energy,

the extra focus. It also stabilizes your blood sugar as well. So you're not going to have those highs and lows that can lead to energy crashes and cravings. It's also going to switch on those signals to your brain to say that you've had enough food. So again, it's going to stop cravings mid meals. And protein is very important, and we tend not to consume enough relative to our requirements. And if you have enough protein at breakfast, you're giving yourself a better shot, more opportunity to consume enough every 24 hours.

We've skirted around this a little bit, but, you know, the minimum that I would suggest people consume every single day in terms of protein is 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per 24 hours. That's the minimum that I would suggest. Now, for many people, myself included, I would increase that to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of ideal body weight per 24 hours. So those who exercise regularly, those who are postmenopausal, those are, of the age of 50, these are really important people to be aware of this, because I think this has largely been in the realm of like bodybuilding, a weightlifting and body composition,

but actually we need to bring this into the mainstream because a lot of people would benefit for having more protein in their diet. And breakfast is a great way of ensuring that you're going to be hitting that target. It's so true. You're going to be more full. You're going to be less hungry. Yeah. You're going to be more powered for the day.

and you're getting all those benefits of the amino acids that are repairing your body after that overnight fast that we all do when we go to sleep. I give you an example actually this morning before I drove over here and experienced LA traffic for an hour. I knew that I was going to experience the LA traffic. I was like, I need to make sure that I get breakfast in before I go and I need to make sure that it's high protein.

And what I want this book to be able to do for people is encourage them to be good guesstimators of how much protein they have in their diet. So my breakfast was a real mishmash of anything that I had to hand. And this typically happens to me with an eight-month-old who were prioritizing at the moment. So I had some coconut yogurt that is low number of ingredients and it has active cultures in, some berries. But obviously that's quite low protein. So I supplemented that with a crunchy almond butter. So that was like one side.

I have some cooked sweet potatoes that we always have in our fridge. And then I had some nuts and seeds on that. I think it was a mix of sunflower and pumpkin seeds that were just lightly roasted. And then I had one of these, what do you guys call them? Epic bars, I think. They're great. I mean, like, it's like 12 grams of protein. This is on the packet.

And it's like two ingredients, just venison and some salt. And then I just crumble that on top. But sometimes I generally have like some cooked fish or cooked chicken. That's literally my breakfast. That's how much I'd have. And I'll have a side of kimchi as well. So it's a real mishmash of breakfast. So I've got like my.

my little dessert, which is like the coconut yogurt thing with berries. And then I've got my like enough protein. And that'll give me about 30 grams of protein total. And I know, okay, I've ticked off 30 grams of protein. That means I need to hit at least like 45 per meal for the rest of the day as well. And I feel like super switched on, energized. It's around like 11, 30, 12 now. I don't feel particularly hungry, but I know that I will eat. And it's that clarity. It's that like, feeling, it's that energy that I want people to experience just by doing the simple thing of having a high protein breakfast. It's that simple. It makes such a difference, especially when in my case I was like, wow, I've under eight protein for years. I'm trying to get back

on track. I'm trying to work with the trainer to prioritize adding lean muscle mass every single month. In my situation, looking at that, it's like, if I don't hit these numbers every day, then for a long period of time, fine, you have some variation, you travel, you do this, you do that, you're actually not going to allow yourself to get into that place of having enough protein for muscle synthesis to head in the right direction for my goals that were there. So breakfast for me also too, because I don't love a huge lunch because I get tired midday and it's hard for me focus, but I love, in particular for me, I do well with a really big breakfast. I try to get at least 60 grams of protein. I might have a shake, some eggs, some smoked salmon. I like fermented

food. I'll add in, I'll put in like, I'll have a half of avocado, which is also a great source of fat, but also fiber as well. I think a whole avocado is like eight grams of fiber. Yeah, so it's surprisingly high in fiber. It's really high in fiber. Maybe some berries as well, too. and I just feel so much more focused and so much more excited and ready to go for the day and when I don't do that because that'll happen sometimes

you can see it's harder to pay attention in the podcast you just have the coffee and you go it's harder to pay attention it's harder to focus your brain is not as sharp

as you want it to be and that can kind of cascade throughout the day you overeat you reach for sugary stuff sweet stuff whatever it might be so I love that tip and I know our audience

is going to love that as well too you talked about it a little bit in the context of why we want to avoid late night snacking. Yeah. It's the opposite of that, which is eating an earlier dinner. Yes. And how that can be supportive for people's weight loss, body composition goals,

and even maybe some other benefits that are there. So I'm going to rank it as Supreme and you're going to tell us why. So I think eating an earlier dinner is a lovely strategy or hack, if you will, because it does a number of different things pragmatically, right? So if you're eating an earlier dinner and you're being fastidious about not eating afterwards because we've already said that eating, snacking after dinner is an F, you're shorting that eating window and you're giving yourself a nice cutoff whereby you're not going to be consuming any extra calories after that.

So that's a very pragmatic way of thinking about it. You're going to be consuming less calories because you're being rigid about having your dinner and not eating anything else out of boredom. A lot of us eat at our boredom. It can be chips, it could be ice cream, it could be cookies when we're watching TV or relaxing at home, et cetera. If you're fastidious about having that early dinner, you're cutting off that window of opportunity to be consuming more calories that is surplus to your needs. The other pragmatic thing is that it improves your sleeping quality. The reason why is because when you're giving yourself like that two to three hours between,

finishing your dinner and then go into bed, you're not disturbing the hormonal milieu that occurs right before bedtime. So your melatonin is going to like nicely creep up. We know that when you consume food, it kind of shuts that off and it blunts that melatonin, which means that you're not going to get that signal for sleepiness just before bedtime. It's going to be prolonged as well.

The other thing that I think earlier dinners are a good sort of reason to start instilling into your habits as a guide, not as a as a raw, because sometimes, you know, everyone have a late dinner, they'll go out on a Friday, etc. is it shorters that that eating window over the year 24 hours and it does all those things that we mentioned about earlier. So it gives your gut a rest and that lovely rest overnight. And it also means that you're going to be shorting that window where you're consuming food during the day. And this is in line with how we should be consuming food in line with our circadian rhythm, which is the rough 24. 4-hour cycle by which all living things operate on. Your metabolism is a lot better during this

time period when it's early, when it's during daylight hours, that it is out of those hours as well. Everything is operating at its peak performance. Your pancreas, your liver, your digestive systems, your microbes even as well. When you have late dinners, which is quite common because we have artificial light now, we can eat whenever we want, we're eating out of alignment with our circadian rhythm. So it's these little shifts, these little like extra gains of one, one, two percent here that's going to improve your metabolic health and improve your weight maintenance as well. It's great. All simple things that anybody can do and incorporate. And it's when they're stacked together that, for me, it leads to this thing where you feel like you're not trying as hard.

Yes. And you talk about that. And kind of that's a big part of why you wrote this book. I love that. Yeah, because these are like, if you look at one, each of the, these things individually, and you look at the evidence for it, you're like, oh, we're 10% here, 5% there. Like, these aren't great gains in the grand scheme of things. But it's the beauty in stacking all these things up. That's where you get the big shifts in health. That's where you get the big shifts in energy.

So if you're eating in a fiber, you're getting your BBGs, you're getting protein at breakfast, you're having an early dinner, you know, you have a, you have calorie awareness. this is where you start leading a healthy life in automatic mode without having to try massively hard, without having to fastidiously look at every single ingredient and label. You're just doing things in alignment with your body. And that's where the magic happens. There's a lot of colleagues, even patients used to ask me, how do you do it? Like you keep lean, you seem energized, you seem focused, you look pretty young.

I'm like, it's just because it's become part of my identity now, I didn't do all these things at once. I just stacked them on top of each other. Like when I had my illness, the first thing I did was change at my breakfast. So I removed the refined cereals. I removed the sort of grab and go croissons and all that kind of stuff, my way to work.

And I just started eating leftovers. You know, leftovers was literally my breakfast. And unbeknown to me, you know, I was having a bit more protein and a lot more fiber. And I felt better. and I wasn't snacking as much in between meals. And then I started, you know, doing tupper and bringing in my lunches and avoiding sandwiches and just getting into this lifestyle that was anti-inflammatory.

And it was in the stacking of these little habits, the little wins and that little extra boosts of motivation, that's where I actually got into, you know, this becoming an automatic lifestyle for me, as I'm sure it is for you now. You know, we'd have to work so hard. hard against our bodies when we just do these simple little strategies and we just maintain them, these are the things that are going to shift the needle in most people's

health. Because they also allow you to feel good. And nothing is more addictive than feeling good. Yeah, yeah. I'm so funny. I was literally having to chat with my wife about this because a friend of us was visiting LA and he's always struggled, right? He's always struggled with cholesterol and weight and dexascanes and all.

looking great from a visceral fat perspective. And he's always trying different things. He's always like trying different sort of strategies. I'm like, dude, you just need to stick with one thing and just do that religiously. And now, like, you know, he's started just cooking regularly one of my meals every single week and he loves it. And he's like, when I make that meal, A, I have a good bowel movement. And B, I feel great afterwards.

I don't feel like meh, I don't feel lack of energy. I feel like just content, calm. I'm like, yeah, imagine if you extrapolate that to all these other strategies, these other guides, you will feel fantastic. You want to wake up feeling like I do in the morning when I haven't had my sleep disturbed by my eighth month old, like feeling energized, ready to go, happy, in a great mood. You know, this is achievable a lot of people, but slow steps and just do those little

things and let that become your identity. I love it. I love it. Well, in your ecosystem, besides the book, which is out now, we'll link to the show notes and put an image here on YouTube. Healthy, high protein, supercharge your energy, feel stronger and live longer. You also have, for anybody who's like, I don't know what to eat, there's an app for that. Yeah. Can you talk about that? Yeah, the Doctors Kitchen app. It's, oh man, I love it. We have a thousand recipes and they're all geared towards health and we do the research around nutritional medicine. So you can type in like brain health or whatever and it will just give you all recipes,

get to that. But we've added two new brand spacking features. One is virtual Dr. Rupi, which is where you can actually have a conversation with me. It's trained in all our podcast data, our articles, and it's literally trained on my voice as well. So it's literally like you're having a conversation with me. you can ask him, you know, Dr. Rupi, tell me about strength training or fiber or like whether I shook out my calories and stuff. And it'll give you an answer exactly like I would have done here.

So it's a two-way dialogue. But the other really cool thing that we've added is a virtual Dr. Rupi chat function on every single recipe. So one of the big pain points for people, as we realized during our research and our user interviews, is when you look at a recipe and you're like, ah, dang, I don't have that ingredient. or ah, I don't know what to swap onions for. You know what? I don't do well with beans.

What can I swap that with? So you can literally in the recipe just chat like swap beans or give me options for different ingredients for this or, you know, my child has an analogy. And it will just rewrite the recipe right there and then. And it will give you options, swaps and all that kind of stuff. We literally launched that feature about a week and a half go and it's going gangbusters. People are absolutely loving it. I have your app.

I haven't played with that feature, but I'm excited to try it out. Yeah, it's fun. And do they hear it in your voice too? Like, are you speaking? You can do, but we've currently just got that in the chat function right now. Okay, okay. Because it's just quicker and more instantaneous. It's coming soon, I'm sure.

Man, there's going to be a lot of people that are going to love your voice. You're going to be talking about all day, and you've got to make sure your wife doesn't get jealous about that. That's great. Well, we'll link to those in the show notes below. Rupy, this has been fantastic, man. This has been fun. I love it. A nice way to kind of mix up the conversation a little bit.

And talk about some of the top things that maybe holding people back. But more importantly, the simple strategies that you cover in your book, your podcast, your app, that can help people stay on track and actually feel like they're thriving in life. So I just want to say on behalf of the audience, like thank you for all the work that you do. And thank you for coming on the podcast again to share your strategies. Dude, this has been my pleasure, man. It's been a lot of fun. I like doing this tier list game.

We should do this more often. We even made one of the tiers. I said, give me an Indian guy. Yeah, I can see that. And a baby, a mixed baby. And, you know, you and your wife are way better looking. But they even made a version of you guys there. That is brilliant.

I have to show that to my team. They don't love that. Ruby, thank you again for coming on the podcast. That was great. 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-H-I-T-com and click on the tab that says, try this.