Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1877: Obesity, It’s Not Your Genetics

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover ten reasons that obesity has become so prevalent in the past century, and it is not genetics. Obesity, it’s not your genetics. Your genetics are NOT why you are obese! It’s about your lifestyle and the environment you are in. (1:57) How are people affected by their genetics? (5:08) Ten Environmental Factors/Lifestyle Choices that Play a Role in Obesity. (11:56) #1 – You eat hyper-palatable, ultra-processed foods. (12:20) #2 – You do not move much. (19:44) #3 – You have little muscle. (23:01) #4 – Food requires little work, so we respect it less. (24:51) #5 – Endocrine disrupting chemicals. (29:19) #6 – We stay up later and sleep less. (32:22) #7 – We eat when distracted. (36:09) #8 – Liquid calories. (41:03) #9 – Antidepressants. (44:02) #10 – Birth control. (47:55) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit ZBiotics for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! August Special: TOP SELLING PROGRAMS COMBINED FOR ONLY $99.99! Mind Pump # 1527: The 3 Step Solution to the Obesity Epidemic How Your Genetics Influence Your Muscle Building Potential – Mind Pump Blog Processed foods make up 70 percent of the U.S. diet Man v. Food: Kitchen Sink Challenge – (YouTube) Association of Grip Strength With Risk of All-Cause Mortality, Cardiovascular Diseases, and Cancer in Community-Dwelling Populations: A Meta-analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies Army won't require recruits to throw a grenade far enough Mind Pump # 1230: Surviving & Thriving in a Toxic World With Max Lugavere Visit Public Goods for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order with NO MINIMUM purchase** Visit Felix Gray for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Mind Pump # 1345: 6 Ways to Optimize Sleep for Faster Muscle Gain and Fat Loss Who Invented the TV Dinner? Mexico's Addiction To Coca-Cola Depression is not caused by a ‘chemical imbalance’ in the brain | Metro News Beyond the Pill: A 30-Day Program to Balance Your Hormones, Reclaim Your Body, and Reverse the Dangerous Side Effects of the Birth Control Pill – Book by Jolene Brighten Mind Pump # 1045: Dr. Jolene Brighten- Beyond the Pill Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Chris Kresser (@chriskresser)  Twitter Paul Chek (@paul.chek)  Instagram Jolene Brighten (@drjolenebrighten)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Oh boy, you're gonna like this episode. It's about obesity, and guess what? It's not your genetics. That's not why people are suffering from obesity. In today's episode, we go through a bunch of different reasons why obesity is an issue. Some of them much bigger players than others, but nonetheless,

definitely not do to mostly not do to genetics. Now, this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Zbiotics. So check this out. Right. This is a probiotic company. It's a probiotic drink that's been genetically modified to break down some of the negative byproducts of alcohol. Okay? So when you drink alcohol, it gets metabolized by the liver, but some stuff happens in your gut. That's where this helps.

It breaks down acetaldehyde before it can get to your bloodstream and start to wreak havoc. It's a revolutionary company. When you drink it before you drink alcohol, it actually makes a big difference. Go check this company out. Go to zbiotics.com. That's zbiotis.com forward slash mine pump.

Then use the code mine pump 22 for 10% off your first order. Also this month, we got a huge sale, ends on the 14th, so it's not all month long. So this is a short promotion because it's so huge. We've taken some of the most popular combination of maps, programs, and created a whole bunch of different bundles, two or three program bundles. And we've priced every single one for $99.99 and that's it.

$99.99 will get you any bundle on the following site maps august.com So go to maps august.com find the bundle works best for you and get yourself signed up for this promotion before it ends on The 14th of this month. All right here comes a show All right, it's time for some hard truths obesity It's not your genetics your genetics are not why your obese, if you are obese, it's about your lifestyle and the environment that you're in. But I'm a big bone. I know. I catch some fire today. I know. So first off, I want to be

really clear, like this in no way means I don't have empathy for the millions of people that struggle with obesity. This is a huge challenge. I devoted my entire career to working with people in this category. I have a deep passion for helping people through this. But I also think it's important to be very honest because if not, we're not going to get any closer to solving this problem. And one of the biggest lies that people believe

or that they're told is that the reason why the obese is because it's their genetics. they have no control over it. I know my parents are overweight, my uncle and aunts are overweight. Therefore, like there's nothing I can do about it. It looks like there's no way out if you have that kind of mentality going into it. Yes, 100%.

And that's just totally false. This is factually false. Obesity is not. Humans didn't evolve to be obese. When you go back, I don't know, 150 years ago, and obesity was quite rare. In fact, I love this example to a rich man's disease. In fact, yeah, if you were obese, it meant that you had like access to a lot of food and resources. And what was considered obese then is not what they consider it now. I love using this example of the picture of the circus,

you know, free show Fat Man from the late 1800s. So back in those days, circuses, they were having these traveling circuses and one of the things that they would have was called the free show. It was really kind of a mean, you know, it would never fly today, obviously. But they would have people that look different. Either they were born with a genetic deformity or maybe someone was really tall or had a hormone issue or there's a kid with, you know, missing fingers or whatever. And they would present these people like Siamese twins, for example,

right? And they would be in this, what they would call a freak show. And people would pay money to look at them because it was an oddity, right? It was this be in this, what they would call freak show. And people would pay money to look at them, because it was a oddity, right? It was this wild thing you never seen before. Well, these freak shows usually would have a, or often times would have a, a, what they would call the fat man or the fat woman. And they were so obese for the time. So we're like, again, late 1800s, early 1900s, they were so obese that people would pay money to go and look at them and be like, wow, look at that, that's crazy. Now, it's crazy. We have pictures of these people. So,

we have pictures of these, you know, like I said, late 1800s, early 1900s, circus, you know, performers or acts or whatever. And these people today would, they wouldn't stick out at all. Like nobody would, nobody would look at them and be like, oh my gosh, that's the strangest thing. They would fit right in. And our genetics did not change in 150 or so radically. That that, it went from being so rare that people paid money to look at it to that now it's, it's just, it's so common that it's not a big deal. Now before we go into the list of things that you would probably have as far as a conversation to this client right so clients

It says let's say you have a client. They're well over a hundred pounds overweight and they tell you the genetic thing You know, oh my parents or I'm just my genetics. I'm screwed before you start diving into these 10 things that we listed What are some things that? Are people are affected by their genetics. What are some things? Because we do know that genetics play a big role in how much muscle you build. Some people do lose body fat a lot faster than other people.

Some people are much smarter naturally than other people. So genetics do play a role. So how do you communicate that to the client on what role they do have in their life? Yeah, well, there's two things. One is that you if you have your genetics that you're born with, it doesn't make sense to focus on it because you can't change it. So really, okay, what am I gonna do now? So that's one, but two, there's definitely a range, right? There's gonna be people who are naturally skinny or

ripped and people who are heavier and thicker and tend to store more body fat, for example. But it's a range that's like this. Like you're looking at a, you know, 15 to 20 pound range, not a, you know, 60 pound or a 100 pound range. So that's the part that genetics doesn't account for, like to have the kinds of genetics that would make you be a 100 pounds overweight would be extremely rare, be more rare than the types of genetics that would make you be a hundred pounds over a way would be extremely rare be more rare than the types of genetics that would make someone seven feet tall. It just it just doesn't happen. Well that

15 to 20 30 pounds yes. That's almost like attributing us somebody who is like a professional athlete to all genetics that didn't put any work in. Right. It's like the same thing. But even then like professional athlete genetics are super rare. Right. So that's my point. That's my point is that it's so rare. And then it's also saying that you, other factors don't play a role. It's like, yes, there is. It's a very small percentage that genetics do play a big role in that.

But then there are so many other things that contribute to that person being that professional athlete, not simply their genetics, didn't get them to the NBA. Yeah. If you took the genetics of a human from a thousand years ago, you wouldn't be able to decipher if they were from a thousand years ago or from today. Okay, so nothing's really changed. I haven't been these radical evolutionary changes to us. In a thousand years, let alone 150 years.

What's radically changed is our environment and our lifestyle. So we have bodies that evolved to live a particular way and then we radically changed the environment and that's the reason why. We see that totally. I mean, environment, but also to like epigenetics in terms of like certain conditions that may be expressed because of lifestyle environment. That stuff sort of triggering and affecting things that happen.

But in terms of like, if there's history of those things, if you apply better lifestyle behaviors, better nutritional choices, exercise, there's ways to kind of stay off some of these conditions from ever kind of being part of your life. Do you guys also believe that for every disadvantage that someone might have genetically that they also possess an advantage too?

Well, they exist for a reason. Except for maybe the genetic mutations that cause death and stuff like that. Like for example, malaria and... Yes, like sickle cell. Sickle cell. Anemia, that gene prevents like prevents people from getting malaria, or getting severe malaria, right?

The genetics for, they're finding out people who have issues with deciphering letters and dyslexia, for example, that they do better navigating and finding direction in certain circumstances, if I'm not mistaken. People with ADD, for example, probably are, you know, we're better at, you know, taking risks

and, you know, you know, having thoughts that were more creative and thinking outside the box. So there's a lot of theories around that. But generally speaking, like this, the obesity that we see now, it's not a genetic thing. And if you see your family members that live that, that, that way, because that's

what people will point to, well, that's not true because my mom and my dad and my siblings, it's because you all have the same lifestyle. Yeah. That's the commonality. I think that's the part that's hard to, I mean, from the outsights, easier to see, it's hard to see from the inside because you see, you know, your environment, your parents, whoever, they always look this way and it always seems like this is what I'm inevitably gonna become because this is what our family looks like when in fact, you know, if you really look at the environment,

how much, you know, that played a role in terms of the sedentary part, the eating, you know, all of that, and you really like, are honest about that. You could start to see it. Well, the reason why I brought that question up was because what I found with my clients that would blame their genetics, and let's just say that they are at a disadvantage, right?

That they do put on body fat easier, but relatively quickly, they can gain weight in comparison to maybe somebody else, a different body type. Those same clients tend to also have an easier time building muscle than my clients save for on the other end of the spectrum, right? I have the super, super skinny kid who can't put on any weight, struggles,

thinks he eats all the time and he just cannot gain a single pound. And then I have the other extreme kid who feels like, man, I just look at bad food or look at, I look at a donut and it puts on, I put on body fat. He gained mass, but maybe you haven't tried yeah, building like muscle and like that mass long. And that's what I meant by it.

If you guys believe that there's, for every disadvantage, there's an advantage that someone has to gain in a situation like that. And that's been my experience training so many clients like this is like, okay, so we tend to struggle with the food and staying in check there. We tend to struggle with moving in a lot of activity right there, but we do build muscle really easily.

So that could be work to our advantage if we focus on that first. So yeah. And again, look at all the stuff that's clear with genetics. Like look at height, right? There's definitely men that are five foot two, and then there's men that are seven foot two. But most, most men are in this kind of range, right? So that's what obesity is. Most of us have these genetics that will put us within this particular range, which is somewhere in the middle. The outlier, where you're 70 pounds, 80 pounds, 100 pounds overweight, that is not genetics. The genetics would be

like Justin and I having the same lifestyle and you know, he carries, you know, 5% more body fat than I do. Like that would be genetics, right? Not if him and I have the same lifestyle and I'm 80 pounds more body fat than him. That's not something I could say that genetics would do. So the list that we're gonna go down, these are the environmental things and the changes that have happened to how we live

and move that all play a role in obesity, some play a bigger role than others, but all of these you have the ability to influence. So what we're gonna go through, these are things that you can change, or at least be aware of, and work with and manipulate, that'll have an impact on the fact that you are dealing with obesity.

Now the first one I think is the biggest contributor, by far, because everything we go through is a contributor, but this one by far is the biggest thing. And that is that you eat a diet that is largely comprised of hyper-palatable ultra-processed foods. The last time I checked, the average American diet was made up of 70% of these types of foods. Meaning if you took an American's food for the whole day, 70% of that, the food would be what's considered hyper-palatable, ultra-processed. Meaning foods that come in wrappers or boxes,

long shelf life, lots and lots and lots of ingredients, engineered essentially, engineered foods with food ingredients, but turned into things. How are packed with calories? Yeah, well, there's just turned into things like chips or cookies or a frozen food or a pizza or those types of things. Now, why are these contributing to obesity? They make you overeat fact. This is hands down a fact.

They have the best studies on nutrition lately are the ones done on these foods. And they, in these studies, in controlled settings where people are literally in a lab, and then they take groups, and then they switch the groups to see if they react the same or whatever. About five to six hundred more calories a day from eating these foods just left to their own devices. That's a lot.

Like an extra five to six hundred calories a day. That's when I put somebody on a bulk. That's how I bump their calories. So in other words, if your diet is made up of largely ultra-process foods, you are consuming probably six hundred more calories than you would if your diet was not made up of these types of foods. It's so wild how this works. One of the best examples, and I think we talked about this a long time ago on the show. And there was an episode, man versus food. Oh, Chris Crestor brought this up. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, on our episode. And he's eating, it was an ice cream out of like a sink. I remember. Kitchen sink. Yeah, the kitchen sink. I remember seeing the episode. And I think that was the challenge. Like, can you finish a whole kitchen sink of ice cream or something like that?

It was like an hour or something. Yeah, something created. And then he's like crushing it. And you see towards the end, like he's getting sick, like he's, he's going to throw up and he can't eat anymore. And he orders a basket of french fries. Right. Yeah.

And the whole frisseltie super salty. 2000 calories, right? Of plus of french fries and eats the french fries and then the french fries help him finish the ice cream. Yeah, do you need more to be able to eat more? Yeah, I know. That's that to me was like, oh, it's obviously an exaggerated version of how most people eat on a daily basis. But what I think it highlights is how easily that you can hijack your body's natural systems that are trying to tell you your stuff by doing that. Just last night, I was actually eating these, I love these, there wasabi, soy, almonds, they're like spicy.

Oh yeah, that's time, huh? And then I also eat them with these salted pretzels. And it's crazy because if I if I was eating just dry almonds by themselves like no, no salt, no flavor, nothing like that, I would only be able to eat a few of those. But man, bouncing back and forth between the salty pretzels and then the spicy, I could eat like a whole bag of those things going back and forth to those versus if I was just eating raw almonds, how quickly I'd be like over it after. We've all experienced it.

25 to 30 novelty. We've all experienced it. We've all experienced it. Yeah, how many times have you had a big meal? And you're like, oh man, I'm so stuffed. There's no way I could eat anymore. And then they bring out dessert. And I go like, oh, all of a sudden,

I can eat a little more. Like these are the systems of satiety that we have. And what these foods, when you look at ultra-process foods, a lot of money goes into making these foods. There's research and development. So like a Dorito, when that was invented, they put a lot of research in it, and they fine-tuned it, right? Most of the money that goes into these foods

goes into making them so palatable that you overeat them. That's what makes them money. So they're engineered this way. Well, that's sort of the danger of just placing most of your value in the flavor and of what you're consuming, right? And that's just something, like you got to look to more values that are there

in terms of like how is this nourishing you? Like what, you know, what need this is filling in terms of like your body consuming it, because if we're just gonna keep going on the flavor route and inevitably you're gonna come to these hyper-palible foods and it's gonna be mind-blowing for you because they have engineered it in a way

where it's just like on an experience like nothing else like a regular fruit vegetable and grain could provide. Dude, you know, this isn't on your list, but what Justin St. Ryan has got me like thinking like, how much of this do you think too is like just being conditioned by like advertising and stuff like that? Like that's something that's relatively new since television

and radio and stuff like that, right? It's been around where we've been able to connect like these super hyper-palatable foods to like moments and like cool things like, you see if you watch the Camer, like movie theater, McDonald's commercials, movie theater, it's like they did such a good job of Making these foods of ballpark connect to happy good times and so like that And so not only is it already hijacking your body's natural signs of satiety within an addition of that You have this nostalgia

about it of like, oh, eating the hot dog reminds me of going to the ballpark with my dad. Well, it's always been that way. Foods always been connected to culture always. They just took that and ran away. What's right me, I mean, you're right. It has, we've always celebrated, all cultures have celebrated with food, but we took it to like,

we put steroids when it came to television, right? Oh, 100% to market. I mean, the first widely consumed, you know, ultra-process foods. I mean, ultra-process foods served a need at one point. You needed foods that had a long shelf life. You know, you needed spam for soldiers, you know, stationed in the Pacific, right? This by the way, by spam is a considered a food in Hawaii because that's not a traditional Hawaiian food, but we had soldier station there. Spam lasts a long time, it's processed meat.

Great way to have people eat meat over there and not as part of the cuisine. Look with the astronauts have to eat. It's just like, yeah, it makes sense. They've solved problems in terms of situations like that and food being scarce back when. That was a big issue for people, so they were able to preserve them.

I'll tell you what right now. Get a bag of Doritos and take the ingredients out. Take the corn, take the pepper, take all this ingredients separate. Could you eat all the ingredients, a bag of the ingredients, or would you have to eat the bag of chips? So there's a science to it. And I used to get people lose weight all the time by doing this.

Eat until you're satisfied, just avoid these foods. Watch what happens, you lose weight. These foods now are most of our diet. And if you looked at the consumption of these foods, you could line up the, how much of our diet is made up of heavily processed foods with the rise in obesity. And this is why they're like, it's carbs that are making us fat. It's fat that are making us fat.

Salt is bad for you. No, it's these processed foods that tend to have combinations of these things in ways that make us just make them so resistable. So that's one of the main reasons why there's so much obesity. Yeah, I mean, you could also make the case for your second one is really close there too. And I think I flip flop back and forth on what I believe is more of a problem.

And that's the movement. Yeah, we just don't move. We don't move. I mean, I just shared a recent story of, you know, this epiphany that I had with doing chores with my son in the backyard. And it's like, we've just, that used to be daily life. You know, there wasn't, you outsource that to somebody else to do. We didn't have services that did things like that. Like you took care of your land that you lived on and, and I've, I've worked that life,

right? So from, from like literally from 15 to 20, I worked on a ranch and got to see that life. And it starts at 4.30 in the morning and it don't end until about 10 o'clock at night. And 95% of everything is very physical. Like you just burn so many calories by doing that. So sometimes I think, I mean, even if you were eating Doritos and ice cream and all this crap all day long, the mount that you have to move during the day to do all this physical labor would almost probably cancel. Well, it would definitely help with your health.

I mean, they've done studies on that and find that the calories play a bigger role. However, lack of activity contributes to poor health, poor hormone health, which stand down the road, I think definitely contributes to fat gain. It's funny because we solve the activity problem because it used to be a problem, right? Backbreaking labor. I can't move. I'm so tired, right? This is just so tough, right? We solved all that for labor, but kids always moved a lot

until recently. Now entertainment, like, we always play. Like, when we were kids, like, most jobs in the 90s were desk jobs in the 90s too, just like they are today. That's so, but still quite a bit. Like, I don't know a ton, I don't know, everybody wasn't doing crazy hard labor in the 90s too just like they are today that's so but still quite a bit like I don't know a ton I don't know everybody wasn't doing crazy hard labor in the 90s, but every kid was playing outside like when I was a kid

You didn't have to make a play day. You just went outside and their kids playing today kids don't even move you kids Jumping tall my uncle was just in town He was and he's a ex-military and he's in his he's in his late 60s and he was was telling me, I believe it was Fort Bragg where he was stationed. And he said he hadn't been there in 30 years, 30 plus years, and he just went back there not that long ago. And he just wanted to see how much of the base looked the same.

And like, and it was like completely different. And he was like walking around asking people stuff, you know, where's this, where's that, like he didn't know where the barracks were, or they look like these like super, like luxurious hotels now in comparison what they used to look like and everything. It was like a weekday. He's like, where are all the soldiers? Where's everybody at?

They're like, oh, they're in their barracks playing video games. He's telling me this story that when I was at him, you'd always see 10, 15 people running, people over here would be walking or throwing the frisbee or throwing the ball. Or just, you would see all these soldiers out, just be an active outside. They would, none of them would be in their barracks where it's completely flip flopped to where nobody was outside.

Everybody's in there plugged in on their gaming consoles and sitting in front of their TVs, like gaming with each other all day long. It's like, how great. You're talking about, maybe in a lifetime, it's just 30 years ago, how much we have dramatically shifted behaviors like that that were so normed to do that, to now nobody does that. It's crazy, which leads to the next one, which is you have little muscle. We have a muscle and strength problem today. They do studies where they look at grip strength and college aged males today have the strength

of 60-year-old men in the 1980s, because they've done these, they've tracked these over the decades. Muscle is one of the most protective tissues on the body. It burns calories, so when you have more muscle, you have faster metabolism, which means you can burn more calories than you take in, which negates the negative effects of consuming too much sugar or inflammatory fat. So you're more likely to stay lean because

you have more muscle. It keeps you insulin sensitive, helps you process sugars. Muscles very protective, and we just don't have a lot of muscle because we don't move much. So, like, for example, when we were kids remember the presidential fitness award test. Yeah It always involved what pull ups for boys, right and girls was a hang dead hang So I remember you had to go up and do pull ups and if I don't remember how many you did would qualify you for the presidential fitness award They change that nobody does pull ups anymore now the guys have to do a dead hang. And I think it's a body row, if I'm not mistaken, for the girls. They change the standard.

They're completely, so at least they're still doing it. Some places. Okay. And they change the complete, did you know that they changed the standard for throwing a grenade in the military? Yeah, I do. Because they couldn't throw as far.

Like, we don't have as much muscle, so we don't have this protective tissue. Because look, we talk about this all the time of the show. If you had to pick one form of exercise to fix your obesity, it'd be to do strength training because it builds muscle, and muscle really makes a huge impact

on calorie burn and hormones and all that stuff. Well, if you don't train it and use it, you lose it too. Muscle, it totally adaptive. It goes one way or the other way, depending on what you do. Right, right, right. So if you're not building, or working towards building muscle, it's going in the opposite

direction. So I think that's a huge problem right now. 100%. All right, here's the next one. And this one for me is a bit personal because I'm a first generation American. My parents were poor Sicilian immigrants and my grandparents are here too. And there's a culture of food that my parents' generation in before really had, especially in Southern Italy or Italy in particular.

And that is they have this respect for food because there's a culture around it, there's preparation. You know, my mom was getting Sunday dinner together, it was an all day thing that she was doing. And I'm not making the argument that we need to like, go back to, you know, taking two hours to cook dinner, but one of the side effects of the fact that food requires

very little preparation or work is that we don't respect it. It's just, you don't respect it is when you, I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I don't know if you've done this before, Justin, where if you have your kids make something with you, they're more likely to eat it just because they made it. Yeah, just because they respect it. Yeah, they understand. Well, plus they get like some bit of ownership over it, right?

Like, I was a part of the process of it. And so, yeah, they're way more inclined to want to partake in it. And I do think that's an important thing, especially with kids, it's really like involved them in the process, especially when you're cooking and they understand like the ingredients that are going in there. I think it's just like anything else. We've removed ourselves from a lot of these things, even how we gather meat, and it's uncomfortable to think about how that all works, but it's convenient for us to just buy at the grocery

store now and not have to realize there's a whole process of raising an animal to get to this point. There's a whole process of, you know, growing these vegetables to get to a certain ripeness and, you know, and fruit and everything else. And I just, I think we're just disconnected a lot from like all these things. Well, I think there's an easier way to respect it

than spending two hours in the kitchen, too. And I think that what it reminds me of a story you used to share at Sal, all the time on the podcast when we had Paul check, right? We had Paul check come have dinner with us. And we know he's not a religious person. And then you saw him kind of prey over his food. And I remember Sal asking him, you know, I thought you weren't religious. And what's with the prayer before the food and everything like that.

And he's saying he's taking a moment to ask himself if he's one prepared to eat. Is this food going to nourish his body? Is it like he's respecting him? Yeah, he's respecting the food. So you can be a non-religious person and still practice something like that. And I tell you, if you do that hovering over a pop tart, I doubt you're gonna be going like, yeah, this is gonna nourish my body. It just brings more awareness.

Yeah. Like imagine if you have this impulsive, like I'm gonna eat some gummy bears, and then you pause before you eat, like, okay, is this nourishing my body? Is this bringing me value? Like, is this what I need? Yeah, you're more likely, like,

I don't know if I should eat this. So this is not good for me, or I'm only eating this as I'm stressed out or sad or anxious. Absolutely. I think that's why in spiritual practice is prayer before eating exists so much besides the fact that. Yeah, because I agree with the obviously hunting and killing your food or cooking it for two hours in the kitchen kind of forces that naturally to happen, but in today's life, that doesn't happen a lot of times. And so another way to a good practice is that simple stopping and praying right before. Yeah, and I mean,

this is a later point, so I'm not gonna go over it in too much detail, but like just slowing down, like in acknowledging that it builds like kind of a barrier there for a lot of those impulses that naturally just drive you towards it. Yeah, it's interesting. I had a family member whose mom was really good at baking. She would make homemade candy. The kids would get involved. They would make homemade potato chips, homemade cookies.

And they were never, they were not obese. And it was different. Like, you know, make potato chips with your kids versus buying potato chips, or make burgers and fries versus buying burgers and fries, or make pop tarts versus buying pop tarts. I bet you, you're more, you would over consume, you're more likely, or you will over consume more often when you don't prepare yourself versus when you do.

And again, I don't think it has to do with specifically the fact that you're doing the work, but rather you just respect it more because you know as it goes into it, I like to point you brought up too out on that, that makes a lot of sense, especially because people are busy, so they're not gonna take, you know, two hours away out of their time to prepare their food.

All right, here's another one. This one's kind of interesting, and we're getting more and more evidence that is showing that this is playing a role in some of the poor health that we have. And that's that these known as endocrine disrupting chemicals or chemicals that are typically in plastics. Some of them were in detergents.

Some of them are in things that make like paper feel smooth that affect our hormone system. They're known as endocrine disrupting because although they're not estrogen's, for example, they interact with the estrogen receptor and they can change the way our body store body fat or change our insulin sensitivity. BPA, one of the more common ones, which is now banned.

We know that this is one that's out there, but there's a lot of them that are out there and then the combination of them and the amount that we're exposed, probably is playing a role in some of this. It's just so easy to, it just neaks up so easily because if you're not paying attention to that at all, and you are consuming water all the time

in plastic water bottles, and you're not reading the labels of like what's in your shampoo or in yourions or you know like you're constantly you have paper, it's really smooth or you know like there's if you don't see that a lot and you're constantly just inundated with with these disrupting chemicals like it's gonna affect you it's gonna have a physiological effect on you. No I don't think you ordered these at all in the priority that I think I would discuss them, right? Because I think that it's to be probably lower in the... Yeah, if I'm talking to my client who's really obese and we're checking off all the things like that I want them

to really start to pay attention to, unless I do have a very specific client that has some sort of hormone problems and imbalance, then maybe this jumps up to priority list. Like maybe they've already been abusing this stuff for so long that they have actually have some issues going on hormonally. And so this might be an area we try and clean up.

Yeah, I think if you tackle the big offenders you're good. Like glass containers, like so don't use a lot of plastic containers and definitely don't warm up your food in plastic and microwaves, that's big. The cosmetics that you use, just kinda like make sure that they tend to eliminate the known hormone disrupting chemicals. And then you're doing okay, I think you're doing okay.

Those are the big ones, like the plastic containers is a big one, especially if you have stuff in plastic containers that you freeze or you warm up or you keep in the car or you compete You know you constantly reuse You know non-stick Teflon that kind of stuff gets into your system if you get rid of the big offenders I think you're doing a good job. We work with a company that you you can buy products from that you can buy products from public goods and they go through and they make sure the products they sell don't have all these known chemicals. So you can even do something like that. Okay,

this company's done that for me. I'll go through the different products. I'll get all my products from this company. He's to just your buying habits just a bit just so you're not like surrounded by all these chemicals. Yeah, I think the next one is one that I would 100% be addressing towards the top of the list, and that's the staying up late or not getting good sleep. Mm-hmm. You know, this radically changed with the invention of electricity.

Yeah. We used to go to bed much earlier because, you know, it's dark. Yeah. Circadian rhythms. Yeah. Yeah, now, ever since we had like electric light bulbs, it's like, We extended how long we

stay up. So this is a modern issue. People used to sleep way more. Well, and I think that this is an area that I didn't really focus on personally until later on until I really started to realize the the effects of it. And it's not like it's not like staying up at night is making this person obese, right? Or not getting good sleep is making this person obese. But what I find that's interesting, and we've talked about on the show before, is the behaviors that come from poor sleep, that really, really start to affect you. Now, mind you, you can disrupt, obviously, hormones and stuff like that by not getting good sleep or being sleep deprived, especially for days at a time or whatever, but

what I notice is the cravings. So if you're already somebody who's challenged with hyper-palatable foods and portion control and being mindful and all these things that we're discussing today of like help to help you stay on top of eating and more of a balance, this right here will fucking throw it all off the window. If you are not getting good sleep, man, that makes it so much harder to make good choices. Because now you're not only are you already challenged with the normal behaviors that you have, but now you're fighting this internal crazy craving thing that's kicked up that you not used to because you didn't get really good sleep the night before.

And that just makes it 10 times harder. 100% and there's also direct effects. You're less likely to build muscle if you get just a little, if you don't get great sleep, like I don't know how to tell about terrible, terrible sleep either. Just constantly not great sleep. You're not going to build muscle as easily, which then can affect from talism,

which then can affect fat storage. Or you can go to bed on time and wake up eight hours later, but you go from watching a bright-ass TV, being in a bright room to straight, hitting your head on the pillow, and expecting your brain to shut off into sleep, essentially wasting an hour and a half, where if you wore blue light-blocking glasses,

for example, or if you're in a dark room, you'd be ready to go to sleep right away, and you'd be able to utilize all eight hours. This one has a big impact, though, mostly on behaviors. I agree with you Adam. It's like, when you're not getting good sleep, your behaviors are going to point you more towards obesity than not. You get that brain fog. I mean, it's going to affect your energies throughout the day. So, there's just a lot of, you know, causing effect to not getting good sleep that lead towards these behavioral things that you gotta adjust.

Well, I'm less likely to do my workout, I'm less likely to be active and move around through the day because I'm not feeling well. And then on top of that, I'm also gonna make poor food choices. Those are three big rocks when it comes to trying to, with weight management, and just simply not focusing

on your sleep could be impacting that. And this is again, an area that is a young, as a young trainer, I didn't focus a lot here. And I realized what an impact it makes on all the other things that I think are so important. And so now it's become an area where it's like, that's a top priority when I'm asking a client like how to sleep.

If you're not fully recovered, you're not giving your buy the chance to rebuild. And you're constantly in and day with stress and you're not really being able to filter that out and fully recover. I mean, I remember learning this from a wellness practitioner that worked in my studio. And I actually tried this with some clients

where all I did was help them with their sleep and they lost weight. They just, they're from working on their sleep like 10 pounds Which is pretty interesting. All right. This next one's pretty pretty cool because It's it's ramped up dramatically over the last few decades and It's eating while distracted so you may think well what does it have to do with being obese? Studies will show that you'll consume about 10 to 15 percent more calories When you're eating while watching TV or on your phone or distracted so 10 to 15% more calories when you're eating while watching TV or on your phone or distracted.

So 10 to 15% more calories. So if you eat 2,000 calories a day, that's an additional 200 to 250 calories or 300 calories a day. That's not small just from being distracted. What's interesting about this is this, humans have always liked to do things while they ate, but they were usually very present with other people. It wasn't super common that people ate and were watching TV or whatever. In fact, eating in front of the TV wasn't a thing up until probably around, well, I'd say around Doug's generation or earlier, where TV dinners became.

Yeah, yeah. What were the TV trays that came out? When the TV, when did the TV trays come out? Oh, I don't know. 70s, maybe? Yeah, I mean, 60s, not 70s. 70s is my guess. I think we never had them in our house because we had no TV. I, what you know what I watched was,

you know, who's, what, it got really popular was, who's the famous cooking show? She's got a documentary out right now. Oh, Julia Child. Julia Childs. Like, so the birth of her show became really, really popular for people to make the food and then sit down and watch. Yes, but actually marketing food to be eaten in front of TVs

wasn't a thing when TVs first came out. Nobody thought to do this as a 70s. 1954. Yeah. Swanson's 80s. Oh, TV dinner. Yeah. That's when they started marketing it.

Yeah. And they were like, oh, this is a great pastime. You can sit in front of the TV and eat. And it was this novel thing. Yeah. Because TVs were relatively new technology. And so little by little, people started eating in front. It still wasn't a big thing until later where, you know,

still in the 50s, yes, there were TV dinners. But, you know, dinner was like, traditionally, let's go eat together. Yeah. Then it became more and more a thing where you're sitting in front of the TV. Now we have our phones. You pull out your, it's right there, it's immediate distraction. You know, and you eat and you're distracted.

And when you're distracted, you're not connected to your body. You're not connected to the signals of satiety. Yeah. And again, the studies will show 10 to 15% more calories. Literally, what does that mean? That means it's reverse this for a second. If you wait exactly the same stuff you eat now, but when you eat, you don't have a phone,

you don't have a TV, it's just you and your food, you can relyably, you can count on the fact that you'll eat about 10% less calories just from doing that alone. So it sounds like a small thing, but it affects your behavior to the point where it actually is. Oh, I mean, I would make the case it's more than that

because this goes hand in hand with the respecting the food thing that you said earlier because if you're not distracted, you're less likely to make bad choices to you. We already, the studies already show that you'll eat less of the same foods, but if you're not distracted, I mean, I remember just making a rule in my house so just like, okay, we're gonna stop eating food in front of the TV at all.

So it's just like, so that eliminates a lot of these snacky foods that you love to do while you're watching movies. And so it's like, and I'm not telling myself I can't have those things, I gotta sit down at, and I'm not gonna sit down and make myself a bowl of popcorn at the table and just eat a whole bowl of popcorn.

But I sure should, we'll crush a whole bowl of popcorn. Exactly. Watch the movie. And let's be honest, if you're eating those snacky foods and being distracted or you're driving and you have to get something quick, or what does options look like?

Those are the processed, you know? Oh yeah. You're not gonna be eating a steak. Yes, take a broccoli just on the road. So just typically, that all kind of folds together. You know, I'm listening to us have this conversation about all things that I'm very aware that we all allow in and out of our lives. So it's important to know too that I don't think that when I'm

talking to a client like this, that it's me standing on my ivory tower, what are you with that ever do these things. It's no it's like these these are all behaviors that lead to overeating and you have to learn to respect them it doesn't mean that you can never have I just wear just one of the movies and had a big old thing a popcorn with my son and had an incredible experience but that's also something that is not a regular thing that we do. And somebody who is put on this much weight has allowed all these things that we're talking about to become regular things in their life. And in order to gain control of that, this is where you have to kind of become aware of all these behaviors that you're doing. And you'll notice nothing that

we're saying is like, you know, eat this many calories. It's eat this many grams of protein. Before these foods. Where your foods, it's literally just be aware of some of these issues and behaviors. Modify some, take some of the biggest ones and you'll notice the weight loss will just, it'll feel like it's happening on your own,

on its own because you've just changed some of these behaviors. All right, this next one is interesting because this wasn't a thing until it became a thing and then that was it, it was everywhere. on its own because you've just changed some of these behaviors. All right, this next one is interesting because this wasn't a thing until it became a thing, and then that was it, it was everywhere. That's liquid calories. So here's what's interesting.

You guys ever look at the size of like a soda when coke, you know, in the 19, let's say, 40s or 50s when people, when it started to get popular, how small it was compared to what a coke looks like today. And people weren't drinking soda or calories with every meal, like now is totally acceptable. Like if you had a Coke with your meal, it was because you went to the drive, the drive up, or you went to this on a date with the girl, or whatever. It became, that's very quickly, so much a part of our life that it became a part of dinner,

became a part of dinner, became a part of lunch, and then people and kids drank juice all the time. And I mean, before that, it was like, you either had a glass of milk or water, and milk was for the kids, you give a glass of milk to the kids. They didn't drink cowards like they do. I really saw this explode in like convenience stores, right?

Like your 7-Eleven's or gas stations, like, and just watching the evolution of the smaller drinks, and now they have the actual fountain drinks, and the fountain drinks were like a gulp, and then it became double gulp, and then super double gulp, and I saw this because my brother and my dad were just completely, that was like,

we had to stop there, so you get the cherry coke that was like this big. And like I didn't think anything of it just because that's how we grew up. Well, we've been conditioned to even as kids. I remember my younger brother and sister, it was super common that they always say, which is crazy to me,

because like Max has still never even had this before. You fill up their little juice boxes like crazy. Capri's sons, I mean, these things are marketed to kids, and it's basically soda for kids. When we were kids, you look at the sugar content and the constant, but then it's marketed like it's healthy for them. When we were kids, like little kids,

when we were kids in the 80s, parents thought that was healthy. Yes. Why would you give your kid water, give them apple juice? It's way healthier for them. Now we know better, or a lot of us too. But back then that was it. You got a pack lunch for you

when I was a kid in elementary school. You didn't get water. Who the hell gave you water? You drink water at the home. I see, Capri Sun, all these sugary drinks. So you're just conditioning them to the adulthood when they just graduate to the other beverages. You know what's interesting,

if you go to the South, look at our neighbor in the South, look at Mexico, look at their consumption of sodas. It was not a part of their culture and then it became a big part of the culture and they've actually talked about how this was one of the major contributors to obesity.

Mexico had no obesity and then all of a sudden became one of the most obese countries in the world and they are taught, they talk about how soda was never on the dinner table and then all of a sudden it was soda everywhere. And they say that contributed huge percentage of calories in the obesity attack. They got that good coke there too. They got super sweet.

They got that good coke there. They had the real coke there. So good. All right. So these next couple are, have more to do with medications that are being used quite a bit. That have been shown to contribute to obesity. So the next, the first one is antidepressants.

Antidepressants, it's pretty consistent, they'll do this for some, for a lot of people, can lead to weight gain because of the behaviors that they influence. Now, I don't want to tell people to go off and into the presence, but just be aware that this can definitely play a role in how you are with food and behave with food. And pay attention to this because this is definitely

something, this is not just the side effect that's not that big of a deal because obesity can cause poor health and contribute to depression, which would offset the reason why they're taking them in the first place. So pay attention to this because again, they've been shown, and a lot of cases

to increase the rate of obesity. It's crazy, because, you know, how often you guys see this is like this like vicious loop, right? Like somebody puts on, somebody has these bad choices, bad behaviors, they put on all of this weight, all this weight ends up making them feel lethargic,

they don't want to move. They don't get good sleep. Then they're also depressed. And so then they're on the antidepressants. The antidepressants also doesn't promote weight loss or helping them out. And that can insect this crazy fricking cycle that they get stuck in.

And it just feels like it's impossible to break through it. And you know what, I mean, Sal, what about what's just coming out right now with what we know about antidepressants, right? Is it still going to be some that's even used? Oh, well, there's, there was a, I mean, this is big news, but the serotonin model of depression has been flipped on its head. Now, what you want to be careful is that it's to say that antidepressants don't help because there, there's probably a mechanism there in any cases that we don't fully understand.

But what we are understanding is it's not this erotonin. So in what doctors are not doing is just taking people, oh, okay, everybody off antidepressants because there's a lot of people that do find value in them. And studies have shown that it's not a huge effect, but there's definitely a positive effect with certain types of depression. But nonetheless, one of the main side effects of antidepressants is weight gain, because of how it affects your behaviors. So, I just want to dive into that a little bit in terms of how it affects your weight gain.

Is it a sense of trying to feel pleasure by eating something more pleasurable, or is it because, you know, because in terms of the sense of being doled a bit with the answer depressants, like, oh, you say mechanism there. Are you saying like it down regulates like that? Like why would you, why would you gain weight on an antipresson?

Yeah. It takes more of the, it's pretty complex actually. They're not quite sure. Okay. But they do know that they think it has to do with the fact that you're... Because do the anti-depressants give you dopamine hits? Well, there are ones that work with dopamine, but these are pleasurable food.

But that's the direction you're going, right? Well, serotonin. Yeah, serotonin. It's serotonin. But there, okay, so here's what they're called SSRI. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, meaning they inhibit the reuptake of serotonin thus creating larger or more serotonin in the system. Yeah, but if you're doing that artificially to the point that I think Justin's trying to make If you're doing that artificially and then you're also trying to and you still get some of that pleasure from foods

Is it forcing you to have to have more of those foods to to get the same pleasure? You know what? I've read on this, and they're not quite sure, but they think it has to do with, it kind of messes with your natural systems of satiety. So you're less likely to stop eating. It's been shown in some cases to increase cravings. So because it's affecting the serotonin of the system,

and serotonin plays a role in foods that you want and desire and how they affect you, that through that it affects how people behave with food. And they think that that may be the case. This next one is another medication that's often used that in some cases have been shown to contribute to obesity, which is birth control. Birth control in some way shape or form

is either the estrogen, hormone or progesterone, or similar hormones. Hormones play a role in obesity. Hormones are signolars in the body, meaning they can telebody to build muscle, to store body fat, to get rid of sugar, to store sugar, to have more energy, to do all these other things.

And when you're taking birth control, you are taking something that is working with the hormonal system. This is definitely something you'd want to work with your doctor with. But if you're gaining weight because you're on birth control, I would definitely bring it up

because there may be better options for you. But this can definitely play a role. And then here's where it gets a little kind of wild. But there's birth, they find now residues of birth controls and tap water, and it may be because it's hard to filter out. So unless you have like reverse osmosis filter and you drink tap water, you may be taking in

low amounts of some of these hormones when you don't want them, and that could also affect. Well, I know that. Katrina is one of the few girls I've ever met that's actually never used birth control in her entire life and her thought process was on it. It was just, it is just taking something that wasn't natural to affect your hormones

and that it may potentially change your home one profile forever. So is that a fear for, or is that a common thing that happens? Somebody who takes say birth control for say 10 years And then get off of it is boy. Yeah, that's a loaded question There are so Dr. Jolene Brighton will talk about this. That's why I would turn to so doctor beyond the pill This is an expert and you she'll say like people will go off and it can take them a while To get their bodies back to normal or be able to have a baby or it's masked all these other issues. Like you hemorrhage too much or you know you feel a particular way and doctors, like,

I'll go on birth control, I'll control that, which it's now masking the root cause of some of these issues. So I would defer to someone like her to really break something like that down. Now my opinion is, if you alter your hormone profile and you do it long enough, that there's, at the very least, it will take a while to go back when you go off of them. I mean, I would think it's not that much different than someone like me who took testosterone for, at the doses, for as long as I took it, like, I was never at the doses. Right. For as long as I took it, I was never the same again after that.

For sure, I was, no, I still got my testosterone back. It didn't like, it didn't go to where it should. Yeah, but it never went back. It disrupted probably what my natural hormone profile would have probably been. Yeah, but it's like I said, beyond the pill, great book. And Dr. Jolien Brighton is a resource I would turn to, and she talks a lot about this, and supplements you could take that could help

with some of the effects and what to look out for. And, you know, weight gain is definitely a known side effect of many different types of birth control. Look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfreed.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam and you can

find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps for performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having sound and an adjustment as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price.

The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is MindPump. Come!