Something You Should Know - How to Fail Well and Move On & Diet Tricks that Never Work and What Works Better

Episode Date: March 21, 2019

Of course you want high self-esteem and you sure want your kids to have it. But there is actually only one way to get it and it is not the way a lot of people think. We begin this episode by discussing the one and only way to acquire high self-esteem. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110301091342.htm No one likes to fail. Failure is painful. However, failure may not be as bad as you think when you take a different view of it. That’s according to psychologist Becca North, a visiting assistant professor at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas and author of the book Your Hidden Super Powers: How the Whole Truth of Failure Can Change Our Lives (https://amzn.to/2W0chGg). She joins me to discuss a very practical and optimistic take on failure that can help you deal with failing and come out better on the other side.  Do you eat lunch at your desk at work? It is such a horrible idea. Listen and hear the reasons why you should NOT eat at your desk and why you should go out for lunch. Then, please, go out for lunch today! http://www.realsimple.com/health/nutrition-diet/healthy-eating/lunch-break In this age of fad diets and extreme eating plans, is there a more moderate way to approach diet and weight loss? Yes there is, according to registered dietician Jaclyn London who is the director of nutrition at Good Housekeeping magazine. Jaclyn, who is also the author of the book Dressing on the Side (and Other Diet Myths Debunked) (https://amzn.to/2XYVjJT) joins me to discuss how to eat more and stress less over food and stop worrying so much about body weight. This Week’s Sponsors -Capterra. Find the best software for your business by going to www.capterra.com/something -ADT. Go to www.ADT.com/smart to learn how ADT can design and install a smart home system for you. -Quip. Get your first refill free when you buy a quip toothbrush at www.Get Quip.com/something -Geico. Go to www.Geico.com to see how Geico can save you money on your car insurance -Joybird Furniture. Go to www.joybird.com/something and get 25% your first order using promo code: something -Indeed. New users can try Indeed for free by going to www.Indeed.com/podcast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, understanding self-esteem. It's not a thing you get, it's the result of something else you do. Then, a new and better way to look at failure that takes away some of the sting. I do think that some treasure, some gems as I would call them, come out of every step back, every failure. And our job is to kind of find them, but also to let them emerge. Like I said, time is a big piece of this. Plus, if you eat lunch at your desk, you won't after you hear this. And common diet tricks to lose weight. Do they really work? For example, a lot of people order salad with dressing on the side. What we really wanted was the pizza.

We didn't order the pizza. We ordered a salad with dressing on the side. What we really wanted was the pizza. We didn't order the pizza. We ordered a salad with dressing on the side, and we wonder why we're, you know, eating the contents of our pantry later and have this tendency to blame ourselves for that. All this today on Something You Should Know. As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know is all about.

And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about Ted Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done Ted Talks. Well, you see, Ted Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new Ted Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu.

She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily.

And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Something You should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome. Maybe it's just because I'm in the business that I'm in

that I deal with a lot of self-help type people. But for a long time now, I've heard a lot of people talk about self-esteem. And we want our kids to have high self-esteem. But the pop psychology definition of self-esteem is quite different than what the real research shows. It turns out you can't just tell your kids, or anybody else for that matter, to simply feel good about themselves, to have good self-esteem. That doesn't work. They have to earn that feeling. You can only feel high self-esteem when you feel highly competent at whatever you consider important. The reverse is also true. Low self-esteem comes as the result of failing or feeling less

competent at things that matter. Self-esteem isn't something you can work on and change directly. It is the result of being good at what you do, and there is no other way to get it. And that is something you should know. Failure is seldom the goal for anything. We try things and sometimes we succeed, and that is the preferred outcome. But sometimes, oftentimes, we fail. But maybe, just maybe, that's not so bad. Maybe it's a good thing, even though it feels terrible to fail. Becca North studies failure and knows a lot about it. She is a visiting assistant professor in psychology at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, and she's author of a book called Your Hidden Superpowers, How the Whole Truth of Failure Can Change Our Lives.

Hi, Becca. Hi. Thank you for inviting me. My pleasure. So, you like to talk about failure. Most people don't. Why do you think it's so important? I think it's vitally important to talk about failure, and I think that the fact that we have silence around failure and don't talk about failure actually can hold us back. One of the reasons I like to talk about failure actually can hold us back. One of the reasons I like to talk about it is because I think we see it in a wrong-headed way,

and the way that we see it has a big impact on the way we live our lives. So I want to kind of call out the one-sided way that we view failure, try to expose more of the whole truth of failure, and then put forth a vision for how changing our view of failure would actually change how we lead our lives and would elicit potential and resources and meaning and joy from our lives. What could be better than that? So fix me up here. But it's one thing to talk about failure, and you're right, people don't like to talk about it. But one of the reasons we don't like to talk about it is because it feels so bad. It's easy to talk about it in an academic-y kind of way, but when it's your failure, you'd really rather not. Yes. Failure is painful and embarrassing, and it can be humiliating. But the first step is to kind of talk to yourself about it and get

familiar with how you view it and how you think of it and thinking about your relationship with failure and a failure with a person. Like, how do you think about it? Do you think about it as all bad? Most of us do, but that really has an impact on how we live. And actually what I'm trying to put forth here is that that's not right. As much as it is painful, there is a phenomenally bright light side. There are tremendous benefits that come from failure. Okay, so how do we typically view failure? What I would say is that we typically view failure as all bad. We think about like failure equals bad. Failure equals the enemy. And from that perspective, it makes sense that you're

like, I don't want that. I want to organize my life around not having that because that's going to be really bad. So that's how I would say that most people, that's the prevailing view of failure, that failure equals bad. All right. So what, in your view, are the benefits of failure? One of the benefits of failure that I spotlight is originality. This idea of how failure can reveal more of our originality, originality being what we really think and what we really want to say and what we really want to do. And that can be hard to get in touch with, and failure reveals more of that. And then it gives us a shot of courage to express more of our originality.

Originality, especially in today's world, can really drive success because it can drive innovation and innovative thinking. So give me an example of a failure that demonstrates originality. So examples would be J.K. Rowling, for example, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Johnny Cash. Let me tell you a story. Actually, this is just an anecdote from a movie that I saw. There's a story from the movie Walk the Line, which is the biopic about the life of Johnny Cash. And there's this scene where Johnny Cash goes into Sun Records, and he's asked to play a song. And at this time, he's selling appliances,

I think, at night to earn money. He's desperate to get this gig. He wants to be a musician. And he plays a hackneyed song that the guy, the manager, is not impressed with at all. And he's deflated. And the manager is frustrated with him and kind of exasperated and said, if you were dying in the road, what would you want to play? And Johnny Cash played, what is it, Folsom County Blues? I think that's the name of the song. He played one of his like really popular songs, a song that came from his heart and his own original thinking. And he was signed on the spot, right? So that's just a story from the film. And like I say in the book, the real story, you know,

likely didn't play out exactly like that. But that illustrates how failure can reveal more of our originality because we feel so much pressure to meet other people's expectations, to do what other people think is right or good or valuable or appealing. And then when we fail, we failed in our effort to do that. So it kind of cuts us from those ties of trying and opens us up to more listening about, well, wait, what do I really think? What do I really want to do? So given that everyone agrees that failure sucks, it hurts, nobody likes it, what do you do in the moment, in kind of a first aid kind of way, when failure strikes,

what do you do in that moment to help you deal with it better? I would say the first thing is to recognize that it's painful, and it's painful for everyone. That's a universal phenomenon. So there's research that's been done on, well, maybe it's not painful for people who have high self-esteem versus low self-esteem. It is. Maybe it's not painful for people who say that they don't care what others think about them. It is. Maybe it's not painful for people who are extremely successful, like some of the people that I interviewed. It is. Hurt is the word that Dr. James McPherson, who is a professor of history at Princeton University, he talked about the role of failure in Lincoln's life. Hurt is the word that came up the most when he was talking about Lincoln's biggest failure. These are people who are

extremely successful who are talking about the pain of failure. I think when you feel, when you experience a failure, whether that's in a professional or personal setting, to have compassion for yourself, to have the knowledge and the understanding that it is painful and it's painful for everyone. And part of what I discuss is like looking at how to respond effectively to failure. And the first part of that is to allow those negative emotions to surface, which is really different than what most of us have been taught about being positive, trying to get over it as quickly as possible. That this takes time. And it looks like from what we understand that in many ways, the time is connected to the growth, right? So that short circuiting the pain might actually shortuit the growth. So I would say

to have compassion for yourself, to know that it is painful. It's not just painful to you, it's painful to everyone, and to give yourself a time to feel that pain and to allow some of the benefits to emerge over time, but not right away. Well, there is comfort in that because there's comfort in numbers. And I think you're right, that people think that there are those people who this is water off a duck's back. This is no sweat, no problem, just move on. And that's not true. That's right. That's right. And can I add one more thing to that? Yeah. Yeah. So in terms of the first aid thing, the second thing, so allowing negative emotions to

surface is like at a, what I would call a cognitive or emotional level, like a thinking and feeling level, but at a doing level, also it has to do with taking action towards things that matter even more to you. So failure can reveal more of what you really want as opposed to what other people wanted for you. And one thing that you can do in the context of failure is to try to get in touch with that, what do I really want? Like, what do I really want here? And to go like a little bit more towards that. So for example, I teach at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, and I was talking about the book with some faculty and staff a couple days ago. I was talking to the head volleyball coach, and we were talking about this idea of, you know, if somebody, let's say, gets cut from the team or gets cut from the

starting lineup, that person might understand through that experience, you know what? I actually, this isn't what I wanted to do. And I don't want to double down and work harder. I'm actually, I've been loving art and I maybe haven't been practicing as hard or practicing as much in volleyball because I'm so consumed with my art and I want to do that. Or maybe another person says, no, this reveals to me that I am so passionate about this. And the way that I want to handle this setback is to work even harder and to figure out ways to overcome kind of some of my difficulties. So there's no one like recipe or one size fits all, but it does have to do with listening to more of what you

really want and taking action in that direction. Becca North is my guest. She's a visiting assistant professor in psychology at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, and she's author of the book, Your Hidden Superpowers, How the Whole Truth of Failure Can Change Our Lives. You know, there is a revolution going on in the furniture business. Think about it. The old way of buying furniture was you go to the store, you pick from what they have, and that's it. But now there's a whole new way with Joybird.

From idea to reality, they empower you to create the space and furniture that bring you joy. With Joybird, you get one-of-a-kind furniture made to your unique taste. From mid-century modern to contemporary classics, customizable in an amazing array of fabric choices and every color imaginable. Plus a free personal design consultant to help you nail down your perfect design. Now each Joybird piece is made by hand with care and precision. Using high-quality hardwood and responsibly sourced material to fit your exact specification. See how Joybird is revolutionizing online furniture shopping. Create the furniture that brings you joy today at joybird.com slash

something. Go to joybird.com slash something and receive an exclusive offer for 25% off your first order by using the code something. That's joybird.com slash something. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue.

It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker.

Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for The Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know, Becca, it seems that failure, like so

many other things in life, is probably best learned at an early age. But at least in many school systems today, it seems that failure has been engineered out, that no one fails, everyone's a winner, everyone gets a trophy. I'm so passionate about how this could relate to education. I taught first grade in Compton, California for three years, and I've taught a college and graduate student level. So I see so many ways that this could connect to education. But I also think that, you know, part of what you're talking about is our general reluctance to say the word failure. And that's one thing that I feel strongly about is that, you know, a lot of times people will say, well, you know, I did get rejected in this, but if it led to something positive,

then it's not a failure. And that honestly is fine if people want to like handle that, handle it like that. But I tend to go back to the dictionary definition and look at if you went after something and you didn't get it, then that's a failure. And if something very positive came out of that, then that's not an either or, that's a both and. Both it was a failure and something enormously positive came out of it. And I think that we try to remove the power of the word failure by not saying it or calling it something else. And I think that we actually give that word power. It makes, if you're not calling anything a failure, then it makes it even scarier, right?

It's like, oh, you're getting messages from other people that you want to call that anything but a failure. No, what if that is a failure and it was painful and it led to something phenomenally beneficial? But what about when it doesn't? What about when it's failure and it's a dead end, it's a slam dunk, you screwed up, and there's nothing good coming from this? I would argue that when that

happens in somebody's life, that the benefits have not been claimed in most cases. So I can't speak for every case. But I believe that failure, that any failure over time does reveal benefits. And it's not like the same benefit. It's going to be a different benefit per person or different benefit for the particular failure. But there is treasure there. And if you don't claim that treasure, then those benefits do go to waste.

But I do think that some treasure, some gems, as I would call them, come out of every setback, every failure. And our job is to kind of find them, but also to let them emerge. Like I said, time is a big piece of this. It's not realistic or I think even adaptive to say, I failed yesterday and like, what am I going to get out of this today? A lot of this is painful, and it takes time. But I would argue, and from what I've seen in my research and different kinds of research, that failure does bring benefits. But aren't the benefits often just, you failed, this road is closed, take another road, and maybe it's a good road, and maybe that's the benefit, but that's all it is.

Maybe. That's not really what I have found. I think about it from, like, let's say if somebody wanted to go to med school and they were rejected from med school. Well, I mean, I think what would come out of that for me is like, is that really what you wanted to do? And if that is really what you wanted to do, then I would think that that can kind of further your conviction, further your commitment, further your desire to prepare. But I think for many people, whether they realize it or not at the time, that can shed light on, you know what, I actually, I'm not sure.

And I'm actually whispering right now. I didn't even intend to do that, but that's kind of the feeling that we have. It's like, I don't know if I really wanted to do that. So that path may or may not be closed, but the most important thing is, do you care? We don't oftentimes ask ourselves that question of, do I actually really want to do this? And I think that really is the most essential question. Isn't it also an essential question, though, like if you didn't get into med school 15 times, maybe you don't have it. Maybe you may want it, but you don't have it.

And I would say, again, and I can't speak for every case, and I'm not trying to, but what I would say is that in most cases, if you have tried 15 times and you don't have it, then I would kind of gauge from my perspective that that probably is not the best fit for you. And I would wonder if that person is wanting that for reasons of intrinsic motivation or extrinsic motivation. And I would be really interested to talk to somebody in that situation and hear their thoughts. But I would say, you know, it's very likely that if you've applied for something, you know, 15 times or whatever, that that might not be the best fit for you. And you know what, like, for some people, maybe they're like, no, this is the best fit for me. And I'm going to apply the 16th time. And let's see what happens. Right. But that is one of the things that failure can do

is to kind of separate those pieces of what to what extent am I doing what I'm doing because I feel expectations from other people and to what extent am I doing what we're doing because we want to versus what we're doing because we think other people want us to until we've failed and failure can decouple those two. Going back to what we were talking about, about in school where the, you know, everybody's a winner. There also just seems to be in society, this sense of trying to minimize failure, you know, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And, and, you know, that kind of thing. Like, don't worry, you'll be okay. And not acknowledging that this really sucks. Yes, completely. I completely agree with you. And I think that that is harmful, because one of the things is, I think it disconnects us from the truth of the experience. And like I've seen in my research, the truth of the experience is that failure does suck and that's universal. And I think that when people try to minimize it, then that can actually

like thwart us from getting the benefits of Um, and so I believe that a big part also of ultimately changing our view of failure is to acknowledge the truth behind, um, the way we see it now that, and that's what I try to call like the whole truth of failure. The truth of failure is not that it's all great. Oh my gosh, you guys stop. Like it's amazing. It's rainbows and butterflies. Like don't even be acting like it's negative. No, it's all great. Oh my gosh, you guys, stop. Like, it's amazing. It's rainbows and butterflies. Like, don't even be acting like it's negative. No, it's painful, right? It is painful.

And that is a real part of it. But it also has these, like, these phenomenally positive parts. Yeah. Well, I agree with that. There are the, yes, it's painful because I have failed many times. But one of the things, and it was a researcher, an interview I did years ago with somebody who talked about this research that was done with the people towards the end of their life.

And that they didn't regret the things they did and failed. They regretted not trying. And it's always stuck with me that I don't want to be looking back going, I wonder what if. Absolutely. I mean, that question and taking the long view is also a big part of what I do. I discuss an article that's called Top Five Regrets of the Dying by a woman who worked in, her name is Bronnie Ware, and she worked in a hospice for many years, and she interviewed people at the end of their lives about what were their biggest regrets. And the number one biggest regret was that I wished that I had led the life that I wanted to live

rather than the life that others wanted from me. And so that's exactly what I'm getting at, is like, how do we do that? And how do we find the courage to do that? And I think a big part of how we can find the courage to live like that is to see failure in a more accurate and fuller way. Well said. And I agree. I mean, it is such a universal experience, and it's such a horrible experience to fail, and yet we all have failures, and it makes sense to talk about them and learn from them. I don't understand really why we don't talk about it, but we don't. We just did, though. Yeah, exactly, which is a huge step. And I think that part of what excites me is that it's not just that failures

might be okay, we should have more patience around them. What I'm arguing is that to become the fullest, brightest version of ourselves, to live the fullest life that we feel most satisfied with at the end of our lives, failures might not just be okay, they might be needed. That's the point here, is that they can add value beyond what success is add. And if we can see that, then I think we see them differently and it can shift the way we live and help us access more of those resources that we might not currently be accessing. And there you have it, a positive conversation about failure, which you don't hear every day.

Becca North has been my guest. She is a visiting assistant professor in psychology at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, and her book is called Your Hidden Superpowers, How the Whole Truth of Failure Can Change Our Lives. There's a link to her book in the show notes. Thank you, Becca. Thank you so much, Mike.

I enjoyed talking with you. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity,

wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover.

We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. You would have to live in a cave to not be aware that a large portion of the U.S. population is overweight, which of course can lead to health problems.

And as much as we wring our hands over the issue, it doesn't really seem to be getting any better. Interestingly, a lot of people, in order to watch their weight, deploy some of their own strategies. For example, skipping breakfast or ordering salad with dressing on the side, that type of thing. But do those things work? And if not, what's the sensible advice on getting diet and body weight under control? Jackie London is a registered dietitian. She is the nutrition director at Good Housekeeping, and she has a new book out called Dressing on the Side and Other Diet Myths Debunked.

Hi Jackie, welcome. Thanks for having me, Mike. Great to be here. So since it is the title of your book, what could possibly be wrong with ordering salad with dressing on the side. I mean, it seems like a noble thing to do. You control how much dressing and therefore how much fat you eat. So why not? We have an obesity epidemic in this country. 67% of Americans are overweight or obese, and we did not get there because we are putting too much spicy ginger miso on vegetables. Okay, but if in fact part of the equation is to reduce the number of calories that you eat compared to the number of calories that you burn, putting dressing on the side does seem to give you some control over that.

So why not? Perhaps we weren't really in the mood for salad to begin with. I mean, that's sort of one angle of about when I hear people using the term, you know, I'll have a salad with dressing on the side. There's the other part of it that you can't really feel satisfied from having a salad. It's just some wilted lettuce on a plate without any dressing and thinking that this is that then what you're left with is all I need is willpower in order to power through or get through my day or get to the next meal. But we're not actually setting ourselves up for real success by doing these things that we think of as virtuous, but actually set us up to fail.

So that's really where the name came from. And also because it's often the type of thing that seems like a great order, but then, you know, what we really wanted was the pizza. We didn't order the pizza. We ordered a salad with dressing on the side. And we wonder why we're, you know, eating the contents of our pantry later and have this tendency to blame ourselves for that. Whereas, you know, perhaps if we had set up our day just a little bit differently, we would be able to feel both full and satisfied and really understand what that means for us in the context of our day and in the context of our everyday lifestyle. But the idea of salad dressing on the side, the intention is good. People think they're

doing something good. And if that doesn't work, well, then what does work? So that's a great question because it's, this is one of those things that winds up being something that is just a small, very small sliver of what, of how to kind of reframe what we want to think about doing more often, which is eating more vegetables, eating consistently, eating regular meals and snacks, I say every three to four hours, and also making sure that we have set ourselves up with our own tools, our own accountability tools that really help us meet our own expectations of ourselves. For example, having three places that you know you are going to want to order lunch from today sitting on your desktop on a Post-it. Or perhaps

it is that you can just reorder from your phone what your grocery list was last week. There are lots of different tech-related tools. There's also really just some mindfulness-related tools. And the biggest one that really winds up being the most successful for anyone I've worked with is thinking about satiety instead of fullness. So I put this on a scale of one to 10. And the idea is that you really want to be eating around that four range. So one being I'm so starving, I would need the entire Thanksgiving buffet table in order to feel satisfied right now. And 10 being I'm so starving, I would need the entire Thanksgiving buffet table in order to feel satisfied right now. And ten being I'm so stuffed, I think there's an actual turkey in my belly and I just had a huge meal kind of scale.

So you really don't want to get too hungry or too full to sort of get to know yourself a little bit better in terms of what actually makes you feel satisfied. And then so how do you put that all together? What do you eat? When do you eat? How does it become a plan you can deal with? So you do want to have a combination of protein, fiber, and some good for you fat in there. And you do also want to make sure that you're eating regularly. That would be the every three to four hours range and the tools that you need, those additional kind of add-on items that help you stay accountable to yourself

and not just something external. So what are some of the other things that people, like the dressing on the side, other things that people do that isn't doing what they think it's doing? I'll have a burger without the bun. That's a great one because that's not really a burger. That's just a meat patty. And that what we find ourselves doing is that that's a great example, just like dressing removes the fat content from the salad, the bun removes the fiber content or the carbs from the burger entirely, right? So you have these two things that are essentially band-aid mechanisms to get you through a specific meal. And they may

be beneficial. And the truth is that depending on whatever else you're ordering with that salad or with that burger, it may very well be a very satisfying and fulfilling and nourishing meal. But what is more of an issue is when we tend to do these things thinking that we're making a more virtuous choice and can't understand why we feel out of control or feel like our health is not something that is up to us or that certain aspects of our appetite have gone off the rails and that there's no way for us to get back in the driver's seat when it comes to making our own food choices. That's when we find ourselves, you know, going elbow deep into the cereal box in the pantry or eating a stale box of Cheez-Its

that are left over on someone else's desk. You know, that's the type of behavior that is what we've set ourselves up for failure by going without. When what we really need to be thinking more about is what would make this more satisfying, what would make this a more filling meal itself or snack itself. Skipping meals entirely is another one that is sort of like a dressing on the side. Like, I just can't eat breakfast because I'm never hungry in the morning. That is something I would hear a lot in some initial work with clients when we would get into the habit of noticing that actually what you're doing is eating very late at night because you were unsatisfied all day yesterday.

But don't you think, though, that people are unique in their own way? For example, let me explain what I mean. My dad never ate breakfast. I don't eat breakfast on a lot of days because I'm not hungry. I know another guy who eats dinner every night at 11 o'clock. He can't eat dinner at 6 o'clock. He eats at 11. He's not fat.

He's fine. That everybody has these, and to fight that because Jackie says eat every three hours, I don't want to. Oh, absolutely. So this would be where I would want to encourage you to start or to start reframing the way that you think about meals and snacks. So what I say to people very frequently is that, let's say it's not breakfast. What could be your first part of your meal for a day, right? And I go into a breakfast in two parts. That doesn't have to be at breakfast hour. That doesn't have to be, you know, immediately. It has to be something

a little bit closer to the time that you wake up than you did yesterday. So you just want to be thinking about making these small shifts that work for you within your everyday lifestyle, within the context of your appetite as well, what you currently like to do, what you currently feel. But I will say that the skipping of meals, you know, it may not be a hard and fast every three to four hours, but it may be the idea of making sure that you always have a midday meal or a midday few snacks at your desk or in your office or at home, wherever you plan on being. I think that one thing that some of the traditional diet culture kind of misses from the whole weight loss and health

equation is the idea that where you are matters just as much as what you're eating and how you're eating. So there's something to be said for the fact that, you know, our lives are not made up of just meals and snacks. They're made up of experiences. What is going to best nourish you for the experiences that you want to have, not only in the moment and not only for your health, you know, in the next 50 years, but what is going to fuel you to feel like you're at your best for the next few hours and then the next few hours after that until your next meal or until you go to bed. And I don't think that we spend enough time thinking about the foods that we eat and how they inform the other meals that we plan on eating in order to better our health and also lose weight for the long haul in ways that actually empower us rather than making us feel

ashamed. So that's sort of the ideology behind the three to four hours and the eat breakfast every day. The idea is really just to kind of think more about satiety, think more about consistency, and think about where you are when you have most of the meals and snacks that you eat every day. I always like to ask people when the topic comes up about diet and nutrition, we talk more about it, there are more books about it, there are more people talking about it, and yet we're fatter than we ever were. And back in the 50s and the 40s, people weren't talking about it a lot, but there wasn't the obesity problem. So what do you think happened? Well, I think that there is a massive communication deficit. I think that what we have is scientific outcomes or data that we get from various research studies

that divorce the science from the lifestyle application. So for example, let's say you were to go to your physician and you had, and he says to you, you know, your blood pressure is too high, cut back on the salt. In that kind of context, when you think about it, that sounds relatively simple or it sounds relatively easy to do, but the actual application of that is a little bit trickier. 80% of the sodium that we eat in the U.S. comes from processed foods and not the salt shaker. So if you're attempting to stop using salt on the food that you're making at home, then you haven't really done much for yourself. You know, when we go to the grocery store, you may see a product that says something like good source of vitamin C.

And that would mean that, you know, according to the FDA, it has to be above 10 percent of the daily value for vitamin C in order to make that type of nutrient content claim. And these things throw us off in the supermarket. We'll see tons of different claims on food products and think, OK, well, that, you know, this is vegan or this is gluten-free, so perhaps it's lower in sodium or this must be a better salt, this must contain less salt than what I had previously had. So we don't necessarily know how to apply these types of recommendations into our everyday lifestyles. The things that we also tend to do in terms of miscommunication is that we talk about what to cut out or eliminate or cut back on, or we use terminology like portion control. This is something that I think is just, if that were going to work for us, then it would be working by now.

I think instead, what we really need to focus on is what we can do more and what we can eat more of. So we can always eat more veggies, more fruit more often, more plant-based protein, a various mixed variety of seafood. These are the foods that we should be thinking about. How can we eat more of these foods? How can we add them into our everyday meals, our everyday snacks? How can we find ways to make it easier to eat better? Don't you think that there has been so much contradictory information from people in your industry with big credentials next to their name, like MD and PhD, that you have to cut out carbs, that you have to just eat protein, that you have to not use any oil, that people just

throw their hands up and go, oh, this is ridiculous. Absolutely. And a lot of where that comes from is you have individuals who are looking at a very specific pathway and have spent years studying that. And you'll be able to find plenty of research on both a low-fat diet and a low-carb diet. There's plenty of studies on both of those two different types of diets that show efficacy for weight loss. But can you keep that up long-term either way? What would you need in order to really sustain those habits? And how would your entire life need to change, right? So if your whole life has to be uprooted in order for you to create a new habit, that's likely not going to work for you because that's way too much work for anyone. You know, so when you think about it,

when you really think about it in the context of what a scientific experiment really means, that it's only as good as its application to your everyday life. When I listen to you, I hear, you know, that you have to take a holistic approach, that moderation is part of this. But people who are overweight and want to lose weight want to hear or expect to hear that you have to eat less. You cannot lose weight and not eat less. The math doesn't work. So the math doesn't necessarily work, but the mentality and the mindset shift does. I'm sorry, the mindset shift, that's what does work. So if I say to you, you can eat whatever you want, first of all, you've destigmatized a lot of foods out there that for many people seem to be problematic or off limits. So I'll often hear someone say,

oh, I can't keep those in the house because it's too tempting. I'll just eat all of them. Well, here's the thing. If you did not eat enough, if you didn't eat a first meal of the day, if you haven't eaten recently or you've skipped a meal or you haven't eaten a nutrient-dense meal or snack three or four hours before that, yeah, you might be set up, you're going to be primed to go crazy on that bag of jelly beans. But if you are actually making choices from a satisfied stomach, from a place of satiety, you're less likely to go crazy the next time you see a Cadbury cream egg, let's say, and actually make the choice to eat dessert versus not. There's also the idea of a lot of us are subclinically dehydrated. So we don't know that actually we may just very well be thirsty or we may be needing to add a little bit more

hydration into our day. And we don't think of these things first. But wait a second, you said that, you know, if you do the things you're talking about and you come from a place of being, feeling satisfied, that you'll make better choices and that you're less inclined to binge on jelly beans or Cadbury eggs. But my experience is, and I think that of many people, is that if you don't have those things in the house, then they're not a choice that you need to decline. You're not only unlikely to binge on them, it's impossible to binge on them because they're not there.

And that that's a better way to go than to have Cadbury eggs and jelly beans in your house and then have to fight off the temptation. Sure. Well, there's plenty of data really on both sides of the coin, because what I'm talking about in terms of indulgences is really more of an intuitive eating strategy and an intuitive eating practice, which has been really well studied. The idea is that not every single recommendation is going to work for every single person, right? But if you were to feel as though you could make choices from a more empowered place, you might have those jelly beans in the house, but not ever think about them either.

You know, so there is the idea that you don't have to permanently restrict any food. There may be times and places that you have to restrict for yourself certain items, right? Like you don't, we, when we go to the movie theater, you can expect to see popcorn and candy, but that those might not be things that are everyday foods for you to keep around all of the time because maybe those for you are foods that you would overeat. But if you are going somewhere that you know you want to have, let's say the key lime pie, that would be a moment where thinking about the flavor and the fulfillment that a certain meal or snack brings you in a given moment, there are ways to set yourself up to make those choices

rather than feel as though you're powerless against food and that food is making these decisions or making these decisions for you. I want people to feel like they're in the driver's seat when it comes to the food that fuels them, but also that fuels those enriching experiences that provide nourishment in a variety of ways. Well, it is refreshing to hear some food, nutrition, and diet advice from someone who isn't saying, you can never eat that, you should never eat this, you should only eat this.

That food's supposed to be enjoyable and fit into our life rather than us trying to fit into somebody's idea of what we should eat. Jacqueline London has been my guest. She's a registered dietitian. She is also the director of nutrition at Good Housekeeping, and her new book is called Dressing on the Side and Other Diet Myths Debunked. There's a link to her book in the show notes. Thanks, Jackie. Fantastic. Thank you so much. Are you one of those people who eats lunch at their desk and just keeps working? Well, knock it off. There are far too many reasons to take a real lunch break.

First of all, you're less likely to overeat. If you are eating and working at the same time, you're not noticing the signals when you're full, so you eat too much. And there's other research that shows that people who eat at their desk while they're working eat more later because the whole lunch experience was so unsatisfying. You also need a mental break. A real lunch break gives your brain time to replenish itself, which makes your work easier when you come back after lunch. It's an opportunity to enjoy something. Especially on those days when work is particularly tough,

a lunch break gives you something to look forward to and enjoy, and the positive emotions that result from that are vital to creativity. Plus, eating lunch at your desk is just so gross. Most workplaces are not cleaned like eating places are. And when was the last time you really cleaned your workspace? Your workspace is probably crawling with germs and not a good place to eat lunch. And that is something you should know. We're on Twitter. We're on there a lot.

Follow us at SomethingYSK. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity.

The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know

called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made

the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible.

The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now.