Something You Should Know - How to Get it All Done and Be Happy & Why Most Food Advice is Wrong - SYSK Choice

Episode Date: September 28, 2024

iPhone users have likely noticed that some texts show up in blue and some show up in green. What’s the difference? This episode begins by explaining why that happens and what it means. https://www.rd.com/article/why-are-my-texts-green/ Have you heard the expression “time poverty”? It’s when you have too much to do and never enough time to do it. Why live in time poverty when you can live in “time affluence”. Cassie Holmes is here to tell you how. She is a professor of marketing and behavioral decision making at UCLA Anderson School of Management and author of the book Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most (https://amzn.to/3QOReSV). Listen as she explains how to get the important things done and still have time for fun and pleasure. Is salt really all that bad for you? Do vegetarians actually live longer? Are sugar substitutes better than plain sugar? These are just some of the questions I explore with my guest Tim Spector. He is a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London and the author of four books, including, Spoon-Fed: Why Almost Everything We’ve Been Told About Food Is Wrong (https://amzn.to/3xQ77lB).Tim is on the advisory board of Zoe.com, a company that does research and offers personal nutrition (https://www.joinzoe.com) A lot of people wear the same shoes every day. There is a problem with that. Listen as I explain why the experts say you might want to think about rotating your shoes. Your feet will appreciate it. https://blog.schulershoes.com/can-i-wear-the-same-shoes-every-day/ PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! INDEED:  Get a $75 SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING  Support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.  Indeed.com/SOMETHING.  Terms and conditions apply. SHOPIFY:  Sign up for a $1 per-month trial period at https://Shopify.com/sysk . Go to SHOPIFY.com/sysk to grow your business – no matter what stage you’re in! DELL:  Dell Technologies and Intel are creating technology that loves ideas, expanding your business and evolving your passions! We push what technology can do, so great ideas can happen. Bring your ideas to life at https://Dell.com MINT MOBILE: Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at https://MintMobile.com/something! $45 upfront payment required (equivalent to $15/mo.).  New customers on first 3 month plan only. Additional taxes, fees, & restrictions apply. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, if you have an iPhone, you've probably noticed that some of your texts are blue and some are green. I'll explain why. Then, great strategies to get everything done and enjoy your free time. For example, Treat this weekend like a vacation. And what we found was that those who treated their weekend like a vacation

were happier when they were back at work. It was really the mindset. It allowed them to sort of quiet that mental to-do list. Also, why it's best to not wear the same shoes two days in a row. And a lot of what you've been told about food and nutrition is wrong, such as... We've been told to snack a lot, and that's bad advice.

The average American has six or seven meal events in a day, so their gut is never resting. We've been told things like smoothies are healthy and juices are healthy, and they're not. They're the opposite. All this today on Something You Should Know. This is an ad for BetterHelp. Welcome to the world. Please, read your personal owner's manual thoroughly.

In it, you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings and how to find happiness and peace of mind. Thank you, and have a nice life. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's betterhelp.com. 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 to Something You Should Know. If you own an iPhone, maybe you've wondered, as I have lately, why some of my texts are green and others are blue. Well, there's a simple answer. A green text message on your iPhone is not a sign that your phone number was blocked or the text was not delivered. What it means is the message was sent as a standard SMS message rather than an iMessage. iMessages will appear blue on your phone. So what's the difference?

Well, SMS, which stands for Short Messaging Service, is a traditional form of text messaging that uses cellular signal to send and receive messages. iMessages, on the other hand, is an Apple-specific messaging system that sends text through Wi-Fi or data. So there are some pros and cons. SMS messages are compatible with Androids, iPhones, and all other types of smartphones, while iMessages can only be sent and received by Apple devices. iMessages are more secure than SMS messages. Unlike SMS messages, iMessages and other messaging apps offer end-to-end encryption to prevent user data from falling into the wrong hands.

And that's why those texts are green. And that is something you should know. Have you ever heard the term time poverty? Even if you haven't, you probably get a sense of what it means. If you live in time poverty, you never have enough time to do everything you think you need to do and still feel good about it. And I think that describes a lot of us a lot of the time. Yet it does seem that there are some people who have really mastered their time in the sense that they seem to get things done. They aren't always complaining. They don't have enough time. They seem to have an abundance of time. So how do you go from time poverty to that place where you feel in control of your time, that you have plenty of time to get it all done?

Here to offer some helpful solutions and insight into this is Cassie Holmes. She is a professor of marketing and behavioral decision-making at UCLA Anderson School of Management, and she has a book out called Happier Hour, How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most. Hi, Cassie. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi, Mike. Something You Should Know. Hi Mike, thanks for having me.

So a lot of people talk about time management, how to get more done in less time, how to be productive, and everybody has their own theories on how to get everything done. So start us off here with something that gives me a sense of your perspective about how we use our time. There's an interesting analogy which I share with my students, and it's an affecting analogy that I continue to revisit as I think about how I spend my time. And it's a video that I show them on the first day of class. And it's a professor that walks into the classroom and he puts a big plastic jar

on the table. And then he pours from a bag, he pours a bunch of golf balls into the jar that and they fill to the top. And he asked the students, is the jar full? And they're like, yes. And then from the bag, he brings out pebbles and he pours the pebbles into the jar and they sort of, you know, move around the golf balls and they reach the top and he asks, is the jar full? And the students say yes. And then from the bag, he pulls out sand and he pours the sand into the jar and it sort of fills all the spaces around the pebbles and the golf balls. And he asks, you know, is the jar full? And he just, and the students, you know, are laughing at this point and like, yes. And he points out that the plastic jar is the time that we have available in our life.

The golf balls are all the really important things, those activities that do bring you joy, that connect you to the people that you love, those activities that are in line with your purpose and what you really want to accomplish in your life. The pebbles are all these other things that you sort of have to do, and the sand is everything else. And notably, it's all that sort of stuff that fills our time, whether it's social media, whether it is, you know, constantly responding to your inbox, whether it is those little items that find their way on the to-do list. If you put the sand in, had put the sand in the jar first, the golf balls wouldn't have all fit. And so it's really important to not let the sand fill our time. And then actually there was one more step in this demonstration where he pulls out from the bag

two bottles of beer and he opens one of them, pours it into the jar, and then he takes the other, opens it, and he takes a sip. And one of the students asked, what's the deal with the beer? And he said, no matter how full your time feels how busy you feel you always have time to have a drink with a friend and I think this is really

helpful for us to recognize because we can't let the sand fill our time and take our time, we really have to put the golf balls in first, and then the sand can wash in around it. That's a great story because it does, it really illustrates time and how we use it so well. But all of this problem with time management seems to start with the sense that people have that there's too much to do and not enough time to do it all. It is really a reflection of how people experience time poverty, which is the acute feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it. And I conducted a national poll that showed that nearly one half of Americans report feeling time poor. And this is bad because our research shows that it is associated with reduced health, less confidence, so we feel less able to accomplish what we set out to do. It makes us less nice. We're less likely to spend the time to help others. And most importantly, and which I care most about,

is people's emotional well-being. People who feel time poor are less happy in their days and less satisfied with their lives overall because of higher feelings of stress and feeling overwhelmed. So I wonder why it is that people have that there's too much to do and not enough time. Where does that come from? Well, some of it comes from our expectations of ourselves. So with time poverty being this sense of having too much to do with technology, our smartphones are very smart and it allows us at any moment, we can look at all the things that we

could be doing. Also, our phones allow us to get tasks done. So we constantly feel like there are things that we should be doing. So this expectation, you know, there's, of course, not enough hours in the day, let alone, you know, years, an entire lifetime to be able to do all of those things that we could possibly do. And we think that we should possibly be doing. So part of it is expectations. Another thing is that our perception of how much time we have is subjective. And our research shows, and I can speak to it, is the role of self-efficacy, the extent to which we feel like we can get done what we want to and think we can and should be doing, and to the extent that we feel like we can accomplish what we set out to do that decreases our sense of time

poverty, increases our sense of time affluence, expanding our sense of time. You know, what you said was interesting because I know people, I see them, friends of mine on Facebook, and all the stuff that they post, I wonder how in the world do they have time for all of this? One day they're in Sacramento and the next day they're in Italy and then she's back at work. And I think, who has time for all? I wish I could do that. So it makes me kind of envious of, I want to do that. Yeah. And also it's not only that there are individuals that are posting when they're out and about, but they are only posting when they are out and about. And the

fact that you have constant exposure to lots of different people. And so at any moment, when you're sitting on your couch, I mean, the likelihood that you're opening your phone and scrolling is when you're waiting in line somewhere, or you're sitting on your couch. I mean, the likelihood that you're opening your phone and scrolling is when you're waiting in line somewhere or you're sitting on your couch, not on vacation or not out to a fun dinner with your friends. And so anytime you open your phone and look on social media, you see those are wonderful smile filled experiences that folks are having. And research shows that when we use social media in this passive way, as we're observing other people's lives, it decreases our sense of self-esteem and increases our sense of loneliness because we aren't there with them having fun at that moment or at every moment. Well, and I've talked about this before, this perception that I have of people who talk about time management, that it's often the idea is you manage your time better so that you can be more productive, so that you can get more things done, which you manage better, so you can get even more things done.

And it never ends. It's always cramming more into less time. And that drives me nuts. Yeah. And that's actually what I think we need to be programming against. In my work, I'm looking at how do we invest our time so that we look back on our days and feel fulfilled, not just that the day was overly full. So I'm driven and in my work, my research, as well as what I teach our MBA students and what I write about is how do we spend our time in ways that are worthwhile,

not merely driven by efficiency. And so it is driven by a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction, not just getting more things done. But the problem with that is that there are a lot of things I have to do that aren't particularly fulfilling. They still have to get done and they take up a lot of the day. Yeah, and there are things. And so what we need to do is to, first of all, reflect and identify within the activities that we spend our time on. What are those activities that are indeed worthwhile? What are those activities that are indeed worthwhile? What are those activities that are wasteful? And there's a really helpful time tracking exercise where it has you write down what you're doing, but also how are you feeling?

How satisfying? How worthwhile was that time? And you do this over the course of one to two weeks. And I actually suggest two weeks because it's a more complete reflection of the activities that fill your day-to-day life. And what that allows you to do is identify what are those worthwhile ways of spending? What are those wasteful ways of spending? As well as how much time you're spending on these various activities, which gets to your point.

There are some activities that are surprisingly, we spend a surprising amount of time on them, but they're neither necessary, nor are they fun, right? So just having that data allows you to take those activities out of your day. But then there are those activities that you do have to do, but aren't necessarily fun and fulfilling. Commuting, in the time tracking research,

commuting, for example, is one of the activities that consistently is rated as the least happy because the time that you're spending doing it feels like a waste. You're just trying to get through it. Same with household chores. So for those activities that feel wasteful, but we do need to spend the time on, then there are other strategies that you can do like bundling. So doing an activity during that time. So during your commute, instead of mindlessly flipping through the radio stations,

if you listen to an audio book, or if you listen to a podcast, that time all of a sudden becomes enriching. And I will also point out, when we feel time poor, I have folks complete this sentence, I don't have time to. And one of the things that people don't say or say that they don't have time to do is to read for pleasure. But if you spent the time that you were in the car commuting or that you were folding laundry, doing household chores, listening to an audio book, then there you can get through many books that you're quote-unquote reading for pleasure. And that time that felt or that was potentially wasteful, all of a sudden has become much more worthwhile. We're talking about time poverty and time

management with Cassie Holmes. She's professor of marketing and behavioral decision-making at UCLA Anderson School of Management and author of the book, Happier Hour, How to Beat Distractions, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals,

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Melissa and Doug, the play is pretend, the skills are real. Look for Melissa and Doug wherever you shop for toys. So comment on something I think a lot of people who work at home, and there's a lot more than there used to be, the problem of when you work at home, it's like you're always at work. You can always go back to the office in the house or the spare bedroom or wherever your work is set up and do some work. And so it's very hard to stop being at work and be at home. And I think people would love a way to do that better. Yeah. And not only if you work from home, but even for folks who are at home,

they always have that never-ending pile of household chores. There's always these things that we feel like we should be doing. And one way that we have found in our research through a series of experiments is actually treating the time that you have off like a vacation. So we ran experiments with working Americans leading into a regular weekend. On the Friday, we randomly assigned half of them with the simple set of instructions, treat this weekend like a vacation. And we told the others, treat this weekend like a regular weekend. We followed back up with them on Monday when they were back at work. And what we found was that those who treated their weekend like a vacation were happier when they were back at work. And what we found was that those who treated their weekend

like a vacation were happier when they were back at work. They also enjoyed the time more over the course of the weekend. And what's interesting is that the effect on happiness wasn't about different activities that they did compared to the regular weekend, it was really the mindset that folks had when they were treating their time off their weekend like a vacation. It allowed them to sort of quiet that mental to-do list. It allowed them to turn off that sense that they had to be on, on their email, responding to work, or even thinking about work. And that break, mental break from the routine of busyness is so needed. And it allows us to return to work fully rejuvenated and engaged, having spent the time off that we do have more happily.

So Cassie, let's talk about some of the nuts and bolts that people use to get things done, like to-do lists and blocking out time to address a task, those kind of things. Do they work? Are they effective? Is there a better way? The time blocking is important. The thing that we often don't block time for, and that is really important to block time for, are those activities that bring us joy. Those activities that we always sort of push off, where it's like, as soon as I get all the things that I need to done, then I will sit down and have a, you know, a relaxed dinner with my family and have that conversation. It's like, once I get everything

done, then I will go meet up with my friend for a drink or a cup of coffee. But we never get through our to-do list. And by going through weeks and ultimately years, and we look back and we haven't spent our time on these activities that are absolutely worthwhile because they connect us to the people in our lives, which is one of the most fundamental primary contributors to happiness and satisfaction in life. We often forfeit what is really worthwhile for just reacting to the busy and the to-do list. So how do you, because a problem that I sometimes have, and I'm sure a lot of people have this, is, okay, so you carve out some time for things that bring you joy, but you haven't gotten everything you think you need to get done first. It's very hard to stay in the moment of being joyful when you know there are some things you should have done before you left. Once you realize and recognize how critical those activities that are potentially joyful are

for overarching well-being to reduce the burnout that is plaguing so many, then you recognize that, in fact, all of those items on the to-do list, there will always be items on the to-do list. One way to recognize just how important these joyful moments are that so often we don't make time for is recognizing and even counting how many times do you have left to do this and also counting how many times you've have left to do this? And also counting how many times you've done it in the past. So often when you reflect back on your last two weeks and like, what are the things that brought me joy? There are these very mundane, everyday types of experiences.

And since they happen every day, we assume they will continue to happen every day and that they will continue to be available to us. But that's often not the case. It's important to recognize just how important those activities are and so much more so than, you know, the last three items on the to-do list, which there will always be more items on the to-do list. You know, something I've always wondered is when people get older, they retire, they move into their later years, their final years, and they look back, do most people generally say, yeah, I did it pretty well, I managed my life and my time pretty well, or is there a lot of regret? I have my students, and I encourage folks to do this,

it's one of the assignments, is to interview someone who is towards the end of their life, who from your view has done it right. And sort of collapsing all of the reflections from what these interviews have shown is that in terms of what is your greatest source of pride, more than 75% of folks reflecting on their lives, and these are very accomplished people, right? It is their lives. And these are very accomplished people, right? It is their relationships. It is the time that they spent with their loved ones. And also, what is your

greatest source of regret is not spending enough time with those important people. You know, the greatest source of pride, no one ever says it is having an empty inbox or having a to-do list where everything is checked off. It is very important and useful to think about our time, taking that bird's eye broader perspective, thinking in terms of years, and that will inform how we spend our hours. Well, you've certainly given people something to think about in terms of how they use their time and some practical skills that can help them use it better. So this is a very worthwhile conversation.

I've been speaking with Cassie Holmes. She's a professor of marketing and behavioral decision-making at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and author of the book, Happier Hour, How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most. And you'll find a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for coming on, Cassie. Well, thank you.

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been interested in what people believe about food and health, what foods are good for you, and why, and why some foods are bad for you. People have some pretty strong beliefs about food, and interestingly, some of those things people believe are myths, according to the latest research. Here to discuss these myths and beliefs is Tim Spector. He is professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College in London, and he's author of four books. His latest is called Spoonfed, Why Almost Everything You've Been Told About Food Is Wrong. Hi, Tim. Great to be here. Looking forward to it. So we should probably talk about where these myths come from, why they persist, but actually,

I think I would just rather just dive into the myths. And one of them is that myth that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Firstly, our ancestors didn't eat breakfast. When you look at tribes, the hunter-gatherer tribes that I spent some time with, like the Hadza, they don't have a word for breakfast and nobody really eats anything before about 10, 30, 11 o'clock in the morning. And we're not designed to be hungry as soon as we wake up. So this is just a feature of modern living, plus advertising by cereal companies. And we're supported by some early evidence that the metabolism was better in the morning. Therefore, if you had to eat your energy, you're much better at processing it in the morning than you were in the evening.

And it turns out that that data was based on very small numbers of people, about nine people, and that effect disappears with age as well. So whereas some people metabolize better in the mornings, others don't, but we don't have huge hunger, so we don't need to eat at that time for most people. Some people love it, other people don't need it. But I also remember hearing things like, well, you should eat a breakfast because

your brain will work better. You'll do better in school if you eat a breakfast rather than go to school on an empty stomach. Again, those studies were all flawed. They took kids who usually skipped breakfast at home and they saw that they did worse at school but that was because they were generally coming from poorer households where there was less parental control or they were generally disruptive kids so when you do a randomized trial you don't see the same effects at all. And there's less data in kids than there are in adults, but there's absolutely nothing showing a harmful effect for the average child of skipping breakfast as long as they make up for those missing meals later on in the day.

They can have them later in the day and there's no evidence it does affect their brain. And then there's always the question about, well, if you are gonna eat breakfast, what do you eat? Do you eat a high protein breakfast, or should you have oatmeal and cereal, or does it matter, or what? Yeah, well, there's never been a great consensus of that, and around the world, people eat very different breakfasts.

Some people are eating the wrong breakfasts for their own metabolism and we've done research showing that there's huge variety between people in terms of how they respond to an identical breakfast muffin and this is the basis of these studies we we've been doing for the last five years, where we've given thousands of people an identical breakfast muffin, high in sugar, with some fat in it, and shown tenfold differences in the metabolic responses to that food, which has big implications for their long-term health, metabolism, inflammation, et cetera. So some people, a high-carb breakfast suits them perfectly. They don't get these sugar spikes. They don't get hungrier in the day.

Other people, it's completely the wrong breakfast, and they suffer lack of energy, sugar spikes, and they'll be eating more over the next 24 hours. And they should be switching to more a high fat or a high protein breakfast. So lately there has been a lot of talk about and books written about sugar, that sugar is the big problem, that there's sugar in everything, that we need to get sugar out of our diet that if we could just do that that would help the obesity problem and and you know cure a lot of the nutrition problems in western society what do you say there's some truth in that but also there's the danger of reductionism that we uh lump

everything together food is incredibly complex made out of thousands of different chemicals at least 26,000 different chemicals in the average foods we eat and we're focusing on one and This is a mistake because some people can process sugar and it turns what you mean by sugar because carbohydrates initially whether it's as a sugary drink or it's in starchy foods like rice or pasta ultimately contain sugar and so some of those are also quite healthy because they have fiber in them they have protein in them, etc. If we're talking about added sugar, as in sodas, etc., then I am in agreement that they are not good for the vast majority of people, and they are a major problem, adding to the obesity and diabetes crisis, but they're absolutely not the only

problem. And I think if we fixate on one particular item, we're missing the big picture, which is overall the quality of our food, because just by, for example, switching sugar to artificial sweeteners doesn't improve the quality of your food you're eating, doesn't help your gut microbes at all, and doesn't improve your health. And surely we have too much sugar, correct? But let's be

really sure about what we replace it with. And so this is the perfect example of where people get confused because artificial sweeteners, people use them because they're supposedly an alternative to sugar without the calories and that that would be better. You're saying that we don't know enough to say that they're safe. So on a practical level, what's a person to do? Is it better to put sugar in my coffee or is it better to put artificial sweetener in my coffee? Well, it's definitely better to put no sweetener in your coffee and to to try and wean yourself off at the moment the the studies don't show a clear difference other than for your teeth on switching from sugar to artificial sweeteners so in the future we should be able to personalize which sweeteners

might be less harmful for you because there does seem to be from the studies a degree of individuality, just as some people can't tolerate stevia or saccharin because of metallic tastes. We also think that our gut microbes respond differently to these artificial sweeteners. So what does the latest research say about calories? Is a calorie a calorie? It's all calories in, calories out. Cut your calories and you'll lose weight.

Or is there more to it than that? My beef is not so much that the calories don't exist. They do. I'm not a calorie denier but calorie counting is completely worthless I think we have to change our whole attitude towards calories at the moment it's the number one thing people view food as from this calorie window where it's we should be looking at the food quality looking at many other different things about the food. And calories is nearly the last thing we look at. We never discuss calories at all. We're only interested in improving things that are healthy for your gut, gut friendly foods, but also

foods that might reduce your sugar peaks or your fat peaks. I think this is the way to go because the food manufacturers use calories as a disguise to hide the fact that you're getting ultra-processed food. And 60% of all American food energy is now provided by ultra-processed means, which even if it's lower in calories on the label or it's got some artificial sweetness to reduce those calories, it's still really bad for you and it's probably the number one enemy for our bodies at the moment. So when you say that counting calories isn't a very good way to do it, that we should focus on the quality of the food what does that mean what give me an example well it means that if you're you're in the shopping aisle of a supermarket you see a product

and it says low calorie uh healthy labels on it you should avoid that and you should go for something that uh is less processed it can be the identical sort of item but it has less chemicals in it it's less processed and it those equivalent foods will make you less hungry they will give you less tiredness and they will be better for your gut microbes so your long-term health is going to be better. There's several studies now comparing people having identical meals, identical calorie meals, one with whole foods,

the other with ultra-processed foods, grade as equally tasty. The ones with the ultra-processed foods, people are going back and eating more of it, up to 300 calories a day more in identical circumstances. Calorie counting has also been shown to be virtually impossible. It's not accurate on the packets. It's not accurate in restaurants.

You can't measure it yourself at home properly. And even if you could, you can't measure how much you're burning. So all this common myth that calories in, calories out, you can measure it yourself. These fancy watches that tell you how many calories you've burned in the gym, it's all nonsense. The more you exercise, for example, the more your body slows down. You don't need those extra calories. It isn't a simple equation that anybody can sort out. And we're all hugely different. You just said the more you exercise, the more your body slows down. What does that mean?

For the last 20 years, we've had these slogans, eat less, move more, under the understanding that if you exercise more, and that's a good weight loss strategy and exercise itself is not a good weight loss strategy and that's been shown now in multiple studies across the world so unless you're a professional athlete you're running marathons or triathlons regularly, then the sort of exercise that most people do three times a week doesn't help weight loss and may make it worse because you think you are entitled to more

calories and you'll eat more. This is the new science. And there's a pretty good consensus on this that exercise is not a useful way of weight control. Although exercise is a pretty good consensus on this that exercise is not a useful way of weight control although exercise is a very good health measure and prevents many diseases so i'm absolutely not against exercise but the only way you can deal with excess weight is to change your diet dietary fat that's one that for so long we were told it's all because you eat too much fat, that's why you're fat and you got to stop eating fat. Low fat is better and that all seems to be falling apart. That's right.

In the last five years, the consensus has really shifted even in the sort of rather conservative world of nutrition, such that no one believes this story anymore. People realize that fats are very complicated. Some fats are highly healthy for you. And people on low fat diets generally do not do better than people on high fat diets, given that all things are equal. So a label that says low fat, low calorie is quite likely to be very unhealthy for you. So we encourage people who haven't been tested and don't have major problems processing fats to have high fat meals. And that's, I've switched my breakfast, for example, from a high carb breakfast of cereal or oat porridge to yogurt, nuts, seeds, etc. And it's much better for me. And that's very high in fat. So most fats are actually fine for you. It's the ones in ultra processed foods that you still need to avoid there has been a shift and recommendations to have a more plant-based diet and lots of people point

to various parts in the country where or in the world where people eat a more plant-based diet and they live longer and whatnot what does the research say the research says that generally vegans and vegetarians do live longer but they also have generally healthier lifestyles so it's been quite hard to do these long-term studies to prove that that is true but there's a general consensus that people have plantominant diets do better. But in a number of studies, including some we did when we combined with the American Gut Project, found that as long as you're having a predominantly plant-based diet, whether you eat meat or fish or not, it's not a big factor.

It seems conventional wisdom. I mean, I've heard doctors talk about this. I hear moms talk about this, that too much salt in your diet is bad for you, that salt can cause hypertension and heart disease and all kinds of problems. Yeah, I used to believe that as well. And that's what I used to tell my patients and realize that things have changed. And there've been a number of studies following up people who'd followed the American Heart Association advice and restricted their salt. And they turned out to have higher rates of diabetes and kidney disease. And when I looked at the data again,

most recent data shows that you get rather a modest reduction in blood pressure, because that's the main reason to reduce your salt particularly with many people being hypertensive but for the average person without a problem it only goes down by about 1% there are some groups like African Americans who have high blood pressure where you get a much bigger response maybe five or ten percent% reduction with salt reduction. But for the average European ancestry individual without other major risk factors, the risks of salt restriction to the American levels outweigh the benefits.

And so I've changed my mind and I no longer recommend salt restriction SEO in one of those high-risk groups. I also tried it myself and it makes your life pretty miserable because if you follow them to the letter, you can't have more than a half a teaspoon of salt a day and food tastes terrible. I don't know if you've ever tried it. All the studies now are really showing that salt reduction has not been proved to reduce heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, et cetera, although it does reduce your blood pressure a little bit.

What does seem to work better is adding more potassium to your diet. That seems to be a much better way, and you can get a lot of potassium through many plants, fruits, and vegetables. And lastly, coffee. Coffee, we've been told it's good for you then it's bad for you and then maybe it's on the good list again so

where are we now we are very firmly on that coffee is a health food it's packed with polyphenols it's got more fiber in it than a glass of orange juice. And basically, most Americans, it's a major source of fiber in their diet. So I think we need to revisit coffee and put that in the health food shelf and throw away the orange juice because it's been associated with reduced risk of heart attacks, strokes, and improves longevity. So I think that's one of the good things about the American diet that I think people can go back to, as long as you don't have too much sugar and milk in it. And it's really because we've discovered the gut microbes, and that's how coffee has its effects. We can tell

instantly if someone's a coffee drinker from looking at their microbes, because they're these very specific bugs that just love that coffee. And presumably, they are sending out these chemical signals to the rest of the body, keeping it healthy, particularly keeping our immune system healthy. So based on this latest research, what do you do? What's the prescription for a healthy diet? We can't be too prescriptive because everyone is different. But firstly, if you're eating mainly plants, it's sort of harder to overeat. I tell people try and eat 30 plants, different plants a week.

And that includes nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices. And all of those are going to help your gut diversity. Second thing is try and pick plants that are high in these defense chemicals, polyphenols that are brightly colored. So these are things like berries, nuts, seeds, but also dark chocolate, coffee, we mentioned, olive oil, and even red wine. Thirdly, have some fermented food, good quality cheese, yogurts, kefir, kombucha, kraut, kimchi. And finally finally reduce the amount of ultra processed foods in your diet massively and if you do that and you also increase the time

you're not eating so you try and eat within say a 10-hour window rather than eating all the time as we've been taught in the past as a general rule those things work pretty well and you'll find that your body starts to get in tune with that and and back to where the sort of state we should have been real quick what are some of the other things you hear people talk about that you know scientifically it just doesn't hold up we've been told to snack a lot and that's bad advice we've been told there's such things as you know, scientifically, it just doesn't hold up. We've been told to snack a lot, and that's bad advice. We've been told there's such things as, you know, regular healthy protein snacks, and they're all bad for us.

The average American has at least six or seven meal events in a day, so their gut is never resting. We've been told things like smoothies are healthy and juices are healthy, and they're not. They're the opposite. And I think people need to start thinking and listening to their bodies more that if they do come off ultra processed food, suddenly feel they have more energy. Without cutting back on calories or anything else, you'll find you have more energy and less hunger.

Well, I think you said earlier that, you know, people eat a lot of times, six meal events a day. It didn't used to be that way. And that just doesn't seem like that's a good thing. Absolutely. I mean, I've spent a lot of time in Spain and in Mediterranean countries, and there's a strict culture here of you have a proper meal and you don't snack and it doesn't matter if you're hungry you don't suddenly uh change course

you're waiting for that meal and it may be a and they spend twice as long actually sitting down eating as the average American but they don't feel the urge to go to the local 7-Eleven because they have a hunger pang. Well, like I said in the very beginning, I'm very interested in food and what people believe about food and what's the best way to eat. And this has been really interesting and helpful. Tim Spector has been my guest. He's a professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London, and the name of his book is Spoonfed, Why Almost Everything We've Been Told About Food Is Wrong. There's a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. And Tim is also on the advisory board of zoe.com. It's a company that does research and offers personal nutrition. If you are interested, just go to joinzoe.com for more information.

Thanks, Tim. Thanks a lot. Do you wear the same shoes pretty much every day? It turns out it would be better if you rotated shoes, according to Dan Hoosom, who is a board-certified pedorthist. I don't think I've ever heard that word before, but it means he's a foot specialist. The repetitive stresses of wearing the same shoes

day after day, hour after hour, can eventually make you uncomfortable. Rotating in a different pair of shoes gives the foot and leg muscles a chance to rest by engaging different muscles. Just make sure that the other shoes that you rotate in fit properly. Even changing your shoes during the day can offer some relief. It's like giving your feet a fresh start because they're able to start working a different stress pattern.

Also, your feet sweat during the day, so by rotating shoes, you give each pair a chance to dry out. And that is something you should know. I always like to end the podcast by asking you to share this podcast with someone you know, and it's hard to keep coming up with clever ways to do that, so I'll just ask you to please share this podcast, let your friends hear what you hear, and hopefully they'll become a listener too. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Do you love Disney? Do you love top 10 lists? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show,

we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. The parks, the movies, the music, the food, the lore. There is nothing we don't cover on our show. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed. I had Danielle and Megan record some answers to seemingly meaningless questions. I asked Danielle what Megan record some answers to seemingly meaningless questions. I asked Danielle, what insect song is typically higher pitched in hotter temperatures and lower pitched in cooler temperatures?

You got this. No, I didn't. Don't believe that. About a witch coming true? Well, I didn't either. Of course, I'm just a cicada. I'm crying. I'm so sorry.

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