The Dr. Hyman Show - The Secret To Losing Weight And Feeling Great with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

Episode Date: December 29, 2021

This episode is sponsored by Essentia, Thrive Market, and Rupa Health.   If you stop to look at the real reasons you’re eating certain foods, it’s not a lack of self-control like the stigma suggests. It is a lack of other things in your life, though. Today on The Doctor’s Farmacy, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and I break down the factors that contribute to overeating and eating nutrient-poor foods and look at the best methods for healthy and lasting weight loss.    Dr. Chatterjee is regarded as one of the most influential medical doctors in the UK and wants to change how medicine will be practiced for years to come. He hosts the most listened to health podcast in the UK and Europe, Feel Better, Live More—which regularly tops the Apple Podcast charts and is listened to by over 2 million people every single month.    This episode is brought to you by Essentia, Thrive Market, and Rupa Health.   Essentia is having its last big sale of the year now. Get 25% off plus an additional exclusive $100 off with a purchase of a Queen, King, or California King mattress here.   Thrive Market is offering all Doctor's Farmacy listeners an extra 25% off your first purchase and a free gift when you sign up for Thrive Market here.     Rupa Health is a place for Functional Medicine practitioners to access more than 2,000 specialty lab tests from over 20 labs like DUTCH, Vibrant America, Genova, Great Plains, and more. You can check out a free live demo with a Q&A or create an account here.     Here are more of the details from our interview (audio version / Apple Subscriber version):  A personalized and compassionate approach to weight loss (7:13 / 3:24)         Why do we eat? (14:55 / 11:07)  Eliminating blame and shame around weight gain and weight loss (18:50 / 15:00)   Examining what we are hungry for (26:25 / 21:05)           Making your environment and home a “safe zone” (33:16 / 28:24)    Planning your nutritional week (40:25 / 35:03) The cost, time, and skills needed to cook for yourself (42:11 / 36:53)         How close are you to feeling great? (54:31 / 49:55)        The role of exercise in weight loss (58:06 / 52:46)     The 3 daily habits that Dr. Chatterjee recommends (1:07:06 / 1:01:50)  Learn more about Dr. Chatterjee at https://drchatterjee.com/ and get Dr. Chatterjee’s book, Feel Great, Lose Weight: Simple Habits for Lasting and Sustainable Weight Loss at https://drchatterjee.com/feel-great-lose-weight.

Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. It's about applying the rules of behavior change to everything we want, whether that's weight loss, mental health, physical, whatever it is. Don't try and think willpower will be enough, because in the long term, it rarely will be. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Mark. Let's talk about sleep. I used to think that MD stood for medical deity, meaning I didn't have to follow the same sleep rules as every other human being. I stayed up late, working long shifts in the ER,

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I know you're going to love your Essentia mattress as much as I do. Now, time and again, I've had patients tell me they're too busy to eat healthy, but that's when I ask them how much time they spend on social media or email. I like to tell them if they have time to scroll, they have time to shop online for healthy foods. With Thrive Market, you can order all your favorite healthy pantry staples, snacks, household and body care goods, and so much more, and have it delivered right to your door. Thrive Market's an online membership-based grocery store that, personal care items, and more. And they make it super easy to search by category like paleo, vegan, low sugar, gluten-free. You can get a monthly or annual Thrive

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If you join today, you can get an extra 40% off your first order and a free gift. That's Thrive Market, T-H-I-R-V-E Market.com slash Hyman for 40% off your first order plus a free gift. Just in case you missed that, it's thrivemarket.com slash hyman. Hey, everyone. As 2021 comes to a close, my team and I are excited to re-air some of our best episodes of the year. And thank you for listening to the podcast. It's truly one of my favorite things to do. We wish you all the best for a happy and healthy year ahead. And now on to the episode. Welcome to the doctor's pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, and that's pharmacy with an F,

F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, a place for conversations that matter. And if you've ever struggled to lose weight, well, this conversation is going to matter to you. It's with a great friend of mine, extraordinary doctor, incredible contributor to health and wellness field, my friend, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, who's one of the most influential doctors in the UK, and he wants to change how medicine is practiced for many years to come, which I hope he does. His mission is to help 100 million people around the globe live better lives. Why just 100 million? Why not a billion? Why not 7 seven million you're thinking small wrong you gotta think bigger okay he hosts the most listened to health podcast in the uk and europe called feel better live more which regularly tops the apple podcast charge and is listened to by over two million people every single month each of his four books have been Sunday Times bestsellers, including his latest,

Feel Great, Lose Weight, which will be published in the UK and Canada. And so I'm so excited. This book is out. It's ready to be bought and listened to and read if you want to listen to it or read it. He hosts also his own wellness show on BBC Radio and regularly appears on BBC television, has been featured in so many publications, including the New York Times, Forbes, Guardian, Vogue, and his TED Talk, How to Make Disease Disappear, has been viewed over 3 million times. Holy cow, that's impressive. Well, welcome. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm good, Mark. How are you? I'm good. So you're in London, I'm in Hawaii, and it's morning here and night there. Crazy world we live in. We're all

hunkered down and sequestered, but we're still doing good work. And you've just created this new book called Feel Great, Lose Weight. And you really tackle one of the most difficult challenges we have because, you know, as we have been, you know, looking at what's happening to our population, we've gone from in America from, I think, a rate of about 2% obesity or 4% obesity to like 42% obesity in the time of my lifetime. And in the UK, it's coming close to that. And Europe is right behind. And yet, you know, we spend billions and billions of dollars as people, literally the weight loss industry is billions and billions of dollars. And people still struggle. And what most people try doesn't work. And they tend to drop a few pounds. They gain it back. And it's a vicious cycle. And over the years,

they end up getting into real trouble. And we do see this increasing burden of obesity-related diseases that's now killing over 11 million people a year. And so we see this increasing burden of obesity-related diseases that's now killing over 11 million people a year. And so we're kind of stuck, but you really tackle this issue in a new way in your book, Feel Great, Lose Weight. So why don't you share with us sort of what inspired you to sort of write one more weight loss book, because why do we need one? And two, what are some of the key ways that you have reframed things according to what you call the four w's and maybe the one h to rethink the problem of how we lose weight and sustain the weight loss yeah i mean it's a great question mark and as you've so you know well pointed out

this is a massive problem not just in the us not just in the uk but in many many countries around the world. And we're all struggling to find, you know, what is the best way? Is there a way that's going to work for everybody? And many different people are trying. And we're all trying to contribute in the best way that we can to help tackle this problem. But the reason I wrote this book, Mark, is because I felt that in the common narrative, what I felt was missing was a compassionate approach to this issue. A lot of the approaches are based on deprivation, restriction, punishing regimes. And I think those things can work in the short term, for sure. You can do any diet or regime for two or three weeks and you'll probably feel better. But as you know, Mark, most patients, yes, that can be helpful, but most patients aren't looking for short-term

change. They're looking for real transformation in their lives. They want more energy. They want to feel great, right? They don't want to lose weight and feel that their life is not going the way they want to. And I've seen this with many patients, Mark, that they had to really punish themselves to lose weight. And yes, they lost weight, but they weren't liking themselves. They didn't enjoy who they were. And what I try to do is, as you say, there's so many books on this topic already. What can I contribute that might be fresh? Because I'm not interested in writing a book that's already been written.

I'm interested in trying to contribute maybe a fresh perspective that may help some people who've not been helped with other approaches. And it's a very rounded approach. So I split the book up into, yes, what we eat, which of course, what we eat is, you know, and you've written many fantastic books on this topic about what we should be eating to fuel our bodies. But often what doesn't get written about also is why we eat, you know, what's driving us to eat certain things, even when we know they're probably not helping us. And so that could be stress, loneliness, boredom, all kinds of emotional issues, which I don't feel are tackled enough. So it's what we eat, why we eat, when we eat, how we eat, and also where we eat. And I felt that was quite a fresh

way of looking at this, looking at these five separate areas. But the underlying belief mark behind this book is, you know, I've been seeing patients for 20 years now. I know you've been seeing patients for a lot longer than I have. But in those 20 years, I found that you can almost always help somebody lose weight in a sustainable way, in one that works them in the long term, once you find the right approach for them. And I think that's what my book does. It helps people once you find the right approach for them and i think that's what my book does it helps people find what is the right approach for me yeah that's right i mean it's funny i i love the way you you titled it which is feel great lose weight not lose weight feel great and i think that's a very that's a very important distinction because you know my

framework is not actually telling people to lose weight is to get them healthy and as you create health the side effect is weight loss yeah i just spot on i mean you've just nailed it right there and actually there was a bit of if i'm honest there was a bit of conflict with the publisher over this because i bet there was they're like lose weight feel great. Yeah. And I was like, no, listen, listen, this is the point of the book is it's feel great first, weight loss comes as a side effect of feeling great. And I also, you know, I was very reticent to write a book around weight loss, Mark, if I'm honest, because, you know, I feel like you, it's a very holistic approach. It's like take care of the

basics. You know, the weight loss comes as a side effect of taking care of those basics. But actually what I've noticed here in the UK, and I'm pretty sure it's the same in America, is that so many people have been conditioned to only pick up a book if it promises them weight loss. So I can talk about all I want. I want to promote health. I want to promote wellbeing and the weight loss comes as a side effect. But there is a population of people who every January are picking up the latest diet book, the latest workout regime. And I thought, you know what? I want this holistic, this rounded approach to reach those people. And the only way I can reach them is by saying weight loss on the cover.

So the approach is not dissimilar to the approach that you stand for, the approach that I stand for. But actually, as we've seen in the UK in the last six, seven weeks since it's been out, it really is hitting an audience who've not heard this stuff before, as well as my existing audience. So people go, oh, I didn't know that. I thought I had to punish myself and restrict myself. So that's why I wrote this, is to really show people that you can feel great and lose weight. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Well, I think that's what you talk about in the book that's so important that people don't understand, is that as you regulate your body's biological systems, as you eat in a way and live in a way and address all those five aspects, you know, what, why, where, when and how of food, we automatically will regulate the brain chemistry and the hormones that are causing us to overeat or to crave the wrong things or to want things at the wrong time of day or you know

we're setting our biology straight in a way that that makes it not about hunger deprivation or lack or starvation or even calorie restriction and i and i i think most people don't understand that weight loss is really not about uh calorie restriction or or any of those other things it's about in some, it's more about those other four things than what you eat. I mean, yes, you have to focus on what, but you also have to focus on all these other aspects that you address that most people aren't really looking at. And it's funny, and I just finished, my book also came out, The Pegan Diet. And afterwards, someone pointed out, Dr. Hyman, you wrote a whole book on food. There's nothing in there about weight loss.

And I was like, you know, you're right. And I think that was semi-intentional, semi-an accident. But, you know, it was great for your mood or eat for longevity or, you know, eat as a vegetarian or how to personalize nutrition or, you know, what different, there's all sorts of different things in there. But they're all about, they're all about helping the body get reset to its natural factory settings. And when you create health, disease goes away, which you wrote your book, how to make disease disappear. And also the weight just comes off automatically. And I think when you focus on weight loss,

it's also often a punitive thing. And I think that's the thing I love about your book, Feel Great, Lose Weight. It's not blaming the victim. It's not saying, oh, you're just a glutton. You know, you're, you're not able to control yourself. You don't have enough willpower. That's why you can't lose weight. And, and that, that is an incredible stigma that's put on people who have weight issues. And, you know, if you, if you look at the data on children, for example, if you're in a wheelchair and you're a quadriplegic kid, you're less likely to be stigmatized than if you're an overweight kid, that's pretty shocking. And so that's, tell us more about how, how we can kind of think about, um, these other aspects, for example, you know,

when we're thinking about, um, you know, one, one of these other aspects about example you know we're thinking about um you know one one of these other aspects about why we're eating or where you're eating tell us dive down into some of these these sort of more subtle aspects of your book yeah so why we eat is the second section of these five sections in the book and i've got to say it's my favorite one it's the one that i really put my i put my heart and soul into the whole book but that one in particular i don't say it's my favorite one. It's the one that I really put my heart and soul into the whole book, but that one in particular, I don't think it's getting enough airtime. And I nearly started the book with it actually, but I chose not to. I went with what we eat in the end because I kind of thought we're so conditioned to only thinking about that aspect

when it comes to our health and weight loss that I thought, let me meet people where they're at and then move them over into these other areas. But why we eat? So look, the best way I can describe it is we used to only eat to fill a hole in our stomachs. Now we eat to fill a hole in our hearts, right? When we're lonely, we eat. When we're bored, we eat. When we're stressed, we eat. When we feel disconnected, we eat. And that's okay, but you've got to understand that, right? A lot of the time this is going on in the background. We don't take time to understand that and we keep looking for the latest diet book to give us the solution look the times in which we're living mark i guess are you know the perfect way to describe this so you know in the pandemic with these lockdowns with these restrictions many people have put on weight i don't know about the american media but

the uk media have these terms like the corona stone the quarantine 15, right? So the people recognize that they're- COVID-19. Yeah, I didn't know that one, but yeah. And so a lot of people, especially when they're seeing the evidence for what that does to their risk of complications, they're getting quite stressed and they're looking for a new diet book to help them get on top of things. But what if that's the wrong place to look for some people? So the research suggests that about 80% of us change our eating behavior in response to stress. 45% of us or so will eat more. 35% or so will eat less.

So that's almost half the population are eating more in response to stress, right? So if that's you or me, if we're eating more in response to stress and we're putting on weight, do we need a new diet book or do we need better strategies managing stress? It's the same with sleep, for example. Like sleep, a lot of people are sleep deprived at the moment. A lot of people are worried, they're anxious. We know from the data that if you sleep, let's say five and a half hours a night compared to eight hours, you're going to eat on average 22% more calories the following day. So five days of not sleeping well, you may eat a whole extra day's worth of calories just from not sleeping well. I'm sure your audience may be familiar with this,

but what happens when you don't sleep well? Well, ghrelin, your hunger hormone goes up. So you're always feeling hungry. Your satiety hormones go down. So you never feel full. You're more emotionally reactive in your brain. You find it harder to say no to temptation. So some of my patients, Mark, I can remember this 44-year-old

lady who every January would go on a brand new diet. She'd have a bit of success. Then by March, she was back to where she was before. She was even heavier. That wasn't the worst thing. The worst thing was actually that her self-esteem had gone. And that's the funny thing about the diet industry, Mark. It's the only industry's the funny thing about the diet industry, Mark. It's the only industry where we don't blame the diet we're following. We blame ourselves. We feel like we're worthless, which speaks to what you said before, which is why I think the first paragraph in the book says, it's not your fault, right? It's to really try and understand that, hey, you know what? This is not your fault. So that 44-year-old meaning- And by the way, you know,

the message that we all hear, which is losing weight is about eating less and exercising more, implicit in that statement is that it's your fault. If you can't control your hunger and you can't get your lazy butt off the couch, it's your fault. And that is the biggest propaganda that's been put on our

population that undermines people's self-worth like you're saying and undermines their ability to actually understand how their body works and lose weight in a way that is integrity with their natural biological systems which they're not doing and so i keep going i think this is really an important point around around the blame not blaming the victim yeah for sure i mean just to finish off on sleep so that lady that 44 year old lady i helped her lose significance about of what amounts of weight sustainably without her even trying i didn't actually have to focus on her diet i just got her sleeping eight hours a night and actually what she was sleeping eight hours a night it was like a ripple effect she she made better choices in every other aspect of her life. And again, the point of this book is to help people find the right approach for them.

For someone else, it might be changing what they eat. For someone, it might be why we eat. But if we personalize that approach, we're much more likely to be successful rather than trying to follow a one-size-fits-all but what you said about blame mark there's there's another section in the book which i think really speaks to this and that's you know i know you know the aces study with dr vincent feletti and how he's shown what what does aces mean adverse childhood experiences um so if we have been you know if we have gone through you know there's there's a list of what these-

Child abuse, beating, emotional abuse, abandonment. Exactly, physical, mental, emotional. Then we're significantly more likely to be overweight and obese later on in life, which kind of makes sense if you really think about it. But again, this is missing from the conversation around weight loss. And I detail a case study in the book. I remember really well this lady I saw. I think I saw her when she was about 19 or 20. And she was really struggling to lose weight. She was carrying a lot of excess body fat. And she said, Dr. Chachi,

what's interesting is I never used to. Like this only happened in the last few years. I'm not entirely sure what's happening. And we tried various things. We weren't getting anywhere. And as I got to know her better, Mark, I started to pick up that there was something else going on here. We started to unpick that when she was 16, she was in an abusive relationship, right? With a man. And I could tell that there was real unexplored, unresolved emotion with that. I sent her for some therapy. And in those therapy sessions, it turned out that she was being abused when she was 16. And then her strategy to not be in that position ever again was to put on weight. And what I mean by that is this, she never wanted to be in an

abusive relationship again. So her subconscious mind basically thought, hey, listen, if I put on weight, I'm no longer going to be unattractive. I'm no longer going to be attracted to men. Therefore, I will never be in an abusive relationship again. And it was only when we managed to unpick that in therapy over a course of months and even into years, once she had processed that emotional trauma, right, the weight started to come off. But there was no point beating her up saying, you're being lazy, you're not following the diet, you're not moving enough. That wasn't the right approach for her. And Mark, I'll tell you one of the most gratifying things because I nearly

didn't write this book because I thought, why go into a divisive area like weight loss? You start writing about weight loss and you start getting attacked because you're like, you know, we can talk about body positivity shortly. I'm largely in agreement with people saying we shouldn't, I'm definitely in agreement saying that we shouldn't shame people who are carrying excess body fat which is different from not being able to talk about what are the consequences of that from a health perspective it's two separate two separate arguments but since i since the book came out mark i've had so many messages particularly on instagram from people saying dr chesney i just want to thank you for writing that section and one lady in particular said i can now see why the last 20 years I've not managed to stick to anything. I was also abused

when I was 16. And reading that section has made me phone up a therapist. I've now got a session booked and I'm now going to get back on top of my life. And that's why we write these books, Mark. It's because just for that one person who read that and now is going to take action and realize that she's not a failure. For me, that's worth it. Amazing. Yeah, I think, you know, I think it's important to just sort of this why is so important. It's underappreciated. And often joking, I see often we don't ask the right questions.

We ask, what are you eating? Not what's eating you. Yeah, yeah. And I often would ask my patients when they want to open the fridge or the pantry to get something, I say, ask yourself two questions. What am I feeling and what do I need? You know, am I lonely? Do I need to call a friend? Am I hungry?

Do I need to eat? Am I tired? Do I need to sleep? You know, am I angry? Do I need to, you know, get it off my chest? Like, what is really driving it? It's often different for different people, but it's that other layer that we don't think about, which is in our way that is those beliefs or those mental obstacles or those missed cues

in a way that you're talking about. Hey, everyone. It's Dr. Mark. I know a lot of you out there are practitioners like me, helping patients heal using real food and functional medicine as your framework for getting to the root cause. What's critical to understanding what each individual person and body needs is testing, which is why I'm excited to tell you about Rupa Health. Looking at hormones, organic acids, nutrient levels, inflammatory factors, gut bacteria, and so many other internal variables can help us find the most effective path to optimize health and reverse disease. But up till now, that meant you were usually ordering tests for one patient from multiple labs. And I'm sure many of you can relate how time-consuming

this process was, and then it could all feel like a lot of work to keep track of. Now there's Rupa Health, a place for functional medicine practitioners to access more than 2,000 specialty labs from over 20 labs like Dutch, Vibrant America, Genova, Great Plains, and more. Rupa Health helps provide a significantly better patient experience, and it's 90% faster, letting you simplify the entire process of getting the functional medicine lab tests you need and giving you more time to focus on patients. This is really a much needed option in functional medicine space. And I'm so excited about it. It means better service for you and your patients. You can check it out and look at a free live demo with a Q&A or create an account at rupahealth.com. That's R-U-P-A health.com. Now let's get back to this week's episode

of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Talk about some of the sort of hunger cues and how we kind of get off track with that and how we can start to regulate our hunger. Because what most people say to me is like, I don't know how I'm going to do this because I just, I'm hungry and I get cravings and I, it's hard and I don't know what to do and and it's really a struggle I mean the first thing is you were just touching on there is really identifying what are you hungry for right because um as I mentioned you know we're often eating to fill that hole in our heart not our stomach and I had this really nice exercise in the book that I think your audience will probably really like it's called the three f's or the freedom exercise. And, you know, let's say

someone's listening to this, Mark, and they're sitting on their sofa in the evening. It's 8.30 at night. They've got the television on and they feel like having some ice cream, right? Let's say, because that's pretty common for people to feel like that in the evening. Okay. So, the first F is feel. Just take a pause for a minute. You can write it down if you want or just think, what am I really feeling? Am I hungry for food or am I hungry for something else? Right. So, it could be, oh, actually, I'm really stressed today. I've been on Zoom calls all day and I've not managed to go out yet. Or it could be, I've had a row with my partner or the children's bedtime took too long. Or as many people are facing now, Mark, I'm lonely.

You know what? I've not seen anyone. And actually that food is providing a bit of nourishment for me. So first F is feel. What are you feeling? The second F is feed. How does food feed that feeling? Okay, I'm feeling stressed.

When I scream for 20 minutes or so, I feel less stressed. Okay, now you're building in awareness, right? So, without that awareness, it can be very hard for somebody to change in the long term. And the third F is find. Now that you know what the feeling is, now that you know how food feeds that feeling, can you find now a non-food behavior to feed the same feeling? So, if you're stressed out, it could be, maybe I'll run myself a bath instead of having ice cream, or maybe I'll do 10 minutes of yoga from YouTube. Or as we were saying before, if you're lonely, maybe actually you're better off phoning a friend or phoning your parents. For many of us, we use food instead of something else. And I've used that kind of,

I've used that exercise with patients for many years now. And it's hard to change straight away, right? You can't necessarily change it the first time, but you just start to build in that awareness. So day after day, week after week, I was actually doing an interview last week and the journalist said to me, she said, Dr. Chesley, that's so interesting because two days ago I was driving home from work and I went into a fast food restaurant and had fried chicken and fries, right? Even though I'm trying not to, right? I had it. And that exercise now really makes sense to me because I enjoyed it in the moment. I felt disgusting afterwards. I didn't sleep well. I woke up with a headache the next day. And she goes, now that you've just told me that exercise, now when I'm in that position next time, I'll just take a pause

and really try and figure out what's going on. So, you know, as you said about hunger, the first thing is, you know, what do we truly hungry for? Now, if we are hungry for food, that's okay, right? If we're hungry for food, it's going to be very hard to resist eating if you're always hungry. Very, very hard if you're fighting hunger, which I know, Mark, you've always spoken about in your books is like, you know, let me help you eat in a way where you're not constantly fighting hunger, where you feel satisfied and full. And in the book, I write about something that I call blissy foods. So, blissy foods are, you know, these are the food products that are about as far away as possible from the real foods that both you and I like to promote people can eat. And so, what are these blissy foods, right? These blissy foods are products that tend to have been designed by the food industry with these clever combinations of fat, sugar and salt to be quite literally irresistible.

And a lot of people don't really understand the neuroscience of this and what's really going on. wired to uniquely respond to certain properties in food. So certain kinds of carbs, starch, sugar, protein, fat, salt, even the umami flavor that you get in cooked meats and broths and seaweeds. When you eat these foods in certain combinations, your brain releases a chemical called dopamine. And dopamine is the learning molecule. Dop dopamine helps to uh you know dopamine does many things it creates these feelings of intense reward in your brain these really feel good intense feelings of rewards so much so that if you if you keep eating these yeah you keep eating those foods very soon the dopamine starts to get released in anticipation of eating those foods. So not even when you're eating them, the sight, the smell, being in the same location as you were

before when you ate them. And actually, I find it useful to explain this to patients because then they understand, oh, my biology is changing. My neurochemistry is actually starting to change. So that's why it can be so hard to resist when you're being exposed to those foods. And Mark, I had this patient in her 30s who was trying her best to eat well, right? She would buy cookbooks. She'd be motivated in her kitchen to cook. But you know what? In her job, it's you know what in her job it's really interesting in her job she'd often finish about 7 30 p.m this is pre-pandemic um and she would drive home and at one of the roundabouts do you guys have do you call them roundabouts yeah yeah yeah she would drive it and this roundabout there would be a very well-known fast food restaurant there. And the smell of that food would permeate the air around that roundabout. And she said, Dr. Chastity, I'm trying my best, but at least two times a week, I'm tired. I'm stressed out

after the day. That smell hits me. And I have this overwhelming feeling that I have to eat it. So I stop and eat it. And I explained to her about dopamine. And then I said to her, I said, listen, is there an alternative route for you to drive home? And she said, yeah, but it will take me a good 10, 15 minutes longer. I said, you know what? For the next few weeks, I honestly want you to try this as an experiment. Take the other routes home. And so she started taking the other route home. She doesn't pass the junk food store, right? Temptation's not there. And I promise you that was the only change we had to do because suddenly she's no longer having to fight temptation. She gets home, cooks a healthy, wholesome meal. And over the next few months, she lost significant amounts of weight

and she didn't feel as though she was even trying. So again, with this personalized approach, Mark, that was the right approach for her. It may not be for me. It may not be for someone else. But for her, understanding dopamine allowed her to take a different route home. Well, most of us don't really realize that the food that we eat has effects on our brain in ways that control our behavior and that it's not a moral failing or some problem with your psychology although sometimes it is a trauma but sometimes it's just damn biology that hijacks you and and doing the things you said you really literally can stop and

end all those hunger cravings so that's just great um you know one of the things that you also talk about is is our environment and i think this this is something that most people don't understand is you can self-sabotage by having the wrong environment. So, for example, if I'm trying to get off coffee and I have coffee in my house, it's probably not a good idea. Or if I'm trying to get off ice cream and I got a freezer full of ice cream, probably a problem. So talk about how do we structure environments for making our lives

more effective in terms of achieving our goals whether it's weight loss or anything else yeah environment is arguably the number one thing to try and influence because our environment influences our behavior so much more than we think we we kind of feel we've got you know some sort of super willpower that we can resist all this temptation, but it's simply not true. Our environment influences our behavior so much. We know there's so much data on this. You know, there's research showing that if you live within a half mile radius of your house, so there are six fast food restaurants compared to three, I think it's 40% more likely you're going to be overweight

or obese. I think in schools, if they ban snacking in classrooms and in corridors, the BMI goes down on average by 11%. No one's changing, you know, telling people what to eat. They're just saying you can only eat in the eating space, in the canteen, right? You can't eat everywhere else. So our environment really influences this massively. So what can we do? Well, I've always said control the environments you can control, you know, and I've heard you say this for years as well, Mark, you know, it's like, let's not use willpower out there. I mean, it's hard out there. Make sure your house is a safe zone so you know i have a rule that in our house we don't bring in the foods that i'm trying to avoid by and large now if they ever do come in you know what i'm human just like everyone else i can know the science i can know about dopamine

but you have that stuff in the house if i'm tired and stressed and the tv's on in the evening i'm gonna open the packet of chips or crisps you know or biscuits just like anyone else yeah biscuits means cookies in the uk for those listening yeah and so it sounds healthy biscuit sounds healthy and you mean cookies i mean cookies i mean cookies yeah but then also what what is the food you are gonna expose yourself to in your environment so you know make sure it's fruit that you've got out make sure it's like you know chopped carrots and hummus or whatever it is you want to you want to be uh inputting signals into your brain you know i'm not encouraging people to overeat more than they they should be eating but if you are going to have

food around make sure it's it's the food that's really going to help support your health and promote health and longevity, not the one that's going to take away from that. Your toaster, right? If you have a toast habit, put your toaster in a cupboard, right? Don't have it on the counter. Forget it. Don't have the bread for the toaster. That's the big problem. Yeah. So don't bring that into the house in the first place. But it's like, you know, if you, it's like trying to make the habits, trying to make the behaviors that you're trying to avoid, make it harder to do those behaviors, right? But then the behaviors you do want, right? Make it easier to do them. And, you know, we spoke about this on, on, on when I came on

your show last year, Mark, with my last book on habit change and five-minute snacks. But, you know, one of my favorite tips at the moment, frankly, for anyone, here in the UK, we're in a third complete national lockdown. So, pretty much everyone or most of the population are working from home, right? And it's really affecting people's mental health and well-being, especially in the dark British winter now. It's not like last March and April when it was springtime. It is dark. It is cold. People are really struggling. But one of my favorite tips, and it's also in the book, is that in your kitchen, right, if you have a kettlebell or you have a dumbbell, and many people do these days because in the lockdowns, they all sold out everywhere. I say, keep it next to your coffee

machine, right? I can see you've got a coffee machine in the background there, Mark, in the image, right? Keep a dumbbell, buy your espresso machine. And here in the UK, if you, you know, many people will have at least three hot drinks a day, a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, right? So, I'm saying, okay, every time you go into your kitchen to make a hot drink, if all you do is lift up that dumbbell and do five bicep curls on each arm, right? If you have three hot drinks a day, you will lift that weight 30 times. In a week, that's over 200 times. In a month, that's nearly a thousand times. And the beauty is, Mark, in in the moment it will feel like nothing and why

that's so powerful is it helps to build up your self-esteem your resilience you feel better about yourself you know it's not like a 40-minute workout great if you can do that but these small things it's that feel great lose weight do that every day you're going to feel better about yourself and it's going to ripple into other areas of your life. You're going to want to make better choices around your food. And I love that. I use that tip myself. And I don't have to lose weight.

I do it because it helps improve how I feel about myself. Yeah. I mean, you're talking about, you know, these tiny little steps that seem like nothing but add up. And this is really the science of behavior change. I know you've studied with BJ Fogg. He's been on my podcast and there there really is a science around incorporating simple changes that you want to do that you're motivated to do they have the ability to do and you need a trigger to do so what you're talking about something so you're motivated to do a little

exercise you have the ability to do the exercise and the trigger is having your drink having a little cup of hot tea but but it's also about having the weight visible like with like with let's make the food we don't want well that's the trigger right right yeah let's make i say like my wife and i for years have had a debate whether the dumbbell and kettlebell should be visible in the kitchen or it should be packed away tidily you know if it's if you want me to be buff if you want me to be you know if you want your stud husband you gotta let me have that out there in the kitchen on the counter right hey listen from a health and safety perspective i'm not asking people to have an accident but i i i have to trip

over my dumbbell to put my kettle on which means even if all i do is lift it up to move it i'm still lifting the weights and so it's it's it's about applying behavior change to everything it's about applying the rules of behavior change to everything we want whether that's weight loss mental health fiscal whatever it is don't try and think willpower will be enough because in the long term it rarely will be yeah you know it's interesting we and we you know i don't know how much you get into the book but one of the challenges I find with people is that you know they spend you know days and hours and hours weeks researching like their vacation spot and rental and what the restaurants are going to go to and the airplanes are going to do and what they're going to bring and what they're going to pack and and everything they need and

and most people don't give five minutes of thought to planning their nutritional week you know what is my week going to look like where's my food going to come from what do i have to get how do i have to prepare it you know how do i not end up in a food emergency how do i have the things around that actually work and i i i do it now automatically but i understand it's not something that people normally have so i have for example every morning i'm doing like a shake now i'm trying to like put on some muscle and I'm just focusing on this super shake that I've been creating. But I have all the ingredients on the counter and I make sure I have my bananas I buy that

are my frozen fruit that I buy and it's in the freezer and I have everything ready. So I buy extra jars of the macadamia milk. So I have everything just all there. So it's super quick and easy for me to do. But if I had to like, you know, go shopping and I forgot this, I didn't do that. And it would be very difficult. And so I think sometimes it's even as extreme as people organizing their fridges with Tupperwares with pre-cut vegetables and pre-cut fruit and pre-cut all these prepared things that

are easy to make. And I see people who do that. It's like, wow, that's even next level for me. I just make sure that, you know, you have to think about what you're doing. You have to plan what you're doing to plan your activity. And I think we don't schedule ourselves first. We schedule ourselves last and then eating is an afterthought and it just becomes, uh, well, I don't know, let me go get some, this is something quick or package this, or, you know, just eat crap, whatever's there. And I think that's a challenge for people. So I think it's, it's think it's important that the environment, as you say, is structured to succeed as opposed to fail.

And I think that's the take home. The other thing, you know, I really want to get into, and this is challenging because right now during COVID, you know, people are isolated alone. They're, you know, they may not have been great chefs or cooks before. You can't go out to restaurants. Sometimes you're not even takeout anymore. And, you know, people have been, I think, taught that cooking is difficult, that eating healthy is expensive. Is this true? And how do you address the issues of, you know, cooking and cost and feel great, lose weight? Yeah. So there is a section on on cooking and and explaining just how important it is it's it's that it's that basic life skill that until recently i'm pretty sure all families

all humans all tribes would have had that ability and it's something that that is now optional it can only have been optional because we have the ability to buy all these food products so quickly, so cheaply, and our lives are so busy, they're stressed out. A lot of us feel we don't have time to cook. And certainly in certain socioeconomic groups, I think we have to accept that actually it's not about money so much. It's about having the luxury of time to cook which a lot of people say you know if I'm working two jobs I don't have time to cook right so I think cost and and time poverty is something we should be absolutely aware of now I don't think I think you know the research and I think what we spoke about this when you came on my podcast recently, it's simply not true that eating well has to be really, really expensive.

Of course, there are certain things that are more expensive. There's no question. Like wild salmon, for example, is probably more expensive. But, you know, a can of sardines is dirt cheap here in the UK. Do you know what I mean? There are ways that actually we can eat in a way that actually is whole food, but isn't super, super expensive. And I think where you live can really influence what's available, what you consider normal. You know, we mentioned environment before, but our friend circle our own um our own

sort of network of tribes that's important as well you know the research by nicholas christakis has shown that you know someone in your social circle is obese you're 45 more likely to be obese if a friend of a friend is obese you're 25 more to be obese. And if it's a friend of a friend of a friend, you're 10% more likely to be obese, which just shows just how powerful these social connections are and the environment, even our friends and family environment is at influencing us. But it really isn't, Mark, as expensive as we think, or some people think it might be to eat well, but you have to be able to cook, right? That is a basic, basic skill. And if you cannot cook, that's okay, right? Recognize it and go. Learning to cook may be one of the most important things that you can learn to do, whether

it's in one of your cookbooks, Mark, whether it's to go on YouTube. There is so many free and cheap resources now to teach people how to cook some basic meals. And you know the truth is, is that the pandemic for some people, not for everyone, but for some people Mark, there's been a lot more time at home, a lot more time with family. And I know many people who have got into cooking during lockdowns, during these restrictions, suddenly they're not commuting for two and a half hours a day. And they're actually buying cookbooks and they're learning how to cook recipes. I've got to say, Mark, you know, my new routine on a Sunday afternoon, which really has been, has come in in the last year. I love nothing more than this. On a Sunday afternoon after lunch, right, I clear out the kitchen. I'm a bit old school. I put on a CD and I've got a CD player

in the kitchen. I put on one of my favorite CDs and I cook a big batch of butternut squash soup to last us for the week, right? I've got lentils in it, butternut squash, it's got leeks, onions, ginger. I'm trying to think about the price of it, but you know, lentils are dirt cheap, right? Two or three butternut squash is not that expensive. And apart from that, it's stock leeks, onions, and ginger. It's kind of like that not only is it not expensive but those one and a half two hours are some of the most enjoyable times I spend in the week I've got some great tunes on I'm chilling my daughter may be there drawing on the kitchen counter we may be chatting at the same time and at the end of it there's the smell there's the feeling that you're really connected with the food and then you know oh that's going to go in the fridge so in the week if we ever need something for a meal we can just go and

heat that up and so I'd really encourage people to find what works for them where is that moment in your week where you can actually find a bit of time to batch cook if you are trying to cook something from scratch three meals a day seven days week, that's where it can become really challenging. Not only is that a huge cognitive load, 21 times now I need to think about what I'm going to eat in just one week, right? So batch cook, cook more. And one of the tips in the what we eat section is eat dinner for breakfast, right? It's such a simple thing that that people haven't thought of before it's like eating you know you know what it's like mark the breakfast foods that we often start our days with are literally setting ourselves up for hunger for mood swings and and if you cook a bit extra at

night heat it up in the morning have some salmon sweet potatoes and broccoli in the morning sometimes if that's what you have the night before and often people find that they're just not hungry until lunchtime there was this there was this case i had this exactly someone who was having what he thought was healthy granola every morning you know sugar-filled granola yeah yeah yeah yeah he thought it was healthy and he didn't really need to lose that much weight, but he found that his concentration was going, his focus was going. He'd get a bit shaky by 12 o'clock. And he started having, and this guy was vegetarian, right? And I remember it so well. He said, well, what should I have? I said, well, what do you have in the evening? He goes, well, I love roast vegetables. I said,

okay, what do you have with it? He says, goat's cheese.'s cheese I said okay why don't you start there so the next morning he has goat's cheese with roast vegetable and he said it got to 2 p.m before he was even hungry and he said I didn't realize before that my concentration wasn't good and my energy wasn't good it's only when I had a real food breakfast that I realized oh wow I've been functioning sub optimally for years. And so, you know, you know this as well as I do, Mark. I mean, there's plenty of tips on how people can do this inside the book. But, you know, I really want to encourage people to take this rounded approach. If you have tried already and focused on one area and it's not been sustainable for you, let me help you figure out why that is maybe there's something else that

you've not tackled that's actually the underlying root cause yeah it's so important because we don't we just sort of stay on the surface and don't really figure it out i just love your story of cooking i think most of us feel so disenfranchised from it but with covid now it's an opportunity for us to really dig in and and try new things and to be with family and to be with the people you love and we have more time and and i think if people can be with family and to be with the people you love and that we have more time. And I think if people can reclaim their kitchens, it's really the key to weight loss. I mean, I always tell the story of this family. I work with in South Carolina who was living on food stamps and disability in a trailer with a family of five and were massively overweight.

You know, the father was diabetic on dialysis. mother was 100 plus pounds overweight the son was like probably 100 pounds overweight almost diabetic at 16 years old all i did was cook a simple meal with them showed how fun it was to do it together you know they didn't even have cutting boards and knives i had to get them that afterwards and they ended up losing you know 200 pounds together as a family in the first year and the son actually went back and gained weight because he had to go work at Bojangles, which is the only place kids could get work, which is a junk food, fast food restaurant in the South. But then he went on until he was 138 pounds, went to medical school. And it was really all through the simple act of cooking one meal. And I think if you can imagine if we could go into everybody's home and show them how to shop and cook one simple meal,

the basic cooking techniques, how to cut things, how to, I mean, they know how to how to i mean they know how to peel an onion they know how to peel garlic they're not make a salad dressing from simple olive oil and vinegar they know how to stir fry they don't know i mean it was just it was stunning everything they'd had was from a box a package a can that was either heated in a microwave in the oven or you know like it was just it was terrible um and it made me really realize how powerful it is just to empower people with a simple act of cooking real food at home. And it's much, much cheaper. And I gave them a guide on good food on a tight budget, which is how to eat well for less. And they were able to do it within the budget that they had for five people on disability and food stamps.

Yeah, I mean, that's so powerful, Mark, stories like that and you know when I when I filmed the first series of BBC One's Doctor in the House where I'd go and live alongside families for four to six weeks it was a common theme I'm gonna say in at least half of the families that I went and stayed stayed with they didn't know how to cook or it was something they used to do and they've they've lost the habit and I remember in the first season, the lady with type 2 diabetes, I remember just, again, cooking them a meal, a basic meal, chopping things together. You know, these guys were used to getting McDonald's several times a week. And I remember so, you know, you mentioned cost. I can remember that

so well. In 2015, my first day filming Evermark, right? So, I go to this family's house in Shrewsbury in the UK. First day I meet them and we start off because I'm going to stay at their house that night for the first night, which they didn't know. I didn't realize that. And the father said to me, he said, hey, I said to them, hey guys, I'd love to find out a little bit about what you guys eat normally. And the dad said to me, okay, well look, why don't you come along and I'll show you. So he points to his car seat. So I get into his car. We drive for 15 minutes out of town, right? One five, 15 minutes out of town. We go into a McDonald's drive-thru and this is a family of four. So husband and wife, I think the daughter, you know,

the daughter and the son were like teenagers, 15, 16, 17, something like that. He ordered four double meals from McDonald's, right? And the cost was 48 pounds. So let's put that in perspective, 48 pounds. I don't know what the exchange rate is at the moment, must be at least 65 to $70. Dollars, right? And he said, we do this. And what was interesting, Mark, is as we were driving there, he said to me, hey, Doc, this is actually really embarrassing that you're coming with me, but this is what we do four to five times a week. So what's interesting is several things. He's spending $65, $70 on four double meals from McDonald's, right? Which when they ate, they were hungry 30 minutes later

and they were moody afterwards, right? But the second thing is, and this speaks to what we were talking about before, is that when he's driving there with me sitting next to him, he suddenly says, hey, Dot, you know what, this is really embarrassing, right? But he only realized that with me sitting in the car next to him, because if it's just him and his family, he can do it. No one's questioning him. I wasn't judging him. I wasn't questioning him. But the simple act of me being there was like a mirror to him. And he goes, man, we do this four or five times a week you know and that's that's really interesting from an emotional viewpoint isn't it what's really going on there

yeah it's so powerful i think we don't realize how much we get into habits unconsciously and just do those things without thinking and then it leads over the course of our life to just dramatic changes in our health and our well-being. And it's, you know, what kills me, and I think you experience the same thing, is how close people are to feeling good, right? If the feel great part, I mean, the lose weight part, you know, it's slow. You can do a pound a week maybe, but when there's more, depending on what you're doing,

you know, initially you might lose more. But the feel great part can happen pretty quick. And I think most people, when they start to shift their diet and they start to change their habits and they start to understand how to sort of reprogram their biology for well-being and health, that they were like, well, wow, I didn't know how quickly I could feel better. I didn't know I was feeling so bad until I started feeling so good. And it's so rewarding for me to see that the

simple act of eating real food and regulating your life in a way that supports health has such dramatic downstream benefits on mental health, on mood, on relationships, on work, on productivity, on just parenting, on everything that you care about in your life. If you don't have your biology well-regulated, you're a victim to the whims of all these influences that are outside of us, which is, you know, the food we're eating is information, as we learned from our mentor Jeff Bland, and it is a instruction manual that is telling everything in our body what to do. And, you know, we often think that our emotional states or psychological states or our relationships are not triggered by food. But it can be really dramatic.

And just to sort of recap a little bit about what our friend David Perlmutter wrote about in his book Brainwash, where he was on the podcast. He talked about how people are eating the processed food that we're all eating now, 60% of our diet, it disconnects the frontal lobe from the limbic brain, which means the limbic brain is the reptile brain that is reacting, responding, is angry, you know, fight or flight, all that. It disconnects that from the frontal lobe, which is the adult in the brain. It's sort of the higher self. And so all of a sudden, you've got this dysregulated reptile in your brain it's not being supervised by an adult and it leads to all this disordered behavior and i i part of me wonders if our society's become so devices divisive so conflicted and there's so much rancor because of of our diet in part because it how it affects our brains and our functioning. Yeah. I mean, it's so powerful to hear that.

It wouldn't surprise me at all. I think it's not just going to be one thing, is it? It's all these multiple inputs coming from all the way around. And that's the whole thing about food, isn't it? It's so reductive to talk about it just in terms of calories and energy into the body and energy out. You know, as you say, food is information that's so much more than just those calories. And actually, we're doing food a disservice by just talking about it in terms of energy. It is more than that. You know, genetic

expression, hormones, as you say, with the brain, what it might be doing, absolutely incredible. And, you know, we mentioned emotions before, but again, it goes both ways, doesn't it? You can feel stressed and want to eat more, but actually eating the wrong kinds of food consistently can make you more hungry and cause you to overeat and can cause you to crave more of those foods. So it kind of, it feeds it on both ways. And I sort of feel that the right approach for each person is going to be slightly different. But I think, you know, we can absolutely agree that I don't know anybody who won't benefit from eating more real food in their diets. You know, I can't see the downside of doing that no now let's talk about the other boogeyman in the room around weight which is exercise and and you know part of the the equation right is eat less exercise more which implies that you know you're not thin because you don't exercise enough or you don't move enough um and i think there's some really fundamental flaws with that idea not that exercise isn't important

but that in the hierarchy of weight loss it really is it's not as important as what you eat where you eat when you eat how you eat why you eat in determining your metabolism and so can you talk a little bit about some of the some of the myths about exercise and also what the role of exercise is in metabolism and weight? Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, you're absolutely right. That's one of the biggest myths out there. And it makes sense, doesn't it, that it's just a simple equation that you just sort of add up. And at the end of the day, that determines if you're

going to put on weight or put off weight, if only it was that simple. Right, so what is the deal with exercise? So there's some new research from Herman Ponser, which has come out in the last few years, and he's been studying the Hadza tribe in Tanzania. And he's been measuring their energy expenditure. And it's super fascinating, Mark Mark because what he's shown is that these hunter-gatherers are moving a lot more than the average sedentary westerner right they're moving a lot more but you know how many calories they're burning off roughly the same two to three thousand calories a day which is roughly the same as the average sedentary westerner burns off even though they're moving more so what is going on there and this is kind of one of those big myths so we think that if we

go for a run and we burn off 400 calories on our run let's say we feel that that number is additive we just add it on to the number we would have burnt off and we've got 400 extra calories there but it's simply not true our body is a a complex system. Your body will compensate. If you burn off more calories running, it will reduce how many calories it burns off in other areas. And there's multiple ways it will do that. It will reduce NEAT, non-exercise activated thermogenesis. So, you know, toe tapping and fidgeting, it will reduce that. It can change how many calories it burns off in other departments in the body. And the point is that we are this complex system. And I think this is where it gets really misunderstood.

Going back to what we said at the start, Mark, people are not only depriving themselves and restricting themselves with foods, they're putting themselves on punishing exercise regimes. We all know when we see that person really struggling in the gym you know who's pounding the treadmill three four times a week for an hour wondering why the fat is not coming off without realizing that for some times you're actually stressing out your body even more and raising cortisol which can actually make the weight loss harder in the first place but it it's not, you know, it's not that moving more is necessarily going to burn off more. And I think that is brand new information

for some people. I think that science is really, really fascinating. And it really, it reshapes everything we've been told for the last 20, 30 years that you've got to move more, you've got to move more. Now, what role does it play? I think exercise is really important. So can you lose weight without doing any exercise at all? Absolutely. Would I recommend it? Absolutely not. I feel that the reason to move is not to burn off calories, but it's to make yourself feel good. It's to build your self-esteem up. You know, when we're moving regularly, we're showing our body that we're an active, thriving human who's engaging with life.

Humans are animals. We're designed to move. So I think movement is very important, but it's about feeling good, not burning off calories. So like I said before, that tip about the dumbbell by the kitchen, right? What's that going to do in isolation by the kettle, you know, lifting that several times a day? You know, it's not like the 30, 40-minute workout we've been told for years that we have to be doing to losing weight. But what it will do is it changes the signals in your body. It just keeps giving you these little inputs that actually, you know what? I'm alive. I'm engaging with life. I'm an active human who is able to lift a heavy weight or a mediumly heavy weight. And it really boosts self-esteem, which helps you engage in other behaviors in a much better way. And actually, Mark,

you know, I've been thinking recently that for many people, weight loss is actually a self-esteem issue. It's about how they feel about themselves. Once they start to love themselves, have compassion to themselves, they no longer want to punish themselves with highly processed sugary foods. They no longer want to punish themselves by sitting on the sofa all day, watching TV, not getting up and moving. So I kind of feel that compassion part, that self-love, is also a part of this equation that we're not speaking about enough. Because when you truly love yourself and value yourself for who you are,

you don't want to beat yourself up. You don't want to engage in lots of unhealthy behaviors. So I think movement has a very important role to play, but it's not the role that we've been taught. You don't need it to lose weight. I just think it helps you boost how you feel. No, it's true. I've had people lose 100 pounds without changing their exercise. But the other thing is that you cannot exercise your way out of a bad diet. So if you have one cookie, you have to walk four miles. If you eat one supersized meal,

you have to run four miles a day for a week to burn it off. And if you eat that every day, you have to run a marathon every day just to keep up. So you can't exercise your way out of a bad diet. That's really important people understand. On the other hand, what you're saying is really important that it is about, one, just improving your overall well-being, your mental health, and the side effect, if you do certain kinds of exercise like high intensity interval

training and strength training you will literally increase your metabolic rate so that you burn calories all day long as opposed to you know just when you're exercising so there's there there is a strategy to including it but you you know you can you can exercise all you want if you're eating poorly. My weight trainer, the guy who was sort of my trainer in New York, was incredibly fit. He had big muscles, but he had this sort of big layer of fat on him as well. And within six weeks, he lost 20 pounds just by shifting his diet. And this is a guy who worked out hours and hours a day you know and i think even somebody like that who's an extreme level of fitness still can have a lot of body fat if they don't understand

how to eat in a way to to regulate their biology and it speaks but it also speaks to what we were we were chatting about before mark about this it it's it's so reductive to talk about food in terms of energy and and movement and exercise in terms of energy. I remember one patient I had who said, I still remember Dr. Chachi when I was, I think when I was nine years old, I was on holiday with my parents and I was in the hotel gym with my dad. We were on the treadmill. And at the end of our run, my dad said to me, look, son, you just burnt off 300 calories. You've earned yourself a Mars bar. And off they went to buy a Mars bar, right? And this guy literally, that set off a problematic

relationship with food and exercise because in his head, it's just energy. It's like, whoa, that's the only value it has. And this is where, you know, movement is like food. Movement is information, right? Movement sends your body signals that you're alive, you're thriving, that actually, you know, we've reduced these concepts down to just these dry scientific equations, but there's so much more that they help create the vitality and the vibrancy of life. And I think we need more of that in health. We need to talk about these things are going to help you feel amazing and feel good. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. And I think, you know, just to close, I think your whole concept of your book, Feel Great, Lose Weight, is so key because, you know, when you feel great, you will lose weight automatically, right? And the title of your book is Feel Great, Lose Weight, Simple Habits for Lasting and Sustainable Weight Loss, right? You don't want to be on a roller coaster of up and down weight loss. And you want to understand how to work with your biology. And a lot of your work is informed by functional medicine. You don't sort of always say that upfront, but it really is informed by the science

of functional medicine, which is what we've been doing for decades. So I feel we're in a place where the message you're giving is so needed. We're in such a desperate state in terms of our metabolic health globally. And your book is just a great contribution to helping people understand how to unlock the key to weight loss, unlock the key to health, unlock the key to feeling really great, which is what we all want so rungo in summary what would you tell people who are listening about where to start if they're struggling if they're if they're frustrated if they've been on the yo-yo roller coaster weight loss track how do you get them to think differently about what's ahead. I understand, Mark, that many people are struggling

all over the world right now, not just with trying to lose weight. They're struggling with their physical health, their mental health, how they feel about the world. Will the world that they once used to occupy, is that world going to return? So I get people have got all kinds of anxiety and worry in them at the moment. So I would say, you know what, keep it simple. Don't try and overhaul your entire lifestyle. There's three daily habits that I have in the book that I recommend people do. And I think that's the best advice I can leave people with. They're very simple in isolation, but they're very, very powerful. So the three habits are every day, lift, connect, and reflect. So

lift is lift something heavy every day. That could be, you know, a dumbbell or a kettlebell by your kitchen. There is this core three workout in the book if people want to actually see what more they can do with it that only takes five minutes, actually less than five minutes, right? But lift something heavy each day. The next one, connect. Connect with another human being in some way every single day. Often when we're trying to snack, when we're trying to eat foods that we don't want to be eating, we're just lonely. And I know many people are feeling lonely at the moment. So that can be connection on a phone call, on a Zoom. If you're lucky enough to meet in person, great. But if you're not,

there are other ways to do it. So that's lift, connect. And the final one I'd say is reflect. Now, there's a simple exercise in the book, which is every evening, ask yourself two questions. What went well today? And what's one thing I might want to change for tomorrow? So simple, but very, very powerful. Because as I said before, awareness of your own behavior is so key to make change. And it could be something simple like this. It could be, you know what? I was really tired and stressed out today, but I still made time to cook my children and me a home cooked meal. Okay. So that's what went well today. What didn't go so well that you might want to change tomorrow could have been, you know what, I was cranky today, I was craving sugar all day and I was up till midnight last night watching Netflix, right? Tonight, I'm not going to stay

up till midnight watching Netflix because I know an extra hour sleep means tomorrow I won't be craving sugar and I won't be as cranky. These small things are so powerful when you do them consistently. You don't need to overhaul your whole life. And my closing thoughts, people, is you can always, and I mean always, improve your health and almost always help people lose weight in a sustainable way once you find the right approach for them. And that's what your work aims to do, Mark. That's what my work aims to do is to help people find this is the right approach for me that works for me with my lifestyle, with my friends, and with my ethical beliefs and my cultural beliefs. So there's always a way, Mark, but I say to people, start small, be consistent,

and watch the results start to come there you go that's such great advice rongan and thank you for all your work and being tireless and pushing forward the agenda of getting people healthy and getting to the root of problems and giving people simple clear solutions in your books i'm sort of jealous of them they're just so beautifully done they're so well laid out they're so chunked up and easy to digest in bite-sized pieces. And they just provide a really simple, inspiring roadmap for people to reclaim their health. So thank you for everything you do, Rangan. I really appreciate it. And thank you for being on The Doctor's Pharmacy. If you've been listening to this podcast and you love it,

make sure you go pick up a copy of Rangan's new book, Feel Great, Lose Weight, Simple Habits for Lasting and Sustainable Weight Loss. You can go to drchatterjee.com forward slash feel great, lose weight with dashes in between each word. And you can learn more about it. It's pretty awesome. It's out now. And I promise you won't be sorry if you have a chance to look at Rangan's work. He's really a master of communication and inspiration. And thank you so much for everything you do.

You too, Mark. You're doing great work. And thanks for having me on the show. Yeah. And if you love this podcast, please leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you. What have you learned about weight loss? Maybe we can learn from you. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And tell your friends and family, share this with everybody on social. And hopefully we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast.

It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter. And in it, I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements, to gadgets, to tools to enhance your health. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health.

And I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays, nothing else, I promise. And all you do is go to drhyman.com forward slash pics to sign up. That's drhyman.com forward slash pics, P-I-C-K-S, and sign up for the newsletter and I'll share with you my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier and better and live younger longer. Hi, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor

or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their Find a Practitioner database.

It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.