Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - Lose Weight: Insane Benefits of Lowering Stress, Sugar, Alcohol & Coffee | Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

In this episode, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee joins Dr. Mindy to discuss personalized approaches to weight loss. Dr. Rangan recognizes the negative impact of today's modern lifestyle on our health so he highlights the importance of listening to our own bodies. While some individuals may find relief from something trendy like a meat-only diet, he reminds us of the significance of stress reduction, sleep, meal time and avoiding sugar and alcohol.  You can get 30% off your subscription when you go to https://HVMN.com/PELZ To view full show notes, more information on our guests, resources mentioned in the episode, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://www.drmindypelz.com/ep201. Rangan Chatterjee is a British physician, author, television presenter and podcaster. He is best known for his TV show Doctor in the House and for being the resident doctor on BBC Breakfast and as a regular contributor to BBC Radio. Check out our fasting membership at resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. Please note our medical disclaimer.

On this episode of the Resetter podcast, I bring you Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. Now, I hope you all are familiar with Dr. Chatterjee, but if you're not, you need to meet this man. So he has an incredible podcast called Feel Better Live More. And he actually brought me on his podcast in February when Fast Like a Girl was launched into the world. And we had one of the best discussions about hormones that I've had with anybody who's interviewed me. And so I was recently in England where he is based and met with him in person to do this podcast. And what I wanted him specifically to talk about was some real hacks for unsticking weight, because I know so many of you are struggling with getting that weight loss journey going.

And Dr. Chatterjee not only has authored five books on lifestyle, all of which include tips for weight loss, but he has really, really looked at obesity from a unique angle. So in this podcast, we're going to talk about sleep, we're going to talk about timing of food, we're going to talk about stress. There's so many things we unpack in probably the most thoughtful conversation I have had to date on helping you all unstick your weight. So I can't, you know, I can't say enough about how much I love this man. and what an incredible conversation this was.

So Dr. Chatterjee, as always, I hope you enjoy this and it moves the needle on putting your health at the forefront of your life. Enjoy. Hey, Dr. Mindy here. And welcome to season four of the Resetter podcast. Please know that this podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Enjoy. Okay.

Ronan, does it feel weird, by the way, to be sitting here in your studio being interviewed? It does. I bet. It does. I'm not used to being asked questions. Right. I'm wondering that. Are you going to be able to let go of the interviewer?

I will try not to ask you any questions. Yeah. I would try my best. Excellent. Excellent. So here's what I want to start with. I always think about my audience and I think about what they're struggling with. And weight loss just comes up over and over and over again.

People just can't seem to get over all the hurdles of weight loss. So I want to start with one question. Why can't people lose weight? Why are we struggling with weight loss? There's many ways to answer that, Mindy. But the first way I'd like to answer that is by saying the reason we're struggling to lose weight. weight is because we're not addressing the root cause of our weight gain. We think it's simple. We think it's just a case of eating less food and moving more. The problem is, for many people,

that approach has proved really, really problematic. People are trying their best. And I think the first thing we have to really acknowledge is that it's okay that we put on weight in this environment. That's so well said. If we brought our great grandparents to the modern food environment, you know, 60, 70% of them would also be struggling with their weight. It's not easy. And then we also have to acknowledge that as humans, one of our superpowers is our ability to store excess energy. So we can put on that fat for when we can't get food, for when winter comes.

The problem is winter never comes. And I think it's almost always possible to help someone lose weight in a society. sustainable and responsible way, once you find the right approach for that. So I think one of the big problems is that we see what our friend has done or our work colleague and we go, right, that's how you lose weight. And we try that approach and we realize, oh, wait a minute, it works for her, but it doesn't work for me. And that's because there are multiple different things that can be at play. I give an example, sleep. A lot of people when they think, about weight loss, they think about food. Of course, food's important. We'll talk about foods,

but not enough people are thinking about sleep. We know that if you sleep, let's say, five, five and a half hours a night compared to seven and a half hours, on average, you will consume 22% more calories the following day. Oh, wow. Right? So that means five days of sleep deprivation means you eat a whole extra days worth of calories. That's crazy. Right? Does timing of sleep matter? in that scenario? I'm not familiar with research saying timing of sleep matters. The point I often bring it with my patients is that sometimes you can lose weight by not even addressing your diet. I've got so many patients who I help them lose weight and I didn't touch their diet. I just help them sleep better. Because we don't realize that, you know, we eat more the day after sleep deprivation.

but not only that, we're not craving fruits and vegetables the day after we haven't slept. We're craving high calorie sugar-rich foods. Our willpower is lower the day after we haven't slept. So not sleeping well makes every other change you're trying to make more difficult. So circling back to your original question, why are so many of us struggling to lose weight? is because we're looking for cookie-cutter approaches. We haven't empowered ourselves to find the right approach for us.

Yeah, I'm so in alignment with that, and that leads me to the question of, is weight gain a food issue? Not always. Yeah, I mean, that alone is mind-blowing. Okay, so what are the other issues outside of sleep? Right, sleep is a big one. Stress.

Okay, there was a study in America about 10 years ago now which showed on average 80% of people change their eating behavior in response to stress. Now from recollection it was about 45% of people eat more in response to stress. 35% or so eat less. So let's think about that. We know we're living in very, very stressful times. Five years ago or so, the World Health organization put on their website that stress is the health epidemic of the 21st century. Five years ago? That was five years ago. That was pre-pandemic.

Pre-pandemic, yeah, a long time ago. It's been there for a while. I think we all recognize that we're living in uniquely stressful times. And there's a whole variety of reasons for that. But what that study is showing us that almost half of us eat more in response to stress. So we can talk about food. And of course, eating the right foods makes a big difference. But what I'm interested in, I think very much like you, Mindy, is trying to figure out

what is the action that's going to help this person lose weight. Yes. Right? And for some people, it's the stress in their life. Yes. There's too much stress. And they're using food as a way of dealing with the stress. So if we can help them in other ways reduce the stress load in their lives, again, can be easier

send than done sometimes. Yes. But if we can do that, well, often they'll naturally. start to eat less. So stress is another factor. I think our timing of our food intake matters massively, right? A lot of the focus is on what we eat, but when we eat also matters. Yeah. Massively. And for some people, it matters more than others. Yes. And I know you talk about this a lot on your channel, Mindy, we're all very, very different. Yes. Right? We've all got different microbiomes, we've got different childhood experiences, we have different environments, different

cultural preferences. And so it's not going to be a one-size-fits-all for everyone. And one of the big problems I see, Mindy, is that you see people attacking others online and saying, no, that's not true, right? This is the way you lose weight. But actually, if we can stand back from that, we can recognize that, wait a minute, that's the approach for you. Yeah. Great. You found the right approach for you, wonderful. That may not be the right approach for me or the right approach for someone else. So I'm really keen with my patients to help them figure out what's the right approach for them. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, no, I was thinking on that, it's funny, I had this one day as I was studying all the research on fasting, that it just hit me like a ton of bricks that if we

continued down the path of debating what food style humans are supposed to eat, we are never we're making progress. Yeah, because humans are opportunistic omnivores, right? Our diets have always been dictated by our geography and our climate. Always. Yeah. And it's only now that we're thinking that there's one perfect diet that we should all be following. It's simply not true. The diet for you was also going to depend on your age. You know, are you a bodybuilder, a young male bodybuilder, or are you a pregnant woman in your 30s? The right diet for you may well change throughout your life. Yes. You may have had a course of antibiotics that has had a negative impact on your microbiome, and suddenly the foods that you used to thrive on, you no longer thrive on. So there's a lot of nuance there,

and the reason I'm so keen to really try and explain that nuance is because I think people are beating themselves up. Oh, for sure. And, but, but also the, when you hear what you just said, I think where the brain goes is, wow, well, then it's way too confusing. Yeah. So how do we help unconfuse people? Yeah, that's a really good point. The first point I want to get across is that it is almost always possible to lose weight. Agreed. Right? So I want people to just let that sink in for a minute. Yeah. And if someone's listening or watching this and they think, well, I've tried everything for 10 years, my hunch would be that you haven't tried everything yet. You've tried your best.

Yeah. But let's see if maybe through this conversation or other conversations that they hear, they can find something that they haven't quite, it hasn't quite landed before where they think, oh, wait a minute, maybe there's something else. So let's talk about timing of food for a minute. And I don't think timing of food matters for absolutely everyone. But for some people, changing the timing of their food intake is transformative. So what do I mean by that?

I mean, there's been a lot of research for a number of years now. I think it kind of started with Professor Sachin Panda at the Salk Institute about time-restricted eating. This idea that we eat all the food that we're going to eat within a fixed window. Yeah. And, you know, the truth is initially a lot of those studies were done on mice. Yes. And people would say, okay, but how does that replicate to humans? Now, I know he's trying to do that now, and there are some good studies in humans,

but let me talk about my clinical experience, because ever since I read his early trials, I started implementing 10-hour and 12-hour eating windows with my patients, because I thought, okay, we haven't got it in humans yet, but it kind of makes sense on an evolutionary basis. Yes. The science is quite compelling, even though it's done on mice yet, so let's wait and see what happens with humans. but also the question I'm always asking myself as a clinician is,

how dangerous is this intervention? What's the downside here? And for most people, there's no downside. So Sachin Panda's research has shown that in America, I think over 50% of adults are consuming food in any given 24 hours in a 15-hour window. That's crazy. Right, one five.

Yeah, and we eat like 70 times. Like you put 70, I saw a study that was like some over 70 times in that 15 hours you're putting something in your mouth. Yeah. So, you know, and honestly, I believe that 50 years ago or so, no one was doing that. It's quite a modern phenomenon where often, let's say, we're waking up early for work at 6 a.m. And some people will consume food straight away or have a coffee that actually is like a dessert because of how much is in there, right? And the sugar and the cream and all the other things and the flavorings. and they're still consuming at 10.30 p.m. on the sofa in front of the television.

So the point I'm trying to make here is very simply, we're not designed to have food in our system the entire day. Agreed. So his research, Professor Pandas research has shown that if you just see all the food you're going to consume within 12 hours, you can get all kinds of potential benefits. That potential, it doesn't mean everyone's going to get them. But for many people, you are, weight loss. better blood sugar control, better hormonal balance, you know, better digestion, better sleep.

The amount of women I've seen in clinic who had really bad IBS, irasol bowel syndrome symptoms, and they really struggled for years with medication and trying to change their diets. Sometimes when they compress their food into a 12-hour eating window or a 10-hour eating window, because you're starting to work in harmony with your body, right, and you're giving your digestive system a break, often those symptoms go away or are vastly reduced. Yes. And I have so many patients, Mindy, over the years who literally, the way I help them to lose weight was to say, okay, I'm going to eat all of my food within a 12-hour eating window or a 10-hour

eating window. And I honestly believe that for most humans, that is very, very achievable. Yes, agreed, agreed. It's interesting you say that because, you know, in my clinic, once I caught on to this time-restricted fasting idea, literally I stopped like prescribing supplements for gastrointestinal situations. Like my supplement cells went way down, which is beautiful because people were actually healing themselves through this time-restricted eating that you're talking about. Yeah, and I think people often ask, well, what, you know, what am I meant to do? do I skip my dinner? Do I bring that earlier? Do I delay my breakfast? And again, what I would say is it kind of depends, right? Because it's easy for me to give advice without knowing that individual's life.

Yes. And their lifestyle and, you know, what are the demands on them? When did their kids like to eat? What time do they need to go to work? So to make it really simple, I say, listen, if you've never tried a form of time-restricted eating, I would say, give it a go, right? Try 12 hours. Can you eat all the food you're going to eat within 12 hours? If you can do that and you can have a 12-hour gap in every 24 hours and hopefully you're sleeping for 7 or 8 hours of those 12 hours, maybe experiment with bringing it back to 10 hours

and you have a 14-hour gap and see, is this working for me? If it is great, if it isn't, okay, there's other tools in the weight loss toolkit we can talk about. That's right. And I, but I would always say, give that a go. Are those your first two tools you would pull out? Again, I can't really say what's the first tool because I assess every patient individually. So I will be looking at what they eat, why they eat, how they eat, and when they eat. I'm always looking at that.

When I think about food, I'm thinking about all those things. Why We Eat was the second chapter in my book on weight loss. And I was really passionate about this chapter because I think people often feel bad, Mindy, because they buy a new diet book and they go, okay, you know what, that diet book didn't work. Maybe this new diet book's going to work. And it might do, right? Sure. Sometimes it does work.

You just weren't on the right eating program for you. But sometimes it's not what you're eating. Most people, in my experience, who are trying to lose excess weight and really excess body fat is what we're talking about. they kind of know the basics, right? The issue for some people isn't what we're eating. It's why we're eating. What do I mean by that? I mean, I mentioned stress already,

how stress drives many of us to eat more or eat less, for sure. But let's take a scenario that I've seen so often with patients that at 9pm, they've eaten all that they want to eat. They're trying to be good. and they're on their sofa watching television and they suddenly get this craving. Ah, yeah, I really want some ice cream. I want some sugar.

I want some sweets. And I realize it's not about knowledge that, right? It's not about information. They know already that ice cream at 9pm in front of the sofa is probably not going to be helping them. The question isn't what they're eating it, it's why are they eating it? So I created this little exercise that I called

or the freedom exercise or the three Fs. Feel, feed and find. These are those three Fs. And so what I have people do, and anyone listening to this can use this exercise to help them with a sugar craving, an ice cream craving. They can also do it with a social media craving

or a alcohol craving, right? Is let's say you're sitting on the sofa and you have that urge to have ice cream. Okay, just take a quick pause and go to the first F. what is it I'm really feeling here? Am I hungry? Is it physical hunger or is it emotional hunger?

Am I lonely? Have I had a row with my partner? Has the kids bedtime taking too long? And I'm just trying to get something for me. And I go ahead and have it. This is not about beating people up. It's about saying, I want to help you become more aware. So the first time they do it, it's like, oh,

I'm actually just feeling really stressed at the moment because of my life, that's why I'm turning to ice cream. Okay, great. Next time it happens, do the first F again, but then go to the second F. Wait, let me, can I say one thing on that? Because now my hormonal lens kicks in. And I think really what you want is dopamine. Yeah, exactly. So, but there's a lot of ways to get dopamine. So if you're sitting on the couch and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm not looking forward to tomorrow. Life has been stressful today. You're so. searching for a neurochemical is what you're searching for. Exactly. So you only know it in food,

but you can get in other things. And that's where the second F comes in. The second F is feed. Okay, so the first one is feel. What am I feeling? The second F is feed. Okay, now that I know I'm stressed, I wasn't really hungry. It's like, how does I scream feed that emotion? Oh, ice cream helps me feel less stressed. Okay, that's why I'm going to it. Okay, fine. Then if you want to have it, go ahead and have it. But then you want to really get to that third F, which is find. Okay, so the first one is feel. So I know that I'm feeling stressed. I scream or chocolates helps me feel less stressed. Now can I find, that's the third F. Can I find an alternative behavior that's going to feed the feeling? And that's exactly what you're talking about. So that could

be, I'm lonely. Instead of sugar, I could have a chat with my partner. Or I could phone one of friends, I'm feeling as I've not had any time to myself. I've just been on Zoom calls all day. Okay, instead of having the ice scream, you could run yourself a bath, right? Yep. You know, it could be that you just need to change your environment. The brain is a very associative organ. So if someone struggle with their weight for many years and they're used to snacking on the sofa in front of the television, it can be quite hard to break that cycle. Maybe if you have the room in your house or your apartment, you go to a different room.

And then suddenly you don't feel like having it. Or maybe you're just thirsty. Yep. And you have a glass of sparkling water. Yep. And that craving's gone. The point I'm trying to make with this Why We Eat section is, I really strongly feel that this is one of the big missing pieces and weight loss.

It's all about what, what should we do? But I don't think there's many people out there, Mindy, who don't know when they're trying to lose weight that too much sugar is not helping them. Right. They kind of know that. Right. They just can't get over it. They can't get over it.

I can't get over. Yeah. So something really interesting, I sort of do that with exercise when I don't feel like exercising. I have like certain steps that I do. And one of the steps is put your workout clothes on. Yeah. Because once I put my work, and I can literally go to a place where I'm like, I'm not working out. But I know I need to work out. I'm not working out. Okay, put your workout clothes on and then make a decision. And then I go and put my workout clothes on. And then I'm like, I don't know. I kind of feel like I might want to work out. And then if I'm still hesitant, I'll go actually, if I go for a run, I'll say, just go for a walk.

And I just chunk it down into little steps. And before you know it, you're off doing the proper health habit. Yeah, exactly. And again, this goes back to a personalized approach, right? All we can do, in my view, on these sort of mediums like a podcast, is share possible tools. Yep. But people have to understand that not every tool is for everyone. Right. Right. And I need to find what you. tool there is the right tool for me. That's right. Yeah. So that's how I think about weight loss or frankly any medical problem. I'm trying to look at someone's life and go, what are the inputs here? And my very first book a few years ago was on the four pillars of health. In America, it was called How to Make Disease Disappear. And really, I think that framework I outlined in that book still applies, you know, the book was six or seven years old now, still applies today, which is there's four

pillars of health which have a huge impact on how you feel, your weight, your mood, but there are also four pillars that we have a pretty high degree of control over. It's food, movement, sleep and stress. So you can look at those four pillars and put them through the lens of weight loss and go, okay, just to make this really simple here, I'm trying to lose weight. I've struggled in the past, right? I feel like I've tried everything. Let's go around these four. pillars in my own life and figure out which one needs addressing. I love that. You know, so we've talked a little bit about stress. Right. Right. We could go deep into stress, but that's a little bit about stress. We talked a little bit about sleep and how sometimes, and there's a lot of case studies I put in my

books on women, patients of mine, he've lost weight just by getting their sleep dial down. Oh yeah, I believe it. Sleep, you burn fat when you sleep and that is hard fat. You burn fat. You burn fat. You eat less the next day. Your willpower is better, right? There's all kinds of things. A lot of people know about hormones like leptin and grelin, the satiety hormone lepsin and the hunger hormone grelin. Well, when you haven't slept, those get flipped the following day.

We know that feeling. When you haven't slept, I know this feeling. I've had this in the past. Many times you always feel hungry and you never feel full. That's because grelin and leptin have flipped. Yes. So I acknowledge that some people find it hard to sleep. I acknowledge that some women in their 40s, you know, for a variety of reasons, maybe hormonal changes,

maybe pressures in life, young children, elderly parents, a household that you're trying to run. I get it can be difficult. But I think it's really empowering sometimes to let a patient know, hey, listen, I can see that you've tried so many different things. But one thing I don't think you've tried is addressing your sleep. Why don't we ease up on the diet at the moment, right? Just relax a little bit there. What if in the next month we start helping you focus on sleep? Yeah.

What are the small changes I can help you with here? And before you know it, if someone can sleep even 20 minutes more a night, like if you go from five hours, 40 minutes a night to six hours a night, sure, it's not seven hours. It's not seven and a half hours. But it's better than it was. Yeah. You're moving the right direction. You're moving the right direction.

You have more energy. You've got a bit more energy to cook for yourself. Yeah. You're not quite as tempted when you go to the coffee shop in the morning to pick up that pastry. You think, no, no, I'm not going to have that. It's like a ripple effect. And so I love this four-pillar approach because I think you can apply it to anything, depression, anxiety. Gives you control.

Gives you control. And then the tip I often say to people is look at those four pillars and ask yourself, which pillar do you need the most work in? Because I think a lot of us, we like to go to our favorite pillar. Oh yeah. Or the one's easiest. The one that's easiest, right? And I understand that. And sure, you know, I've got nothing inherently against that. But I have found in over two decades now, I've seen tens of thousands of patients that generally speaking for most people, if we try and go to our weakest pillar and bring that up, actually we make so much more impacts on our health.

Because some people I found have got a pretty good diet, right? Yeah. let's say it's a 90% good diet and they're stressing out over a little bit of sugar they have on a Sunday. And I'm like, yeah, but you know what? I think your diet's pretty good. I think it's much better for you to address the fact that you're only sleeping five hours a night. And let that bit of sugar on a Sunday go. Just go, it's okay.

But let's work on sleep. But often people want to neglect the sleep and go, how can I make my diet even better? Yes. How can I get it to 95%? Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting you say that. So I have a new theory that I actually, it's been percolated in my mind. I haven't, I haven't bounced off anybody. So you're the perfect person to bounce it off. I think one thing we don't talk about enough with food and weight loss is the environment in which you're putting yourself in when you eat. So I'll give you an example. A patient I've been working with recently has a history of eating disorders. And so we've been trying to bring back a little more of, you know, a a love for food to not have her fair food. And so she was telling me, oh, I've got family in town, and I'm not able to follow the right

macros, and I can't get my blood sugar right. And I said, this is what I want you to do. You're with family. I want you to sit with your family. I want you to eat good quality food. And I want you just to enjoy that experience without any negative thought going through. Because what's happening hormonally is oxytocin's going up. And when oxytocin goes up, cortisol goes down. And when cortisol goes down, you're more insulin

sensitive. So now that food, that high carb food that you're eating right now in the love and support of the family that you care about is going to have a different impact on you hormonally than if you take that same meal and you sit at your countertop and you wolf it down while you're looking at Instagram. Yeah, I love that. And I think it's spot on. I remember a few years ago when I was writing my book on weight loss, I remember reading a study sharing that basically you can eat the same foods in a high stress state and you'll put on more weight from them than if you eat them in low stress. Yes. And again, let's think about this. Let's take a step back. How are we designed to eat? We're designed really to eat in a relaxed state. Yeah. With community. With community.

with people around us, you know, let's say it was at the end of the day after a hunt, right? We're all relaxed. We're bonding. We're sharing the food that's been either caught at the hunt or has been gathered, the tubers, right? In that sort of relaxed state. And I think one of the problems these days is that we're so stressed. We're eating healthy food in a stressed out state. and I really think it has a negative impact on us or we don't get as many of the benefits as we might have done. There was one study from, I think, the University of Birmingham

that was published a few years ago that showed that if you're eating, let's say you eat your lunch and you're distracted, right? So you're also doing emails at the same time whilst eating your healthy foods. Because you're distracted at that meal, you eat more at every other meal for that day.

That's crazy. It's really crazy, but it made me think the whole human body is interconnected. And I think far too often we're trying to separate out into, well, what's the right food for weight loss? What's the right exercise for weight loss? And I understand why people want to know these things, but we kind of have to understand that everything works together. Like if you eat in a more mindful state at lunchtime, if you can shut your computer and pay attention and not be in a rush, Well, you can eat less for the rest of the day, naturally, without you even trying. And I often think about the French paradox, Mindy, you know, this idea that why is it that in France,

supposedly that they have lower rates of heart disease, given how much fats, given how much cheese, how much red wine they have. Yes. And there's a number of theories. My theory, I think, you know, the quality of the food they're eating absolutely plays a huge role. because I think generally in France there's still a very strong food culture about eating the right foods, you know, proper foods that we've grown our way and cooked. But I think it's also how they eat.

So still to this day in France, there is very much a let's stop and eat culture for lunch. And I remember this because a few years ago, it was actually when my first book came out in France, I was being interviewed by a French journalist. And I said, can I ask you a question. do you guys still have this culture where you stop for lunch and dinner? Like you're not also working or doing emails. She goes, absolutely. In France, we still stop.

Mealtimes are sacrosanct. You don't work at the same time. You sit at a table. It's properly prepared. You eat. She said to me the only places where that's going now in France is in some of the international offices in Paris, where the multi-national companies have come in and people are now working through their lunch break.

And then I think about these studies and I think, wow, if you're in France and you're eating in a relaxed state, you're not trying to do a million things at the same time. You're going to digest your food better. You're going to process your food better. You're going to stop eating probably when you're full rather than cramming it in and going beyond full. Yep. And so this all circles back to your first question.

Why do we struggle? Well, I think the reason we struggle is because we're only looking at one or two areas. Agreed. When there's seven or eight or even nine or ten areas, we could be looking at. And it's not that every area is relevant for all of us. Someone may be listening to this, Mindy, and they've already watched your YouTube videos and gone to a whole food diet, right? They may be eating already real food and practicing some of your fasting recommendations,

and they may still be struggling. Well, maybe it's not food at this moment of time. Maybe they've addressed the food pillar really nicely. Maybe it's stress. Yeah. Maybe it's sleep. Yep. Oh, we see this all the time because I would say coming out of the gates when people first study fasting, 80% of them apply it and they do really well.

And then there's this 20% that are like, I'm doing everything and I believe them. They're like, I'm doing everything. I don't know why I'm not losing weight. And that's when you have to bring in these other factors. And I think that the challenge we have is that we've made weight loss really about calories and calories out. Like you've got to move more, eat less kind of mentality. And that sticks us every single time. So one question you said, I really want to highlight this because this is one that I've been really deep in thinking about.

And it plays out in the French example that you just gave. Where does alcohol fit into all of this? Because I'll tell you something really interesting. When I have a CGM on and I drink a glass of wine with my meal, I actually see less of a glucose spike. And I'm not saying that I should have a glass of wine with everything, but what I think it's doing is relaxing me. And maybe I need to put myself in a more relaxed state before I do that without the glass of wine. But there is something that it does, and the French do this, right, over a long meal. they're having wine and bread and cheese.

This is so interesting. I'm so passionate about this. It reminds me also of when I used to drink. Now, I don't really drink alcohol anymore. I don't think I've had an alcoholic drink for over four years now. And I didn't have a problem with it. It's not that I have any moral problem with people who choose to drink. It's just, I got to the stage of my life where I thought, I just don't need this anymore.

It's not serving you. It's not serving me anymore. Like I don't like the way I feel whether I don't like the impact it has on my sleep. But when I did use to drink, what was really interesting is I noticed, if I had a glass of red wine, let's say in the middle of my working week in the evening, you know, I wouldn't sleep particularly well. I'd have a headache the next morning. But the same glass on holiday, if I was on vacation with my family, it did nothing. I didn't feel anything. I slept really well.

And I thought, wow, that's really, really interesting. the state in which you're in when you consume something makes a difference. And of course, when I say it like that, it's quite intuitive and quite obvious. But I don't think we think that one unit or two units of alcohol will have the same impact on us, no matter when or how we're having it. And I don't think that's the case. The other thing I think we need to really be thinking about is like, what is the stress load in our lives? So I was trying to explain, well, why is it it gives me a hangover in my home life, but not when I'm on holiday. And I also think it might have to do with stress load.

So in your home life where you're working, you're managing the kids after school clubs, and you're getting closer and closer to what I call your stress threshold. So maybe that glass of alcohol is tipping you over and you're feeling the effects. But let's say on holiday, you don't have emails to answer, you don't have your work to do, whatever it might be. you have a lot of headroom and resilience. So I think that's one thing we need to think about with alcohol. Specifically around weight loss, okay, where does alcohol fit in?

I don't think it's helpful for most people. Yeah, right? It is full of calories. You know, it helps put on liver fats, which is super not helpful for our overall health, our metabolic health. But I also understand that some people do like to consume alcohol. it's maybe a way that they wind down their day, maybe it's something they do to connect them with other people.

And so I'm always trying to give practical advice because there's optimum and then there's real life. Right. And some people, they can hear things on alcohol, they go, but they're going to go, no, but that's how I finish off on a Friday my week. I have a glass of beer or a glass of wine. So I want to be totally transparent. I don't think it's helpful for most people,

but I also do recognize that if we look at some of the, these long-living populations around the world, like the Blue Zones, for example, which is getting a lot of press at the moment because of the Netflix series, right? We have to also acknowledge that some of these long-living populations do have a glass of red wine most evenings. Yeah, every night. And are seemingly able to tolerate it, and they're still living to 100 in really good health. So what's going on there?

Because we can say that there's no biological benefit to alcohol. And I'd probably agree with that, right? Agreed. But for some people, it's part of their culture. It's the way that they bond. And I think what happens in some of these blue zones is that they're getting everything else right. Right? They're eating natural foods.

It's local. It's seasonal. They're moving their bodies each day. They have a strong sense of community. They have low levels of stress. People aren't left isolated by themselves. You know, the whole community comes together. elderly people are living in extended families. And so I think if you look at alcohol through

the stress lens, I think it teaches us quite a lot. If your stress load is low, well, I'm not saying there's a benefit to drinking alcohol, but you might be able to tolerate it. If your stress load is high, it may well be tipping you over. The other thing I think where alcohol becomes really problematic for weight loss is to do with its impact on sleep. Oh yeah, for sure. We've all got our unique threshold, but for some people, even half a glass of red wine will tank your REM sleep, which is a very important phase of deep sleep. Rem sleep is also called by a lot of sleep researchers emotional first aid, right? So it's how we deal with our emotions, we process memories, we take the sting off difficult experiences and lay them down in a more, you know, a less

triggering fashion, right? Which is why I think for people who are suffering with their memories, we take, mental health, I think alcohol can be really problematic because you lose REM sleep. The other thing alcohol does is it fragments our sleep. So often people don't even realize that they're getting up multiple times in the night. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they don't. They think they've slept well, and then they're thinking, well, why am I so tired today? So I think, yes, a lot of alcoholic drinks have too many calories in, too much sugar in, which is not going to help you if you're trying to lose weight. But I also think that alcohol's impact on our sleep is highly problematic. And for some people that's going to really get in the way of their weight loss. And so for that person who still

wants to have a drink, what I would say to them is, look, I think it's better for you to try not to if you can. But if you really do want to have that, try and have as little as you can, right? Let's say you're used to having three glasses of wine. Yeah, start to taper down. Try and see if you have just one glass, but also have it earlier in the evening. So if you were to have a, let's say you finish work at five. And again, I need to be careful how I say this. I'm not recommending that people are doing, I can feel people's brain going, oh, okay, wait, this is the out. Well, here, let me, let me put it this way. A 5 p.m. glass of red wine is going to have less impact on your sleep than a 10.30 p.m. glass of red wine that you have in front of the television. Exactly. Because you will have metabolized

and process some of that wine by the time you go to sleep. So if you are going to have it, earlier is probably better. Yeah. As long as that earlier glass doesn't turn into the whole bottle. And then also to your point earlier, if you get poor sleep, now you're going to eat more calories the next day. So it sets them up for the vicious cycle that they, so they're like puzzle pieces. All of these, everybody has to find their own puzzle coming together. And I guess it's vicious cycle, not with just food, but you're more tired than that.

So what do you do? You drink more caffeine. Right. You have more caffeine and you have caffeine later on in the day because by the time it gets a 3 or 3.30pm, because you had a bad night's sleep, because you were drinking alcohol the night before. Yeah. You need more sugar. You need more caffeine to get you going. So that then has a negative impact on your sleep on the subsequent night.

And because you're wired when you come home from work because you've had all this caffeine, you may then feel the need to have some more alcohol to bring you down. Caffeine to bring you up in the morning. alcohol to bring you down. And so for some people, alcohol is going to sabotage their efforts to lose weights. And you will have seen, like I have many patients to do everything else, but it won't change alcohol. I think that's the most shocking thing to me in helping so many people lose weight is that I really truly believe there are people out there trying so hard. And they're not losing weight, but they're missing pieces like what we're discussing right now. And that's what I'm trying of free people because then we start getting, we think it's our fault and we, you know, think we're

undisciplined. But these little pieces, like the alcohol caffeine thing is really interesting because you're absolutely right. So you alcohol to wind down and you caffeine to wind up. And they kind of are connected. Yeah, you know, the keeping I want people who are struggling to lose weight to know is, first of all, listen, I honestly don't think it's your fault. Yeah, I agreed. Right. It is really, really tough in this food environment to not put weight on. You're surrounded by food everywhere, and it's not good quality food that you're surrounded by.

It is food that in my book I call blissy foods, these foods that have been specifically engineered to raise dopamine, right? They're specifically engineered where you cannot resist them. You know, there's a make of what we would call crisps or you guys would call potato chips in the UK when the advert is, once you pop, you can't stop.

It's true. Yeah. Once you pop, you can't stop because it's been engineered that way. Do you know that about, gosh, it was like 20 years ago, I saw an article in the LA Times. It was like a four-page article about how the potato chip companies actually sit around. There's a conference room where they sit around and they go, okay, what makes the potato chip addictive? And they're like, it's sweet and it's a little salty, it's light. Like they break it all down to make it so that you want to have more.

And so they literally spray on top of it a chemical that makes you want to have it more. Yeah, and I think they even go further and they maybe try two or 300 flavors out. And they do scans and see, you know, which spikes these chemicals in your brain the most. Yes. Right. What's the bliss point? So it's not that you're weak, right? It's not that you have no willpower. These foods are incredibly difficult to resist. We know that when we take native communities or hunter-gatherer tribes or

we take people and bring them into more urban environments, they're fine in their native environment. They all put on weight when they come into the modern food environment. So one of my top tips of people around that, which again, recently I put it out on my Instagram and it seems to trigger a few people, which I found, well, I can explain why I think it is. I say, don't exercise willpower in your house. So basically, if you don't want to eat it, don't bring it into your house. Oh, that's totally my go-to all the time. Because you're making it half of yourself, like, you have to exercise willpower. As soon as you step out your front door, you want to fill up petrol or gas, you're standing to pay, you're surrounded by all the cookies and the sweets and the potato chips, right?

everywhere you go, you're trying to go to the coffee shop here in the UK, you're trying to buy a coffee, you're going to one of the chains there and you'll be offered a nice pan of chocolate or a pastry, right? And if you haven't sat well, you're going to find it hard to resist. So you're going to have to use willpower when you're out of your house. So I say don't use it up at home. So for many years, I have a rule. If I don't want to eat it, I don't bring it in the house. Me too. And I was home alone with my kids this weekend. My wife was away. And I remember on Saturday, evening once I'd put the kids to bed, I was craving something sweet, right? I really wanted something. I thought, you know what? Kids are in beds, my wife's away. I feel like something sweet.

I looked in my cupboard. There's nuts. There's olives. There's avocados. I'm like, there's nothing sweet here. And you know what? I didn't end up having anything sweet. Oh my God. That's so mean. Just because I know this stuff, just because I've written a load of books on this stuff, it doesn't mean I'm any less human than anyone else. I'm as tempted as anyone else is. So I take precautions. I've got to tell you, that's a tip I've been using with patients for over 10 years,

and most people love it. Now, when I posted this on Instagram recently, some people were saying, this is the wrong advice, right? We need to be able to get to the point where we're so in tune with our bodies that we can have the cookies and the biscuits and the chips at home

and tap into ourselves and be intuitive and not eat them. And in my head, I'm like, you know what? Hey, I've got no problem. If you can get to that state, great. Knock yourself out, right? I've got to tell you, I'm not at that state. Most of my patients are not. So in the meantime, before you get to that enlightened state where you can do that,

I'm like a little helpful tip is just don't bring it into the house. I'm the same way. If it's in the house and it's 8 o'clock at night, it starts calling my name. I sometimes can't resist it. So getting it out. You know, if I had ice scream, I would demolish the whole time. Yeah. Yeah.

So I don't bring it in. Yeah. So it's a very simple. The other tip around food I love to share with people, because I've seen it transformative for many patients, also myself, not so much for weight loss with myself, because I'm very lucky in the sense that weight hasn't been something I've struggled with in my life. Although, although people would look at me and go, or you're tall and lean, you know, if I'm not eating well for a while, I can put on a little bit of weight around my tummy. I can see it in my

face and it doesn't feel good. This is a tip that for some people that's counterintuitive, but I think it really helps. And it's eat your dinner for breakfast. Flip it. Totally flip it. And I can so remember this 44-year-old chap, I think, who came in to see me. He wasn't like really overweight, but he was struggling a bit and he was carrying a bit of excess weight. He tried things to change it. He said, hey, Doc, I don't quite know what I'm doing. And I sort of went through his day, and he would start off his day with a sugary granola. Now, he thought it was healthy. It was a healthy cereal that had some sort of marketing messages on the outside. And I asked him to bring it in. I said, look, there's so much sugar in this, right? And what's happening when you

have that first thing in the morning, I get that you're trying to have something healthy, that you've been told is healthy. The problem is is that you're going to have a blood sugar spike after you eat this and two to three hours later your blood sugar is going to rapidly start to fall and you may well at that point lose your focus, lose your energy and feel sometimes quite anxious because that's a stress sign to the body, blood sugar falling rapidly. And he said, yeah, that's funny because mid-morning I do feel really hungry. I feel quite lightheaded and I get a bit cranky until I've had some foods. And this chap was vegetarian And he wanted to stay vegetarian

So there were other things in his life That I looked at But he would always make himself a really nice Evening meal And I remember like one thing he loved having in the evening Was salmon and goat's cheese And roasted vegetables That sounds amazing

And I said okay Could you make extra in the evening Put some in the fridge And have that for your breakfast as well And he's like Yeah I never even thought of that I said just try it for a week can see what happens. That one change honestly changed everything about this guy's life. The first

time he did that, he had that before he went off to work in the morning. And he said, I didn't feel hungry till 2pm. Normally at 10.30 I'm hungry. Lunchtime, I can't wait to go and have something. My focus was the best that has ever been at work. I felt high levels of energy. And he naturally ate less. And I think people don't realize that their first meal is often sabotaging them. Yes. They're often having dessert for breakfast. You know, unfortunately, even a lot of these so-called healthy cereals are just desserts. Well, oatmeal. I'm shocked at how many people have oatmeal for breakfast. And I don't find, I can't see, maybe if you add some protein to oatmeal, but it's still a blood sugar spike. It is for most people. And look, some people will say that oatmeal really helps them in the

morning and they don't feel hungry. And I've seen enough, Mindy, to go, okay, I believe that for some people, it could be their microbiome, their heritage, whatever it might be. Maybe with steel cut oats, maybe they're okay. Not like an instant oatmeal. But I think more people than not are getting sugar spikes from these foods. And so simply flipping dinner for breakfast. I love that. I think it's huge for people.

I certainly don't think in terms of more tips, I would say, try not to eat two to three hours before bed if you can. Agreed. I know it's hard sometimes. You might want to finish your. work and come and relax when you come home. I do get that. I personally don't use a sleep tracker anymore. I did for a period of time. And one of the key, I felt with the aura ring that I learned all I needed to learn within a few weeks. Yeah, you saw your habits. Yeah. I saw it. I figure this out. I'd leave it for a few months. Put it on again and again. Okay, I get what this is teaching me.

Yeah, yeah. And I guess everyone's different. We've all got to find what works for us. But for me, one of the key learnings was if I eat within two or even three hours of bed, I don't have as good a night's sleep. And then if we think about what we said before, where food, digesting food is very heavy on the body. Right? It's a very labor intensive process. Yeah. It kind of makes sense. If you give yourself two, three hours where you're awake, where your body's done a lot of the heavy lifting, you're going to have, you know, a more relaxing sleep.

So I think that can be really beneficial. Yeah. And I absolutely agree. I try to eat much earlier. In fact, I've been, and you and I talked about this, I've been really trying to eat my biggest meal in either like around noon and then eat lighter as the day goes. Like I'll have like a light meal before, you know, as the sun is setting because it's been summer.

So I think the timing of those meals is really important. I think that's better because there's a lot of research now. There was a Spanish study that I think maybe three years ago came out that they basically split people into two groups. and they had the same foods, the same number of calories. But one group had the majority of those calories in the first half of the day. So I think they finished at 3pm with the main bulk of their calories. So only a very, very light dinner.

And the other group had it flipped where they had the most of their calories in the second half of the day. And there was a significant difference in weight loss. So people basically who front-loaded their foods did much, much better. The ones with a lighter dinner, there was more. fat loss, more weight loss, better blood sugar control. But again, I want to highlight something that's had earlier, Mindy, which is we can see these studies and think that's fact, and that applies to me. Yeah, well, well, and it isn't. It's like that works for that group of people. Yeah. You may go, you know, we know that connection is important for our health. We know, as you've

mentioned, if we're eating in a relaxed state around loved ones, we're more present, we're more mindful, it's going to have, you know, we're going to process and digest that food better. Maybe it's going to help us put on less weight. Yes. Well, if you're in a family where you all like to sit around and have a meal together in the evening because you're all out, you know, your kids are at school, they're at college and your partner's out of work, you're out of work. Okay, well, maybe that approach is not going to be the right approach for you.

Right. Maybe you can move some of these other levers. Yeah, there's a lot of levers to move. That's a lot of levers. And you don't actually, one thing I've learned many is that you don't have to actually pull on every lever. No. You just need to pull on enough. And that starts to shift the balance for you.

One of my favorite quotes is you don't need motivation. You need momentum. Yeah. And that's exactly what we're talking about is just what's going to get you momentum so that you start to increase your motivation to do more and more good health habits. And that's why I personally believe that starting small. Yeah, I agreed. is better for most people. Like, in my experience, I found that some people can overnight transform their entire life.

But generally speaking, from what I've seen, it happens when you've had a significant life stressor. Bereavement. You've lost your job. You've just split up with a long-term partner. Yeah, you know what? In those cases I have seen overnight, you can change everything. Yep. But if you haven't had that, in my experience, it's most of the time.

people are better off starting small because otherwise what happened, you end up in the classic new year scenario, which we see every January. People wake up on New Year's Day and they think, right, this year is going to be different from every year. You know, somehow, miraculously, I'm going to be different this year. I'm going to use even more motivation and willpower this year. I'm going to go spinning four times a week for two week all year. And they do it for two weeks and they're feeling good and then what happens? Life gets in the way. Right. Work is busy. you had a bad day at work, you come back and you think, I can't be bothered going to the gym. Right.

So you have this really yo-yo-type approach to health, whereas if you start small, it becomes sustainable and it leads to what I call a ripple effect. So one thing I've spoken about for years and probably one of my cornerstone habits that I've been doing for maybe four years now is I have a five-minute strength workout every single morning. Ooh, I love that. What does that look like? What it looks like, so as part of my morning routine, one of the things I do is have a workout. So I come down in the morning in my pajamas, where I live in a house, so I come downstairs.

Now, for me personally, the first thing I do is I meditate for 10 minutes. Because that's because I've learned that I'm a better human being when I do that. Yeah, me too. But let's part that to the side for a minute. This strength workout, what happens? Well, one of the things I do is make myself coffee. So in my pajamas and you've, you know, you've been in my house, you've seen how particular I am. I weigh out coffee.

You had your coffee. You have your coffee. And I time it for five minutes because that's how long I like it to brew. In those five minutes, I don't go on Instagram. I don't go on my email. I don't look at the news. I have a workout in my pajamas. It used to be body weight.

Now I have a kettlebell and a dumbbell. You've seen them outside. They're kicking around. Why? Because it means instead of me having to find a dedicated one hour to go and visit a gym, nothing against that if you like doing that and you've got time for that. But it basically means that every morning without fail, I have a five minute strength workout and I've rarely missed a day in four years.

Oh my God, that's brilliant. Why have I rarely missed a day? It's not because I've got more motivation than anyone else. It's because there's two big rules of behavior change that I think people don't follow, which is what trips them up. Rule number one, you've got to make it easy. Yes. Why do you need to make it easy?

You need to make it easy because willpower never. last. Yeah. Right. January the 1st, willpower's through the roof. So we think, I'm going to go spinning one hour four times a week, right? Great. You do that when your willpower is high, but when your willpower falls, as it always does, right? That's the key point. As it always does, you will never do something if it's hard. So rule number one, make it easy. It's a five minute workout. It's not half an hour. It's not an hour. It's five minutes, which means I can rarely say I don't have time for five minutes. Rule number two, is where are you going to put that behavior?

Well, from the research, we know the very best place to put any new behavior, if you want to turn it into a long-term habit, is to stick it onto an existing habit. So what's an existing habit? It's a behavior you're doing without thinking about it. I don't really need any motivation to make my morning coffee. No, you don't. Right?

It's happening. So if I stick on the behavior onto my coffee habit, the workout happens every day because I drink coffee. coffee every day. And so I've learned, this is what I always try and teach patients or on my podcast or on my YouTube channel. I try and show people that find your equivalent off that, right? Why do we do it in my pajamas? Well, I've made it so easy. I don't have to put my workout gear on. You don't have to get changed to have a workout. Somebody could get down and do push-ups. They could do tricep dips, squats. Like, you don't even have to have kettle bells or...

You don't have to have anything. And actually, there's another point here, which I think is really relevant for people, which is our environment influences our behavior so much more than we think. So we can look at that in a macro way and look at society and go, okay, the food environment, for many of us, is toxic now. We're surrounded by high energy, calorie dense foods that are very hard to resist. That's why as a population, we're really struggling to lose weight, or that's one of the reasons, right? So the environment is influencing our behavior. But let's look at that on a individual level inside our own houses. I have a dumbbell and a kettlebell in my kitchen.

So what does that mean? In the morning, when I go into my kitchen, I'm being visually triggered and reminded that I could pick that thing up. And I'll be honest, a few years ago, I was chatting to my wife and she said, hey, baby, you're going to keep this stuff in the kitchen. And I remember saying, hey, listen,

the problem is if I put that in the garage or I put it in the cupboard, I'm probably never going to pick it up. Yep. Right. But by having it there every day, not only do I have this sort of five minute thing that I've made a habit, I'm being visually triggered to my environment is encouraging me to pick that thing up. Yes. So it's the same. We're back at this environment because this is sort of a through line that I'm really seen right now with people in their health is that they're trying to change their health in the wrong environment. Exactly. And so why don't we start with the environment first?

Like what you said, like I'm saying, where are you eating? Let's change that environment. And what I just heard and what you're saying is when I work out, how do I change the environment where I work out in? How do I make it so ridiculously easy for me? And I think this is like a conversation that's not being had. Yeah. And what that small habit does is it builds self-esteem and confidence. Yes. If you want to go on this weight loss journey in a world that's encouraging you to put on weight and be fat, let's be honest, right?

You need to build it your self-esteem because it's going to be hard. And I think a lot of the time we feel so negative about ourselves. We feel that we were weak. Oh, I crumbled. I had the ice scream. I'm such a failure. And then the next day, we kind of almost drown or eat away our emotions and our sorrows because we feel so bad, which becomes problematic. when you make one small promise to yourself every day and you keep it. So for me, it's my five-minute workout. I love that. I'm going to pick that one up. I send my body in my mind one of the most powerful signals out there, which is I can rely on myself. Oh, I love that. I don't say stuff and I don't keep my word.

If you say I'm going to transform my sleep environment, I'm going to go to the gym four times a week. I'm going to eat three home-cooked meals a day. You know what? Good luck. If you can do that, amazing. Yeah. But if you fail, which most of us do, you're actually then, in some ways, you're sending a signal to your body that I can't stick to anything.

Yes. And that's why I love starting small. So by virtue of the fact that I haven't missed a day, and even on the busiest day, let's say I skip the meditation, I'll still do my five-minute workout. So I send myself, I give myself the most powerful form of evidence that exists, which is real life lived experience. that I can depend on myself. And I think anyone who's trying to lose weight, find one keystone habit, make it small,

stick it on to an existing behavior, an existing habit, sorry, and make yourself a promise, say, I'm going to do this every day. Yeah. You know, it's so interesting because I get a lot of people who will say to me,

like out in public or on DMs, on socials, and they'll say, oh my God, you changed my life. I lost all this weight, because of you. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I don't get any of that credit. Only you could stop you from putting food in your mouth. And in that moment, you need to look yourself in the mirror and thank you to your point. Because if you stop putting food in your mouth and you got a result, or you decide to do the five-minute workout and you're starting to see a change, you literally

have to look at yourself in the mirror and go, okay, I can only thank me. And then that's the beginning of taking this health power back. Yeah. And I just want to also address, because I think that's a really, really great point, because people are doing it, right? They're maybe using your podcast or my podcast to get information, but they're the ones who have to change. Yeah. Right. They're doing it. And if anyone's thinking, well, how much is a five-minute workout really going to do? Right. Let's address that head on. It's not so much about the calories burnt, right? It's not so much about what that's going to do for your physique, although these things are very relevant. It's something in my view that's much more powerful than that. It's that confidence we have in ourselves. It's that trust we have

in ourselves. Most people are struggling with their health, whether it be weight loss or anything else, in my experience, they've lost confidence. Yes, they beat up themselves. They talk negatively about themselves. And that's why, yeah, you can buy any diet book you want. And if you stick to it for three weeks, you're probably going to lose weight. Probably. But most people are not looking for dropping a dress size in two weeks. Most people are looking for sustainable change, where they start to lose the excess weight for good, when they've got more energy, more vitality, where this becomes sustainable and a new lifestyle.

Yeah. And I very much relate that five-minute kitchen workout to toothbrushing for people. Yeah, that's what it actually reminded me of. It's the same thing. Yeah, yeah. Nobody says this, Mindy. No one says, I don't think at least, my dental hygiene is important, right? But, you know, Monday was a busy day at work, you know, I'm going to skip it today.

Oh, Tuesday, I don't have time. You know what? I'm going to miss it in the week, but on Sunday I'm going in for a deep one hour clean. No one says that, that we intuitively understand that a little bit every day means you look after your teeth for life. And I'm not saying that five minute kitchen workout is in place of a longer workout twice a week or going to the gym or going on your exercise bike or whatever it might be. For me it's the same as tooth brushing. I brush my teeth every day.

I do a five minute strength workout every day. Now if on one day I've got more time, I can go for a 90 minute walk or a run or the gym, great. Right. But it's not instead of that. Yeah. And that's why I do it every day. I actually see a next book for you. I think it should be the five minute kitchen workout. Five minute kitchen workout. There you go. I think there's a lot to say there. Okay, total

other topic on weight loss that's pretty popular right now. And I'd be curious, your medical opinion on this is all of the weight loss drugs that everybody is tapping into. OZempec, a few of the other ones. I mean, people are getting incredible results. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. So, listen, first thing I want to acknowledge is I don't feel that I'm expert in the weight loss drugs. Okay, so I want to acknowledge that first of all. From what I've seen and from what I've heard, some of the weight loss that's coming from these weight loss drugs, quite a large proportion is coming from muscle. I've heard that too. Right? Yeah. Instead of fat. And when we talk about weight loss, I think we need to be really clear. Most people are looking

to lose fat, right? It's not just the weight on the scale. People are ideally, trying to lose visceral fat, the dangerous harmful type of fat that surrounds our organs, and they're trying to put on muscle. What we don't really want is a situation where we're losing weight on the scales, but we're losing a lot of lean muscle. Because lean muscle is so important for insulin, for glucose disposal, for our aging. As you've spoken about on my podcast, very important for estrogen. Yes. Right. So I always want to say, listen, my bias, and I think we all have biases that sometimes we don't acknowledge, my bias is that I would prefer it if we could help people lose weight without the need for pharmaceutical medications.

That's the truth. That's my bias. And having, I would say, successfully been doing this for over two decades, I genuinely feel that we can help most people do that. I acknowledge that it can be difficult, more difficult for some than others. but I think we have all kinds of tools like CGMs now, which you wear sometimes I wear once every three months or so for two weeks. It can be incredibly empowering.

I actually think the CGM we could totally change the metabolic health of the world. So I completely agree. I will go this far. I don't think in two decades of practice, I have seen any tool be as transformative for helping an individual change their behavior as a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor. Because what that does, and I accept that they can be overuse,

and I accept that for some people with eating disorders, they can perhaps create an unhealthy relationship with food. But that doesn't mean that no one can benefit from them. Again, these discussions online become very black or white. They're either all good or they're all bad. Well, no, for some people, they're probably not the best tool. But for some people, if you have type two diabetes or metabolic syndrome or you struggle with your weight,

understanding for you which foods really spike your blood sugar can be absolutely transformative. Yeah, change your life. Again, just to acknowledge some of the other critiques against them, you know, could you not pay attention to anything else and just eat bacon all day every day and have a flat blood sugar? Yeah, you could do that. Would that be helpful? Probably not. Yeah. Right?

So it's the way we use these tools that determine whether they're going to be effective or not. So well said. Yeah. And actually, that brings up an interesting point because I've done a lot of research on the carnivore diet versus vegan. You know, we have a lot of plant-based versus animal-based sort of discussions. And we have a fasting group called the Resetter Collaborative on Facebook. And everybody's always talking about how do you best handle going back into food? And these two things come up.

So, but one issue that I feel like isn't being addressed in weight loss is the microbiome. Yeah. And what the impact of the microbiome is on your ability to lose weight. So you most likely know the studies that have shown one round of antibiotics actually causes you to start to gain more weight because it has decimated the good and the bad bacteria. So would you say that it is important to make sure that you're feeding your microbiome to be able to support a weight loss journey? Yeah, 100%. There's so much supporting evidence here on the relationship between our microbiome. and our weight, not only in the ability in which we process, the nutrients that come in, how much fat we're going to absorb.

But there's even some studies, which is shown that an FMT, a fecal microbiota transplantation, right? It's impressive. If you are, again, I don't know how much this has been replicated, but there are certainly individual cases where someone who is severely overweight into their gut is implanted the feces. basically the microbiome from a thin person. Yep. And that can change your weight.

So there's so much there that we're learning, right? Do we know enough for every single person? Probably not. But do we know enough to go, it's worth supporting the microbiome in all of our patients? Yes, it is. But again, what is supporting the microbiome be? I was just going to say, yeah, what's your strategy for that? So I've evolved my view on this over the last few years because one thing, like there's a

popular thing now to, you know, try and have 30 different plant foods a week. Now, it's not that I'm against that. I think if you can do that, yeah, you're going to get all kinds of polyphenols, all kinds of prebiotic foods that feed lots of different species of bacteria. The problem is a lot of people struggle with their guts. A lot of people have got IBS. They've got bloating. And as they start to ramp up their fiber intake, they feel uncomfortable. They're struggling to go to the toilet. Now, some people will say they just need to build up slowly. And I agree that can be a helpful strategy.

But for some people, I've tried it. I've tried addressing their stress. I've helped them build up slowly. They don't seem to tolerate that level of fibre. And this is where I think the nuance gets lost in conversation. For some people, increasing the amount of fibre to those high levels is life-changing. Helps them lose weight, helps them be full more, helps increase the health of their gut microbiome.

The truth is, though, I've got some friends. I've got some patients who are thriving on a more carnivorous style of diet. Yeah. And we've got to be able to sit with that and go, what's going on here? Because that is happening. Yeah. And so how do I put all that together? Yeah, I was just going to say what you do.

Well, I say you've got to be doing something for your microbiome. So doing something with your microbiome means, first of all, stopping, putting in things that are decimating it. Yeah. Right? And that could be a lot of the ultra-processed foods, a lot of the emulsifies, a lot of the, artificial ingredients that we know are affecting on microbiome. You mentioned that study on antibiotics. I think one thing we're learning now with antibiotics is that we're all, we have different levels of resilience. Some people can have one course of broad spectrum antibiotics and for two years

their microbiome hasn't recovered to the previous pre-antibiotic state, whereas some are seemingly recovering within two weeks without actually doing anything. So again, it's all highly individual. But I think, yes, increase the amount of colorful vegetables in your diet to get that diversity if you can. Yeah. Okay. But if you can't, there are other options, right? You could just go for pre-baric foods. And there was a study that came out about three months ago. I think it's from Israel showing that the top pre-botic foods that have the most pre-botic fiber for our gut bugs, I think were leaks, onions and Jerusalem artichokes, I think. There's a four. There's a four. and fifth one, I can't quite remember, but these are very cheap, very accessible foods, right?

So it's not that this is, you know, beyond the scope of most people. But if you can't do that, because some of these pre-bartic fibres give people bloating. Okay, what else can you do? Well, you could have live yoghers, which have got probiotic bacteria within them. That may be an option. You could have cathia, right? You can even go to fermented foods like sauerkrauts. Yes.

Right. What I try and do with patients, and again, this is how it's a very important. evolved over the years is we need to be doing something proactive for your gut's health. Yes. But what is that thing that's going to work for you? Like some of my patients who are on a more carniferous style of eating over the last year's, I found that them actually having sauerkrauts, two spoons of that a day, that can tolerate fine.

So they're doing something for their microbiome. Yeah. Okay. So this is really interesting because I absolutely agree with you as far as like people who can't have fiber. And, you know, a lot of people have SIBO, a lot of which is... Yeah, so you could be treating that and then they can tell the right say. That's right. So I came up with something called carnivore fasting, where you fast 17 hours, changing your gut microbiome, and then you eat in your eating window, you only eat meat.

And this is obviously for animal-based eaters. And you do that for three days in a row. So what you're doing is you're killing all the bad bacteria. You're not feeding any of the stuff that triggers CBO. What we do know about meat-only diet is that it can actually upregulate T-regulatory cells. So it calms that gut. So you do it for like three days and then go back to more of a fiber diet and see how it works. Now, Sourcrow, what's so interesting there is that the fermentation process brings those enzymes in that help break it all down so CBO is not as actively triggered. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I love that. I think that's a great approach. So if I take a step back, what is that saying? That's kind of saying, okay, you might have an individual

or a patient who's struggling, right? They may hear on a podcast or read in a book that I need to increase the amount of fiber in my diet for my gut bugs. They then go and try that. They feel awful and then they feel really demoralized and deflated. Exactly. I can't do it. What's happening to my gut health? Yeah. So there's a number of ways to tackle that. And this is where it's hard on a podcast to get all the nuances across with an individual in my clinic, these are the kind nuanced approaches I would take. Yeah. Could be, oh, you've got SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Let's treat the SIBO, right? Maybe with changes to your diet, maybe sometimes with an antibiotic, although I prefer not to where possible, but I have done in the past sometimes. Yeah, I can be

helpful. With a really difficult case of SIBO, then once you've corrected the underlying problem, then yeah, you might be able to bring in more vegetables, more pre-bratic fibres. But not always, right? In my experience, not always. And I think we have to acknowledge that some of us, because of the way we've been living for so long, because of the pollutants in the atmosphere, in our food environment, because of the chronic stress, the chronic sleep deprivation, actually, sometimes our bodies aren't in a great state of health.

Yeah. And we have to do things that in the short term help us. So I do believe it would be better for most people to be able to tolerate more fiber in their diets. But sometimes it's going to be a period of years before they can do that. And so I think your approach that you outlined is a really great one because I can see, you know, people with CBO who go and who eat meat and who eat on just a meat-only diet, they love it because their symptoms aren't there. They're not eating any of the foods that flare up the CBO. And therefore they want to stay on it forever. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And again, I get that. And I think this is one of the things with the carnivore movements. Again, I understand that some people get a full resolution if they're also mean symptoms. So why on earth would they want to change things? Right. I get that. I totally, you know, I've seen enough patients in pain who've struggled for years. If you find something that works, you're going to be like, hey, you guys talk about whatever you want. Yeah. But I've been in pain. I've had bloating. I've had joint pain for 10 years. If I only eat me, I've got no symptoms. So I get that. But I do think that many people on a carnivorous diet would probably benefit over a period of time as their body settles, if we can help them reduce stress, if we can help them repopulate their gut bugs and improve the health of their gut microbiome.

Ideally, I think it would be good if they can tolerate more things. It's back to the rhythm, right? It's like there's no one diet even for each individual. There's like, do this for a little while, then back away and then do this. It's kind of like what we talked about on your podcast. Like, we should be maybe looking at seasonal eating and women should be looking at eating according their cycle. Like there has to, we have to bring rhythm back.

And also, Mindy, I want people to pay attention, right? Pay attention to how you feel when you consume certain foods. Yeah. Right. That 3F freedom exercise about cravings was about paying attention. Yeah. Whenever you're trying a new diet. it, whether it's something you've heard, you say Mindy or me say or someone else or you've

read about, try it, but ask yourself, how is this working for me? How do I feel? How does my stomach feel? What are my bowels like? What is my sleep like? Because people often miss that step. They outsource everything onto the expert and they forget their own inner expertise. And I want people to understand that the conversation around plant base versus animal, in my view, it's the wrong debate to be having. Agreed. I get there's an ethical issue. I'm not talking about that.

I'm purely talking through the lens of health at the moment. I think it's the wrong conversation. I think it's the wrong question. The question I think we should be asking ourselves, for whatever we want to do with our health, whether it's weight loss or anything else, is what's the approach that's working for me? How do I feel want to eat this way

versus how do I feel want to eat that way? And you will build up this kind of, inner knowledge and wisdom that you can't get from any other experts. Yes. And I say just to finish off there, two very simple questions I like my patients to ask themselves each night are these. What went well today and what can I do differently tomorrow? I love that.

And Mindy, what I love about those two questions is that they help us grow on a daily basis in a very compassionate way. We're not beating ourselves up. We're being very kind to ourselves. I'm going, okay, what went well today? Oh, you know what? Actually, I thought today was pretty bad. I skipped lunch.

It was stressy at work. But despite all that, I still took half an hour to cook me and my family at home cook me and when I came home from work. Okay, you can write it in a journal if you want. That's what went well today. Number two, what can I do differently tomorrow? Well, the reason I was so stressed today

and I skipped lunch is because I stayed up late watching Netflix last night. So I went to bed at midnight. So I didn't sleep well. I was exhausted today. I was craving. caffeine and sugar and I ate more. Tonight, you know what? I can learn from that and go to bed a bit earlier.

And if you ask yourself those two questions, day after day, week after week, month after month, you will become a black belt in your own life. You will understand the things that work for you and the things that don't work for you. And then you're empowered to make the changes that are going to work best.

And then nobody ever takes your power away. No one takes your power away. Because you created it. I think that's brilliant. And I tell you, that exercise will take people under five minutes to do. You can probably do it in under two minutes. You've just got to do it. I've started training my brain.

I learned this from Bruce Lipton. I started training my brain as I go to bed to say, what amazing things happened to me today and what amazing things do I get to do tomorrow. Because what I was doing before is I was like, okay, oh God, today. Today was just a monster of a day. And oh, my God, tomorrow is going to be a monster of a day. And I was finding myself going to sleep in this negative state. So I think you could take that, marry that with what you just said, which is, okay, what could

I improve? You could start there. And what am I going to do different tomorrow? And then end before you go to bed with like what wonderful things are going on in my life today, tomorrow and really train your brain because as you go into that sleepy state, that's what's going to stick in your mind. Yeah, for sure. So anyways, this has been amazing.

And I'll tell you what I'm really trying to do for people. people is create a toolbox of all the things we can do to help people lose weight. Because how we started this off, I think, is really important, which is it's not for a lack of trying that people aren't losing weight. And the modern world has us gaining weight, like you said, so easily. So I hope that this one, and then I did a solo episode a while back on all the little tricks you can do to unstick your weight. I'm hoping that this episode and that episode will be a really helpful pair. I really hope so, Mindy. And just one final thing I'd love to say to your audience is if you're getting overwhelmed, if you're hearing loads and loads of tips and you don't know where to

start, pick one thing. Yeah, just go forward. Pick one thing. Yep. And say to yourself, I'm going to do this thing for the next seven days. Yeah. And don't worry about everything else. Just focus on that thing. It could be dinner for breakfast. It could be that three freedom exercise and the sofa when you have cravings. It could be you're going to ask yourself those two questions every night. Don't do them all because if you try and do them all, you'll do them all for a few days and then when life's busy, you'll do none of them. That's right. Pick one thing, make a promise to yourself and keep it. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love that. Okay, I do have to finish off on this. I ask two questions of all my guests and it's really a personal thing that I love and I'm learning a lot from it. The first one is you kind of alluded

to it. But what's your self-care practice, your daily self-care practice, if you have one? And then the second one is what superpower do you think you bring to the world? Wow. I think the first one's easier than the second one for me. Okay, so let's start with number one. My most important self-care practice is my morning routine. Yeah, me too. And a few years ago, it used to only last five or ten minutes, but these days, it lasts maybe 30 or 40 minutes. And I say, that because I get that some people feel too busy for a morning routine. I also used to feel too busy. Yeah, me too. But by observing and paying attention to who am I when I do my morning routine and who am I when I don't, I've learned that I'm a better human being when I do my morning routine.

I'm a better husband. I'm a better father and I'm a better doctor. So what does that look like? Well, there's three components. It's what I call the three apps. Mindfulness, movement. and mindset. So I get up early. I get it before my wife and kids. And that's done intentionally because I like time to myself. And the first time is a mindfulness practice.

So at the moment, that's 10 minutes of meditation. The second thing I do is some movement. That's the second M. That's my five minute kitchen workout, my five minute strength workout while my coffee is brewing. Then the third M,

which is the final piece of my morning routine, is mindset. So with my freshly brewed cup of coffee, now that I've made the way I like it. I'll either write in a journal, I'll do some affirmations, or I've got a few books in my kitchen that are uplifting, right? And I'll just pick up one of the books that takes my fancy, and I'll read a few pages. So I start off the day putting myself in a positive mindset. Now at the moment it takes me 30 or 40 minutes, I can do it in 15 or 20 minutes

if I'm in a rush. But that's my self-care practice, and that's the thing I rarely. miss these days. Yeah. That's actually a lot like my self-care practice. And if I don't do it, I'm a different human. Yeah. So I just learned that means I need to prioritize my bedtime so that I can get up early and do it. I'm not perfect. I've made mistakes in the past. I'm at this stage of my life now at 46 where I've learned that that's how I get to operate the way I want to operate in the world. So that's the answer to your first question. I can't stall on the second one for much longer. Okay, so. I can help you along if you want.

What's your superpower that you bring to the world? Was that the question? Yeah. I don't know if I necessarily call it my superpower. Maybe that's my own internal issues where I can't say that about myself. But I think I'm a compassionate person. Yeah, I was just, it's funny. I was sitting here thinking kindness has to be in there.

You know, I genuinely believe that compassion is one of my, main values. It's the thing that I always try and bring to every interaction I have, whether it's with my team, with my patients, with my wife, with my children, with, you know, the barista in the coffee shop. Like, I think if you speak to most people who know me or interact with me, they'll say, he always treats us well. He always treats us with kindness. Agreed. So I would say that's my superpower. And it also reminds me of what I consider to be the most important thing that I teach my own kids,

which is, of course, I'm not saying your grades are not important at school, guys. But what's more important to me is how you treat people. Yes. Right. I want you to be treating every single person you interact with with respect. It doesn't matter who they are, what they can do for you or what they can't do for you. You treat people with compassion. So I would probably say the superpower I would like to think I have and hopefully the superpower that I can pass on to my children is that of compassion.

I love that. And I will reflect back to you for sure after spending the day with you. You can feel your compassion. And it's interesting because my husband and I had the same exact value system for our children. We said to each other when our daughter was born, our first, first child. If we do nothing else, we want to raise compassionate children and humans that can spread love and kindness on this planet. If nothing else, that was our number one goal. So, Rangan, adore you. So thank you so much for being here. For letting me be here and just for

talking to me all day long. This is incredible. I'd love it, Manu. You're doing great work. Keep it out. Same as you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode, I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.