ZOE Science & Nutrition - How to transform your health in midlife | Rich Roll and Prof. Tim Spector

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Midlife is often seen as a point of no return for health, but it could be the perfect moment to make a radical change. New research suggests that your gut microbiome holds the key to aging well, protecting you from chronic disease, and even reversing some of the damage from years of poor diet and stress. Few people understand this better than Rich Roll, who went from an overweight, junk-food-addicted workaholic to one of the world’s fittest men - all after the age of 40. Now a plant-fuelled ultramarathoner and bestselling author, Rich shares the wake-up call that forced him to transform his life. He’s joined by Professor Tim Spector, one of the world’s top 100 most cited scientists and professor of epidemiology at King’s College London, who explains why gut health becomes even more important as we age - and how small changes to diet, movement, and daily habits can have an outsized impact later in life. 🥑 Make smarter food choices. Become a member at zoe.com - 10% off with code PODCAST 🌱 Try our new plant based wholefood supplement - Daily 30+ *Naturally high in copper which contributes to normal energy yielding metabolism and the normal function of the immune system Follow ZOE on Instagram. Timecodes 00:00 A life-changing health transformation 00:38 Overweight, exhausted, and stuck at 40 01:16 How ultra-processed food harms your body 02:08 Can you really transform your health at midlife? 03:18 The biggest myth about changing your health 05:10 From addiction to peak performance 08:40 What happens to the body on a fast food diet 10:26 Unexpected benefits of a plant-based diet 15:30 Gut microbes control more than you think 21:19 Gut health, mood, and mental clarity - what’s the link? 25:00 Does exercise improve your gut microbiome? 27:55 How movement increases your healthspan 30:12 Do elite athletes have better gut health? 32:45 Fuelling extreme endurance without meat 36:00 Tim’s #1 food for gut health 39:05 How to make small changes that actually stick 41:30 Why motivation is overrated—just start 45:00 The mindset shift that makes exercise easier 48:20 It’s never too late to take control of your health 📚Books by our ZOE Scientists The Food For Life Cookbook Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector Free resources from ZOE Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks  Mentioned in today's episode The anti-inflammatory effect of bacterial short chain fatty acids is partially mediated by endocannabinoids, 2021, published in Gut Microbes Signatures of early frailty in the gut microbiota, 2016, published in Genome Medicine Elevated Inflammatory Status and Increased Risk of Chronic Disease in Chronological Aging: Inflamm-aging or Inflamm-inactivity?, 2019, published in Aging and Disease Heterochronic faecal transplantation boosts gut germinal centres in aged mice, 2019, published in Nature Communications Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here. Episode transcripts are available here.

Welcome to ZOE, Science and Nutrition, where world-leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health. Rich Roll is one of the 25 fittest men in the world, according to Men's Fitness magazine. But on the eve of his 40th birthday, he was an overweight junk food addict on the brink of a heart attack. But Rich made a radical decision to transform his life. He turned the tide in an age where many fear it's too late. New research shows that midlife is the crucial moment to transform your health. A lot of things change around this age,

and one such change happens in the community of organisms in your gut known as the microbiome. With the right intervention, your microbiome can slow age-related decline. You can transform your gut into a pharmacy that prescribes you the medicine that you need to age well. Today's guest, Rich Roll, is proof that you can transform your health, even slightly later in life.

He fuels his ultra-marathon fitness by eating only plants. Through his number one bestselling memoir and his health podcast, Rich inspires millions. Rich is joined today by Professor Tim Spector, who's a pioneer in the new field of gut microbiome research. Tim is one of the world's top 100 most cited scientists, a professor of epidemiology and my scientific co-founder at ZOE. You'll finish today's episode with the tools you need to transform your health, no matter your age. And if transforming your health is something you're interested in, and I'm guessing it is as you're listening to this podcast, do check out Zoe's Personalised Nutrition Programme.

Because committing to a change is easier when the change feels exciting. And what's more exciting than eating more of the foods you love? The Zoe app gives you a list of hundreds of delicious foods that are proven healthy to your unique biology. We take your unique ZOE test results, we combine them with our science to recommend the healthiest foods for you. Here at ZOE, we study the world's largest gut microbiome database, and our data shows that when you eat a greater variety of foods, your gut will take better care of you.

That's why we believe in abundance through variety, not restriction. Doesn't that sound like a change that's easier to commit to? Visit zoe.com to sign up for our personalized nutrition membership today. Speaking of variety, we also just released a plant-based supplement that packs 30 plants into one crunchy scoop. It's called Daily 30 and you can sprinkle it on any meal for a science back boost. Okay, let's get on with today's episode with Rich Roll and Professor Tim Spector. Rich, thank you for joining me today. Very happy to be with you guys today. Thanks for having me. And Tim, delighted to have you as well. Great to be here. We

like to always kick off our show here at Zo with a rapid fire Q&A with questions from our listeners. And we have very strict rules, Rich. You can say yes or no, or if you have to, a one sentence answer. You willing to give it a go? Yeah, as a long form podcaster, this is going to be challenging, but I'm up for the challenge. We know you can do it. Rich, is 40 too late to transform your health? No.

At almost 60 years old, are you healthier than you were in your 30s? Absolutely, yes. Tim, is midlife too late to transform your gut microbiome? No. Can the food you eat increase your rate of aging? Yes. And finally, Rich, and you can have a whole sentence, what's the biggest misconception when it comes to changing your health during midlife?

Rome wasn't built in a day. It doesn't happen overnight. And it's really about making small incremental changes and building upon them. And I think if you devote yourself to that process, you'll be able to change in ways that might astonish you. That's my experience. I love that. And I think just that itself explains why you're an inspiration to a lot of people, both in terms of that sort of motivational message and also because you're a plant-based, ultra-endurance athlete. It's all a bit daunting, if I'm honest, as somebody who is the opposite of an ultra athlete, whatever that is. We had a lot of people who actually specifically asking about tips on developing the willpower to make change. So normally with this podcast,

we're very focused on trying to educate people so they can make better food choices for their health based on their latest science. But I think sometimes for all of us, food doesn't really feel like a choice. It can feel like a craving that has to be met right now. And I know you've developed a lot of insights from your own journey with addiction and recovery. You've talked about them in your best-selling memoir on your very successful podcast. And I hope that you're gonna share them with us today.

And we're also very lucky to be joined by gut health expert, Professor Tim Spector. And Tim's gonna talk to us about the power of the gut microbiome as a tool for change that you can still use, you know, even as you get older. But I'd like to start right at the beginning, Rich. So today you're an ultra endurance athlete on a fully plant-based diet,

but you made this big pivot, I think around the time you were 40. Could you tell us what your life was like before that? To answer that question, I think we have to cast the gaze backwards a little bit. So leading up to that throughout my 20s, I had a struggle with drugs and alcohol that really took me to some pretty dark places.

And I was able to get sober at 31. I went to treatment for a hundred days, which is a long time to be in sort of voluntarily incarcerated in what's kind of a mental institution for the temporarily insane. But that really changed my life and provided me with a new set of tools around how to organize my decision making and my actions. And when I emerged from that experience, building a foundation of sobriety was my number one priority. And I went all in on my recovery and over the next nine or so years was very focused on that. But at the same time, I was also very intent upon reestablishing myself as a sort of respectable human being who could show up on time and be relied upon and the like, and rebuild my career as a result. And during that period

of time, I really overlooked my health and wellbeing because I was so focused on that one thing. And it's only in retrospect when I look back on it that I realized the extent to which my relationship with food and lifestyle habits was still very alcoholic. Like I was using food to medicate my emotional state. Shortly before I turned 40, I was about 50 pounds overweight, so I wasn't like obese, but I was quite sedentary. I had been an athlete in college. I swam for Stanford in the late 1980s at a pretty high level, but really hadn't taken care of myself in

quite some time. And I had an incident walking up the staircase to my bedroom where I had to like take a break halfway up. Like I was literally winded by the exertion of just walking up a simple flight of stairs and I had some tightness in my chest. It was a scary moment. Heart disease runs in my family. My grandfather, who had also been a standout swimmer, had died young of a heart attack. So heart disease was something that my mother was always telling me, you got to be careful with your heart. And everything kind of snapped into focus as a result of that experience. And I realized that not only did I need to make some pretty significant changes in how I was living, like I actually wanted to, like I was blessed with like a

level of willingness to actually take action on that. And I think the reason that I bring up the sobriety aspect of my story is because I had had that history, like I had had that bottoming out moment where I made a decision, acted on it, and made a change that changed my life dramatically. And I felt the same energy. I was like, I think I'm having another one of those experiences.

And what I learned about that prior experience was that you need to take action quickly because it's sort of a sliding doors moment. Like if you don't act upon it with some level of urgency, whatever willingness you're experiencing tends to fade pretty quickly. And I thought, I kind of need like detox for my lifestyle. Like I need to kind of recreate that treatment center

kind of experience, but for like food and lifestyle habits. And so that set in motion a series of experiments with food and diet and fitness that kind of catalyzed this journey that I've done on that took me from there to here. And Rich, can you tell me a bit about, I guess what your diet looked like before you were climbing up those stairs

and then tell me like, what did you change? Maybe over the next, I don't know whether this was a instantaneous or this was the next year, what did it look like by the end of the year? I was on what you would call the window diet. Do you know what the window diet is? Tell me about the window diet. The window diet is when you drive up to a fine dining establishment, you roll the window down and they hand you food

into your car. That was the diet that I was on. So a lot of fast food, a lot of late night takeout in the law firm in which I was working as a lawyer, Pizza Hut, Domino's, McDonald's, Jack in the Box, cheeseburgers, fries, you name it. You tried them all. I tried them all.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, a, you name it. You tried them all. I tried them all, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of greasy food. So it was a big shift to actually go fully plant-based. And I did it almost as an experiment to prove to myself that it wouldn't work so I could make peace with the fact that I just felt the way that I felt and this is the way I'm supposed to feel

and was not expecting the sort of dramatic shift in how I felt. But I tried a bunch of stuff. I dabbled in paleo, I tried vegetarian. I sort of checked a bunch of boxes. And the one thing that I hadn't done because I was reluctant to do it was to go entirely plant-based because it sounded hard.

It was like, who wants to do that? It just sounded difficult. And I couldn't imagine how I could ever be full or sated with anything that I was eating. So I did it kind of as a challenge again, to like prove that it wouldn't work because I really didn't want it to work. That's the truth.

So I was just surprised as anyone when it actually, seemed to resuscitate me. If you're gonna describe the key components of that diet, because I think it's sort of quite powerful like describing about this shift so far. So what was the, it was eating plant foods as close to their natural state as possible. diet, because I think it's sort of quite powerful describing about this shift so fast. It was eating plant foods as close to their natural state as possible. So limiting exposure to processed foods, trying to reduce the oil intake, and just grazing

on as many varieties of plant foods as possible, home-cooked and nominally limited processing. And it wasn't raw particularly. No, I didn't go, I never went totally raw. I ate a lot of raw foods, started doing a lot of smoothies, the base of which was always like dark leafy greens, but keeping it pretty simple, like a lot of legumes, a lot of beans,

a lot of quinoa a lot of beans, a lot of quinoa and variety, I think, making sure that I was getting a lot of variety on the plate. And Tim, you're listening to this, you're a medical doctor. I think a lot of people relate to this story, right? This is a classic story of someone anywhere in the Western world with the modern diet. You're obviously layering onto that also the story about alcohol and stress, it sounds like with the job that you're describing. What are the implications for your health and is it really shocking that Rich would

already be feeling that sort of health impact at the age of 40? Well, sadly, it's not that unusual. Many people in the US, UK, on really high ultra-processed food diets are feeling sick and don't realize it until they are able to change to something else and realize that's not normal. They were in this state where the food is basically, as you're describing, driving a lot of mental health issues as well and depriving of energy and sucking the life a bit out of you. It's only when you make that switch that you realize the problems that we were in.

And this comes from a level where the majority of the foods you're eating are these artificial foods rather than real foods and you're not really getting the whole plants at all in any way. If you are eating plants, they're highly refined and lack any of the goodness in them. So it's not that unusual and this is sadly why our gut health is in such a poor state as well. So that these foods in these states, you do see in people in their 30s and 40s who have appalling gut health because of their diets and their state. And this has effects on the whole body, not just the gut.

And that's really what we're just starting to understand. I actually wanted to pick up on that because I was really struck by how much you were talking about your sort of mental health and energy within this story. How rapidly did you see this shift? And I'm particularly interested because it's something that I think we haven't tended

to associate with diet in the same way that we might understand that it affects our risk of a heart attack or something. Sure, it was pretty rapid. Like I said, within seven to 10 days, I did feel like this resurgence, the spike in my energy levels. But at the same time, kind of hand in hand with that,

there was a hopefulness that I was starting to experience. I was used to eating a midday meal and being so tired, feeling like I had to take a nap and just kind of being checked out of my life. And so to suddenly be able to eat without that food coma that I was so acclimated around, almost like gave me more hours in the day. And my sleep improved.

And when your sleep improves, your stress levels go down, you're able to kind of navigate tricky, conflict-oriented situations a little more gracefully. And of course your cognition and problem solving is better. So there was really no area of my life that was untouched. And yes, of course, we are holistic animals. Like we're not separated from the environment and our mental health and what's going on in our brain,

obviously impacts the entire body. And my experience was pretty much 360 across the board. Like so many things improved as a result of that. And that gave me the enthusiasm to just say, like, oh, this doesn't need to be an experiment. Like, how can I make this sustainable so that I can continue to learn about how to do this properly and make it work for my life?

Because I wanna feel this way all the time. I'd like to share something exciting. Back in March, 2022, we started this podcast to uncover how the latest research can help us live longer and healthier lives. We've spoken to leading scientists around the world doing amazing research. And across hundreds of hours of conversations, they've revealed key insights that can help you to improve your health. If you don't have hundreds of hours to spare, no need to worry. At the request of many of you, our team has created a guide that contains 10 of the most

impactful discoveries from the podcast that you can apply to your life. And you can get it for free. Simply go to zoe.com slash free guide or click the link in the show notes and do let me know what you think of it. Okay, back to the show. One of the things we talk about at Zoey a lot is this idea that if you want to make a change for your health, it's actually got to be a lifelong change. There's not some sort of like quick fix diet that you go on to like make things better for a month or two and then you go back. Obviously, that pushes it all this effort on how can you make something sustainable?

And so I think what's striking here is you're talking not only about making this big change at this one period in time, but then you've sustained that over close to 20 years. Did you get all the benefits literally in the first seven to 10 days? Have you further, have you learned more and changed more through this period? Sure, of course, I mean, I've been doing this for a very long time, you know? So yeah, I iterate, I get my blood worked on, oh, maybe too much olive oil, maybe I shouldn't, you know?

Like, of course, like I'm not a perfect human being. And so I've, you know, I've tried to continue to learn and also to figure out how to do it when I travel and, you know and in situations where, social situations where you feel like you need to make a compromise, all of those things, like it has to work in the context of your life. But I think to your point of making it a lifetime thing,

that can sound daunting and intimidating for someone, like, oh, I have to change my whole life. That's sort of scary, right? And the only way I was able to do it was I wasn't, I didn't make plans like, oh, I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life. I always try to like focus my energy on what the next right decision is.

Like what's the good decision that I can make in the present moment? Like all we have is what's happening right now, right? We spent all this time, what am I gonna do when I have to go to that wedding? And I know they're going to serve, it's like, forget about all that. Like, just try to do the best that you can in the circumstances in which you find yourself in and breaking it down into tiny little chunks and let the lifetime aspect of it take care of itself.

And that's a lesson that I learned in recovery. I mean, the trope of like one day at a time, I think applies in this context. And so much of what I learned in recovery has been incredibly helpful in navigating lifestyle changes like this. Why do you feel there's such a strong link between understanding how to shift from like the traditional diet that so many of us are having to this plant-based diet. Why do you feel that's so closely linked to recovery? What makes that work? I think it's multifactorial, but I would say in my experience, I never thought I could get sober. And then when I did, that was very empowering. I made a huge life change that I never thought

that I could. So that gave me confidence that I could make other changes in my life. But what I learned is that literally all you have is one day of sobriety every day. Like your job is to have your head hit the pillow without taking a drink. And it's very binary. It's like you're either sober or you're not. Like there's no gray area. And when I made this dietary change, I kind of needed a binary rule. And that's why plant-based was very helpful to me because it's sort of like, well, I just

don't eat these animal products. Let's just start there, right? And my job every day is to get through the day and at the end of the day, make sure that I sort of made the right dietary choices. And when you drill it down into just the bare essence of it and just focus on what's happening that particular day, it makes it a lot easier. I don't worry about what's going to happen tomorrow. We'll deal with that tomorrow. And so that's super helpful. And then also, the accountability and community piece. You don't get sober alone, you do it as a collective. And I

think if you're trying to navigate any kind of lifestyle change, it's helpful to have somebody to do it with or somebody to hold yourself accountable to. We're community animals. We're best when we're a member of a tribe. And so don't try to do these things alone. Do it with someone in your family. And if you don't have that option, then find a friend or at least find somebody who can check in on you. Hey, that you know that you kind of have to report to. And that's always helpful also to kind of keep you on track. And then when you, like in sobriety, if you relapse,

the most important thing is making sure that you get right back to it. You can go down a shame spiral or just throw the baby out with the bath water and say, well, that was hard. I can't do it. But I've learned like, yes, what's the next right thing? Okay, the next right thing is to make the right choice again and try to course correct as quickly as possible and learn what drove the relapse. Because I think what's under discussed

in this conversation around making diet and lifestyle changes is the emotional piece. Like on paper, we all know like we should eat more fiber and we should eat more plants and all these sorts of things. So why is it so difficult? I had to learn about how much my emotions are caught up in the food choices that I make. And I think we unconsciously,

many people unconsciously are medicating their emotions through their food choices, or are unduly influenced by their social environments and make choices that are not in their best interest because they don't wanna upset anyone or draw unnecessary attention to themselves. When I had my medical episode, my shock, my equivalent in a way, I was not as severe probably, I tried going vegan for six weeks for the same reason.

I wanted some strict rules just to say, let's change something and see what happens. So in 2011, I was doing some ski touring in the mountains, high up at 11,000 feet, got a funny turn, double vision, and I ended up having a mini occlusion, like a mini stroke, that left me with double vision for three months and high blood pressure and lots of investigations and worries about my health. And I was four years away from the time when my father had died of a heart attack.

So that was my particular scare. And I was 20 pounds overweight, but otherwise thought I was quite healthy. I didn't have as bad a diet as you did because I was a doctor. I thought I knew better. In retrospect, it wasn't a good diet, but it wasn't quite as bad as yours.

Say it was full of low-fat foods and lots of carbs, lean meat and orange juice and muesli and things like this that are really bad for my blood sugar. Anyone who wants to change, it is quite hard because you say, well, no one's telling you how to change and you didn't want to lean gradual. You just say, I want to do something immediate. That's probably the attraction of all these kind of diets, the keto, the carnival, whatever, it's strict rules. It's like joining a religion. So I did give up all meat, 99% plant-based, but not the full vegan and I still had fermented dairy. I find

it easy to give up meat, not so easy to give up my fermented dairy and my cheese. And I just wondered whether what you went through with the alcohol made you feel that if you'd sort of eaten cheese, that would have been a way, the sort of easy way back in to meat and things. Did you have a feeling about that? Yeah, because I have an addictive nature, you know? And so actually dairy was much harder to let go of than meat.

Meat, I'd been eating meat my whole life. And I was like, I don't even know if I like this. I've just been, I've always eaten it. But like you, dairy was difficult. Like I had cravings, but I was like, oh, your cravings are your teachers though. Like, why do I crave this? Like, well, if I crave it, perhaps there's, you know,

some kind of unhealthy relationship that I have with it that I need to look at. And it took me, you know, quite a while to kind of overcome those cravings where they didn't kind of take up resonance in my mind, but actually getting rid of the dairy was the thing that changed the way that I felt the most.

Okay. That's interesting. I'm struck, Rich, that when you made this change, you were already entering midlife. And I think it's a time when a lot of people, including I think quite a lot of listeners, feel like, I'm worried it's already too late to make a change that will stick and a change that is actually really going to be able to transform my health. I think that's definitely the way that I felt probably 10 years ago. That it was like, well, isn't my entire health set by my genes?

Those are fixed and also by sort of my upbringing, you know, my first 20 years and sort of now I'm just on the path and I can't change it. I actually think when I first met Tim, it was one of those sort of light bulb moment where he sort of explained to me this whole new idea around the microbiome that I'd never heard of before. And that because it was changeable, then actually maybe I wasn't locked in as much. And Tim, maybe for the benefit of listeners who might be new and haven't heard this before, could you describe a little bit the microbiome, like what it is, and then this question about like to what extent is it still changeable and why does it matter for our health at the point that you're, you know, maybe at your 40s, but then also continuing, I think there'll be plenty of listeners who are in their 70s saying, well, like, does that mean that it's

too late for me? Sure. The microbiome is the word we give the community of microscopic organisms or microbes that live in our gut, mainly in the lower intestine where that's what we know about. That's where most of the action is going on. There are trillions of these guys, about as many as there are cells in our body. They work together. There's viruses, bacteria, archaea, fungi, and some parasites, and they're all producing chemicals. They're like chemical

factories, and the chemicals they produce interact with the rest of our body, particularly our immune system and our nervous system. So, we're finding out that these chemicals they produce are absolutely key to our healthy maintenance of our normal functions. And if we focus even just on the immune system, we know that if the immune signals are right from the microbes, our immune system is going to be really well balanced. It's going to stop us getting infections. It's going to fight disease early on. It's going to fight disease early on, it's going to fight cancers early on, it's going to mop up some of the debris of aging and allow our body

to be really efficient going forward. So this is what we currently believe is the key to why the microbiome is not just our gut or a few sporadic mechanisms of the body. It's really crucial to the whole way the whole thing functions. And it also dampens down inflammation, which is this low level of the immune system being tickled all the time, which is very common these days. And there's the common theory about theory about accelerated aging is called inflamo aging, inflamated aging. It's been a term that's there that people who have this low-grade inflammation will

age more rapidly and that includes heart disease, dementia, arthritis. Just because the immune system is so preoccupied putting out fires all over the body that it can't really do its principal job of mopping up the debris from the cells or fighting those early cancers or keeping all the blood vessels nice and clear and open and doing all the things that the immune system is really good at. So that's the concept of why our gut microbes and aging are so closely linked. And studies have been going on for a while now looking at differences in age. And it's not as clear cut as we think. So many people can maintain a really healthy gut microbiome into their

hundreds. Is that right? So they've done some studies in China and Italy and centenarians showing that if you look at their gut microbes, they have the same gut health as many people in their 40s or 50s. So something about you can maintain this, but if you look at elderly populations over 75, particularly those maybe in residential homes, you see it sort of drops off a cliff and their gut health, their diversity of gut microbes really plummets. And it's also associated

with frailty increasing. And we did some studies in the twins that predated the zoe studies showing that this clear link between gut microbiome diversity and increase in frailty. Obviously, this is still a new science and no one's tracked 40-year-olds for 50 years down the road. So we have to make a few assumptions on the way. But it's pretty obvious that if you can maintain your gut microbes from 40 and 50 years on and do it right, you can keep that going right up to be 100 without a drop in your immune system and all the things that come from it.

That's what most of the data are telling us, and the latest Zoe data, you know, this ratio of good to bad microbes, we see it doesn't matter what age you are, if you've got that good ratio of good to bad bugs, then you know, you're going to be in pretty good shape even in you know, your ninth decade. And Tim, when you're thinking about Rich's really dramatic change in diet, I love this from the window diet to the plant-based diet, that's definitely two quite extreme shifts, how might that have impacted his microbiome and what were the implications from that for his health and I guess what Rich was describing to us.

When we see someone shifting from a really poor diet to a really good diet, there have been a number of small studies and population studies and some zoe studies show you do see a really rapid change in the gut microbes. So probably you could see it, imagine in Rich, within a week if we'd tested you at the time as you transitioned from the junk food diet to the plant-based diet. And when we get Zoey members having their personalized nutrition program, those that are adhering to it are seeing effects within a few weeks on their gut microbes. And it all fits because those same people, although it takes for us to detect it several weeks to see it, probably the changes are earlier because mood

and energy in all our zoe studies also improve within a week. So if you ask them, you can see differences in mood and energy, whether it's just by shifting your diet or it's, you know, having something like pre-biotics, you can see these changes. The mood and energy comes first, actually, before you see the actual changes in the gut microbes, which again goes back to this idea of how important the gut and the brain are. And energy is the one thing that doctors don't ask about, but actually is the most important global feature of how you're feeling that I think needs much more medical attention. So yeah, in summary, these things can happen really fast, particularly if you're

moving from a bad place to a good place. If you are on a really good diet and you just want to incrementally do it, it would be harder to see that. And the differences would be more subtle. But anyone who's on a poor diet, really, they make that effort, they will see results very, very fast. The show you're listening to right now that's providing you the latest evidence-based health and nutrition information from the world's top scientists. Well, making it takes a lot of time. We think it's well worth it, all in the name of improving your health. All we ask in return is this,

send a link to this podcast to someone you think would benefit. And if you haven't already, click follow this podcast wherever you're listening right now. Okay, let's get back to the show. When is it too late, Tim? So here we're talking about making a change of 40. You're describing a really dramatic change here, right? You're saying the microbiome changes rapidly, like in

a big way, and then you're saying the health outcome changes in a big way. When's it too late? There's no evidence that it's ever too late, because what you're doing, even if you're 90 and you suddenly say, you know, I've been lucky, maybe on the window diet, but there are these people that, you know, smoke and drink and have terrible food and they're lucky they get there, but, you know, they want to keep going. They can improve their gut microbe just as well as someone age 40 by making that change. And they will also see improvements in their mood and energy because we're talking about instant changes in these microbes producing chemicals.

And these chemicals can instantly impact your brain and your immune system. So it's not like you've got to wait for vessels to rebuild or some major changes to structure to happen. This is what's so great about the microbiome and lifestyle is it all happens in real time. And that's why it's so much nicer to talk about this than, well, I used to talk about genetics because that really, really is slow. You know, it's like, well, several generations on, you know, they'll be reaping the benefits here, you know. And could you explain a little bit this mood and the food? Because I think a lot of people

listen to this and I think they sort of understand that you can like somehow, you know, improve your heart and this makes sense. But the mood thing seems rather magical. Like, does science understand what's going on? Well, we understand a little bit of it, but we're probably just scraping the surface of what these microbes can do, what the chemicals they can produce, but it basically comes from the chemicals they produce. As I said, their chemical factories, they produce brain chemicals, for example, like serotonin, really important for brain and enjoyment and happiness and calm. They also produce things like GABA, which is the equivalent of a Valium tablet.

And body can't produce much of this stuff. So most of it comes from the gut microbes. So they will be producing these chemicals which then get passed over and picked up by receptors in the brain which will change those moods. Similarly, the effect on the immune system, we would damp down inflammation

and then the brain suddenly senses, oh, there's no inflammation going on here. I don't have to be in this rather depressed state thinking I'm ill because the brain is just like a giant program. It's predicting what's going on. Often it's wrong. We think the brain is always right, but actually it's just another organ in the body and sometimes it gets these algorithms wrong. So that's what I think that would explain these changes and why a change getting rid

of a terrible diet has such a profound, rapid effect on people and the brain is perhaps the first thing to pick it up because it's not getting those sickness signals from the rest of the body. That's fascinating. Now, Rich, when you made this big change, it wasn't only diet that you changed. I think you also made some big changes around exercise. The diet set in motion, the exercise though,

the diet came first and that kind of resurgence of energy made me want to move my body. And it was like one step at a time, but I started getting outdoors more. I pulled an old pair of running shoes out of the closet. My wife bought me a bike for my birthday and it was all very casual, but I lost weight very quickly and was able to restore some level of fitness also very quickly. And it was like the lights came on, like I had forgotten as a lifelong athlete how much I enjoyed this. And so with that, there was also kind of a recapturing of joy that I used to experience

that I was reconnecting with. And then, you know, that led to a new found kind of sense of possibility because alcoholism had sort of derailed my competitive swimming career. I suppose I felt like I was not fully expressed as an athlete. And I think 40 also, you're like, you know, that's why all these guys do Ironmans at 40. There's a little bit of that too, a little bit of midlife, you're kind of taking inventory of your

life. And so that's what kind of led me towards tackling some challenges and realized not only that I had an aptitude for this, but that I really enjoyed it and ended up going on to do things I never thought I was capable of. So to your question of, is it too late? I'm not a scientist, I'm a lay person, all I have is my experience, but I can tell you that these changes that I made at 40, I was convinced that I was just sort of sliding into middle age and instead, I kind of revolutionized how I was living to such an extent that it changed my entire life and with it, my perception of like latent potential.

And I've become convinced that we're all kind of tiptoeing above these reservoirs of potential that we don't give ourselves credit for having, let alone are we encouraged to kind of tap into them. And so I don't think it's too late to Tim's point, like the body is incredibly resilient. And if you can shift a gear and start to treat it better, the body will kind of respond to in kind

and treat you with kindness as well. And Rich, I wanna paint a little bit of a picture for the audience. Some of them people will be listening on audio so they won't see what a fantastic specimen of manhood you are sitting in front of me. But also think no idea about like, what does an ultra endurance athlete mean?

What is maybe the craziest thing right now that you feel that you have achieved post this change? Yeah, I've done a couple crazy things. I've done double Ironman distance races. If you know what an Ironman is, you swim 2.4 miles and then you ride your bike 112 miles and then you run a marathon. Well, I've done double of that. All at the same time.

Yeah, like basically. I'm just checking, like a year later. That's sort of a stage race, but probably the craziest thing that I've done that people know me for is doing five Ironmans on five Hawaiian islands consecutively, which ended up taking like six and a half days or something like that. So back to back to back to back, literally just doing Ironmans for like a week essentially.

And I say that as somebody who, I promise you like I'm not somebody who's gifted with, you know, some kind of extreme athletic talent. I worked very hard to achieve those goals, but they are all a product of changing my diet and prioritizing my lifestyle habits. And I think, you know, I'm not here to tell anyone that they should be an ultra endurance athlete. I'm here to merely say that you probably have more inside of you than you realized. And when you kind of shift that lens and start to really think about how you're caring for yourself, these things tend to suddenly become more expressed in your life.

I think it's an amazing story. I can also see that maybe there is this alternate outlook for some of this sort of obsessive behavior that you were describing out before. Yeah, there's a little light dusting of alcoholic behavior on top of that. This feels like a healthy way for this to- I am prone to extremes,

but that's what got me interested in like a plant-based diet to begin with, right? Like dancing around the outer edges of what's possible. Now, Rich, I have an investor who's going to be listening to this podcast right now, and he is very serious about his exercise. He exercises a lot, you know, every day, and he does some of the sort of activities

you're talking about. And he insists on eating red meat every day to get enough protein to perform. And since I've got this opportunity, because he doesn't listen to anything I say, or Tim doesn't really convince him, but you've done a lot more Ironmans than either of us, infinitely more than either of us. Is there anything you'd like to say to him? Well the first thing I would say is it's not for me to tell him what his diet should or

shouldn't be. So I'm not that person. I'm also not a scientist or shouldn't be. So, I'm not that person. I'm also not a scientist or a medical professional. All I can do is share, once again, like my experience. And my experience was that I was able to do things I didn't think possible without any animal products. And I went way beyond what I had even imagined for myself. And my experiences along the way of that journey was, way beyond what I had even imagined for myself.

And my experiences along the way of that journey was, and this is somebody who, I was a lifelong athlete. I was a competitive swimmer at a very high level at Stanford and I was eating lots of meat and whatever. I discovered that in my 40s, I actually was recovering better in between my workouts. And that's where you make the gains. It's not the training where you get stronger. It's like the periods in between when your body is repairing itself. And my experience was that I was able to kind of shrink the period of time

necessary to make those repairs, which allowed me over time to go further, train harder, push myself a little bit harder the next time. And over an extended period of time, I think I was able to realize outsized gains as a result. So my experience is that you don't need to eat red meat in order to be a competitive athlete at the peak of your powers. And I'm not alone in that perspective. There's plenty of elite plant-based athletes out there. And so I would suggest to him to hold his ideas loosely and maybe look into some other examples that are similar to my own.

And perhaps even tune into our mutual friend, Simon Hills podcast, The Proof, where he talks about this subject matter at length as a scientist. And Tim, are you saying that people who want to be really healthy need to give up meat and animal products in the way that Rich has talked about? No, I'm not saying exactly that. And our studies, and we've just done a huge microbiome study of 30,000 people including vegans,

vegetarians, carnivores, omnivores, mainly plant-based people like me. Conclusions are similar to earlier smaller studies that gut health measured by the sort of the ZOE score, good to bad ratio, is correlated with the number of plants you're eating, not whether you are labeled as a vegan, a vegetarian, or a meat eater. But it is much easier to get more plants in your plate if it isn't blocked with a big steak or a big bit of fish. You're saying it's not so much about what you're taking off the plate as much as it is what you're putting on the plate. Correct.

I'd like to come back just for a minute to the exercise point that we're talking about and like almost tie it back to the microbiome because I think we've done a lot of podcasts that have talked about exercise and I've yet to meet a scientist who doesn't tell me like exercise is really good for your health. So that feels like it's pretty non-controversial.

And Rich, you're describing the fact that you first did diet, then you layered exercise on top. Tim, you talked a lot about the impact of diet on the microbiome. Does the exercise also have an effect on the microbiome? Probably, but it's not nearly as clear cut. The studies just haven't been as good. They've done lots of studies from elite athletes to sedentary individuals and trying to work out whether the more training you do, the better your gut microbes. It hasn't been shown conclusively to be true and certainly they've looked at elite athletes and they don't find any difference in their gut microbes compared to amateurs or anything else.

There's been a few mouse studies, but I'm always a bit skeptical about extrapolating from mice to humans for this sort of behavior. So my guess is, although I think we still need more science, that exercise has some benefits to the gut microbiome, but if they are there, they're proportionally much less than diet. So I don't think people that say, I'm not worried about my diet, I'm going to the gym five times a week, I'm okay, Jack. That's not going to work, is my view. And I think we would have seen a big effect on exercise by now,

if it would have come out of these studies and we're just not doing it. People are desperately trying to find it because you're right, every doctor will tell you exercise is good for you and I'm saying that as well and I exercise, but I don't think it's working the same mechanisms and it's certainly for gut health. Don't know how you feel. I mean, if you'd had a magic pill that allowed you to exercise, do you think you'd be in the same place? There's that adage that you can't out exercise a bad diet. You can't out run a bad diet.

Any kind of very enthusiastic exerciser is sort of quietly telling themselves that that doesn't apply to them. And it can be used as a way to kind of have a healthy appetite and enjoy foods that maybe you couldn't get away with if you weren't exercising. So in that context, exercise can work across purposes with everything that you're sharing. If repairing or really caring for your microbiome is something that we should prioritize, then we have to be careful about the stories we tell ourselves about exercise giving us permission to kind of indulge on food. So I think that is something that I just feel like is important to flag.

But I think to the point of like us being holistic where the brain and the body are all connected, like when you exercise, you feel better. And when you feel better, you have a sunnier disposition and suddenly you have a deeper sense of how you're caring for yourself. Like if you're exercising, that is an act of self-love and self-care that then kind of leads to better habits in other areas of your life. So I think there's a compounding effect.

But my mental health is very much dependent upon my exercise routine. And when I'm not exercising consistently, like I don't feel is good. And when I don't feel is good, then it's easier to slough off on healthy habits. So there's a sort of positive reinforcement. Yeah, there's a reinforcement loop, I think. Do you know someone wanting to make positive changes to their health? Maybe they talk about it, but struggle to stay motivated. Why not share this episode with them right now?

Inspire them with Richard's story, and empower them with Tim's expert advice. I'm sure they'll thank you. We definitely established that the microbiome is this very powerful tool to transform your health. And Tim, I love this idea that you could even be 90 and you can sort of improve it, which is brilliantly positive.

I'd love to now hear some actionable tips for like showing up for this change consistently. Um, and Rich, I know you've already touched a little bit in parts already, but I'd love to talk about how do you find the motivation to start a change and how do you find the motivation to stick to a long-term health chain? I think the first thing I would say to that is to kind of challenge the presumption here, which is that you need motivation in order to take action. Like, how do I find the motivation? You mentioned willpower earlier. Like, how do I find the willpower to like do all these things that you're telling me to do? And I think that assumption that you need motivation

or willpower and you're kind of sitting around waiting for it is something that keeps people paralyzed in bad habits. And I have a mantra that I use that I think is very helpful. And again, it's something I learned in recovery. And it goes like this, mood follows action. So rather than waiting until you're struck with inspiration, what is the thing that you can do right now? And the mood, i.e. the motivation is a product of taking the action. And this is something that's validated in neuroscience, behavior first, thoughts, feelings and emotions follow.

So it's about kind of reversing that equation in your mind and breaking down again, everything into tiny actionable items. So there's a wonderful book called Atomic Habits that you've probably heard of by James Clear. And he always says, habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. So you always default to your habits.

And if you wanna make a habit change, break it down into its tiniest sort of elements. And so when you think of, oh my God, I have to like change my diet for the rest of my life, it's all very daunting. And like I said earlier, intimidating. So I'm always encouraging people to start with very easy lifts, like lower the ceiling

on your expectations, broaden your timeline or forget about a timeline altogether and just take one tiny little thing. Like maybe, you know, Tim, you can get rid of the fermented dairy in your fridge and like replace it with, you know, something else that might be a little bit healthier. And like, that's all you're doing. Like just go into your pantry and like, you know what, all these chips in here, I'm just going to take them out of the house.

Maybe you didn't, that was all you did that day, but you, you like chalked up an easy win. So I think it's about like assembling a lot of easy wins. And when you just kind of focus on tiny little things that you can master, that does have a compounding effect. And when you teach yourself that you can do that, and you make that one little change, you're like, oh, I did that. And now that's really not an issue for me anymore. What else can I do? Like, let's move on to the next thing. And you just kind of build on these things. I believe that that is really how you make change.

So it's about the tiny little daily habits that you're almost reflexively or unconsciously, you know, kind of indulging every single day and drawing attention to those rather than making dramatic wide sweeping statements like, yes, I went plan, all that kind of stuff. But like, I don't think that's how it really works for most people. And I think, you know, kind of just gradually leaning into this as a process rather than a result driven by this day, I have to weigh this much. I think you're in a, in better

stead to then adopt habits with staying power because this is really all about sustainability and having it all kind of work in the construct of our, we all have busy lives and we're all kind of doing lots of different things. So how can you create an environment that's conducive to making the healthy choices and chalk up those little wins with small little habits that you can build upon. I'd love to just follow up on this thing about how you describe exercise actually providing you

with this sort of support for your mood that it sounds to me is like helping to enable all the things that you're describing. So if you were to give advice for someone who's trying to, let's assume they're not like a super sophisticated athlete, but maybe they're like, oh, I'd never even thought that I could use exercise in some way to sort of support my mood to achieve change.

What would you say to them? To find a movement practice that you enjoy. So what's the best exercise? What should I be doing? Well, what's the thing that you like doing? And if you enjoy it, you're more likely to kind of invest yourself in it and make it kind of a sustainable habit in your life. So think about what it is that you actually enjoy and find a way to incorporate that into your life in a way that's not disruptive, overly disruptive to your daily schedule so you won't abandon it. On February 1st, you're like, okay, I can't do this anymore.

And find people to do it with, make it a community-oriented sort of thing so that you're kind of sating yourself with human connection at the same time that you're moving your body. And set reasonable goals or don't set any goals at all. Just do it for the sake of doing it. And that could be a walk in the woods or walking the dog around the block. It doesn't have to be any kind of big daunting thing. But I think it's important for everybody to understand

that in terms of health span extension and longevity, there is no more powerful lever than exercise. It's never too late to start. And it doesn't mean again, that you need to go and be an ultra endurance athlete. It means to, it just simply means that you have to find a way to exert yourself. And I think if you find something that brings you joy

in the process of doing it, you're more likely to stick with it. I think if you find something that brings you joy in the process of doing it, you're more likely to stick with it. I think it's beautiful. Tim, final simple question for you. What is one type of food that someone could add to their diet tomorrow that could improve their gut health? Fermented food would be the obvious one for me. A lot of people don't have much in the way of fermented foods, fermented vegetables, you know, the kimchi, the sauerkraut, these amazing source of microbes and will help your inflammation, which will, should in theory, you know, reduce the speed of aging. Amazing. Rich Tim, I'd like to try and do a quick summary. We covered a lot of stuff in this episode,

so definitely let me know if I've missed anything. I'm gonna try and pull it together. So, my biggest takeaway was that Rich was on the window diet, which I'd never heard of before, which meant that all your food came in through the window of the car and then into your mouth. And this is a pretty terrible diet to be on. I also really struck this idea about

medicating your emotions with your food choices, that this food becomes this thing that's really linked to how you feel and it's giving you this sort of short-term boost, which I think we can all identify with. But then you describe just how bad an impact it was having on you. I think my other key message is that I took away, is it's like never too late to make a change. And we're talking here about making this change in midlife,

but I think I'm also hearing from both of you that it's almost never too late to make a change that can be profound. And a lot of this comes from this realization that our microbiome is so important in our health and unlike our genes, it's not fixed. And I think Tim was describing some of the science rich to go with your experience of how like your mood could actually change in like seven to 10 days because of the way these chemicals from this bacteria was changing. And that then it gave you sort of energy,

it affected your sleep, and that then that itself sort of gave you the positivity to do more exercise, which then sort of became this reinforcing loop. We talked about meat and I definitely took away from you Rich, that, you know, you can do the sorts of things that you're doing without eating meat. That on the other hand, what I have from Tim is not that you have to give up meat. The point is that once you really reduce the meat in your diet, suddenly you're creating all this

space to eat all of these plants that are having the positive side. And then we talked about how you think about willpower coming from a lot of your own experience through recovery, which I'd never heard before, and that a lot of the things that I take them for granted, you're like, well, actually, I think that's wrong. So for example, take it one day at a time. Don't think about like making a permanent life change,

actually just say, I've got each day to do this, that rather than saying I need to wait till I have enough willpower to do it, actually just say, I've got each day to do this, that rather than saying, I need to wait till I have enough willpower to do it, actually it's the complete reverse. Your mood follows action. So do something. And actually in a sense, if I understood rightly, like your mood will improve and that will give you

more of this willpower to go for it. And that if you relapse, then like start back on the course. And so it's just very different from this sort of like New Year's Day, make this big crazy plan and then sort of give up. And it's okay to start with an easy win, I think you said. So again, it can be sort of incremental step by step because you're building on this. And then finally, my takeaway was one of the things that's interesting about exercise is not just about long-term health, actually can provide a lot of mental support for you to actually be doing these other positive

things with your life. And so you're describing that actually exercise helps to support your mental health, that helps to support your diet. And maybe to wrap up, you were saying like, if you want to get into exercise, find a movement practice that you enjoy. So it's for something that you are actually going to enjoy doing it, that you can incorporate into your life. You're not going to give up after a month. It's not disruptive.

Find people to do it with. And then finally, I love this idea you said, set reasonable goals or no goals at all. And all of this just increases your chances of success. Did I manage to? That was great. Will you now come to my podcast and do a synopsis summary at the end of every conversation?

Cause that was fantastic. Yeah. Now, if you listen to the show regularly, you already believe that changing how you eat can transform your health, but you can only do so much with general advice from a weekly podcast. If you want to feel much better now

and be on the path to live many more healthy years, you need something more. And that's why more than 100,000 members trust Zoe each day to help them make the smartest food choices. Combining our world-leading science with your Zoe test results, Zoe is your daily companion to better health for life. So how does it work? Zoe membership starts with at-home testing to understand your unique body.

Then Zoey's app is your health coach using weekly check-ins and daily guidance to help you shift your food choices to steadily improve your health. I rely on Zoey's advice every day, and truly it has transformed how I feel. Will you give Zoey a try? The first step is easy. Take our free quiz to find out what Zoey membership could do for you. Simply go to zoey.com slash podcast, where as a podcast listener, you'll get 10% off. As always, I'm your host, Jonathan Wolff.

Zoey Science and Nutrition is produced by Julie Pinero, Sam Durham, and Richard Willen. The Zoey Science and Nutrition podcast is not medical advice and if you have any medical concerns please consult your doctor. See you next time.