How To Burn Fat, The 4 Food Rules That Will Transform Your Health & The Truth About Calories with Dr Rupy Aujla #520

Why has nutrition - something that should be so simple - become so complicated? With 70% of our diet now consisting of ultra-processed foods and conflicting advice everywhere we look, is it any wonder we're confused about what to eat? Today's returning guest is my good friend, Dr Rupy Aujla, who is on a mission to make healthy cooking accessible and enjoyable for all. He’s a medical doctor, nutritionist and founder of The Doctor's Kitchen and author of five best-selling books. If you haven't heard Rupy's story before, his life was changed after suffering a significant heart condition in 2009. After learning about nutritional medicine, he was able to reverse his condition using a food and lifestyle approach. Today, Rupy is constantly creating tasty recipes that help people optimise their health and he shares them - yes, in his cookbooks - but, also, in his wonderful Doctor’s Kitchen recipe app that helps over 10,000 people each week use evidence-based food and lifestyle medicine, to live healthier, happier lives. In this fantastic conversation, you'll discover: The science of burning fat and why calorie counting often fails in the real world Four evidence-based principles for sustainable weight management that don't require strict tracking Why ultra-processed foods lead to overconsumption and how to naturally reduce them in your diet The power of single-ingredient foods and how they can transform your health - and why protein at breakfast is crucial for appetite regulation throughout the day Why eating dinner a little bit earlier, can significantly impact our metabolism and weight How the quality of our sleep directly affects our food choices and the connection between emotional eating and our relationship with food Why different diets work for different people, how to find your personal approach and practical tips for implementing healthy changes while maintaining a busy lifestyle This conversation strips away the complexity of nutrition, offering clear, actionable strategies that anyone can implement. So, if you're feeling overwhelmed by conflicting nutrition advice, this conversation offers a practical roadmap forward, showing you how simple - and enjoyable - healthy eating can be. Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Thanks to our sponsors: https://thriva.co https://drinkag1.com/livemore Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/520 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  You have to be your own expert. You have to navigate what is a complicated world of nutrition. There's so much in nutrition that cannot be explained. When you eat for nourishing your body, your body knows what to do.

• 0:16Rangan Chatterjee?

  Hey guys, how are you doing? Hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and this is my podcast, Feel Better Live More.

• 0:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  Why is it that nutrition, something that should be so simple, has these days become so complicated? Well, today's returning guest is my good friend, Dr. Rupy Ogilvy, who's on a mission to make healthy cooking accessible and enjoyable for all. Rupy is a medical doctor, nutritionist, founder of The Doctor's Kitchen, and author of five bestselling cookbooks. And if you haven't heard Rupy's story before, when he first came on my podcast, his life was changed after suffering a significant heart condition back in 2009. After learning about nutritional medicine, he was able to reverse his condition using a food and lifestyle

• 1:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  approach. Today, Rupy is constantly creating tasty recipes that help people optimize their health, and he shares them, yes, in his cookbooks, but also in his quite wonderful Doctor's Kitchen recipe app that helps over 10,000 people each week use evidence-based food and lifestyle medicine to live healthier, happier lives. And as a special offer to my listeners, Rupy is offering 10% off an annual subscription to his brilliant app by using the link in the episode notes of your podcast app. In our conversation, we explore the science of burning fat and discuss why

• 1:58Rangan Chatterjee?

  calorie counting often fails in the real world. We also talk about the crucial role of fibre, why protein at breakfast is vital for appetite regulation, and why eating dinner a little bit earlier can significantly impact our metabolism and weight. We also discuss emotional eating, how the quality of our sleep directly affects our food choices, and the four basic foundational eating principles that benefit almost everyone. In a world where something as simple as what to eat has seemingly become so complicated,

• 2:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  our hope is that this conversation offers you a practical roadmap, showing you just how simple and enjoyable healthy eating really can be.

• 2:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  We all know that nutrition is important for our health. You've been a medical doctor for 16 years, you've got a master's in nutrition. Why is it that something that should be, on the face of it, so simple, has become so complicated?

• 3:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a really, I think it's a really good place to start because I think a lot of people, particularly online, and I'm not having to go at anyone online, but I think particularly online, people like to be very binary about the explanation as to why things are going so wrong within the nutrition sphere, why people are getting more obese, sicker, why there's a rise in type 2 diabetes. You know, some people lay the blame squarely at the guidelines. The guidelines are wrong, there's too many refined carbohydrates in it, it's not evidence-based, there's lack of science behind that.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  There is a, you know, a conspiracy around food companies having undue influence on the guidelines. I understand those arguments. Other people will put the blame on food companies. You know, food companies are introducing seed oils into our food. Toxic chemicals, obesogens, artificial flavourings, sweeteners that affect our microbiota, refinement, disruption to the food matrix. Completely understand those arguments as well. Other people like to have a go at the food environment, right? When you go to work or you have a vending machines.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  I know particularly in medicine, when you go to hospitals, the food choices are dire. You know, I did some work with a large food corporation who do not only the patient's nutrition, but they also do the staff canteens. And there is a lot of discouragement and a lot of annoyance with the food options that are available to people within hospitals, particularly out of hours. I completely understand those arguments. And then other people will say, well, it's nothing to do with that. It's nothing to do with the food guidelines. It's nothing to do with processed food. It's the cost of good, healthy food options. It is the cost of living crisis.

• 5:22Speaker 00

  It is the fact that people have less money in their pockets to make the right decisions for them and their families. All of those options are correct. And just like there is no one single diet for everyone, there is no simple answer to the reasons as to why we are seeing rises in obesity, rises in metabolic disease and rises in illness in general. And I could rattle on about any one of these issues, but I think the biggest issue personally is people lack simple strategies to do the simplest things first. And I think if we simplify what people can do within their locus of control.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  We make it easier to make healthier choices. Now, there's a lot of psychology behind this. You know, you've you've talked about this so eloquently in your latest book and previous books as well. The reliance on information from so-called experts. Some people are saying that a plant-based or plant-focused diet, which helps your microbiota, which increases plant diversity and increases fibre is the best way to go. Completely understand that other people say carnivore, keto, high fat, low carb is the best way to go. And really, it depends on context. It really depends on that individual and what is right for them. Aside from the complexities of the different distributions of macronutrients,

• 6:48Speaker 00

  what can people do today to help them navigate what is a very complicated food landscape? That has cost as an impact, that has food processing as an impact, that has guidelines and uniformity at it. And I think the fourth things that people should really anchor any nutritional strategy around are unprocessing your diet, and we can talk about these in a lot more detail. Adding more fibre to our diet. Eating protein, particularly at breakfast. I think protein is a bit of a controversial area, but it's definitely something that I've changed my mind on. And eating an earlier dinner.

• 7:31Speaker 00

  I think these are the four very, very simple strategies that people could align their 24 hours of eating around that can certainly help with improving their gut health, improving their metabolic health, and staving off weight gain.

• 7:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, that's a great answer, Rupy. I love those four. I'd call them principles. I think one of the reasons Well, we get on very well off the mic as friends, but I think we share very similar philosophies on health because we understand that different things work for different people. Yes, on an individual level, but that bigger picture.

• 8:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  Why is it that we're so confused about nutrition? You very eloquently went through all of these so-called reasons that people are saying that we're struggling. And the truth is, as you were going through them, I was kind of nodding my head a lot of them going, I think there's a lot of validity to all of them.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 8:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? There's a lot of validity to the science on lots of different diets, but let's try and bring it together. Instead of making it complicated, let's try and simplify. I think those four principles, unprocess your diet, increase your fiber intake, protein at breakfast and having an early dinner are really interesting. I definitely want to delve into them in a very practical way so that people can actually take something and start applying. Before we do that though, I thought it would be useful to look at these ideas through the lens of weight loss. So I think many people these days are trying to lose weight. Sometimes it's because there's a lot of excess body weight. You know, someone may have obesity or be overweight.

• 9:18Rangan Chatterjee?

  But even if you're not, a lot of people are often looking at themselves in the mirror going, oh, I can lose a bit of this belly fat, let's say, for example, right? So I think although we often don't like to talk about it anymore.

• 9:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:30Rangan Chatterjee?

  A lot of people actually do want to lose weight. They want to lose fat off their bodies.

• 9:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? So through that lens, how do you view the right approaches to take?

• 9:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's a really good point. It's almost become unfashionable to talk about fat loss and weight loss because the more noble. Activity is to focus on wellbeing, focus on gut health. And I get that, and I think you can have both. So to answer your question more directly, using the science-based tools that we have available for us. The way to weight loss is a calorie deficit. That is the way people lose fat, period. There is no controversy around this. The science is very much aligned on this.

• 10:24Speaker 00

  If you reduce the number of calories that you require per 24 hours, you will lose weight and you will preferentially lose weight from visceral fat. So that's the fat, if you have it, around your organs and then your subcutaneous fat. So that's the fat that we have in rolls around our abdomen, for example. If you wanted to be purely data-driven about this, so put your emotions to one side about whether you agree with calorie deficit diets at all. The way people go about this in a very scientific regimented way is they get an idea of their caloric needs and their daily burn.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  And there's two main ways of doing this. You can either do a resting metabolic rate test that you do in a lab setting. It's actually quite cheap to do. You lie on the floor, you put a mask on and it will give you an idea of what you are burning at rest. The other way is to use a very simple calculator online, which gives you a ballpark figure of your basal metabolic rate.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  I'm going to talk to you about what one would do from a very science-based perspective. And then I'm also going to explain to you why I don't recommend doing it. It sounds very counterintuitive, but I don't recommend calorie deficit diets. So just have that in the back of your mind.

• 11:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, this is, this is the really interesting part of this conversation, I think is going to be around this. Whereas you are saying a calorie deficit is important.

• 11:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:56Rangan Chatterjee?

  But you're then going on, I think, to say that you don't necessarily need to focus on that.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 12:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right. So let's, okay, let's break it down. So I think this will be really interesting for people.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  And, and not to rail on anyone particularly online, but you have a lot of people who are very, have very staunch views about how people lose weight. And they will say the only way to do it is via a calorie deficit diet. And that is truthful. That is very valid and very accurate. Generally, these folks who are promoting calorie deficit diets are actually quite motivated individuals themselves. They tend to be from the bodybuilding community. And if you think about the attributes of that individual, they generally are pretty regimented in the diet.

• 12:43Speaker 00

  They're very highly motivated individuals who can take that, that sort of black and white approach to nutrition and sort of be unemotional about it. That's not very relevant for, I think, the majority of people, particularly those who struggle with weight.

• 13:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think it's a really interesting point there, Rupy, for me, which is all of us, as much as we think we're not, we're all a little bit biased, right? So I think a lot of the time, the arguments online over the right diet or the right way to lose weight, the reason they become so toxic is because people are very attached to what worked for them.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right. And I understand that to a certain degree, right? If you have struggled your entire life with your health and your weight, and you've tried to follow the guidelines as you perceive them to be, and you've struggled, and then you find something that works for you.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  And suddenly you're losing weight, you've got more energy, you can see your abs for the first time in years, or whatever it might be, I understand why you wanna shout from the rooftops.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  And you wanna tell people, guys, this is the way to do it. But the trap I think we fall into is thinking that the way that worked for us is necessarily the way that it's gonna work for everyone else. I think there's multiple approaches that can work like you. And certainly my view is that it's, it's kind of on us to try and find what is the right approach for us.

• 14:13Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah. And I think there's a lot of common ground within all of these different approaches, regardless of whether you're in the calorie deficit camp or the different macronutrient distribution camp. And when I say different macronutrient distribution, that's just a sort of science speak for saying some people low carb, some people low fat, some people high fat, low protein, for example. So, okay, let me, let me anchor ourselves in what the science says about weight loss and then I can talk to you a bit about the different sort of paths to that. So if you want to be data-driven about this, you'll find plenty of people selling programs or promoting the information around getting an idea of your caloric burn.

• 14:57Speaker 00

  You simply use an online calculator, you input your data, age, and as you age, your, your metabolism tends to slow down, which is why age is a very important input to determine what your caloric needs are. You then add things like sex, so male and female, men tend to have more muscle on their body, which will require more calories in terms of the daily burn, and then height and weight to use to calculate your, your body size and composition. And then they use one of a number of different calculation, equations. The, the common calculation is something called the Mifflin's Endure Equation, and this uses your age inputs, your activity inputs, to create something called your basal metabolic rate.

• 15:42Speaker 00

  So this is the number of calories that you are burning at rest. And when, this is all very rough as well. So there is, there are some caveats within that, but let's just assume that this is accurately measured what your caloric burn is. When you have this information now, the next step is to simply track the calories that you consume from food and drink for seven days. And then typically what they ask you to do is subtract the calories per day that you consume by five or 10%. And I think a 10% deficit is probably the way to go without shocking your body and makes it a lot more likely for people to adhere to.

• 16:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  So that means, or let me try and explain it the way I've just heard that, right? Let's say that you are a middle aged woman and your BMR, your basal metabolic rate is 2,000 calories.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  That's a 2,000.

• 16:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  Well, let's just make the maths simple.

• 16:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:40Rangan Chatterjee?

  So your body needs 2,000 calories a day currently. Are you saying that if we then reduce that by 10%? So again, I know you're not promoting this necessarily as the way to do it, but you're illustrating the point if you only consumed 1,800 calories a day consistently, when what your body actually needs is 2,000, you're going to start losing weight.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying.

• 17:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  But is there a consequence to that? If your body, I guess this is, I guess what does a BMR mean really? Because if your body needs that, are you going to get tired and exhausted and have hormonal dysfunction and all kinds of other things if you're not giving it what it needs? Or is sometimes your basal metabolic rate not your ideal one, but what you currently have?

• 17:33Speaker 00

  Hmm, yeah.

• 17:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  Does that make sense?

• 17:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, it makes total sense. And we're going to talk about some of the caveats to prolonged calorie deficit diets and how you want to reach a maintenance phase as well a little bit later on. So just on the evidence for why calorie deficit diets work, there are so many different studies that we can point to, the more recent meta analysis that I've Found that was published in the BMJ provides strong evidence that calorie deficit diets implemented through something like what you've just described, 2000 calories a day, less 10%, 1800 calories a day, are effective for fat loss, particularly visceral fat as well. There are 40 randomized controlled trials in the one that I was looking at,

• 18:18Speaker 00

  with over 2000 participants focusing on the effects of caloric restriction. And other studies also show that calorie deficit diets, independent of whether you're doing this with a vegan diet, a low-fat diet, a high-protein diet, as long as the calories are controlled for, it will all lead to fat and weight loss.

• 18:40Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, and also on that though, which I know you'll probably be coming to, it is also theoretically possible to eat 1800 calories of so-called junk food.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 18:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  And still lose weight, but potentially not promote better health.

• 18:58Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 18:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, so which is again, another important caveat.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, there was a study that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine 2003 that compared low-fat and low-carb diet, because I can hear them right now, you know, you've got some low-carbers probably listening to this podcast and think, well, you know, there are studies that show that your metabolic health improves if you're low-carb, you're removing some of the refined, independent of calories, and that is absolutely correct. And in this study, they looked at just 60 adults with obesity, and they found that after six months comparing a low-fat group with a low-carb group, the low-carb group lost a bit more weight, statistically significantly more weight than the low-fat group.

• 19:45Speaker 00

  So in the short term, for certain people, and I just want to underline that, for certain people, low-carb fares better. However, if you look for longer, so after 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, in this study, they looked at 12 months, the differences disappear. And whether that's due to adherence, the fact that it's harder to Not have some extra carbohydrates in your diet just because of our, you know, going back to the initial points we were making around the food environment. It's not exactly easy to remove carbohydrates from your your kitchen, your your environment. Maybe that's the reason, but the statistically significant differences between them at six months

• 20:27Speaker 00

  vanished at 12 months. So it stands to reason that this this energy model of if you just simply reduce energy independent of the types of macronutrients, independent of the quality of food, you will see weight loss. And this is why you have a lot of people who are adamant that calories are the only thing that you need to worry about. So why then am I not a fan of it?

• 20:52Speaker 00

  And why are we both not a fan of it?

• 20:55Speaker 00

  In short, I think that they tend not to be as subtle as a 10% reduction in calories. Typically, what you find, and you've probably found this in practice as well. I've seen this many times, is a more aggressive calorie deficit. So from 2,000 to 1,500 calories. And I think that can encourage an unhealthy relationship with food that also magnifies the importance of calories. So the energy content of ingredients over other quality measures, things like fiber and processing and the nutrient value of food beyond the energy intake.

• 21:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. It's really interesting, isn't it? There's many ways

• 21:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  to get to the goal that you want.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  And as you say, on the face of it, if your only goal is weight loss.

• 21:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  And yes, you can argue if you're carrying excess weight and visceral fat, that reducing that is going to be helpful. But at the same time, if you do that through eating lots of junk food, and we can elaborate what that potentially means, there's going to be other implications for your health. If you're eating pro-inflammatory foods in order to lose weight, yes, you might lose weight, but you may also increase inflammation. And then you have to sort of weigh up what you're looking for. So I agree, like, I accept that that works. I don't dispute that that works. In my clinical experience, I've never personally found it a helpful.

• 22:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  Method with my patients. Now, again, I said we all have a bias. I have a bias. Yeah. My bias is the tens of thousands of patients I've seen over two decades, right? That's my bias. The bias is I saw all these patients, they were struggling. I saw different diets work for different people. I saw there's different approaches that people can take to lose weight and improve their health at the same time. Because that was always my goal as adults is to help you improve your wider health. So I would often actually not focus on the weight loss, actually. Yeah. I would focus on how do we create health in your body through nutrition, movement, sleep and stress management, what I call the four pillars of health.

• 23:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  Let's really focus first on creating health. And a lot of the time, not all the time, a lot of the time, the weight loss comes along as a pleasant side effect. Absolutely. So you're not focusing on the weight loss, you're focusing on the creation of health. And that's giving you the weight loss as a side effect. And the analogy I draw a few months ago, Rupy, I had this amazing movement expert on my show called Lawrence Van Lingen. People actually loved that conversation. And in the running world, right, so for endurance runners, they will often talk about cadence. So they'll say, good endurance runners have a running cadence of, let's say, 180 per minute. So your feet are hitting the ground 180 times in a minute.

• 24:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  And most recreational runners, or a lot of us, have a much slower cadence. And so people often think the way they improve their running is by getting a metronome and actively trying to increase their cadence. And he's like saying, that's like looking at Bentley drivers and going, oh, the way I become rich is to drive a Bentley. He's like, no, no, no. It's like, he says, the cadence is a natural consequence when you do the other things right to improve your movement dynamics. It may not be the perfect analogy, but I think it kind of works there, which is, do you know what I mean? I don't know what you would take on that.

• 24:40Speaker 00

  I think that is a perfect analogy, which is going to go into something we're going to talk about later, because all the things that I've already mentioned, unprocessing your diet, increasing fibre, increasing protein at breakfast, and ensuring an earlier dinnertime, leads to a calorie deficit as a natural consequence of those actions.

• 25:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  A side effect, dare I say it.

• 25:05Speaker 00

  It's a side effect. It is not the thing that we are intentionally going after, but it is a side effect. And I think that is what makes it a lot easier to ensure consistency, because consistency is king. So I'm going to, I'm going to talk a little bit more about this calorie deficit issues that we have, we both have, because in clinic, everyone has had this experience, no matter whether you're into lifestyle medicine or not. Someone comes in, they've gone on a calorie deficit diet, whether it's January or the middle of the year, whatever. They've had some early wins, they've improved their metrics on their scales, whatever it might be,

• 25:45Speaker 00

  and they hit the dreaded plateau. They say they plot it out on a graph and it goes like this, the L shape. And it is devastating for your confidence, because you're doing exactly the same thing. You're maintaining your calorie deficit, you are ensuring that you are rigorous with what you are consuming. Nothing has changed whatsoever. So why then do we see this plateauing? Surely if the energy balance model is consistent, then you would just see a linear outcome in terms of your weight loss, particularly if you're starting off at quite a, quite a large amount to lose, right? Why would you, why would you see this plateau? And there's a number of different things that you've alluded to already. There's hormonal changes,

• 26:30Speaker 00

  and there's metabolic adaptations. Your body is essentially, has essentially evolved to ensure that you have calories on it. Your body has evolved through thousands of years to endure famine. We are hardwired to keep energy on us.

• 26:52Speaker 00

  And so when you go through an aggressive calorie deficit, it's sort of mimicking what happens when you're going through a famine, when you're lacking food in your environment. We haven't updated our hardware to be

• 27:08Speaker 00

  relevant for our modern environment. It doesn't recognize that we have food in every single corner. And so just this realization should enable people to understand why we see this plateau. And if you're thinking about it again, from the scientific lens, what happens to your basal metabolic rate, which is the number of calories that you burn through every single day? As you lose weight, your body requires fewer calories to maintain its new smaller size. And this reduction in basal metabolic rate will slow down your weight loss. Essentially, it's sort of like, if you're a startup company and you're getting in every single, every single month,

• 27:51Speaker 00

  you're having a certain amount of revenue coming in into the month. If that revenue starts to decline, what do you do as a responsible business owner? You start to spend less. And that's essentially what your body is doing. Your body is very smart. It will start spending less calories every single day, such to maintain the balance of the energy on your body in the same way business wants to maintain runway and maintain its longevity in terms of cash flow. So this is just a very simple analogy to illustrate what's going on at a biological level.

• 28:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  Is that an argument against the calorie deficit though? And what I mean by that is, if it was just about calories, then surely reducing calories means that you're going to lose weight. So why would it then plateau?

• 28:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 28:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I guess it, it makes me think about this kind of, you know, we're not robots and machines, right? That we're a complex milieu with hormones and biochemical signals, which actually, when you really start to think about it, it's like, you know, think about the basal metabolic rate.

• 29:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  We're spending calories on all kinds of things, aren't we? Breathing, digestion, but there's a bit of reserve there. You know, and we have the capability to reduce how much we're spending on those things. Perhaps if we need to, if we're facing a famine, for example, where these complex beings that are constantly responding to signals, right? Which is, I think, what we sometimes forget. We're not robots.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, we forget how intelligent our body is and how much of that is outside of our control. All this stuff is involuntary. Like, you know, we have something called adaptive thermogenesis, for example. The body will decrease its energy expenditure to match the calories that you're putting into it. It's a very, very smart system, you know? So essentially, it's responding appropriately to you putting less food into your body. It is an appropriate response because it is geared towards survival as well. And the other thing that happened, I mean, there's so many other things that happen, but just to illustrate at this point, you get a reduction in your anabolic hormones.

• 30:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  And we'll explain what that term means.

• 30:14Rangan Chatterjee?

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• 31:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  All you have to do is head to drinkag1.com/livemore to claim this offer before it ends. Today's episode is sponsored by the daily health drink AG1. The clocks are about to change, the mornings are darker, everyone around you seems to be coming down with something and suddenly that wellbeing you felt in the summer seems a long time ago. I certainly know that feeling and that's why at this time of year, I remind myself to lean into the fundamentals and one of those fundamentals is AG1. AG1 is a daily health drink that has been in my own life for over eight years and one of the many things I like about it is the fact that many of the nutrients it contains,

• 32:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  for example, vitamin C, vitamin A, zinc and selenium, supports a healthy immune system. Some of the other things I really like about AG1 is that they are committed to continuous improvement and updating their formula as a scientific research involves. And each batch is independently tested for quality and safety markers, including heavy metals, allergens and banned substances. This is how they can guarantee what's in your scoop and what's not. Right now, AG1 is offering a free AG1 flavour sampler and AGZ sampler to try all the flavours, plus free vitamin D3 and K2 and AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order.

• 33:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  That's $87 in free gifts for first time subscribers. All you have to do is head to drinkag1.com/livemore to claim this offer before it ends.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  Anabolic hormones are essentially hormones that promote muscle growth and promote metabolism. And this can also get people to understand why you feel tired. It will give you an understanding as to why people feel that fatigue. And also your satiety signals reduce. You become more hungry. It becomes essentially more difficult to have that willpower to maintain a calorie deficit over time. At the start, it might be easy. You might be very regimented. But then your body actually starts fighting against your voluntary decisions to reduce calories

• 34:00Speaker 00

  by amping up these biological signals as a result of what's going into your stomach and your intestines, your digestive tract. Everything is telling you to eat, eat, eat, which is why, another reason why I'm not a fan of this.

• 34:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  And we have this biological set point, don't we?

• 34:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 34:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  You know, the set point, a bit like a thermostat, that your body, your brain, kind of, there's a weight that it kind of wants you to be at, your set point. And, you know, if you aggressively are losing weight, for some people, that set point is still there and it's kind of, you know, driving you to say, wait, there's a problem here. It's like your thermostat at home, the heating kicks in.

• 34:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, because the temperature's dropped.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's a kind of similar principle that we need to think about, I think.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  You know, there's so many, so many weird and wonderful things that happen. Like, I don't know whether you're like this, but I'm a bit of a fidgeter, right? My wife always tells me this as well, particularly when we're like watching TV on the sofa. I'm constantly moving around and like, you know, just like feeling my thighs here or like moving my... What this is referred to in the science is non-exercise activity thermogenesis. So every little movement, all this different fidgeting that I'm doing, is actually expending calories just naturally.

• 35:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 35:18Speaker 00

  If I was to put myself... On a calorie deficit diet, outside of my voluntary control, the fidgeting will reduce, I will actually reduce the amount that I move as just as a consequence of me just moving around.

• 35:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  But you're not trying to.

• 35:36Speaker 00

  But I'm not trying to. And this is the thing. And it's a real big contributor to the amount of calories that one person expends every single day. Some people are naturally more fidgety than others. It's just one of those weird quirks of human nature. But this is something that you actually witness. And this is something, again, that proves how smart your body is. Outside of your voluntary control, you will do things naturally, whether it's thermogenesis, whether it's because of our set point, whether it's because of non-exercise activity thermogenesis, all these things coalesce to protect yourself from the insult of lack of energy going into your system.

• 36:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  There's two things.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  It's pretty amazing.

• 36:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  It is phenomenal. There's just a couple of things I want to address there. First of all, as we keep saying that term calorie deficit diet, it's such a dry term, isn't it? Do you know what I mean? It's like such a dry scientific term. And I get why we're using it. You're trying to illustrate a point here, a very important point. But in terms of making food and engaging with your health, fun and exciting, it's kind of, it's very cold. Do you know what I mean? It's a term. So that was the first thing. The second thing I wanted to just say is that some people may start to get a little bit disheartened from what they've heard already. They may go, oh, so you're basically saying it's impossible

• 36:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  for me to lose weight. You're basically saying that I've got this set point and I'm going to lose it. My body's going to respond and it's going to just make me hungry and drive me back. So Rupee, is that what you're saying?

• 37:09Speaker 00

  No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I'm trying to give people an explanation as to what is the lived experience for many of us who have struggled with our weight. There are so many drivers that we can go into as to why people have more weight on their bodies. You know, we talked about guidelines, we talked about the food landscape. Our genes can also dictate the ability of us to put on and lose weight, the environmental pollutants, for example. And our sensitivity to those.

• 37:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  What does that mean? Environmental pollutants?

• 37:45Speaker 00

  So environmental pollutants is a loose term that I'm using to describe chemicals and toxins in our environment that are obesogenic. So they will induce a million of different hormonal changes like insulin resistance or resistance to the hormone insulin that is released by the pancreas that is anabolic in its nature, that will promote growth.

• 38:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. BPA in plastics, there's, I mean, have you dived into this research? I mean, it's pretty scary. Some of the research I've seen in terms of what BPA in plastics can do to our hormones.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  And in some ways you don't want to go there because if you go there, you're like, wow, we're living in a pretty toxic world these days where there are all these kind of obesogens, these chemicals everywhere that are also playing havoc. I think one of the nice things about how you start this conversation is that it's not really meant to be disempowering. It's actually meant to be very empowering and meant to help people realise that, hey, listen, you might lose a bit of weight at first. If things start to plateau, don't worry.

• 38:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  It doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. It's just part of the natural process that some people have to go through, right?

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Absolutely. And also, just to harbour on that point, I like to keep things really simple. There's so many different rabbit holes that we can go into with regards to inputs into why people struggle with weight. So in terms of the big picture, what's the, what are the big reasons as to why people struggle with their weight? I think obesogens are probably less of the issue. They're still an issue, still very much something that I pay attention to and I advise people to pay attention to from a general disease prevention standpoint. But in terms of weight, I think there are probably other things that we can focus on

• 39:41Speaker 00

  before we start going into redesigning our kitchens and redesigning our lives to be

• 39:50Speaker 00

  To remove obesity and remove environmental pollutants.

• 39:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, it's also how much can you focus on at one go? Like if you try and focus on all 20 factors that you may have heard about that are driving your weight.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  It may start to get overwhelming and

• 40:04Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 40:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  You can just go back. Look, and for some people, that is going to probably be a big issue, right? I guess it probably, I think what we're going to learn over the years is that some of us genetically are better able at dealing with the toxins in the modern environment and some of us just aren't as genetically predisposed to deal with them well.

• 40:23Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 40:23Rangan Chatterjee?

  And in terms of, you know, this podcast is each week I try and have empowering conversations where people feel at the end of it. Yeah, there's something I can do here.

• 40:33Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 40:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  There's really something I could do. Yes, I know the world's hard and life is tough and whatever it might be. But actually, there are a few simple things I can do. And I think that's where we share very similar approaches. So we definitely want to get to these four food principles at some point. So I think, I think they're just really helpful.

• 40:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just, just to reemphasize that sort of lived experience that a lot of people have with constantly going on diets and, you know, you have a lot of motor, it's not lack of willpower, it's not lack of motivation that people have. Because the fact that people have experimented with a lot of calorie deficit diets, dress up as lots of different, you know, diets. Whether it's, I don't want to name names, but you know, there's plenty of calorie deficit diets out there that are promoted by big companies. The very fact that people even are able to go on one of those shows an incredible amount of willpower, an incredible amount of motivation. Cause everything in your body is driving that individual to eat.

• 41:33Speaker 00

  But what tends to happen is a yo-yo diet doesn't, yo-yo dieter doesn't lose weight, maintain that and then go back to the original way. You see. An increase in their weight over time. Why does that happen? Well, for the same reasons that I just mentioned, why a calorie deficit diet does not work over three, six and 12 months in terms of their basal metabolic rate. What happens is you change your basal metabolic rate after doing a calorie deficit diet. When you start eating the same number of calories prior to that diet, what happens? You're in a calorie surplus. And that's why you see a trend upwards of people who are chronic dieters,

• 42:17Speaker 00

  rather than a plateau, rather than a steady weight. Does that make sense?

• 42:23Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, so let's go back to that example then. Let's say that you are a woman who roughly, let's say 2,000 calories is necessary for you to function. Your breathing, your digestion, whatever it might be, you know, all the, all the things in your body. And so you're saying that if they then eat 1,800 calories, so that's a 10% deficit for a period of time, they're going to start losing weight. Let's just say a month or two, right? You're going to consistently lose weight. But then for some people, it's just going to start to plateau. But some people may be thinking, Rupee, that if I start at 2,000, is what was what my need was, and I'm, I'm eating 1,800 calories,

• 43:08Rangan Chatterjee?

  and I'm starting to lose weight, then surely my basal metabolic rate also will naturally go down because I have less mass on my body.

• 43:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  So if I have less mass on my body, presumably the energy necessary to feed that mass to do all its functions is going to be less. Do you know, do you understand what I'm saying?

• 43:30Speaker 00

  Exactly, yeah.

• 43:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  So surely then, I'm just trying to think where the, where the listener might be at in this. Surely then what they need to do is then consequently, you know, if their new metabolic rate becomes 1,900 calories, then they now need to, you know, reduce, you know,

• 43:49Speaker 00

  The amount.

• 43:50Rangan Chatterjee?

  Reduce even more.

• 43:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. And that's exactly what happens. But in a real world environment, we don't maintain that same strict regimen of a reduction in calories. We go back to what we were eating before. And we're not very good at estimating. The number of calories that we consume.

• 44:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  That's the other point.

• 44:08Speaker 00

  It goes up and down every single week, just like the ebb and flow of life. And so what we tend to do is overconsume compared to our needs. And that's what leads to excess weight, even more so than prior to when you started on the calorie deficit diet. It's a very, very common experience that lots of people have. And that's why you see when you, when you examine yo-yo dieters or people who have tried different calorie deficit diets and all the different flavors that they come in, you see a general increase over time rather than a steady weight.

• 44:40Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  Does that make sense?

• 44:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  So if someone's listening, Rupy, and they're like, okay, well, what on earth should I do then?

• 44:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? You've, you've, you've shared some of the science, uh, Rupy with me in terms of, uh, what it says about how one technically loses weight. But you mentioned that term real world.

• 44:58Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 44:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  That's the key thing, isn't it? There's, there's what the science shows, there's what we can control in people in a laboratory setting, in a research setting. But what actually happens in real life?

• 45:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  Busy people with busy lives faced with constant temptation. When they go out in the world, they're stopping to fill petrol in their car and they're in the queue and they're suddenly see, you know, they're a bit stressed in work. They're a bit tired or, you know, those chocolate bars look, do you know what I mean? All those kinds of things.

• 45:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  What do you suggest they do?

• 45:28Speaker 00

  So I think there are strategies that as a side effect, like you suggested earlier, will put you into a mild calorie deficit, but importantly, ensuring that you don't have to think about it. And you're also creating something that is sustainable, that you can maintain consistency around. That actually changes your biology, that makes it easier to maintain a calorie deficit rather than forcing yourself into a calorie deficit. That sounds a little bit jumbled up, but I will explain when I go through these different practices. What happens to your biology that makes it easier for you to do so?

• 46:09Speaker 00

  So instead of you like, like pushing yourself to maintain calorie deficits, which I think are just inherently very, very hard. These practices, I think, will make it super simple, such that you don't really have to think about, okay, I need to restrict myself by not eating that.

• 46:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  And possibly more enjoyable.

• 46:27Speaker 00

  A hundred percent. I mean. I am a massive foodie, right? I mean, I live and breathe food every single day.

• 46:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  How many cookbooks have you written now?

• 46:38Speaker 00

  I've written, the fifth one is coming out in March and I.

• 46:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  And they're all brilliant, guys.

• 46:43Speaker 00

  Thank you, I appreciate that.

• 46:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  Ways to actually improve your health and cook tasty food, they're brilliant.

• 46:48Speaker 00

  And I think in terms of the number of recipes that we've created is well over 2000 now because we have over a thousand on the Dr. kitchen app. I've done some for other people, there's some on the website, like they're just, I live and breathe creating recipes with this health slant with, you know, injecting flavour and, and yes fibre and yes, all the functional ingredients, but flavour is really, really at the forefront of what I'm passionate about. And I think it's really important to maintain sort of this perspective on like food being life. Food is life. Everything is geared around like in the enjoyment of food. It's like, you know, we've had so many dinners together and amazing experiences over breaking bread or

• 47:31Speaker 00

  breaking vegetables, let's say, or like, you know, just it's, it's the real sort of bond that people share. It's how we celebrate other people's cultures. It is so much to me and I think it's so much to.

• 47:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, and I think that's one of the things people really love about your approach, Rupy, is that you're trying to bring back the fun and the joy.

• 47:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  About food, rather than food being this thing that I have to control and count this and count that and restricts. And of course, everyone responds to different approaches, but one thing I, I really like about your approach is that you are trying to bring that joy. And say, hey, this can be fun. Before we get to those food practices that you recommend, I just want to really emphasise this point that we're talking about, which is, what can be really helpful for many people is this idea that we focus on wellbeing

• 48:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  in a variety of different ways. And the side effect is that we consume less calories. And you're going to talk us through it from a food perspective. Let me just bring something in to really help. People think about that point from another perspective, sleep. We know from certain studies that if you sleep five hours a night compared to eight hours, you eat on average 22% more calories the following day.

• 48:43Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 48:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, so let's just really think about that for a moment, about this concept that we're talking about. You're saying that technically you need to eat less calories per day than your body is burning if you want to lose weight. But what we're trying to say is that there are many ways to get to that end point without actually trying. So I have had patients in the past, where I've helped them lose weight, actually not by focusing on food, by getting them sleeping eight hours a night. Because when you sleep for eight hours a night, or let's say you can't manage that, you improve your sleep, right? You're less hungry the next day, you feel fuller earlier, and your ability to resist temptation is much higher when you've slept well.

• 49:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, so it's something that I don't think people think about enough. Like, just because the food is important, there are other upstream levers that you can turn, which means that naturally you will make better food choices. Like, when you're less stressed, you make better food choices and all those sort of things. And so, yeah, I just wanted to sort of double click on that point, because I think it's really important for people to understand.

• 49:48Speaker 00

  I completely agree. And I think there's a point I make in the next book and on the podcast, I do this all the time. We need more longer term strategies for weight, rather than quick fixes, which are being offered to us in the form of medications and diets and all the rest of it. But as part of that long term strategy are non nutritional strategies. It's not just about the food. I know we've just talked about calories and in and out, and this is the scientific way to lose weight. And yes, that's absolutely true. But what you're a big fan of, and so am I, are the other upstream effects that actually lead to behaviour change in the real world.

• 50:31Speaker 00

  And I think, you know, it's very easy for, and you know, I'm trained as nutritionist now and as a medical doctor, it's very easy to lean on. Papers and the evidence that we have presented to us in established journals. Great, we need that, but that informs our opinion. It doesn't dictate the opinion. And I think that's really, really important to for people to realise that. Yes, I'm going to present the evidence to everyone today. Yes, I'm going to be pretty factual about it. But it doesn't mean that this is the be or end. And going back to what we were talking about at the start. You know, I think it's really important to maintain perspective on. This really has to be contextualised for the individual.

• 51:11Rangan Chatterjee?

  And that's what I genuinely think. And, you know, whatever modality you work in, they're studying the science. And then they're seeing real world impact. And they're not always the same thing. And I think the very best researchers, like I remember the first time Sachin Panda came on my show. And he's been on yours, I think, several times as well as mine. Like, he said something like, you know, Rogan, I really appreciate what you're showing with your work. That actually what I'm seeing in the lab actually works in real life. I think the very best researchers get that. They get that, look, we're studying this in a very particular setting. We want clinicians to tell us, actually, does this actually translate to real life? And I think that's the point that sometimes we miss. It's a what does the science show? What does the science show?

• 51:56Rangan Chatterjee?

  What does the paper show?

• 51:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:58Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, it's helpful, but it's not everything.

• 52:01Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 52:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  So let's get into food, right? Unless there's more on the science you want to share.

• 52:05Speaker 00

  No, no, no.

• 52:05Rangan Chatterjee?

  Should we get into these four strategies? Or was there something you wanted to cover first?

• 52:08Speaker 00

  I think we're going to get into it as we go through it. Because I think there's so many different ways in which we can, again, contextualise what I'm going to talk to you about with regards to unprocessing your diet. That's the first thing. I think if there's one thing that you can do, it is to unprocess your diet. What does that mean? Okay. I think the way you've described it in your, one of your books on weight loss. Really packs so much information into a very simple strategy, which is focus your diet on one ingredient foods. And where do you find these one ingredient foods? Well, you find it on the outside of the aisles. You find it in the supermarkets with ingredients that you recognise without the need for labels.

• 52:53Speaker 00

  It's a very. Easy thing for people to remember. It's a heuristic, a rule of thumb. I know there's going to be some nutrition scientists shouting that down, down at the podcast. I understand there is an over classification. I understand that it's not as simple as saying, if you don't recognise the ingredients on the back of a packet, then just put it back on the shelf. I think this is actually a good strategy for most people because it's understandable.

• 53:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, it's like, what is the goal? If the goal is to help people, we need, we need to communicate these ideas in a way that actually resonates with them, that they can apply. I, although I understand it doesn't fit in every situation, I still believe that actually that concept of, if it's got more than five ingredients on it, just think twice before you put it in your mouth. I still stand by that.

• 53:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right. Because, can I say it works 100% of the time? No, I can't say that. But is it a useful framework to think about as you're going through life? I found it very helpful. And I know many of my patients in the past have found it helpful as well. So I'm still going to go, I think it's helpful for most people.

• 54:03Speaker 00

  I agree. And I think if you look at the stats around the number of processed foods that we have in our grocery stores, it's around 70%, I mean, 70% of the UK and US's diet is processed, ultra-processed foods. So these are foods that are really far removed from the original intended ingredient. They've had added salts, added emulsifiers, other additives to ensure its sweetness.

• 54:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  What can I say? What's an emulsifier?

• 54:31Speaker 00

  An emulsifier is something that changes the texture of food to make it a lot more palatable. There are other additives that are used to ensure that the shelf life is preserved. And there are other things that we also do to food to preserve shelf life, like dehydration. So all these things collectively have been shown in a number of different studies to be linked with poor health, independent of the calories that they consume.

• 54:57Rangan Chatterjee?

  And independent of weight loss.

• 54:59Speaker 00

  Exactly. Independent of weight loss as well. So.

• 55:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  Which is why, going back to what we said before. Even if you could technically lose weight by eating junk food. Because I guess you could say, I could literally have soft drinks and french fries. But as long as it's in a calorie deficit, I will still technically lose weight. You may not be improving your health at the same time. Or you may, you know, you know, on one hand be helping a little bit. But on the other hand, be causing a whole host of other issues for you.

• 55:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, and there are stories that have done that as well.

• 55:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 55:31Speaker 00

  I mean, they're pretty impressive and you look at it and you're like, okay, yeah. I mean, the energy balance theory does work, absolutely. But, you know, what are the long term ramifications? You can't do a study for more than a couple of years at most. Like, what are the implications of this kind of habitual eating over decades? And the only evidence that we have around that are observational, essentially. No one's going to put someone on a randomized control trial between ultra-processed and less processed foods. We look at natural experiments. And so this is the strongest evidence that we have.

• 56:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  Let's connect this, this first principle, unprocess your diet. Let's connect that to this concept of calorie deficits, right? So again, the principle being that we're trying to engage in practices that are fun, that are enjoyable, that naturally lead to us consuming less calories without focusing on the calories, right? So, you know, how does unprocessing your diet fit in with us consuming less calories?

• 56:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  Today's episode is sponsored by the daily health drink AG1. The clocks are about to change, the mornings are darker. Everyone around you seems to be coming down with something. And suddenly that wellbeing you felt in the summer seems a long time ago. I certainly know that feeling and that's why at this time of year, I remind myself to lean into the fundamentals. And one of those fundamentals is AG1. AG1 is a daily health drink that has been in my own life for over eight years. And one of the many things I like about it is the fact that many of the nutrients it contains, for example, vitamin C, vitamin A, zinc and selenium. Supports a healthy immune system. Some of the other things I really like about AG1 is that they are committed to

• 57:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  continuous improvement and updating their formula as a scientific research involves. And each batch is independently tested for quality and safety markers, including heavy metals, allergens and banned substances. This is how they can guarantee what's in your scoop and what's not. Right now, AG1 is offering a free AG1 flavour sampler and AGZ sampler to try all the flavours, plus free vitamin D3 and K2 and AG1 welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription order. That's $87 in free gifts for first time subscribers.

• 58:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  All you have to do is head to drinkag1.com/livemore to claim this offer before it ends. Today's episode is sponsored by the daily health drink AG1. The clocks are about to change, the mornings are darker, everyone around you seems to be coming down with something and suddenly that wellbeing you felt in the summer seems a long time ago. I certainly know that feeling and that's why at this time of year, I remind myself to lean into the fundamentals and one of those fundamentals is AG1. AG1 is a daily health drink that has been in my own life for over eight years. And one of the many things I like about it is the fact that many of the nutrients it contains, for example, vitamin C, vitamin A, zinc and selenium, supports a healthy

• 58:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  immune system. Some of the other things I really like about AG1 is that they are committed to continuous improvement and updating their formula as a scientific research involves. And each batch is independently tested for quality and safety markers, including heavy metals, allergens and banned substances. This is how they can guarantee what's in your scoop and what's not. Right now, AG1 is offering a free AG1 flavour sampler and AGZ sampler to try all the flavours, plus free vitamin D3 and K2 and AG1 welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription order. That's $87 in free gifts for first time subscribers.

• 59:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  All you have to do is head to drinkag1.com/livemore to claim this offer before it ends.

• 59:44Speaker 00

  The mechanisms that exist that explain why ultra-processed foods are damaging for our health are multifactorial. One of the key things, I think, and probably the simplistic explanation, the Occam's razor approach, if you like, is that it actually leads to overconsumption of these foods. Because they're so hyperpalatable, because they light up the reward systems within our brain, we generally overconsume calories. And this is a bit of a conundrum for folks like us, right? Because on the one hand, we understand the reasons and the biological reasons as to why this leads to ill effects like weight gain, but on the other hand, it kind of gives

• 1:00:29Speaker 00

  food companies a bit of a way out. It gives food companies a narrative that says, well, as long as you don't consume these foods, as long as you maintain willpower not to consume as much of these chips and cookies and whatever, then these are perfectly safe for you. They are safe within the context of someone's motivation. And I think that's incorrect, because what's happening is a hijacking of our senses that leads to the overconsumption in the first place. And so you could also argue that ultra-processed foods displace healthy foods from our diet. The matrix degradation of the food leads to a lack of ingredients for our microbiome.

• 1:01:13Speaker 00

  And we know, and you've spoken to on your podcast many times, that anything that supports our microbes' health is super important from the perspective of inflammation, sugar balance, but also weight maintenance as well. And unfortunately, the marketing of these foods tend to be at those

• 1:01:33Speaker 00

  Are the most vulnerable in society. And this sort of availability and convenience of ultra-processed foods leads to what we see in the studies being the reason as to why it makes up so much of a population's diet, particularly in the in the West, in the US and UK. And it's growing in other countries as well. I know you've spoken to Chris Valantilikin on the podcast about the subject. And everything he says is true. And I think it's on us as health communicators to not only give people the information around ultra-processed foods and the mechanisms and all that kind of stuff, but give people simple strategies and simple ways in which they can depressurize. I think one of the most like, I mean, there's so many things about Doctor in the House that are like buried into my brain.

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  But one of the best things, and I think it's controversial to a lot of people today. But when you went into a family's house and you opened up the cupboards and you were like, take all of this out. And it was cereals, it was marinades, it was sauces, all these different elements.

• 1:02:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  And that's going back some time now, almost 10 years. I remember doing that. And yeah, I mean, you say it's controversial, right? And I agree it is.

• 1:02:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  One of the most useful strategies I've found with patients over the years, and frankly, myself, is this idea to not use up willpower in your house. Now, I post about this relatively regularly. And I think the last time, or one of the last times I posted about this idea on Instagram, there was a small section who were like, this is ridiculous. We should be able to have unhealthy, let's say, ultra-processed foods in our house. And we should be in tune enough with our bodies to not consume it. Now, I don't disagree that that would be a great aspirational state to be in.

• 1:03:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  I just don't think many of us are in that state. And I feel that a lot of the time, we're making our life really difficult if we're using it will power in the house. So I genuinely do not bring food into my house that I don't want to be consuming. I don't tend to keep sweets, chocolates, cakes. I don't keep them at home because there will be an evening when I'm feeling tired and a bit stressed and I will start opening the covers and look for something a little bit sweet. And all I can see at the moment are whole nuts and olives. And sometimes I'm like, ah, I'm not sure I feel like that at the moment. That's not really what I wanted.

• 1:04:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  That's what I don't eat.

• 1:04:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:05Rangan Chatterjee?

  Because it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted that little hit from something sweet.

• 1:04:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  So again, in terms of what is practical for many people and my biases, the patients I've seen over the years, I think not using your willpower in your house is a great tool. And also thinking back now to that family who I helped to doctor in the house. I think a lot of these principles depend, they depend where you're at on your journey, right? If you're used to having loads of ultra-processed foods and that's, you know, making up 70% of your diet, as it is for many people, actually to reset, maybe for a few months, you don't want that stuff anywhere near you. So it can, it can help you reset your taste buds.

• 1:04:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I know you know all the studies on, and maybe we can talk about them, about how we, we tend to overconsume ultra-processed foods. Most people listening will know the advert, you know, Pringles, once you pop, you can't stop. Well, I think most of us know that feeling. Once that packet opens, it doesn't take long before it's empty.

• 1:05:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I think to your, to your point about the folks who are saying, you know, it's lunacy to take all the ultra-processed foods out of your kitchen and that we should have willpower to, and, and the self-control, I think that's honestly antithetical to the science. And just one study, I mean, there's so many different studies, but there was one study that was performed in a metabolic ward. So that's where you have a very accurate idea of calories in, calories out. It was done in 2019. They looked at just 20 adults. And they consumed ab libidum, so whatever they wanted, they were able to consume of two weeks of a minimally processed diet.

• 1:05:53Speaker 00

  And then it was crossed over with another two weeks, again, ab libidum, so whatever they want, of an ultra-processed diet. And the participants who were on the ultra-processed diet arm, when they were on the ultra-processed arm, they consumed on average 500 calories a day more than on the minimally processed diet. So let's put that into context. Going back to the lady at the start, the sort of example of 2,000 calories, you're going to be consuming another 500 calories, an extra 25% more energy. What do you think that's going to do to fat, visceral fat? And that's just after two weeks. What's that going to do over time?

• 1:06:36Speaker 00

  So this idea that we can be, that we can exercise self-control in an environment where we have food that clearly shows us that we overconsume, that clearly is something that we overconsume when given in a free-living environment, is something that I think needs to be addressed by having some guides, some sort of rails around, so we don't use up the wheel power when we're in our kitchen, when we're at our home, because outside, we don't have a control of that.

• 1:07:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:11Speaker 00

  In our houses, we do.

• 1:07:12Rangan Chatterjee?

  Let's just think about that again. Let's just think about it through this wider point, which is to improve our health, to reduce the harmful levels of fat that are on many of our bodies, right? Even if we're just a little bit overweight, but have that dangerous visceral fat, the fat around our organs, the pro-inflammatory fat that's increasing our risk of chronic disease.

• 1:07:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  The point we're trying to land in this conversation, I think, is this idea that we want to help people generally eat less. But we want to help them do that by not necessarily focusing on eating less. We recognize that some people actually probably do okay by focusing on eating less. And you mentioned some people in certain industries, very motivated, they like to track calories, they like to measure how much they're having. Okay, great. I don't think either one of us is saying for that individual to stop. We're saying if that's working for you, brilliant. We want the same outcome. We want people's health to improve, right? If that's your way of doing it, wonderful. But so far, there's two specific things I think people can grab their heads around, right?

• 1:08:23Rangan Chatterjee?

  What you just said about ultra-processed foods. If you are eating ultra-processed foods regularly, you're probably going to be consuming more naturally. So if you can, and we recognize it can be tricky, and there are cost implications, but if you can go to more whole, unprocessed foods, these one-ingredient foods, as much as you can, it's likely that you're naturally going to consume less, right? So you're not trying to consume less, you're just choosing different foods and you're naturally consuming less. And we also mentioned with sleep. If you can improve your sleep a little bit, let's say you're sleeping six hours a night, you can even get that to six and a half hours a night to make it, instead of black or white,

• 1:09:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  perfect or nothing, it's not, no, no, even 30 minutes extra, it's going to have an impact on your hunger, your satiety, you're going to naturally be consuming less the next day. And you're going to naturally be able to resist temptation a little bit more. These are two kind of relatively simple levers to turn, simpler for some than others, of course, that will naturally lead to you consuming less calories.

• 1:09:34Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly that, exactly that. And I think it's a nice framework that you've, you've done, like, throughout this part of Getting people to understand that you're going to naturally consume less energy. We can explain it through the energy balance model, absolutely. But I think it's important for people to actually think about the tangible activities that they can do every single day. And it can be explained by the science, but just get people to do these practices of swapping your crisps for nuts or swapping the marinade for something that you make yourself at home. These little things, even reducing the amount of ultra-processed foods in your diet is still better than completely eradicating it as well.

• 1:10:12Rangan Chatterjee?

  What do you say, Rupeet, to someone who goes, okay, listen, I hear all this stuff

• 1:10:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  about ultra-processed foods, right? But what are they?

• 1:10:20Speaker 00

  Hmm, yeah.

• 1:10:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  What is an ultra-processed food? What do you say to them?

• 1:10:24Speaker 00

  So there's a scientific explanation as to what ultra-processed foods are.

• 1:10:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  Has it got cool terms in, like, calorie deficit, metabolic ward, ad libitum? People love these terms.

• 1:10:36Speaker 00

  I know, I know. It was created by a Brazilian scientist who is credited with the NOVA classification scheme. But even within that, scientists still argue over the classification of certain foods, whether something is class two or three, or whether it's even helpful to have these different classifications. So in NOVA 1, it's pretty much your one ingredient foods. It's your culinary ingredients, your fruits, vegetables, poultry items.

• 1:10:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  When you say culinary ingredients, do you mean like herbs, like spices?

• 1:11:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, herbs, spices, that sort of stuff.

• 1:11:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  So then these are acceptable? These are things that you're encouraging?

• 1:11:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, these are things that we encourage. Essentially one-ingredient foods.

• 1:11:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay.

• 1:11:10Speaker 00

  And then you have the next step down, which is processed culinary ingredients, yogurts, cheese. These are things that have undergone some processing, but essentially they still have health benefits or they're at least health neutral.

• 1:11:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  Humus?

• 1:11:26Speaker 00

  Humus is essentially one of those.

• 1:11:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, because I think sometimes, again, everything gets quite extreme in black and white. People go, yeah, but what about these things? They're processed. But we're not saying no processing.

• 1:11:37Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:11:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  We're saying minimal processing, as close to its natural form as possible.

• 1:11:42Speaker 00

  Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And so within that, you have so much gray area. You have a marinade that's made with wholesome ingredients. Olive oil, garlic, tomatoes that are perhaps been cooked themselves. That would still be classed as a processed food. It's very different to an ultra-processed food. An ultra-processed food would be something like a crisp. It's been dehydrated. There has been an additive added to it. There's perhaps even flavouring. There's so much that has happened from creating, from the original ingredient that could be corn or rice or potato to the product that you have in your hand.

• 1:12:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  This is so interesting, Gav. I just had a thought, right? So we talk a lot about ingredient labels. And actually, I think one of the things I've, I've found is very helpful for patients over the years is, is trying to teach them to start looking at ingredient labels, right? Because many people just never look, like, and I probably didn't 10, 12 years ago. I imagine there was a time where, whereas now I look at everything before, but I'm like, turn it around and go, wow, I didn't realise it had all this stuff in. Why's this product, why's this got sugar in it? For example, I didn't, you, you may not tell until you flip it over. But this ultra-processed food kind of template, it kind of takes it one step further, right?

• 1:13:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  Because you could potentially look at a crisp, right? And there are healthier versions of crisps or what they call potato chips in America. Okay.

• 1:13:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  And if you look, you will see that some of these have, you know, some of them actually are trying to market themselves as healthy and it will be potatoes, olive oil and sea salt. That, there are some out there that exist like that, right?

• 1:13:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  So on the face of it, it looks healthier, let's say, right?

• 1:13:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  The point I'm trying to get at, it's not only the ingredients, is it? It's, it's what's happened to those ingredients because they're still dehydrated.

• 1:13:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  And they're still probably going to make you overconsume, even though their ingredients are technically a little bit better. And even though they've got less than five ingredients on the packet, do you know what I mean? That's, and going back to the original question. Well, this is why people are so flipping confused about food. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:14:05Speaker 00

  Well, there's so many different inputs because what you're referring to there is the disruption to the food matrix. So the food matrix is essentially the 3D structure in which we find natural food. So I can still have something like a potato. And like you said, on the crisp packet, it could still have just olive oil and salt. And you might think, that's great. You know, that's, that's all that's been done to it. But actually, we've disrupted that, that, that food matrix. We've boiled it down to the constituent ingredients of starch, carbon molecules, and then reformed it in the form of a crisp or whatever it might be. And that in itself is an ultra processing method that can lead to overconsumption because of the palatability of it.

• 1:14:50Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, it's such a good point because also, let's think of it through the lens of one ingredient foods. That so-called healthy crisp packet has got three one ingredient foods in, right? Potatoes, olive oil and sea salt.

• 1:15:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  So the complexity is, yeah, but what's been done to those potatoes?

• 1:15:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:12Rangan Chatterjee?

  Because you, it's hard, you know, people may push back on this, but potatoes are quite a,

• 1:15:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  they've got pretty good levels of satiety. You know, you're probably not gonna

• 1:15:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  overconsume boiled potatoes.

• 1:15:25Speaker 00

  Oh, 100%. Yeah.

• 1:15:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  You're gonna feel full very quickly, but you can overconsume potatoes in crisp form. And even let's take it one step further, right? And I'm just thinking this through in real time, Rupee. Just, I really, you know, I really want to land these points of people so they really get it. So let's talk about that healthy crisp packet. Potatoes, olive oil and salt. You could steam some potatoes at home, right? Your organic potatoes, you can, you can wash them, you can steam them, put them in your plates if you want. Put on olive oil.

• 1:16:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  And put on some sea salt.

• 1:16:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  Sounds delicious, right? And but you're going to consume a less of that, even though the salts and stuff makes it more, you know, palatable and you're going to consume a bit more like you're still going to consume a less of that than the same three ingredients put in a crisp packet.

• 1:16:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. And, and I mean, the same thing could be said of one ingredient foods. I mean, think of orange juice. Orange juice can have one ingredient. That's it. It's just oranges. That's, you know, one of your five a day, full of vitamin C. These are the health labels that you find on, on products. But unfortunately, because of that food processing method, because of the disruption to the natural structure of the orange, because of the removal of fiber and the concentration of the natural sugars, there's nothing wrong with the sugars in fruit. But when it's refined to that point, it can still be a one ingredient food, but it can still be detrimental to your health. So this is where people get really confused. And, you know, you can understand, but well, you know, one ingredients, you know,

• 1:17:02Speaker 00

  this is what I've been having. It comes down to, you know, what our ancestors would have eaten, what our grandmothers would have told us, you know, this is why I'm a big fan of simple messaging of like, one ingredient foods as much as possible, shop in the outer outskirts of your supermarkets and be realistic about what's up, whether something is processed or not. If it comes from a packet, just think twice, like you said, read the back of the ingredient label.

• 1:17:30Rangan Chatterjee?

  And also be realistic, you know, there's, there's ideal and optimal, and then there's realistic, right?

• 1:17:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  You may not be able to get to 100%

• 1:17:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  of minimally processed foods. I mean, sure, that would be amazing. But I think for many people, they feel that's a little unrealistic, but they perhaps don't need to.

• 1:17:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:17:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  You can still get, even if you reduce it and change the balance by 10 or 20%, you're still going to get those benefits.

• 1:17:55Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 1:17:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  You're going to start to get those benefits.

• 1:17:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't think, I'm glad you're making this point because it's very easy to be puritanical about this stuff. And I'm certainly not a fan of being puritanical of this, to the point where I make a point on social media and on the Dr. S. Kishan app of highlighting. Processed foods that I love, you know, chili oil, love it. Gotchichang, love it. There's a Korean fermented paste that gives beautiful depth of flavour and colour and heat to whatever it might be. It could be something that I add to beans. It might be something that I add to cauliflower to make a one ingredient food that much more delicious and palatable.

• 1:18:39Speaker 00

  And I think there is, there are ways in which we can use some processed ingredients into our diet and still have very holistically a healthful diet that will ultimately, you know, lead to better weight maintenance and even weight loss.

• 1:18:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  You mentioned the Doctor's Kitchen app. Last time you came on my podcast, you shared a little bit about that app and when you were up to, how have things changed over the last couple of years? I mean, how's the app doing? You know, what are people reporting?

• 1:19:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, we're, we're, it's, it's been phenomenal. You know, one of the things, one of the reasons why I started the Doctor's Kitchen in the first place is to amplify what I was able to do in clinic on a one-on-one basis with people watching on social media. And I think what the app has allowed me to do is be in people's pockets whilst they're cooking in their kitchens at home. They don't have to listen to me on a podcast. They don't have to read an article. They can follow a recipe. They can learn about the ingredients of that recipe. They can share it with their family members. And they can enjoy it with their loved ones. And what we're doing is, you know, teaching thousands of people every single week

• 1:19:50Speaker 00

  to eat well every day through recipes, through information about the benefits of certain ingredients. And we have over a thousand recipes on the Doctor's Kitchen app now and more every single week with a simple meal planner and, you know, because it is quite hard. When it comes to planning what to eat every week and you know, you've got so many different issues. You've got the indecision of what to make. You've got different taste preferences of your kids, for example. I'm going to learn about that when my son's a little bit older, I'm sure. You've got the cost implications of food. You've got seasonality. There's so many different things to keep an eye on and then allergens and dietary preferences and all that kind of stuff. And so if I can take away some of that complexity through

• 1:20:35Speaker 00

  a very simple, elegantly designed app that helps you make food decisions that introduce variety and balance and don't make you feel guilty and it's just easier to cook from scratch, then that's a win for me.

• 1:20:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, it's amazing. And who, you know, for people who didn't hear us talk about it last time, who is it for? I know it's not a weight loss app, but does, will it help someone who hears this conversation goes, actually, yeah, I want to try these practices and I do want to lose a bit of excess fat from my body. Do you think your app will help them?

• 1:21:06Speaker 00

  Naturally, it will absolutely help people because we're not a weight loss app. We don't promote calorie counting. In fact, you can remove a lot of the nutritional information if you wish from the app. But there are so many people who have just simply done essentially what I'm talking about, unprocessing their diet by cooking from scratch more, increasing the amount of fibre and protein that they consume and eating earlier dinner if they can, and they lose weight naturally. What we've done with our app is we've structured it around eating well, which is like kid friendly and generally family friendly, but also around certain health goals. If you're looking to lower your cholesterol, if you're looking to improve menopausal symptoms, if you're looking to improve brain fog. We've

• 1:21:50Speaker 00

  looked at the dietary patterns and ingredients that align with those health goals to make it easier for you to choose recipes that aligns with that health goal, rather than just giving you the information, don't eat this, eat this instead. We're actually just making it a lot more practical. And I think that's where a lot of this, a lot of this confusion lies because people are looking for information without actually getting the practical solutions.

• 1:22:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  You're putting it all together. Essentially for anyone who wants to eat better, right? Yes, it will help you with the weights, with hormonal balance, with energy, vitality, whatever it is. And so, yeah, and I know how hard you work on it to help people.

• 1:22:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  Get that information in a very easy and accessible way.

• 1:22:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:22:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  You've got these four food principles, right? Number one, unprocessed your diets. I think we've covered a lot about that. I think we could keep going for another hour on that. But let's move on to the second one, which in some ways is not unrelated to the first one.

• 1:22:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:22:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  But I think worth pausing on fibre. What's your take on fibre?

• 1:22:54Speaker 00

  So there are some stats around the consumption of fibre in the US. 90% of the US population do not eat enough fruits and vegetables. This is where we tend to get fibre from. In the UK, I know everyone's heard of the fibre a day slogan. Our average is around three. That ranges between zero and around five or so. The optimal, if you're looking at the stats, is close to 10 portions of fruit and vegetables per day. This is looking at some research that was done by Imperial Researchers back in 2019. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone needs to eat 100% fruits and vegetables a day. I think there's a lot of nuance in this conversation.

• 1:23:35Speaker 00

  The more fruits and vegetables that you can naturally introduce into your diet without having to force it is great. And that was why I had this principle of just eat one more. I did a TED Talk on it a number of years ago. Now, every time you sit down to eat, can you add just one more? Fruit, vegetable, nut or seed, just one more. It could be a topper, it could be a side, it could be a steamed greens on the side. Just think to yourself, can I add just one more? Do I need just one more?

• 1:24:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay, just on that, I just want to not play devil's advocate, but we're sort of saying at the start that many of us are kind of over consuming for a variety of different reasons. So how does eating one more help in that environment? Could someone say, well, Rupy, you're saying to us, we need to eat less.

• 1:24:22Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now you're saying I should eat more. I know you're not saying that, but for the for the purpose of this conversation, how does that fit into what we've just said?

• 1:24:30Speaker 00

  When you eat more fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, what you're inadvertently doing is eating more fibre. And what happens when you eat fibre is that it increases your feelings of fullness and satiety. So how satisfied you are, satiety is just a fancy word for satisfaction, it leads to reduced overall calorie intake as a side effect. And this is particularly pronounced with soluble fibre that we find in fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. It also creates this sort of gel-like substance in your gut, this is from soluble fibre, that slows down absorption. And this improvement in your blood sugar

• 1:25:14Speaker 00

  levels as well, that we know is critical in protecting us against things like type 2 diabetes.

• 1:25:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  So you're basically saying eat one more of the right stuff?

• 1:25:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:25:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  And you'll eat a lot less of the wrong stuff?

• 1:25:26Speaker 00

  Of the wrong stuff, exactly that, exactly that.

• 1:25:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  You can have that.

• 1:25:31Speaker 00

  I'll make that the subtitle of my next book. And what also happens is you're inadvertently increasing the food that your microbes have to munch on. So I like to describe our microbial community in a largely populated, largely in our large intestine. We have microbes all over our skin and in our mouths, but the biggest population of microbes, that include bacteria as well as viruses and nematodes, live in the large intestine. And when you're introducing and presenting to them lots of different types of fibre, they love it. They ferment it into these short-chain fatty acids, acetate, propionate, butyrate, all

• 1:26:16Speaker 00

  these wonderful funky words. All they do is, well, not all they do, but what they do is they nourish your your colon cells. They keep this thick mucin layer between the interior of your digestive tract and The thin gut lining. So there's a bit of a barrier there. It's a nice sort of spongy layer. So your barrier isn't being disrupted, or there's no excess leakiness that can lead to symptoms and a heightened immune system. It also regulates appetite, helps regulate your appetite by affecting hormones and signaling pathways via the gut-brain axis. So we have this highway indirect and direct via the vagus nerve, this long winding nerve

• 1:26:59Speaker 00

  that goes all the way from your digestive tract all the way to your to your brain. And it signals satiety, signals that you're satisfied. So you don't have the overconsumption behaviour that is otherwise lacking if you have a diet that is largely ultra-processed as well. So it all all sort of ties into each other. And that's why I'm a fan of just one more. It sounds sort of counterintuitive, but when you eat just one more fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, more fibre, generally, you tend to eat less overall.

• 1:27:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  The science on the benefits of fibre is, you know, pretty convincing. There's a lot of it out there. How do you, with your experience, how do you view the many people around the world who are improving their health on low fibre diets? So the, I guess, one of the extreme aversions of that might be the so-called carnivore diets, where people are consuming a lot of animal products and minimal, depending on how people are applying that. Some people are only having meat, for example. Some people are having meat and fruit. Some people are having, you know, meats and vegetables or whatever. Well, you know, it's very hard to

• 1:28:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  say, what is the carnivore? Different people have a different interpretation of it. But there's no question that some people are experiencing some quite profound health changes, a reduction in autoimmune systems and joint pain and sometimes skin problems by

• 1:28:30Rangan Chatterjee?

  What may seem on the outside as a low fibre diets.

• 1:28:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, I'm sure you're aware of this. What is your take on that?

• 1:28:39Speaker 00

  I think that people are absolutely thriving on some of these, I don't want to call them extreme diets. I guess they're extreme in the context of how much they differ from the standard dietary advice that most governments give.

• 1:28:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  What does an extreme diet even mean?

• 1:28:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. So I think in terms of how I would appropriately describe them, I say they're quite an outlier from what we would typically recommend to the average individual, not that an average individual exists. I think absolutely for certain people, they are thriving on these diets. And you can explain it through a number of different reasons, you know, some people have had their guts ravaged by an excessive use of antibiotics over years, it could be stress, it could be their genetics that they're just more inclined or more attuned to a diet that is higher in certain types of fats, whether that's coming from polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fatty acids, or saturated fatty acids that are coming from mainly meat products.

• 1:29:40Speaker 00

  There are certainly people that are absolutely thriving. I would say that those individuals are most likely going to be the outliers. And the reason why I say that with some degree of confidence is because in terms of the long-term implications of a carnivore style diet, and I should probably define what those sort of mean, that they're essentially very high in animal-based products. In the case of carnivore diets, quite relatively low in fat, a ketogenic diet is a lot higher in certain types of fats and low in protein and low in carbohydrates. So there's different variations of what we're talking about, but essentially the outlier diets.

• 1:30:23Speaker 00

  There is certainly a lack of evidence of looking at long term data for these individuals. Short term improvements in inflammation, improvement in symptoms, improvement in subjective measures of health. Brilliant, wonderful. In terms of what I care about, in terms of the implications on cardiovascular health, on dementia, on metabolic health over time, there isn't as much evidence that I would like to see for me to confidently recommend that this is a strategy that people could start with. And I'm saying start with really intentionally here. So I think most people, as I mentioned earlier, are on an ultra-processed

• 1:31:08Speaker 00

  diet. The safest gateway onto a dietary strategy that works for an individual, I think, is to go on something that resembles a Mediterranean way of eating, which is relatively high in plant material, good sources of fats, so animal fats as well as extra virgin olive oil, for example, and monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, and a decent amount of protein that largely comes from plant-based sources. The reason why I'm confident that's a great gateway to start off with is because we have long-term evidence on that in terms of cardiometabolic benefits and all the disease prevention studies that I have read myself.

• 1:31:51Speaker 00

  In and around that, let's say you start that, let's say you do start increasing your fibre, or let's say you start having 30 plants a week, you know, based on some of the studies that we've seen out of the American Gut Project, and you don't thrive on that. And actually, your symptoms get worse, or you have digestive complaints, or you start having symptoms suggestive of an autoimmune condition. Don't force yourself to go on that just because I've said that, and don't force yourself because that's what the science says. You have to be your own expert. You have to navigate what is a complicated world of nutrition. And I always advise someone to do that if they can with the guidance of a nutrition specialist or

• 1:32:32Speaker 00

  a dietitian who can essentially enable you to decipher what might be going wrong. And for certain people...

• 1:32:41Speaker 00

  A low carbohydrate diet, a high fat diet, a carnivore diet might be the right option. It might be the right option, but it's certainly the outlier in my opinion.

• 1:32:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I really appreciate you going through that because I think, what I think happens sometimes is when we just give generic nutritional advice and we say that the science supports this, it can make some people who are thriving on different diets feel really bad and sometimes angry. And sometimes then have a distrust of the information they're getting.

• 1:33:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:33:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  And look, the truth is I have seen so many patients over the years with autoimmune symptoms who actually seem to dramatically improve them, at least temporarily, when they go on what might be considered a quite extreme diet. And I have seen some patients with going on carnivore thrive and I get why they want to do it.

• 1:33:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:33:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  I'm like, if you've had joint pain for 10 years or skin problems and then you change your way of eating and then you suddenly feel fantastic. Man, I get it. If I were you, I understand.

• 1:33:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:33:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right. And what I always come back to is I always think, what do we not know yet? Right. For all that we do think we know, what do we not know? Cause I think we're always learning new things. Like 30 years ago, we barely knew what the gut microbiome was. Cause now we're all experts on the gut microbiome, right? And it's like, well, hold on a minute. What else do we not know?

• 1:34:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:34:11Rangan Chatterjee?

  That we may learn about. So I've always been more interested in, in patient outcomes than scientific studies.

• 1:34:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:34:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  I'm like, if that patient's feeling better and I can do their blood tests and their markers are all looking good as well. I'm like,

• 1:34:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  I can see why they're doing it.

• 1:34:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:34:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I can't really make a strong case. Now, I, it's not that I disagree with increasing fibre. I actually think for most people, it's a really good recommendation. But I also just want to recognise that some of us need these more extreme diets to feel good.

• 1:34:43Speaker 00

  I think it's a really important point that people should ponder on because, you know, it really depends on what you're trying to optimise, right?

• 1:34:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  Exactly.

• 1:34:51Speaker 00

  I think from the perspective of what we were talking about right at the start, you know, people who can maintain a calorie deficit diet or train, you know, for bodybuilding competitions and stuff, those are really highly motivated people. I also think people who thrive on some of these outlier diets also have to be very, very motivated individuals as well, and all power to them.

• 1:35:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  Can I just say, I think they're really motivated because sometimes they've had horrible health outcomes in the past.

• 1:35:20Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:35:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  And they're like, I'm not going back there.

• 1:35:23Speaker 00

  A hundred percent. And you know, as someone who has experienced that sort of the stick of like trying to change their lifestyle because they're, you know, trying to improve their health and optimize their health, I completely understand that. And that's why you have this motivation as a product of, you know, that individual situation. And so where I think it falls down is where someone might, you know, see a carnivore advocate talking about this online and be like, great, I want to do that. I'm going to lose weight. It's very, very hard to maintain that lifestyle because of our food environment. And it's

• 1:36:02Speaker 00

  very easy to unfortunately have a hybrid of like part carnivore, part just eating what I want, bit of wine at the weekend, bit of ice cream in the evening. And then all of a sudden, gosh, you analyze their diet and it's essentially a standard American diet.

• 1:36:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, that's interesting.

• 1:36:18Speaker 00

  It's high fat, it's high protein, it's high refined carbohydrate, and it's that toxic milieu that leads to a lot of these metabolic complications. And so I'm all for an individual who has had success on some of these outlier diets to go for it if they can maintain the restriction that it requires considering our food environment and the landscape.

• 1:36:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay, let's get on to three and four, right? Protein at breakfast.

• 1:36:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay. Why is that important?

• 1:36:52Speaker 00

  Gosh, I think this is probably one of the areas of nutrition that I've changed my mind on quite a bit. So protein, if you look at the required or the recommend daily amounts every single day, is set at 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight.

• 1:37:09Speaker 00

  I used to think that was enough. I've actually changed my opinion on that. More recent protein researchers have suggested that the ideal amount of protein that one should require every single day is 1.2 grams per day, which is 50% more than what the recommendations are.

• 1:37:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  1.2 grams per kilo.

• 1:37:26Speaker 00

  Per kilogram per day. And it's more if you are over the age of 55, because we tend to assimilate less protein from our diet as a result of our digestive tract. It is more, again, one point, a little bit more if you are postmenopausal and more if you're breastfeeding as well. The stats demonstrate, or the recommendation is close to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day, which is a lot higher, it's double the amount that's recommended. And I think, and this is a hunch, I haven't looked at any statistics on this, but I think people who transition to more plant-centric diets with good intentions of increasing fibre

• 1:38:11Speaker 00

  and following the science, et cetera, may inadvertently be under-consuming protein. And that could lead to feelings of fatigue, lack of energy, thinning of hair, which is why I think a lot of vegans and vegetarians who have gone that way from an omnivore lifestyle revert back to an omnivore lifestyle because they haven't really put the importance on protein that they should have when they transitioned to a different lifestyle. And I think this is probably one of the missing pieces of the nutrition puzzle for a number of other reasons around protein. So I mean, protein is so important, you know, like it's the molecule of life, it's, you know, the building blocks of not just our

• 1:38:54Speaker 00

  muscles. A lot of people think of protein as, you know, I eat protein that goes to my muscles. 25% of the protein that you consume goes to your muscles. The rest of it goes to bones, enzymes, hormones. It is the structure of so many important biological living things in our body. It's beyond muscle health, even though it's very important for muscle health. And so again, Why am I a fan of eating protein at breakfast? It can help regulate your appetite levels during the day. It's satiating. It has a higher thermogenic effect. So a high protein diet promotes an increased body temperature and energy expenditure because your body has to break down protein, which is actually quite a lot harder than

• 1:39:37Speaker 00

  breaking down carbohydrates and fat, and also re-assimilate it in the process of muscle building.

• 1:39:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  That affects, what you said at the start, a calorie deficit.

• 1:39:45Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. Yeah, you could see all these things like, so I'm glad we started off with the calorie deficit framing because I think everyone can see these recommendations that are being given to by a lot of people without the sort of explanation of inadvertently causing a calorie deficit. There's a really interesting study that I think illustrates this point quite well. It's a relatively small study looking at adolescent Chinese individuals. There were 150 obese individuals and they were randomly assigned to one of two iso-energetic breakfasts.

• 1:40:26Speaker 00

  So that's calorie controlled breakfast, so that nothing to do with calorie deficit here, nothing to do with difference in calories. One of them were given, one of the cohorts were given an egg for breakfast or an egg based breakfast, and the other one was steamed bread. So you've got something that is high protein and high fat, so there's a limitation in the study there, and then something else that is high in carbohydrates. And what they did is they measured their subsequent lunchtime food intake. So again, real world kind of study, and they recorded appetite according to their subjective levels, but then they also looked at their hormone levels as well. They looked at their satiating levels.

• 1:41:07Speaker 00

  And what they found is that folks who had the protein at breakfast ate less for lunch. They had lower levels of the hormones that drive hunger at lunchtime. So there was a biological observation that they've seen.

• 1:41:25Speaker 00

  And they also saw it within the real world behavior of those individuals as well. That's just one of the studies. And just looking at the, the bigger picture of protein, when you look at the mechanisms and when you think about, okay, what, what is Rupee suggesting here in terms of how do I improve my weight control? Have protein at breakfast is really, really important. And if you look at most people's breakfast, what is it?

• 1:41:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  Carbs.

• 1:41:49Speaker 00

  Carbs and carbs.

• 1:41:50Rangan Chatterjee?

  Sugary cereals.

• 1:41:51Speaker 00

  And look, no judgment. I used to be like that all the time. Cereals, croissants, what's offered to us in, in, in food chains? It's all refined carbohydrates. It's a lot of cereals and there's nothing wrong with having those. But it is at the expense of the protein that we consume.

• 1:42:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I love that. I mean, look, there's no part of this conversation that's about judgment, right? You're just saying, or one of the ways we can interpret what you just said is that it's not about good or bad. It's just that there's a consequence, right? If you have a low protein breakfast, it may well be that one of the reasons you're over consuming later throughout the day and therefore not in a calorie deficit and over consuming calories overall is because of that low protein breakfast. So it could be one of those big upstream levers that you turn that naturally mean you're fuller for longer, you eat less, your hormones are different. Do you know what I mean? And so, you know, you, you said at the start, 0.8 grams per kilo, 1.2 grams per kilo.

• 1:42:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  Again, a lot of people find those things very dry. It's like, well, what, what do I do with that? Like, am I going to weigh myself and weigh protein? So can you sort of bring that to life with people? What does that actually look like for someone?

• 1:43:07Speaker 00

  There is a protein calculation on the Dr. Kitchen app.

• 1:43:11Speaker 00

  A little plug there. So if people are confused about this, I understand I'm confused about it. Well, I was confused about it myself. And I think we've tried to make it very easy for people to visualize exactly what that protein requirement is. So if you think about it from the perspective of, for argument's sake, a 50 kilo individual. Prior to the changes in my recommendations of protein content, people would be advised to consume, let's say, forty grams of protein for that person's weight. So, broken into three meals, that's around fifteen grams of protein. That's a couple of eggs at each meal. I'm not saying have a couple of eggs at every single meal.

• 1:43:52Speaker 00

  Lots of different plants have proteins in, as do animal products. Now, the recommendation would be, okay, having sixty grams. So, that's twenty grams of protein at every single meal. And I think it's very important to have protein at every meal because of the impact on your appetite. It means that you're less likely to snack in between meals as well. And it also is, again, important from the perspective of maintaining your protein intake because we can't store protein. We have stores for glucose, we have stores for fat.

• 1:44:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:28Speaker 00

  We don't store protein. You remove it via urine every single day. So, you need to maintain your protein consumption every single day. If you don't, the inefficient way in which to maintain your protein requirements that your body has is to draw it from muscle, and you don't want that. Your muscle is essentially like your pension savings account. You don't want to be drawing from that to do the weekly shop in the same way. You don't want to be doing that for a long-term financial strategy. So, protein intake every single day is super, super important.

• 1:44:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, so you're saying for a fifty kilo individual,

• 1:45:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  and you're using that for the ease of maths.

• 1:45:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:45:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, so if you weighed fifty kilos, you're saying the previous recommendation was naught point eight grams of protein per day, per kilo of body weight. So, that effectively, naught point eight, fifty is forty, so forty grams of protein. And, you know, roughly, that's fifteen grams of protein at every meal. And you're saying the new science and new recommendations are saying that's a little bit low. Let's go to 1.2. So again, for that 50 kilo individual, that 1.2 now becomes 60 grams of protein throughout the day, which instead of 15 grams at each meal, there's 20 grams of each meal. And I guess people like Gabrielle Lyon, I think Gabrielle's great. And I think her research and what she shows and her book and on her podcasts about, you

• 1:45:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  know, she's, she's, she kind of says, she goes a bit higher than that, I think. And she would recommend that everyone starts their day with at least 30 grams of protein for a variety of different benefits. And of course, what you need depends on your size as well, because, you know, you know, I'm six foot seven, pretty much, right? So it stands to reason that I'm going to need more protein than someone who's five foot five.

• 1:46:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:46:16Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? Which, again, we really need to think about. What are your favorite sources of protein? Because protein, again, is like, okay, people might initially go to things like, well, I know meat is protein, I know fish is protein, and of course they are.

• 1:46:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:46:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  But what's your list of healthy protein sources for people?

• 1:46:33Speaker 00

  Just on that point.

• 1:46:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:46:35Speaker 00

  I agree with Gabrielle. I think the amount of protein that people require if they train, so if they exercise, if they do cardiovascular training, for example, is high, it's at like 1.6 grams per kilo of body weight. So if you are that 50 kilo individual, you are getting close to that 30 grams. What she refers to in some of those studies from protein researchers is the effect on something called muscle protein synthesis, which is essentially muscle building and muscular health, not necessarily hypertrophy, so not necessarily growth, but certainly the health of muscle. And I think that stands to reason, the 1.2

• 1:47:19Speaker 00

  grams is the minimum amount of protein someone requires to ensure non-protein adequacy. And there is controversy around that as well. You find some other researchers saying, no, it's 0.8 grams.

• 1:47:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:32Speaker 00

  Per kilo, that's what it should be. So I, I, I agree. I think the amount that she recommends is more in line. They tend to go a little bit higher. And I think the reason why I tend not to personally is because in a real world scenario, if we encourage people to eat that higher level. Of protein.

• 1:47:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  What comes along with it?

• 1:47:54Speaker 00

  Comes along with it. And it tends to be a little bit more of the fats, a little bit more in terms of the energy density. And then it becomes into that, that, that odd world of over consuming in general. And unless you're regimented, it can be quite difficult.

• 1:48:08Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. For someone like me, right? These recommendations have been interesting because I've been observing them. I've had Gabrielle on my show twice. I'm six or seven, right? I'm pretty lean, but because of my height, I'm still almost 100 kilos. Right? So if you then apply these new protein guidelines through the lens of someone who's 100 kilos, and of course, 100 makes the maths really easy, right? Well, 1.2 grams per kilo per day is 120 grams of protein, right? Which means I would have to have 30 grams four times. That's one way of doing it, or 40 grams of protein at each meal, which is quite a lot, right?

• 1:48:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:48:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's not that easy. You would have to probably eat meat and fish regularly to actually try and do that in an easy way.

• 1:48:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:48:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? And then if you go to 1.6 grams per kilo per day, which I know some people recommend it, and I understand why they're doing that based on that research, I really do. I'm like, wow, that's 160 grams of protein. That is a huge amount of protein for, you know, yes, I'm tall, but I've, I've still got a kind of similar sized mouth. So like, I don't know, I haven't done a test, but do you know what I mean? It's a lot for me to actually consume. And, you know, I'm studying this research. I keep looking at it. I keep tracking things in my own body because of course I want to maintain my muscle mass as I get older. But it's interesting, isn't it?

• 1:49:34Speaker 00

  It is. Yeah. And I think your example really does illustrate the issue and the, the shortfalls that I think people might find themselves in. Cause if you start following blindly the recommendations of 1.6 or even two grams, particularly if you're training.

• 1:49:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:51Speaker 00

  You can over consume. It's very, very easy. And just generally, it's very, very hard to do that. Cause what you're describing there, I mean, people always use chicken breasts as the example. So I'll, I'll use that, but there is protein obviously in lots Of other products, but a hundred grams of chicken breast contains anywhere between twenty five and thirty grams of protein. So you would have to essentially consume one and a half chicken breasts every meal if you're eating three meals every single day. The equivalent of chicken breast in the plant kingdom would be something like tempeh or tofu. Tempeh has around twenty five grams of protein per hundred grams, but obviously there are differences. Tempeh is probably one of the best sources of plant-based protein. It's a natural fermented product.

• 1:50:35Speaker 00

  The fermentation essentially allows a lot more of the proteins to be absorbable, has all nine essential amino acids. Although it has the less leucine, which is the muscle building amino acid. So you have to be really conscious, particularly if you're a hundred percent plant-based, to ensure that you're getting lots of different types of proteins into your diet from nuts and seeds. I know lentils and pulses in general tend to get grouped into the high protein category. When you look at the nutritional value of chickpeas and beans, it's actually quite low. It's around eight to nine grams of protein per hundred grams.

• 1:51:16Speaker 00

  So if you're getting all of your protein largely from whole grains and pulses, for you, you'd have to be consuming a couple of cans of beans every single time you eat, and that's a lot, it's a lot of fibre, it's a lot of

• 1:51:32Speaker 00

  strain on your digestive system.

• 1:51:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:34Speaker 00

  And this is where I think people will will have to move into more of the supplemental realm. So supplements of soy-based protein or pea protein, which have all sorts of, you know, issues around those as well in terms of ultra-processing and the additive ingredients.

• 1:51:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  Do you, I know it depends on the quality of the supplement you're consuming.

• 1:51:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I know your approach is a food-first approach, but do you think there is a valuable role for protein powders for some people?

• 1:52:01Speaker 00

  Absolutely, yeah, I think so.

• 1:52:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  So why?

• 1:52:03Speaker 00

  From my my new perspective on protein, just because of the issues surrounding getting your requirements from whole foods alone. I think supplemental protein from a good, clean source is something that people should be leaning more into. Because I guess going back to our ultimate strategy here, we're looking for

• 1:52:29Speaker 00

  A goal which is long term health and part of that is quite unnatural. We're not naturally born to live this long into our eighties and nineties. If you look at the Hadza, the Masai, their average age is very, very low. Evolution has guided us to procreate and thereafter procreation, it doesn't really care about us. It is ruthless in its design, essentially.

• 1:52:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  So from that, can we take then your perspective is the reason we're having to perhaps do some things that might feel artificial through an evolutionary lens, like take a protein powder. And, you know, we could do a whole two hour podcast just on this topic alone, right? But just very simplistically is because actually we're living in a new world now. We might have different goals and actually evolution has designed us for a different purpose. So if we want to live to 100 in good health, we might need to do some things that people didn't need to do before.

• 1:53:29Speaker 00

  Totally. That is a really good point. And I think people need to lean into some of perhaps of the unnatural elements of nutrition and also lifestyle as well, trying to purposely put ourselves into discomfort, for example, trying to purposely move our bodies in ways that perhaps are not natural to the way we've been designed in terms of we're bipedal organisms, we walk over long periods, but we need to do muscle bearing exercises, we need to train certain areas of our anatomy if we are in the camp of wanting to thrive in our later years. So there are certain things that we will do naturally and part of that is the nutritional strategy that amps up protein, particularly in your later years.

• 1:54:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, well, maybe touch base, we'll probably go deeper on that in the next podcast we do together.

• 1:54:20Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 1:54:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  The purpose of this one, okay, so you have these four food principles. We've done unprocessed diets, we've done fibre, we've done protein at breakfast. Before we move on to an early dinner, can you just briefly explain why specifically at breakfast?

• 1:54:38Speaker 00

  At breakfast, I think there's a number of reasons why I say specifically at breakfast. One, we tend to rely on ultra-processed or refined carbohydrates. And it's an opportunity that we miss at the start of the day to get our total protein requirements for our 24 hours. That's probably number one. The second thing is the impact on appetite regulation. So if you have a cereal, the likelihood is that you're going to feel hungry because you haven't satisfied your body's requirements for protein mid-morning. If you have protein in the morning, like was eloquently described in that study that I described from the Chinese adolescents, you're going to be less hungry.

• 1:55:22Speaker 00

  And in a food environment where food is abundant, particularly hyper-palatable food, you're going to have a lot more self-control to not over-consume calories. So that's why I think protein at breakfast is a great strategy to ensure that you're not over-consuming and improve weight maintenance.

• 1:55:40Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, and one of the things I've often said to patients to help them with this is eat dinner for breakfast.

• 1:55:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, I do that all the time.

• 1:55:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I mean, it's a very simple way because we've got this idea of what a breakfast food is, but actually it wasn't always. It's kind of come relatively recently what a breakfast food is from cereal companies, right? And when you really dive into where this all came from and the marketing of it, it's actually, you know what? Who says that these are breakfast foods?

• 1:56:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:56:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  And so I think eating dinner for breakfast in this modern context can be a very useful concept for people to apply.

• 1:56:14Speaker 00

  There's that beautiful photography, set of photos from, I think it's the New York Times, where they looked at what kids eat for breakfast around the world. It was done about 10 years ago. I come back to that all the time. You know, what you see in the UK and the US are just these refined sugary cereals. And you definitely see that in certain other countries like Latin America, in particular in Brazil. But then you look at like Asia and it's just like a tali, you know, like Sri Lanka was like a tali with some, I mean, that's the kind of stuff that I would eat for dinner.

• 1:56:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  We used to go to India for six weeks every other summer. I can still remember my cousins, before they went to school, they'd have these big plates. There was like vegetable curries, there was dal, there was sometimes meats, there was like rice, it was like a proper meal.

• 1:57:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:57:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  And then I noticed after about 10 years, you're going back and like, there's all these adverts from the cereal companies, like people are starting to change their diets to the, the quick and easy western breakfast. And I'm like, actually, this is happening everywhere, or it has the potential to happen everywhere. But naturally, people were eating different things. Let's get to number four, before we run out of time.

• 1:57:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:57:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  I could talk to you for hours, mate. But let's get to this, this early dinner.

• 1:57:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I think eating an early dinner is a really simple strategy for ensuring that you are not going to overconsume. And I know I've just seen this through the lens of calories in, but bear with me for this. So one of the reasons that people cite for why an early dinner works in terms of better regulation of weight is because your body is better equipped to deal with nutrients from food during daylight hours. And eating an earlier dinner essentially aligns with your circadian rhythm, which is the rough 24 hour cycle by which all biological organisms operate on. And so it's promoting efficient

• 1:58:16Speaker 00

  use of those, the energy and the nutrients. Late night eating leads to this inefficiency of metabolism and a higher likelihood of storing excess energy as fat. And there are some beautiful studies actually looking at this. So there was a randomized crossover trial, and from 2020, of, of a late dinner versus a routine dinner. And their routine dinner was at 6pm. I don't know how many routine dinners are at 6pm. I'd love to have an early dinner at 6pm, but I definitely don't right now. And their late dinner was at 10pm. So kind of like mimicking a lot of what people might eat at, right, at 10pm, particularly if you come back from work and whatever. And then they had a fixed sleeping

• 1:59:00Speaker 00

  period between 11 and seven. This was done in a laboratory setting. So there are some limitations there. There were 20 healthy volunteers. And like I said, they were crossed over. So this, this is something that they observed in both arms. So when they were given the late dinner at 10 What they observed was that they tended to have higher blood sugar levels, so high glucose levels. They had higher fats in the blood as well, something called triglycerides. And they had lower free fatty acids and dietary fatty acid oxidation. What that means is that they were using less of their fat for burning. So they burnt less fat. And what they recommended,

• 1:59:42Speaker 00

  or what they suggested was that over time, if you are consistently eating in a late dietary pattern, that is inconsistent with our circadian rhythms, it could put you at higher risk for type 2 diabetes. So that's just one way in which just simply changing when you eat can have a drastic impact on where you store fat and also the risks for type 2 diabetes as well.

• 2:00:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, it's, you know, once you start looking at nutrition through the lens of our circadian biology, then you have another factor to consider, right? And I'm pretty sure there were these Spanish studies from a few years ago where they showed that people who had the same amount of calories, right? And this really speaks to where we started this conversation. But if the majority of those calories were eaten in the first half of the day compared to the second half of the day,

• 2:00:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  people lost more weight. So the same amount of calories, but the body processes things differently at different parts of the day. It was, it was quite eye opening that for me to go, wow, there are all of these kind of complexities. And I think one of the problems with this research on early dinners, because I totally agree with you, I think it is much better if you can. Now, now, I want to say a couple of things. One is, I recognize that some people who do, let's say, time restricted eating, and they go, right, well, I'm going to eat all of my food within an eight hour window. And for those 16 hours in a 24 hour period, I'm not going to eat. And yes, there were some good studies which show for some people that can be really, really helpful.

• 2:01:23Rangan Chatterjee?

  In the modern world, because of work patterns and because of the fact that sometimes the way we connect with our family is at eight, eight thirty PM or whatever, in the after work, you get back, you down tools, you sit down and have that meal. So I think some people will actually find this early dinner recommendation quite difficult to apply. And I think we both recognize that. I think it's also important to say that actually you can tweak other levers. You don't have to do everything. You probably can't do everything. And some people, for example, will say that when I eat lunch, or when I eat breakfast, breaking the fast, or let's put it another way, when I eat my

• 2:02:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  first meal at 12:00 PM and my last meal at 8:00 PM, I thrive. And so you go, yeah, actually, maybe they found what's going to work for them in the context of their life. But I do believe that most of the research supports this early dinner, if you can. And I think just again, trying to connect nutrition with other aspects of our health, we kind of know for so many people that if you eat within two to three hours of your bedtime, if you measure and you track your sleep, you will see often a difference in sleep quality. I've seen this with my sleep trackers over the years. Like if I eat near bedtime, I could still be in bed for the same amount of time, but

• 2:02:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  the quality of my sleep isn't as good. My heart rate is different. My, my heart rate variability in the morning, you know, that, that marker of how well my body is dealing with stress is different. So I know for me, and it doesn't mean I can always stick to it. I know for me, an earlier dinner is worth its weight in gold for multiple, for multiple different reasons. And Rupy, I've also discovered for me, and I'm not saying this works for everyone, but if you're traveling for work, let's say, and you're out of your rhythm, what I used to do is if I got back late, god, now that I'm home, it's what a nice meal now. But actually, for me,

• 2:03:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  Sometimes I'm better off skipping my evening meal if it's going to be late and going to bed a bit hungry. Again, I'm not saying everyone has to do this. I'm just saying on a personal level, I found sometimes for me, I do better. My sleep's better. I wake up with a beautiful hunger, like a real hunger. My heart rate's down, all things. I'm like, yeah, I think sometimes I just need to resist that late meal. And I think it all works through the lens of my circadian biology, basically.

• 2:03:51Speaker 00

  Totally, yeah. And I think to that point, you know, we need to reframe this cultural phenomenon of it not being acceptable to be hungry anymore. We have evolved to deal with hunger and to be hungry as well. There are lots of things that occur when we are hungry. And I get it. There are lots of people for whom this is inappropriate. And we have to be respectful of that. But for a lot of us who have access to food 24/7, these are things that we actually do need to lean into. And there are so many, you know, mechanisms that we could describe.

• 2:04:30Speaker 00

  It is in line with our circadian biology. Essentially, when you have an extended fasting period, you have greater what's called lipolysis, which is essentially fat burning. You have better insulin responses. Overall, I think, again, like just using a very, very simplistic perspective on this, tend to eat less. You just, you know, if you're a bit more regimented and you're like, I'm not going to eat after 7pm. That means that you're less likely to slack out of boredom or in front of the telly or grab that cookie. If you put some guide rails around your dietary strategies every 24 hours, then you naturally lean into what is, you know, deemed fasting.

• 2:05:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, and I think it's really worth, I think it's really worth emphasizing that point. In the modern food environment, if you do not have some form of guardrail,

• 2:05:22Rangan Chatterjee?

  you may end up struggling, right? And so one of the reasons, not the only reason, but as you say, one of the reasons like, You know, having a rule that, you know, I only eat within 10 hours. Right. I stop eating at 8pm. Whatever it might be, I only have, I have a low carb diet or I have a low fat, whatever it might be. Some of the time, the reason it works is because you found a guardrail that works for you in the context of this modern food environment.

• 2:05:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:05:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  And so I actually think, yeah, we may not have needed that 200 years ago. Maybe your grandparents didn't need a guardrail. Right. But you're living in a different world now. Our food environment is naturally leading us to unfortunately, a poor state of health. So we need to find some principles that apply for us. I think the other point around that is that one of the things we haven't really addressed is that we don't only eat an excess of calories for physical hunger. We also eat for emotional hunger. You know, if you've had a big meal at 7pm and you're still craving ice cream in front of the sofa at 9pm.

• 2:06:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:06:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  You may not be physically hungry. You may be lonely. You may be stressed. You may have some emotional discomfort that you're trying to appease with food. And that's a topic for another conversation. That's a topic that I talk about a lot on this show because I'm so passionate about it. But Ripley, I love what you do, man, honestly. I think you, you're clearly very passionate about helping people, about making food enjoyable and fun. I think those four principles are going to be really helpful. Again, just emphasize what you mean. People don't have to do all four, do they?

• 2:07:01Speaker 00

  No, no. And I think I want to emphasize what you were just talking about in terms of non nutritional strategies. I've been pretty hardline and data driven and clinical on this podcast around, you know, everything can be seen through the lens of calorie deficit. And yes, absolutely you can, but you can also choose to look at it through the changes that are enacted via your biology, via your hormones. There's so much in nutrition that cannot be explained. And I think that we need to just be mindful of that. I've tried to give the sort of like the real hardline scientific perspective on it. But I think your emotional state. The speed at which you eat.

• 2:07:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, all these things.

• 2:07:45Speaker 00

  The sleep that you've had, the distractions that you endure, like all of these different, and the exposures that we talked about earlier in terms of obesity, I think these are all coalescing to that results in people having issues with weight control.

• 2:08:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:04Speaker 00

  You know, so I, I, I've tried to just give some very, very simple tips for folks. And if you could just do one or two, or if you can do all four, great.

• 2:08:13Rangan Chatterjee?

  And not only that, do them and then experiment.

• 2:08:17Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 2:08:18Rangan Chatterjee?

  And pay attention. Is this working for you? Which aspects of it is working? Which aspect isn't?

• 2:08:23Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 2:08:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  And then you can start to tweak it.

• 2:08:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:08:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  All right, Rupy, a few final questions, which have just come to my mind. Are you ready? I've got a slight cheeky look in my face. So, okay. So you've got several books out at the moment. I know the new one's coming in March.

• 2:08:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:08:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right. So we'll definitely get you back on to talk about that.

• 2:08:41Speaker 00

  Thanks, mate.

• 2:08:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  But out of your current books that exist, okay, they're all great. If you were going to point people to one of them to start their doctor's kitchen journey, which one would it be?

• 2:08:51Speaker 00

  Oh gosh, that's a great question. I would say probably the, one of the most impactful ones is Eat to Beat Illness. Cause I go into sort of the different areas of health goals and explain the nuance and the science. And actually the final chapter just brings it all together. And like, when you eat for nourishing your body, your body knows what to do. So regardless of the symptoms, regardless of the affliction you might have, that book really just puts the priority on providing your body with the right tools and nutrients that you require to thrive. And I think, yeah, Eat to Beat Illness and obviously the Doctor's Kitchen app will, will help people with that.

• 2:09:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. Okay. Great. We'll put links to all those things, including the app in the show notes. Next question. My daughter, who beat you at netball last time you came to our house, said, when are you coming back for a rematch?

• 2:09:45Speaker 00

  We'll do it on the next podcast.

• 2:09:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay, all right, I'll let her know. Okay. Third question, what has becoming a new father done to your eating habits?

• 2:09:56Speaker 00

  Oh, well.

• 2:09:58Rangan Chatterjee?

  First of all, how old is your?

• 2:09:59Speaker 00

  Eight weeks.

• 2:10:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  Eight weeks. Okay, so congratulations.

• 2:10:02Speaker 00

  Thank you, man.

• 2:10:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  Fantastic. I know you're going to be a wonderful dad.

• 2:10:07Speaker 00

  I think it has really stressed my eating habits. But after reading your book, you know, I and doing some work that I've done this year, I'm really reframing the story that I tell myself about the stresses on my eating habits. And actually, I'm rising to this new challenge that gives me a real insight into what parents around the world have to deal with. I've sort of looked at nutrition through a very sort of simplistic way of like, oh, just bang everything in a, in a, in the oven and it's fine. Or do your cooking for you. Or just add the beans to this and all that kind of stuff. And actually, I've got to learn how to cook one handed. I've got to learn how to ensure that, you know, I'm, I'm doing things rapidly if I want to maintain a good

• 2:10:48Speaker 00

  eating habit. So I'm really rising to this challenge of parenthood and maintain my nutrition.

• 2:10:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  Love it. Welcome to the new world, man.

• 2:10:55Speaker 00

  Thanks, man.

• 2:10:56Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay, you've given super practical advice in this conversation as always, Rupee. To finish off then, so let's put it like this. If someone is listening to this conversation and they are saying, okay, Rupee, okay, you've inspired me. I want to start improving my life. What are some of your three or four top tips that you would leave them with to get started? They can be nutrition based if you want, they can be non-nutrition based, but what comes to mind? Three or four tips that people can start applying straight away?

• 2:11:27Speaker 00

  Well, with my nutrition hat on, I would say try and master one recipe. So choose a recipe that you absolutely love, that is nutritionally balanced, has got enough protein in. I think that's a really important strategy for folks. Cause when you master a recipe, when I say master, you want to master a recipe that you can make from straw covered ingredients, frozen ingredients, things that you can do with your eyes closed because it becomes so habitual. And that is antithetical to, you know, getting variety in your diet every single week, but I think we need to rise to the level of our challenges. And that as a strategy for me has been really, really useful. So master a recipe, I would get an idea of your, I know this, again, I'm harboring about nutrition, but get an idea of your protein

• 2:12:12Speaker 00

  requirement. Like I said, there's plenty of protein calculators out there online. We've got one on the doctor's kitchen app. When you start understanding your protein requirements, things kind of fall into place and not just your appetite, but also, you know, why you might be feeling a bit more fatigued, or you don't have energy, or why you find like you're snacking between meals and stuff from a nutritional perspective. I get there are loads of other reasons as to why that might be happening. And I say, look, the, the third thing, and it speaks to your, your first book, is really have an understanding of your, your

• 2:12:49Speaker 00

  emotional requirements, your emotional needs, your exercise needs, your relationships. You know, these are all just as important to the health and wellbeing conversation that I know you're putting a spotlight on, but I don't think we put enough emphasis on in medicine in general. And I think that for me has been really groundbreaking because I think I've always tried to explain my personal experience with reversing my cardiovascular condition that I spoke to you about on the, on the last podcast that we had through the lens of nutrition and, you know, what did I do to my microbiota? What nutrients was

• 2:13:31Speaker 00

  I lacking? You know, how did I change my dietary patterns to remove refined covers? That's all I'm sure that had a huge impact, but also the stresses of me being a junior doctor, the threshold that I could withstand before succumbing to a condition, the relationships that I was, that I had at the time, all the existing relationships that I had with my family. These are all things that would have absolutely had an impact on me recovering. So I think that's really, really important. So really lean into what your emotional needs are, your relationship needs are, and your stresses. Do we get a fourth tip?

• 2:14:10Speaker 00

  Can't think of one right now, mate. I'm on like four hours sleep.

• 2:14:12Rangan Chatterjee?

  Well, that's a good enough reason, right? So I hope you start sleeping soon. Well done on becoming a father. Good luck with everything, mate, and thanks for coming back on the show.

• 2:14:22Speaker 00

  I appreciate you, bro. I appreciate you.

• 2:14:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. Do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life. And also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else. Remember, when you teach someone, it not only helps them, it also helps you learn and retain the information. Now, before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday 5. It's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness. In that email, I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I've been consuming, and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect.

• 2:15:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I have to say, in a world of endless emails, it really is delightful that many of you tell me it is one of the only weekly emails that you actively look forward to receiving. So if that sounds like something you would like to receive each and every Friday, you can sign up for free at drchatgy.com/friday5. Now, if you are new to my podcast, you may be interested to know that I have written five books that have been bestsellers all over the world, covering all kinds of different topics, happiness, food, stress, sleep, behaviour change, movement, weight loss, and so much more. So please do take a moment to check them out.

• 2:15:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  They are all available as paperbacks, ebooks, and as audiobooks, which I am narrating. If you enjoyed today's episode, it is always appreciated if you can take a moment to share the podcast with your friends and family, or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week. And please note that if you want to listen to this show without any adverts at all, that option is now available for a small monthly fee on Apple and on Android. All you have to do is click the link in the episode notes in your podcast app. And always remember, you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle change is always worth it.

• 2:16:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  Because when you feel better, you live more.