Nutrition Expert Debunks Health Misinformation (With Dr. Layne Norton)

📱 Early access: Watch episodes of The Dr. John Delony Show one week early—download the free Ramsey Network app today! On today’s episode, John talks with Dr. Layne Norton about nutrition myths, the struggle to lose weight, and work/life balance. Next Steps: 🏋 Visit️ Dr. Layne Norton’s website. 💪 Follow Dr. Layne Norton on Instagram: @biolayne. 📙️ Check out Dr. Layne Norton’s books. 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test  📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future  ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards  💭 John's Free Guided Meditation  🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch Connect With Our Sponsors: 🌱 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. ️ 🔴 Get 15% off with code DELONY at BON CHARGE. 🌿 Get up to 40% off at Cozy Earth with code DELONY. 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. 😇 Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial. 💤 Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! 🥤 Get 20% off at Organifi with code DELONY.  🏔️ Head to Poncho Outdoors to check out all their styles! 💪 Get 25% off your order at Thorne.   🏋️ Go to Trainwell to get started! Listen to More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Somebody's like, you know, whey protein causes inflammation. And I'm like, oh, oh, it does?

• 0:10Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 0:10Speaker 00

  Okay, well, here's all these studies that show the exact opposite. They actually lowers inflammation. There's one of two options here. Either you don't know this data exists, in which case you should not be talking. Or two, you know it exists, it doesn't fit your bias, and so you don't care.

• 0:28Dr. John Delony?

  What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, talking about your mental and emotional health, and your relationships, and your kids, and your in-laws, and everything you've got going on in your life. For the past two decades plus, I've been sitting with hurting people as the wheels have fallen off their life, trying to figure out what's the next right move. I'd love to have you on the show. It's real people going through real life stuff. Go to johndeloney.com/askASK, fill out the form, and we'll see if we can get you on the show. Today, we have a very special guest, fresh off his world championship weightlifting victory. World champion. This isn't the first time, or the second time.

• 1:12Dr. John Delony?

  I think he's a third or fourth, I don't know, he wins everything, all the time. The strongest man in the world, and he happens to be one of the world's most renowned. He happens to be one of the world's most renowned experts on nutrition, protein, getting beef cakey, and taking down people who lie on the internets about nutrition. I'm talking about Dr. Lane Norton, who's also a good friend and big time advocate for what we do here. Over the past three or four years, Lane has helped me personally with some, with some challenges I've had. We've navigated life together, and I'm so happy that we finally got the opportunity to sit down in person, to talk through everything from what's it like being wrong, exercise

• 1:57Dr. John Delony?

  and nutrition, like what's the, the chaos out there in the world versus what is actually real when it comes to nutrition, when it comes to exercise. We talk about how can some people be so good in certain parts of their lives and then just be train wrecked in others? We talk about so much, we run the gamut here. This is one of my favorite conversations I've ever had from a true. Not an Instagrammer, you're a TikToker, but a true expert. Somebody who coaches people, who performs themselves, knows all the academic insights, and who can distill it all down for knuckleheads like me to understand. So, sit back and enjoy this conversation with my friend, Lane Norton.

• 2:38Dr. John Delony?

  You are one of the most graceful people I know behind closed doors. And you have a thing in your guts about charlatans. Where does that come from? Like, you, more so than most people I know. You have, I think of it this way. Me and a buddy are walking down the street and somebody mouths off. And they mouth off about me. I often wouldn't hear it. I have a thing in my guts. If I hear somebody mouth off about a kid, I snap, I get irrational. To the point that I've had people grab my arm and say, "Keep walking." All right? You and I can both be scrolling social media on the same thing.

• 3:22Dr. John Delony?

  And one guy pops off and I'm like, "What an idiot." And you have this thing in your guts where you're like, "Stop. I'm gonna go burn that guy's house down." Where does that come from?

• 3:32Speaker 00

  I think for me, when I first got into this industry, it was like, early 2000s. And it was basically by posting on bodybuilding message boards. I started to get a name on there. Started to write for different websites, different magazines. And then started my coaching business. And I was kind of one of the first people to do online coaching at scale.

• 3:54Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  And you can learn so much through a PhD, but man, I learned the most by working with people.

• 4:00Dr. John Delony?

  That's it.

• 4:00Speaker 00

  You know? And I just saw some of the information that was being given to people and the downstream effects of that, of the misinformation, of people just kind of winging it. You know? And I think for me, going through the graduate school experience and having a really great PhD advisor, Don Lehman. I still gotta give him a ton of shout out because... You know, he had his, he got a lifetime achievement award this past year and we're sitting down at dinner, me and him and a bunch of his old graduate students.

• 4:33Dr. John Delony?

  The fact that y'all did that, by the way, is so rad.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  Oh, I love it.

• 4:37Dr. John Delony?

  That all his students came back, that's pretty special.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  That group of people will probably never be in the same room again together. It was awesome. And he said, you know, I was just okay with being wrong. I was just okay with being wrong. And when I got to grad school, I think I just had so many of my ideas crushed repeatedly. Then I'm like, oh, it's okay to be wrong. Like, it's okay. And so I'm not upset at people for being wrong. I think what I'm upset about is people, because everyone was ignorant at some point.

• 5:11Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  Right?

• 5:12Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  But when you have been shown something repeatedly that not only says that what you're saying isn't accurate, actually the opposite thing, this is true in a lot of cases, like some of these people that I debunk, and you're still doing it, you know, it's either, you know, there's, there's, there's kind of two roads you can go down. Either they're making money from it and so they don't, they're not, they can't, they can't really change course. But I actually think the more powerful portion of this is people tie their identity into some of this stuff. They tie their identity into a diet or a supplement program or a style of training.

• 5:56Dr. John Delony?

  On a...

• 5:57Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 5:58Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 00

  And, and I can even, I can even identify with that, right? And so...

• 6:04Dr. John Delony?

  Is it, is it a sense of justice for you?

• 6:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, I think, again, going through the graduate school experience where I got to like, see myself be wrong so much, and even, I'll never forget the first talk I ever gave at experimental biology, which is like the Super Bowl for nerds, right? It's like 300 people in a room, I'm a, in my third year of grad school, and I was giving a talk and I thought I knew this stuff. And a professor gets up and he totally dresses me down in front of a room of scientists. And it was embarrassing.

• 6:42Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  It hurt, and I went and sat down and Lehman was sitting next to me and he said...

• 6:51Speaker 00

  You know, you did pretty good. He goes, you're not supposed to go that hard on a graduate student as a professor, and I want to talk to that guy. But I don't hold it against that guy. In fact, it was really good for me because I remember what that felt like. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna know my stuff next time.

• 7:09Dr. John Delony?

  That's it.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  I'm gonna go and get the answers so that I understand the nuance of this stuff. So I'm not up there looking like an idiot, right? And so I think, like, that took me five minutes to self-reflect and go, okay, maybe that guy was a little bit too hard on me, but I allowed it to happen.

• 7:28Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  Right? By not-

• 7:29Dr. John Delony?

  I set the table. Yeah, yeah.

• 7:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, by not doing my due de- if I knew what I was talking about, like, really in-depth, it would have never happened.

• 7:36Dr. John Delony?

  And so it would have been really easy for you to become the victim in that moment.

• 7:39Speaker 00

  Right.

• 7:40Dr. John Delony?

  And instead, it was, no, that was harsh, but that was the learning opportunity, and I'm gonna make the changes I can do. All I can control is me here.

• 7:46Speaker 00

  Yep. And so I think when I see some of these people, you know, so confidently saying things that are just totally not true.

• 7:56Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 7:57Speaker 00

  Um, you know, so, you know, kind of the catch line on my, on my video series is, if only we had human randomized control trials that actually, oh, wait, we have dozens.

• 8:07Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  And, um, you know, it's like, uh, there was a, a recent one where somebody was like, you know, whey protein causes inflammation. And I'm like, oh, oh, it does?

• 8:17Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  Okay, well, here's all these studies that show the exact opposite. That actually lowers inflammation.

• 8:21Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 8:21Speaker 00

  Okay. So either you, there's one of two options here. Either you don't know this data exists, in which case you should not be talking, or two, you know it exists, it doesn't fit your bias, and so you don't care.

• 8:33Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. But you, but you as a coach have seen the impact on-

• 8:37Speaker 00

  I've seen the impact.

• 8:37Dr. John Delony?

  Human beings.

• 8:38Speaker 00

  And honestly, a lot of the downstream stuff I've seen, I'll give you an example of where stuff is counterintuitive.

• 8:46Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  And, and what can happen when this messaging, because human beings aren't robots.

• 8:50Dr. John Delony?

  Of course.

• 8:51Speaker 00

  Right? We got this, like, weird wiring in our heads. I, I dealt with so many people who had disordered eating patterns.

• 8:56Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  From things they'd been told, right?

• 8:58Dr. John Delony?

  You dealt with that. Yeah, I have that. Yeah.

• 9:00Speaker 00

  And, and, like, that's why people will say, when somebody says, sugar's toxic, I'll go, mm, and I'll explain why, not really. And now-

• 9:10Dr. John Delony?

  And the volume with which I consume it, toxic, but-

• 9:14Speaker 00

  Well, you know, and people go, well, why are you defending sugar? I'm not defending sugar, but I think it's important to, it's important to understand, like, yeah, I don't think a diet high in sugar is a good idea, but it's not because sugar has like some inherent chemical property to it that's causing, like carbohydrates break down into sugar. Like, that's what enters your bloodstream when you eat carbohydrates of any form. Okay, so if sugar is toxic, then carbohydrates are toxic.

• 9:42Dr. John Delony?

  Gotcha.

• 9:42Speaker 00

  So I think it's important to understand this stuff because what I saw was people who believe this stuff, a lot of times it would be the opposite outcome, which is they would completely try to abstain from this stuff and guess what happens? They'd end up binge eating on this stuff and there'd be so much shame wrapped up in it and there'd be so much-

• 10:03Dr. John Delony?

  And the only way to make the shame go away is to eat more.

• 10:05Speaker 00

  Right, right, and-

• 10:07Dr. John Delony?

  Or like me, bro, I've skipped Easter.

• 10:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:10Dr. John Delony?

  I've skipped, um, I've not eaten cake at my, one of my kids' birthdays once.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  Right.

• 10:15Dr. John Delony?

  And so I end up, like, in the name of this thing I was taught or told, um, from a very confident source. Dude, I missed out on important markers, right?

• 10:30Speaker 00

  Well, I think that's the other thing that people don't realize is like food isn't, isn't just fuel. Like, there's, there's, um, it's community, it's cultural. You know, people want to talk about, we should ban ultra-processed foods. And I go, listen, that, the bullet is out of the gun. We're not putting it back in.

• 10:46Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 10:46Speaker 00

  All right, we need to learn how to, to live with this, okay? And so I try to help people understand, yeah, I don't think it's a good idea to eat a lot of sugar, but it's not because it's toxic, because here's what happens when people believe that kind of stuff. There's no, there's no area for nuance or dosage, right?

• 11:08Dr. John Delony?

  Yep.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  And also people do weird things like, well, I'm not going to eat fruit because sugar's toxic. Because the sugar in fruit isn't any different than the other sugar.

• 11:15Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  So if it's toxic, you know?

• 11:18Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  Um-

• 11:20Dr. John Delony?

  I even heard a few years ago, there was, uh, that protein eventually breaks down into, is it- Protein, something, something genesis that breaks down to sugar eventually.

• 11:32Speaker 00

  I mean, protein, so glucanogenesis.

• 11:33Dr. John Delony?

  That's it.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  So, yeah, yeah, I mean, you can convert.

• 11:35Dr. John Delony?

  You can keep playing that game all the way out, right?

• 11:37Speaker 00

  For sure, you know, and, um, yeah, I can, I can, I can construct a narrative to make you afraid of anything.

• 11:44Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 11:44Speaker 00

  Um, fat, carbohydrate, protein, I can just, I can construct those narratives. And again, what I saw so often was people trying to abstain from these things and ended up actually eating more of it.

• 11:59Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  Because of it. And then when I kind of, like, I'll never forget, I had a client one time. And I said, hey, listen, here's what I want you to do. Okay. I want you to, can you eat these calories? All right. And have a small bowl of ice cream every night. And if you don't lose weight because sugar's stopping you from losing weight, then we'll cut it out. But ju- just, just have it. And after two weeks, they're like, oh, my God, I've lost three pounds and I was still able to have some ice cream. I'm like, yeah, yeah, you're fine. Like, it's a, it's a dosage thing. Okay. Now, just like, you know, with Ramsey, you talk about budgeting, right? If you can still take care of your responsibilities, your mortgage, your, um, your utilities, food, et cetera, et cetera, and you have a lot of money left over and you're taking care of all your responsibilities.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  A sports car might not be a great investment, but if you like it and it gives you some joy.

• 12:51Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  If it fits in your budget, there's nothing in Ramsey's stuff that says, hey, don't go buy a sports car.

• 12:57Dr. John Delony?

  No, Dave says, yeah, if you can light it on fire in your living room and it won't change your life.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  Then do it.

• 13:02Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  And so that's kind of how I look at like, you know, treats and processed food and all that kind of stuff. Like, okay, if you're like sedentary and you don't expend much energy every day, yeah, your budget's gonna be pretty small. And does it make sense for you to like allot some of that towards, you know, piece of cheesecake or ice cream or whatever? No, probably not. But if you have a larger budget and also if you allot some of this and you are able to moderate it, and I, I hope, everybody's different.

• 13:35Dr. John Delony?

  Yep.

• 13:36Speaker 00

  But if you are able to moderate it and it helps keep you consistent, like for me.

• 13:42Speaker 00

  If you, if I know I can have the foods I like, but I just gotta kind of fit them into my budget.

• 13:47Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  I'm fine.

• 13:48Dr. John Delony?

  I remember having tacos at the once, I was like, I don't know how, I think you had one drink and two tacos. And I have chips and queso and taco, like I'm getting a taco, like, yeah, I just get off out of control. And but, but again, it goes back to, um, know thyself, right?

• 14:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, know thyself. And, and again, I've, I've had, I actually stayed, um, with a couple one time where the, the girlfriend was doing her masters in psychology.

• 14:16Dr. John Delony?

  Ah, yeah.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  And, um, she was like, here's what I noticed about Lane. When he's in control of his food, he by default picks very low calorie options. But he also didn't turn down any dessert I made. He didn't turn down, so I am in my head, doing this budget and doing this exchange. Like if I want to go out and have a few drinks.

• 14:37Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 14:38Speaker 00

  Well, then I'm not going to eat as heavy of a dinner.

• 14:40Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 14:40Speaker 00

  Right? Or I'm gonna hold over, I'm gonna not eat as much earlier in the day. So that I can have more later. It's budgeting. So I saw how much damage this stuff caused people, um, you know, that I worked with, this messaging. And I think that's what got me kind of vitriolic about it.

• 15:00Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 15:01Speaker 00

  And I have actually tried to pull that back a little bit. I've tried to save the vitriol for like the repeat offenders, you know?

• 15:08Dr. John Delony?

  Right, right.

• 15:09Speaker 00

  Where it's like very obvious that they don't care about getting it right. Um, but I have seen people who have called out, um, who have changed their views on some things.

• 15:17Dr. John Delony?

  You did that to me. You read my first book and you called me and you're like, hey, great book, you were wrong here. And, but, but I needed that. I was right. And as a guy who worked in science, it's a, it's not a, it's, it's not an indictment. It's as much as it's a. Dude, you put a piece of iron out here to be sharpened and I happen to can sharpen that that side of that thing, right?

• 15:40Speaker 00

  Well, I think-

• 15:40Dr. John Delony?

  It's a gift, it's a blessing.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  And it's funny, like, some of the, like, everybody struggles with different things, right? Like, I've, I, you can give me a feedback on a scientific thing and I'm probably not gonna take it super personal, right?

• 15:52Dr. John Delony?

  Right, right.

• 15:52Speaker 00

  But I took things personal at feedback and relationships.

• 15:54Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 15:55Speaker 00

  You know, like, that kind of stuff, right?

• 15:56Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:56Speaker 00

  And like, you know, try, there's so many, like, parallels across different things in life, you know? But, like I said, one of the things I've tried to do is like, okay, if somebody sends me a video of somebody, like, something that'll trigger me, right, is when I see people saying things that are very, very untrue, especially if they're like, trying to use the veil of science. Like, it's one thing for a bro who's jacked to just be like, this one made me jacked.

• 16:24Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  Okay, fine, right? Like, you're wrong, but I'm like, I'm not. It's another thing for me, like, scientists at Harvard showed X, Y, Z. I'm like, oh, yeah? Let me go read that study.

• 16:35Dr. John Delony?

  Cool study.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  You know, like, yeah, let me go, let me go pull up the study. I can remember very clearly one time, uh, uh, this one guy, I've called out a bunch, um, he, he would never say me by name, which is very smart on his part. Um, but he was kind of trying to respond to some things I'd said about, uh, artificial sweeteners. And he said, in this study, they gave subjects artificial sweeteners, by the way, when they say subjects-

• 16:58Dr. John Delony?

  Mice.

• 16:59Speaker 00

  It was in rats.

• 16:59Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  They gave, um, they gave subjects aspartame and they gained more weight and X, Y, Z, and I'm like, mm, and then he said the PubMed ID and I'm like, I'm gonna go read this study.

• 17:11Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  Mistake, don't give the PubMed ID to me. Um, and it turns out, yeah, it was in rats, and also, um-

• 17:18Dr. John Delony?

  12x their body weight or something?

• 17:20Speaker 00

  No, they actually lost weight. The group of artificial sweeteners lost weight. I'm like, not only was you get this wrong, it's the opposite of what you said. And even like, um, there was a, a very well-known, uh, scientist who was on a really big podcast, um, with a podcaster who I'm, I have a good relationship with. And I was watching the interview and he said, you know, they get, they did this study where they, um, had everybody eat, drink either a liter of soda a day, a liter of diet soda a day, a liter of full-fat milk-

• 17:54Speaker 00

  Or a liter of water. And in six months, the people drinking a liter of cola gained 10 kilograms. The, the group drinking the diet cola gained two kilograms. And I can't remember the water or the, the full fat milk, he said, I think they said, you know, they lost weight or whatever. And I'm, and he said it was a study out of Copenhagen. So I'm like, all right, where can I find this thing? So I, I spent probably five hours trying to track down this study and finally found it because he, he mentioned it in a blog and I was able to find the original study. And I'm like, so he either didn't read this study at all, or he fabricated the results. So the, the, yes, it was a liter of those things. It was actually semi skim milk.

• 18:39Speaker 00

  It wasn't full fat milk. Um, there was actually no differences between the groups in the amount of weight gain. Like the, the cola group gained the most weight, but it wasn't statistically significantly different from the other groups. And actually based on raw data, the group getting diet cola didn't gain, like gained the least amount of weight, actually lost a little bit of weight. And I'm like, millions of people heard this podcast and I was the first one to be like, so out of the millions, nobody went and fact checked this.

• 19:09Dr. John Delony?

  It's the new year. It's my favorite time of year. Everyone starts thinking of new routines, building better habits, stopping things that aren't that helpful and overall building a better life. And we all know that most new go get them goals are a waste of time because we don't put in the systems to make them sustainable. So how about this year? Let's focus on fewer, more sustainable goals and better systems. And let's start by curating a system and a goal that's good for your heart and your soul. Let's start with our spiritual lives and let's start off 2025 by focusing on prayer and meditation. To do this, I recommend Hallow, the number one prayer app in the world. I use it every day and I love it. Hallow offers over 10,000 guided prayers and meditations to help you grow closer to

• 19:54Dr. John Delony?

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• 20:41Dr. John Delony?

  I'm a founding member of the Get Off the Internet and Go Outside and Live Your Life Club. Actually, I think I'm the only member. Yet I, like all of you, find myself at work and in my personal life, basically living on the internets. As a society, we're creating more and more online accounts all the time. We're signing up for promos, giving away our emails and personal numbers. We're buying everything with our phones. I get hundreds of emails to my personal account, my business account. Every business in the world wants to survey me and become my friend. And everyone everywhere is trying to sell me stuff all the time. It drives me nuts. And yet, with all of this online activity, do we really know where our data is and who has it?

• 21:24Dr. John Delony?

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• 22:09Dr. John Delony?

  That's join, J-O-I-N, deleteme.com/deloney.

• 22:15Dr. John Delony?

  You gave me a line one time that has stuck with me and it sticks with me when it comes to marriage, it sticks with me when it comes to dealing with budgets here at Rams. It sticks with me all the time and that is, people are always stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. And when I look at the landscape right now, we're a couple of days after an election, right? All of a sudden, the literature's been flooded, I say the literature, the popular media has been flooded with fluoride and red number 30 and the seed oil thing's been going on for years and years and years. And I don't know enough to speak intelligently. What I know is, fine, it may all be poison and bad.

• 22:56Dr. John Delony?

  And 40 to 50% of the country struggles with obesity. And was it 8 out of 10, 7 out of 10 people have one or fewer people that they can reach out to and say, "I'm not okay." And so when I think of the caustic mechanistic issues going on, it feels like we are playing on the margins. It's yet another distraction. Am I crazy?

• 23:20Speaker 00

  No, you're not crazy. I think you just have to do the damn thing. And I think a lot of people, they want to make it about, "Well, this ingredient in food and this thing and this thing and this thing." And what they're avoiding is the inherent responsibility, the self-responsibility. Because if I can make it, sugar is toxic, or if I can make it, the food companies put addictive substances in this food, or if I can make it, the government made us, it's taking away my own accountability. I don't have to be accountable for it. And I think the problem is, if you're not, if you don't have any responsibility with

• 24:01Speaker 00

  it, then you don't have, like, you're actually not in control of being able to fix it.

• 24:06Dr. John Delony?

  It feels like there's only you.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, and so when I look at the mortality data, cardiovascular disease risk, cancer risk.

• 24:15Speaker 00

  There are a few major things that stand out and you could almost explain the majority of the problems based on these things.

• 24:25Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 24:26Speaker 00

  The first is, uh, the most powerful one is smoking.

• 24:30Dr. John Delony?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  To be quite honest with you.

• 24:31Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 24:32Speaker 00

  Smoking is

• 24:33Dr. John Delony?

  Like don't smoke.

• 24:34Speaker 00

  It's, it, it's just a very linear increase in risk.

• 24:38Dr. John Delony?

  It'll kill you.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  But, but side note, um, if you wanna know how easy it is to manipulate people with scientific research, I was reading a meta-analysis of adenocarcinoma incidence with smoking, right? And when you're looking at a meta-analysis, usually they'll include a force plot, which is gonna show, you know, right of the line is this.

• 24:57Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 24:58Speaker 00

  Left of the line is this.

• 24:59Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  And, you know, so in this meta-analysis, right of the line is increased risk.

• 25:05Dr. John Delony?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:06Speaker 00

  Left of the line, decreased risk with smoking.

• 25:09Dr. John Delony?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  There's like 50 studies in this meta.

• 25:13Speaker 00

  Forty-eight of them are very far to the right, right? Like, and the overall effect was like, I think like a I wanna say over a 400% risk increase, relative risk increase in the risk of adenocarcinoma.

• 25:24Dr. John Delony?

  For people who don't do science,

• 25:26Dr. John Delony?

  that's

• 25:26Speaker 00

  Four times.

• 25:27Dr. John Delony?

  In, that's astounding.

• 25:29Speaker 00

  Like when you hear things in the media like, okay, um,

• 25:31Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  This increased your risk of cancer like 20%, they're, they're referring to relative risk.

• 25:35Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 25:36Speaker 00

  So let me just explain that real quick. Um, so a relative risk, let's say your absolute risk of something occurring over a period of time is 5%. A relative risk increase of 20% doesn't mean it goes to 25%. It means it goes from 5 to 6%. Because 20% of 5% is 1%, so you add it to 5%, you get 6%. Doesn't sound nearly as scary that way.

• 25:56Dr. John Delony?

  Right. Which is why Or, uh, if you're, I, I don't remember the number, if your mom has, or one of your parents has schizophrenia, you have 100% risk.

• 26:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 26:04Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, so it goes from 1% to 2%.

• 26:05Speaker 00

  Right, right, exactly.

• 26:06Dr. John Delony?

  And, and those numbers aren't real, but, but yes.

• 26:08Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 26:09Dr. John Delony?

  People freak out and it's

• 26:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. So 400% is massive.

• 26:12Dr. John Delony?

  Massive, yes.

• 26:14Speaker 00

  But, two of those studies were to the left of the line. Now, I could pick out those two studies and be like, oh, look, smoking decreases risk. And then I could couple it with, and this is actually very consistent literature. Smoking decreases the risk of Parkinson's. It's very consistent literature. Now, it's probably from the nicotine is my guess.

• 26:34Dr. John Delony?

  Correct.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  Um, but again, like, so I could start to construct this pseudo argument that smoking is actually not only not bad for you.

• 26:42Dr. John Delony?

  It's neuroprotective.

• 26:43Speaker 00

  It's good for you, you know?

• 26:45Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:45Speaker 00

  So, so smoking is a big one. That's in, I don't want to say an easy one, but it's like, you cut that out. You're cutting down a huge risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer. People think about cancer, but smoking is one of the, if, it might be the biggest cause of cardiovascular disease.

• 27:02Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  And it's, people ask, what about smoking weed versus smoking? It is the smoke itself.

• 27:09Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 27:09Speaker 00

  So data is really difficult to tease apart, but it really is the ingestion of the smoke because cigar smokers who don't inhale, when they control for that and they control for cigar smokers or pipe smokers who don't inhale, who have never smoked cigarettes, they don't really see increased risk of like lung cancer.

• 27:27Dr. John Delony?

  Hmm.

• 27:28Speaker 00

  Um, so it really does appear.

• 27:31Dr. John Delony?

  Lip and mouth cancer, tongue cancer?

• 27:33Speaker 00

  That's a little bit more dicey.

• 27:34Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 27:35Speaker 00

  Um, I haven't looked as extensively into that. Dipping is much more powerful on mouth cancer because you're, you have so much time that's in contact, you know?

• 27:45Dr. John Delony?

  Um, you and I are trying to walk through as quickly as we can. Don't ingest chemicals and smoke into your body.

• 27:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 27:57Dr. John Delony?

  I feel like the fact that we have to do that tells me that we've lost it somewhere. OB C is the same way. If you're 25, 50, 100% larger than, and your body has to carry and deal with that.

• 28:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:12Dr. John Delony?

  I don't know how that's a, a, I don't know how we've jumped the shark in the, it's not, it's not good, man. It's not good for you. There's a thousand reasons, it's not good. It's not good.

• 28:22Speaker 00

  And, and this is with smoking, obesity, drug use, whatever. Again, we're talking about this, like, people make decisions based on emotion, not based on data. Because there's no, like, at this point, people know smoking is not good for you. Just like you know heroin's not good for you, right?

• 28:37Dr. John Delony?

  Just like you know, obesity is not good for you. Just like you know.

• 28:40Speaker 00

  I, I don't want to say that, you know, there's nobody like this, but I would venture to say that no, like, healthy, well-adjusted person just like, you know, think I'll try some heroin, you know, or I think I'm gonna have a cigarette. No, it's, it's a coping mechanism, right?

• 28:56Dr. John Delony?

  And, and that's the secret that you talk to people who are in recovery.

• 29:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:01Dr. John Delony?

  That nobody tells you that heroin works.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  Right.

• 29:04Dr. John Delony?

  Alcohol works.

• 29:05Speaker 00

  Until it doesn't.

• 29:06Dr. John Delony?

  Until it kills you. That's right. That's right. It works. It does. It, it performs a role.

• 29:09Speaker 00

  In the short term, yeah. And, um, so, so when it comes to obesity, yes, like, that's the next thing that I'm gonna bring up. If you have excess body fat, and you know, people want to make it about sugars toxic or processed foods, whatever. If you look at the hazard ratios, the odd ratios, it's explained by obesity. Like, it's, it really is very powerful. When you.

• 29:34Dr. John Delony?

  I heard, I heard Doc talking, Tia talking the other day, even, he said I attribute most of the drop in, in testosterone.

• 29:41Speaker 00

  Oh, for sure.

• 29:41Dr. John Delony?

  To waking.

• 29:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:42Dr. John Delony?

  It's plastics, it's this, it's dies.

• 29:45Speaker 00

  This and that. If you look at, if you look at how much obesity drops testosterone, um, it's, it's easily explained by that. The, the decline in testosterone over the years. Um, I'm not saying none of these other things may make any difference whatsoever, but obesity is the major driver of it. And, um, you know, I tell people like, let's focus on the big rocks.

• 30:07Dr. John Delony?

  Let's pick up the dollars and then we'll pick up pennies, right?

• 30:09Speaker 00

  Right. Well, it's, it's kind of like, um, I say, you know, if I want to pick up as much in rocks as I can, I'm gonna start with the boulders.

• 30:16Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  And then if I can get some pebbles, great. But I'm not gonna drop the boulders to pick up the pebbles.

• 30:21Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, what matters when we're talking about obesity, and it's a sensitive topic, um. Does five pounds matter? Does 15 pounds matter? Does 50?

• 30:28Speaker 00

  Like, if you look at the mortality data, the mortality data actually says, and again, this is correlational. So we have to be careful with how we interpret it.

• 30:39Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 30:40Speaker 00

  But it's the mortality data says you're actually better off being around like 18, 20% body fat as a male. Then you are being like super lean, right?

• 30:47Dr. John Delony?

  There you go. That's right.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  So it's, it's not about being super lean or anything like that. It's about not getting, you know, obese.

• 30:56Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  And when you.

• 30:59Dr. John Delony?

  Which is defined clinically as.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  Uh, for clinically, I believe for males over 25% body fat and for females over 30%, I believe.

• 31:09Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 31:09Speaker 00

  Um, and, and there's BMI's that you can use as well. Um, it just depends on what measure you're using. And so your risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, mortality, they all go up. You, without getting too into the weeds, there are people who are obese, who are metabolically still healthy, meaning they don't have abnormal blood lipids.

• 31:32Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  They don't have abnormal blood glucose. That tends to be more of a rarity, but it does happen. Usually these people actually have more fat cells. Um, and I could go into the biochemistry as to why, but it won't help anybody.

• 31:46Speaker 00

  But even when you standardize for that, people who are obese, even if they are healthy obesity, they still have increased risk of mortality, cancer and cardiovascular disease. Because adipose tissue, excess adipose tissue is a metabolic organ. And it secretes its own hormones. It secretes inflammatory markers. It has, when it gets large enough in mass, it starts to dysregulate signaling in other tissues. Liver, muscle. And so one of the most powerful things you can do, and again, not saying you have to be a six pack shredded. That's not, that's not it.

• 32:27Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 32:28Speaker 00

  Uh, in fact, if you look at even people who are obese, you get the majority of the health benefits in the first five to 10% of weight loss. In fact, uh, they were doing a study at Illinois when I got there, Lehman's Lab was doing a study that I kind of, I wasn't involved in, but I just helped, like helped out because I was an idiot first year grad student.

• 32:49Speaker 00

  They were seeing resolution of obese women's blood markers within like four weeks of just like starting to get the calorie deficit. It's really impressive how quickly things will clean up. When you start, like the human body is very resilient.

• 33:03Dr. John Delony?

  So I, I, I don't think we have, I don't think we spend enough time there. Because guys like me are always saying, it's hard, it's gonna be a journey, it's gonna be whatever. With the right trauma therapist with me, it was five or six gnarly sessions.

• 33:19Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:20Dr. John Delony?

  Of the six, two or three were bad, they were tough.

• 33:23Speaker 00

  No.

• 33:24Dr. John Delony?

  And

• 33:27Dr. John Delony?

  then I saw a huge shift, right? Or when you and I, like when you started helping me early on, if I can just make some changes for 60 days.

• 33:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:39Dr. John Delony?

  Everything begins to shift and it feels like it's forever.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:43Dr. John Delony?

  And it's

• 33:45Speaker 00

  Handle today to day.

• 33:46Dr. John Delony?

  The body's amazing.

• 33:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, and so when it comes to obesity, what matters? People aren't gonna like this, but it's how many calories you eat versus how many calories you expend. That's, that's what makes the difference and people wanna argue it. And I'm like, hey, if you sit down and you tell me, like, we know you need to earn more money than you spend if you want to save money. Nobody's gonna argue that, right?

• 34:09Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 34:10Speaker 00

  And people, well, you could go, well, but I don't know, you know, expenses fluctuate, you don't know exactly what. Okay, cool, but you have an idea, right? Um, and you can do averages. Well, you know, interest rates and you could get a different return based on, okay. But, but you kinda know.

• 34:27Dr. John Delony?

  But math.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  Like you, you

• 34:28Dr. John Delony?

  But math.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  But, but it still boils down to math, right? And so, you know, I actually just did a debunk of a video of a guy saying, you know, calories in, calories out is too, it's too simplistic. If you think calories in, calories out is simple, you don't understand energy balance.

• 34:44Dr. John Delony?

  Right, right, right.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  Because calories out, people think about these as very static things. And the reality is, is each influences each other. So, um, calories out isn't just like what you burn in exercise. That's one component of it, but you Have your basal metabolic rate, which is basically the cost of keeping the lights on. Just the energy to run your body and systems. And that's about sixty to seventy percent of your daily energy expenditure, your calories out. Then you have the thermic effect of food, which is how much energy it takes to extract the energy out of food. And that can vary. Protein tends to have a higher T E F than carbohydrate or fat. But it overall is not a massive contributor to energy expenditure.

• 35:23Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  Then you've got your exercise, which is intuitive. You exercise, you move, you burn calories.

• 35:29Dr. John Delony?

  And neat, my fidgeting.

• 35:30Speaker 00

  Yes, so that's actually, that's actually a big one, right?

• 35:34Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  And.

• 35:35Dr. John Delony?

  What does it stand for, non?

• 35:37Speaker 00

  Non-exercise activity thermogenesis. So basically pacing, fidgeting, posture, so non-intentional movements.

• 35:45Dr. John Delony?

  It's overlooked by kids. They move so freaking much.

• 35:48Speaker 00

  They do.

• 35:48Dr. John Delony?

  And like always just, and that, that adds up over time.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  Oh, it's actually one of the, so when we look at people who are what we call obese resistant phenotype. There's two major things that stand out. The first is they tend to self-regulate their appetite well. They tend to be very in tune with their satiety signals and they don't have a massive reward from food. Right? That wiring hasn't been created.

• 36:14Dr. John Delony?

  I feel better. They don't have that.

• 36:16Speaker 00

  And if they overeat, they tend to increase their activity without even realizing it. And so people who are obese prone, they tend to not compensate by increasing their activity spontaneously.

• 36:35Dr. John Delony?

  Gotcha.

• 36:35Speaker 00

  And they also get a bigger reward for food.

• 36:37Dr. John Delony?

  So where does the cultural, is it purely aesthetic? Because what you, what you're saying right now, what I'm saying right now, there are people listening to the show that trust me. And there are people listening to the show that trust you.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  I don't know why you do that.

• 36:51Dr. John Delony?

  But there's people, this particular thing sets something off. There's so much shame.

• 36:58Speaker 00

  There are a lot to unpack. I think people have a hard time with the calories in, calories out. Because if, for that to be true.

• 37:09Speaker 00

  Even though, yes, ultra-processed foods make it more difficult to be in touch with your society signals. Yes, trauma impacts these things. Yes, food can, you can become dependent on food to help you cope. All these things can be true, but, but the same is true of money as well.

• 37:26Dr. John Delony?

  Of course.

• 37:27Speaker 00

  And when you boil it down, there is an inherent self-responsibility to this equation. And people don't like that. And it's easier to pass it off, you know, and I've been guilty of this, not with nutrition, but in other areas of my life, where I'm like, but I had this thing about, and I mean, you've even said it to me, like,

• 37:52Dr. John Delony?

  Do the next right thing.

• 37:53Speaker 00

  You just gotta do the, you just gotta do the damn thing, man.

• 37:55Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  You don't need more information. You gotta do the damn thing.

• 37:57Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. The other day, you were like, hey, you got a book? I was like, you don't need another book, man.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  You need to go do the damn thing.

• 38:01Dr. John Delony?

  That was a long silence, right? I mean, that's all of us. That's all of us.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  And it is because it's like, you know, I'm, I'm thinking about, you know, a couple hundred years ago, you knew people in your community and that was it.

• 38:11Dr. John Delony?

  That's it.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  You knew of maybe a hundred people.

• 38:14Dr. John Delony?

  There are three potential mates.

• 38:15Speaker 00

  And you, and you, your, your news cycle was what happened around the corner and what you read, what the major stuff you read about, right? Now you know all, every horrible thing that happened everywhere in the world, right? Like human beings aren't, at least in my estimation, aren't equipped to be able to handle that. And now you're dumping on top of that, well, you need to watch out for this and you gotta control this and you gotta do this.

• 38:37Dr. John Delony?

  And they're coming for you in this year.

• 38:38Speaker 00

  We gotta have good relationships. We gotta have the, you know.

• 38:41Dr. John Delony?

  It's so much.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:43Dr. John Delony?

  You know what I'm talking about? My buddy Carlos went and spent a couple of weeks with an Amish family and he talked about, um, I think it was the 1920s, the average meal was approximately 90 minutes and the average meal in 2021 was 12.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:57Dr. John Delony?

  And he ate his bacon, eggs, whatever, and he was kind of getting itchy at the table because the average meal with the Amish family was about two hours. And at one point he said, hey, I'm done eating. And he goes, and the guy said, you're done eating, but the meal's not over. And at one point he said, this is our Facebook. This is it. Like we're learning about the community, what's going on in your world. And it was just went, right? That's how we're wired. And yet.

• 39:20Speaker 00

  And there's a lot of stuff to deal with and you know, so the next big thing for getting healthy is exercise and, and I'm going to tie this back in, but exercise is one of the only things you can do that doesn't cause weight loss that will drastically lower your risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer. Like even, so there was a study that got published, four minutes of intense exercise in a day lowers the risk of cancer by 20%. Four minutes. You've got four minutes. I don't care how busy you are, right?

• 39:49Dr. John Delony?

  Now, and I've heard the same as go for a walk. Walk has a reduction effect.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. Walking steps. If you look at a, if you look at a chart of mortality and number of steps per day, it's like a precipitous drop off from 2,000 steps a day, which is sedentary to 8,000. And then it starts to kind of like level off after that, right? But the other thing that exercise does that people don't realize, and I actually think is the most powerful effect for obesity with exercise, it's not the amount of calories you burn from exercise. You really got to do like very intense exercise to burn a lot, right?

• 40:25Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 40:26Speaker 00

  And for a long time. But exercise sensitizes your brain to satiety signals. You actually become better at regulating your food intake when you exercise.

• 40:35Dr. John Delony?

  Can I tell you, I, I've become a better husband. I've become a better dad. And I don't know if it's just a tidy, but it clarifies my mind.

• 40:42Speaker 00

  Whoa, yeah. Like I,

• 40:44Dr. John Delony?

  The whole world slows down a little bit for me.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  My friends who know me are like, man, if you didn't train for, if you didn't train a couple hours every day, you'd be intolerable.

• 40:52Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  No, but I mean, we're finding now cognitive benefits to exercise. Like there was just a study looked at adolescents who exercise, better test scores. There was a study done in men with major depressive disorder and anxiety disorder, and they had them two times a week for 25 minutes, resistance training, 50 minutes.

• 41:12Dr. John Delony?

  Lift weights, yeah.

• 41:13Speaker 00

  For, I think it was eight weeks. Okay? It wasn't a, like advanced routine is very basic, right? Just go in and lift weights for 25 minutes, two times a week.

• 41:25Speaker 00

  They saw a reduction in symptoms of anxiety and depression. And so we use what's called an effect size. You're familiar with in research to kind of show you like it's not so that you'll the report significant effects, right? Significance is you can have a significant effect that's small. If you have enough data points. Okay. But effect size tells you not significance. It tells you how powerful was it? How clinically relevant is it? For perspective, a small effect size is considered point two. Medium is point five and large is anything over point eight. SSRIs are anywhere in literature or they hover around like a point five.

• 42:08Speaker 00

  The effects of eight weeks of two times a week of resistance training for 25 minutes was an effect size of 1.7 on reducing the symptoms of depression. That is a massive effect size. And now I'm again, I'm not saying this is both hand. I am not saying exercise is a replacement for medications for people who need them because some people may need a medication to get them out of bed just to get them to go exercise. Because again, information is not enough to change behavior. I have seen people who are depressed who literally could not get out of bed.

• 42:39Dr. John Delony?

  Right. That's right.

• 42:40Speaker 00

  So.

• 42:41Dr. John Delony?

  But it matters. It matters. It matters.

• 42:43Speaker 00

  So we know exercise improves cognition. It improves memory. It is neuroprotective. We are seeing so much data now to show that exercise is. It's so interesting. What happens in the body affects the mind and what happens in the mind affects the body. And like, for example, as somebody who dealt with kind of chronic lower back pain. The biggest game changer for me with reducing my back pain was psychological stress.

• 43:14Dr. John Delony?

  Stress reduction.

• 43:15Speaker 00

  And this is very clear in the literature. And when I started digging into it also autoimmune disorders, extremely high correlation with stress. IBS, very high correlation with psychiatric disorders. And so again, this isn't my area, so I don't want to speak out of turn, but it seems like if you're spun up, if you're ruminating, it's not just here. It's here.

• 43:42Dr. John Delony?

  It comes everywhere.

• 43:43Speaker 00

  But if you do stuff here, it also changes the wiring up here.

• 43:45Dr. John Delony?

  Well, and my first, my first thought is if I can get somebody who's struggling with depression to commit to something over eight weeks and just show up.

• 43:54Dr. John Delony?

  That is, it's the tiny wins, right? It's the tiny wins. And, and, and, and then you add the physical movement and the accomplishment. And you and I talked this morning.

• 44:05Speaker 00

  You keep your promises to yourself.

• 44:07Dr. John Delony?

  That's right. You tell yourself the truth and you, uh, you can't read a book on confidence. You have to go do things and your body begins to walk on firmer ground. It's so it's cumulative.

• 44:19Dr. John Delony?

  And so the, the, I think what, what you're saying is important. And I've reached a point where I want to make sure, A, I say this gently, but also I've reached a point that I'd, I carry around a lot of guilt to oversimplify it. And I'm carrying too much burden here. I know that, but for 20 years of taking young people and their families in educational environments and essentially patting them on the head and saying, oh, you struggle with X.

• 44:49Dr. John Delony?

  You're not ever going to be able to, dot, dot, dot. You go over here in the corner and let me fight this for you. I'll fight these professors. I'll take care of this because you have this thing. You struggle with this thing. This part's hard for you. You go over there because, and here's any number of, of my nerdy academic arguments that say, that's all you're ever going to be. And it has been the last five or six or seven years that I have felt this overwhelming sense of there are true, true, deep, um, I spent my career with victims, people who have been kicked to the margins, who have been just their lives, which are staggering how rough they've been. And I have not landed in one of those conversations from telling somebody

• 45:31Dr. John Delony?

  that their child is dead to talking to assault victims, whatever it is, that we have not landed everyone on the exact same question. What are you going to do next? And so it's, it's, it's sitting here and exhaling and saying,

• 45:49Dr. John Delony?

  I have a top 10 podcast on relationships and my daughter won't talk to me. I gotta go see a therapist because that's probably me, right? It is you saying, "I just freaking won the international championship again," which congratulations, brother. And hey, Delaney, can you talk about something else? Like something else going on in your life, right? And like, "Yeah, I got you." It is somebody listening to this podcast who is, for however many years, has Googled, has gone down the rabbit holes of, "What must be this? And it's this in the water, and it's this in the food dies, and it's whatever, and I'm still 30 pounds overweight," and exhaling and going.

• 46:27Speaker 00

  So you want to know a phrase that I think you're really gonna like?

• 46:29Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 46:30Speaker 00

  So you know who Ethan Suppley is?

• 46:32Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:32Speaker 00

  So Ethan, Hollywood actor.

• 46:34Dr. John Delony?

  Favorite actors.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  Um, lost over 300 pounds. And I was on his podcast. He said something very profound to me. He goes, "We spend so much time trying to worry about who started the fire. And what we should be doing is just getting the hell out of the house."

• 46:47Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 46:48Speaker 00

  If the house is on fire, just get out.

• 46:49Dr. John Delony?

  Get out of the house.

• 46:50Speaker 00

  And then you can worry about who started it afterwards.

• 46:51Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 46:52Speaker 00

  And what that is, is like, he did the same things. He's like, "I went down all the rabbit holes. I just need to just start doing stuff." Messy action is way better than ruminating in action.

• 47:03Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 47:03Speaker 00

  And we talked about this, and I've been guilty of this, of, I just, I just need to understand why more. Or I need to explain why I did something more. Doesn't matter. I mean, it does matter. It does matter.

• 47:18Dr. John Delony?

  And when you're safe, you can, you can have that conversation. You can figure it out.

• 47:21Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:22Dr. John Delony?

  You can, you could talk to the building code people and y'all can redo the codes. Get out of the house. I love that.

• 47:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:26Dr. John Delony?

  That's good.

• 47:29Dr. John Delony?

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• 48:10Dr. John Delony?

  one has shown any negative side effects. Red light therapy can help with boosting your mood, helping with sleep, reducing stress, recovery from aches and pains, better skin and skin health, cellulite, stretch marks, and more. I use my red light therapy panels and masks, both near infrared light and red light, 10 to 20 minutes each day and sometimes more. And I often do this during my prayer and meditation time, or when I'm having trouble sleeping. It's become a cornerstone of my health and wellness practice. I've also ordered Bon Charge's infrared sauna blanket, their special lamps and bulbs for my home and more. Bon Charge ships worldwide in rapid time and their products, including red light therapy,

• 48:52Dr. John Delony?

  are HSA and FSA eligible. Bon Charge offers easy returns and exchanges and a 12 month warranty on all red light therapy devices. Go to boncharge.com/deloney and use code deloney to save 15% off your order. That's B-O-N-C-H-A-R-G-E.com/deloney and use code deloney to save 15%. For the person who's listening to this, they have a good job,

• 49:22Dr. John Delony?

  and they can't figure out their wife. They are a great mom, and they can't figure out the professional balance. Like, they want to go back to work. Like, what do you tell the person who, on paper, has it all, right? You're shredded. I mean, our providers are pretty much exactly the same, but other than that, right? You've got all the things.

• 49:48Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, man, there's a part of my life that's a train wreck right now. And it's so hard to not spiral out. Most of the people, myself included, who do really good things at scale.

• 50:01Dr. John Delony?

  Do that because we have to to cover up for the stuff that we struggle with, right? What do you tell that person who's listening and says, I do this other thing in my life so good and I can't get this right, so I must be worthless?

• 50:15Speaker 00

  Well, you know, on a micro scale, I think there are things that we naturally are better at and things we're naturally worse at. And in business, one of the things I've I've kind of done is like, all right, I kind of know what I'm good at and I know my wheelhouse is not really good with organization. I'm good at this other stuff. I can talk. I can break down studies. All right, I'm gonna focus on this, but I'm gonna try and be good enough at this other stuff so that things don't completely fall apart, right? Like, I'm gonna get to a basal level. And you've only got some, I mean, I'm not an expert on this stuff, but you've only got so many spoons, right? And I think the other thing that I that is true, that I kind of embrace, is there are

• 50:59Speaker 00

  seasons of life, right? And I think for a long time, I wanted, I thought I was Superman. I want to do everything all at once, right? And like, one of the things I realized, like, I used to do, I compete in powerlifting. I love fishing. I go fishing every week on my boat. I loved competition pistol shooting. I would do that. I was a dad, running multiple businesses, trying to be an influencer, trying to scale these businesses, like, all, and at a certain point, I'm like, I was just going crazy, right? And I justify it. I justify it. Well, I need balance in my life. And I think, um, over the course of your lifetime, you want to be balanced, right?

• 51:42Speaker 00

  Like, you want to spend enough time being a family man, with your friends, doing fun stuff with your spouse, significant other, exercising all these sorts of things, right?

• 51:53Speaker 00

  But there's seasons of life. And like right now, for example, like having two kids, one of whom is special needs. And then having multiple businesses, um, you know, traveling a lot for work. Okay, now, now isn't the time that I go pistol shooting every week. Now isn't the time that I go fishing every week.

• 52:15Dr. John Delony?

  I think, I think people say they want balance. I think what really people they want, they want peace.

• 52:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and I know like I tend to have like this, like if I can't do something that I want to do. I get like real angry, you know, I feel like very confined and.

• 52:32Dr. John Delony?

  You know who else feels that way? My son, when he was four, right? It's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a child like.

• 52:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:39Dr. John Delony?

  You can't tell me, oh my gosh, right? It's, it's, it's.

• 52:44Speaker 00

  And in some ways.

• 52:45Dr. John Delony?

  It's maturity, it's grown up.

• 52:46Speaker 00

  In some ways I've been very immature in some aspects of my life. And so like, I think that is. Like I.

• 52:54Dr. John Delony?

  How do you forgive yourself?

• 52:57Speaker 00

  I'm probably the wrong person to ask about that.

• 53:00Dr. John Delony?

  How, how do you, how are you navigating your life in a series of, in a season of self forgiveness?

• 53:10Dr. John Delony?

  How do moms forgive themselves when they say that one thing or dads when they.

• 53:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean like.

• 53:15Dr. John Delony?

  Scream at their kid like, and they're like, God.

• 53:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, that's, I struggle with that.

• 53:19Dr. John Delony?

  Or the dad that, that hides that one purchase that turns into hiding the second purchase that hides to, oh God. How do you forgive, how do you forgive yourself?

• 53:28Speaker 00

  We were talking about this earlier. I think people like to make things black and white because it's easier for our brains. You know? And the reality is like, people are messy, you know? And.

• 53:41Speaker 00

  I think just.

• 53:44Speaker 00

  You try to get like focused on the, the majority of stuff.

• 53:49Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 53:50Speaker 00

  Right? Like, do I usually do the right thing? Do I, do I? Cause like for me, I.

• 53:59Speaker 00

  I don't know if, what it is, but I, I have a hard time forgiving myself for mistakes. Um, I'll either try to like really rationalize them out so that I can make it not a mistake.

• 54:10Dr. John Delony?

  Right? Yeah.

• 54:11Speaker 00

  Or I would just beat myself up over it.

• 54:14Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 54:15Speaker 00

  You know?

• 54:15Dr. John Delony?

  You beat yourself up more than most people I know.

• 54:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I've been told that quite a bit. And, and again, it's like this, um, I think one of the things that's been hard for me to find is how do I hold myself accountable? While not going to, you're a piece of, you know?

• 54:31Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:32Speaker 00

  And that's something that I personally have struggled with. Uh, and I know like you, when you talk about food, like that's where you go, right? Like you get through those gummy candies and it's like, ah, man.

• 54:42Dr. John Delony?

  You see the wrappers and it's, it's just reflective, yeah.

• 54:44Speaker 00

  So I'll tell you something, I, I had a client who really struggled with binge eating. And he was a hedge fund manager. Um, and when we started working together, he was kind of binge eating like every day.

• 54:55Speaker 00

  And so we really started to unpack like what the triggers were for this. We started to unpack, you know, um, what were the antecedents were for this? What the feelings were, et cetera. And over about a, just under a year period, he lost 25 pounds. And he went from binging pretty much every day to like once every couple of weeks. But still, when he would do it every couple of weeks, he would really like beat himself up. And I said, hey, man, like if I told you, if I took you in a time machine from where you were at then and took you to here, I think you'd be ecstatic. You know? And you're focusing on that, like one thing you got really wrong, but you're getting a lot of stuff right. You know?

• 55:41Speaker 00

  And, you know, I was talking like my grandfather is somebody I revere. And like this dude's like legit World War II war hero, just your typical greatest generation. Great family man, like I just, I got some of the best wisdom I've ever gotten out of my grandfather. And, you know, I have, I also have a habit of putting people on a pedestal as I like, you know? And, um, I was beating myself up or something and they were like, what do you, you know, what do you think your grandfather would say? And I was like, I think he'd probably say that he didn't agree or was disappointed, but that he knows I'm a good person. And the person I was talking to said, I promise you, if you went through your grandfather's closet of skeletons,

• 56:25Speaker 00

  you could find something that would make you feel a certain type of way. And that's not to say that that makes doing wrong things okay, but.

• 56:34Dr. John Delony?

  I think, I think you're getting at something so important. I was hoping you'd get there. Can I tell you what I think it is?

• 56:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:39Dr. John Delony?

  I think.

• 56:39Speaker 00

  I mean, this is your area, not mine.

• 56:41Dr. John Delony?

  I think, I, well, I, I, I'm fascinated because you do, um, you beat yourself up more than most people I know. Like most people that I've spent time with, like on a particular thing, like, get pretty caustic, right? Or you wear it as, uh, you hold it. And I think that means you care more than a lot of people do, right? The only way I've figured out so far is how, how to forgive myself

• 57:10Dr. John Delony?

  is to outsource it. And what I mean by that is, I don't think we are, and I'm sure there's, I'm sure Hughes can sit in here and, and unpack it for us.

• 57:22Dr. John Delony?

  I don't know that we're built to do that. I think there's reason why 12 step programs in religious communities and even the trust people build in forums. I think there's something profound about sitting in front of somebody and saying, this is all of me. This is what I've done. And exhaling and seeing either the friend or the community member, or the therapist, or the minister, or the spouse say, and I still love you. And I think there's a,

• 57:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:52Dr. John Delony?

  In those moments when I can't love myself, when I can't forgive myself, I think that is where,

• 57:59Dr. John Delony?

  I think that's the moment when your soul's on fire, that having other people, that's it.

• 58:05Speaker 00

  I think that's one of the most profound things from listening to your show that I've gotten.

• 58:08Dr. John Delony?

  That makes sense?

• 58:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think you and I are somewhere in this too. It's like, no, no, you wouldn't want to see all me. If you saw all me, you wouldn't.

• 58:14Dr. John Delony?

  You run.

• 58:15Speaker 00

  You'd bolt.

• 58:15Dr. John Delony?

  And it's when, it's when my wife says, no, no, I know what I signed up for.

• 58:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:19Dr. John Delony?

  Right? Or it's, it's, it's the old C.S. Lewis quote that's like, the definition of friend is, oh, you too? And everyone just exhales, right?

• 58:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, I think you're getting it like.

• 58:34Speaker 00

  The, I think the underlying thing here that we're, we've kind of touched on that translates across a lot of stuff is I, I think we're, we're in this kind of struggle. And actually, I, I tell young coaches when I'm taking them through my course or the coaches that work for me, you know, what makes really effective coaching are you have to have empathy with accountability. You can't have either one in isolation. And I think there's a little bit of a culture war right now.

• 59:02Dr. John Delony?

  There is.

• 59:03Speaker 00

  Where.

• 59:03Dr. John Delony?

  Either or.

• 59:04Speaker 00

  Where if it's just the empathy piece, which is you had these things happen to you, it's not your fault. The way you acted this way, it's not your fault.

• 59:12Dr. John Delony?

  You're less than, go over here in the corner. We'll figure it out.

• 59:15Speaker 00

  But also, which, which kind of like, it sounds like what you were kind of saying to some of these kids, whatever. That feels good in the moment for the person because you've removed some of that personal responsibility. You feel like, okay, well, I only did these things because X, Y, Z, right? And then there's the accountability piece, which is like, you can understand why somebody did something. You can understand why somebody got something wrong, but you could also say, you can do it different.

• 59:40Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 59:41Speaker 00

  This gets into like, do you actually have free will? Do people actually have free will, right? And I've always found that kind of funny because I'm like, let's say you don't, right? Let's say that, what is the usefulness of telling people that, right? But I've just seen, I don't know, I've seen people change.

• 59:57Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I've too. I wouldn't, you and I wouldn't do our jobs if we didn't.

• 1:00:00Speaker 00

  And it's, it is hard. It's really hard. One of my favorite quotes is, think about how hard it is to change yourself and then think about how hard it is to change another person.

• 1:00:08Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, yeah, exactly.

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  And there's a, there was a, did you ever watch Game of Thrones?

• 1:00:12Dr. John Delony?

  No.

• 1:00:13Speaker 00

  Okay. So there was a character.

• 1:00:14Dr. John Delony?

  Just here and there, but no.

• 1:00:15Speaker 00

  There was a character named Jaime Lannister. In the beginning of the, the show, you hate this guy. And over time, you actually, he ends up kind of becoming a sympathetic character. And there's a, there's a scene where he's looking at this book and he was a member of the Kingsguard, which was the, basically like the secret service for the king, right? He ended up actually killing the old king because the old king was crazy and was killing people. And in, in the book where they're describing all the Kingsguard members and their history, it just says Jamie Lannister and basically like Kingslayer, right? Like killed the king, right? And he goes, I'm paraphrasing because I, I don't remember the exact quote, but he goes,

• 1:00:58Speaker 00

  "I still have space left in my pages." And that is a quote that I've come back to a lot.

• 1:01:04Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:04Speaker 00

  Which is like, cause I, I do beat myself up, but it's a quote I've come back to a lot of, okay, you say both and, right? I'm a good guy. And yeah, I've gotten some stuff really wrong. Right? But I can do it different.

• 1:01:20Dr. John Delony?

  I get to choose what happens next.

• 1:01:21Speaker 00

  I get to choose what happens next. Um, but that comes through action, you know? And you can have compassion for yourself and still hold yourself accountable.

• 1:01:29Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  And that's a difficult balance for a lot of us to walk.

• 1:01:33Dr. John Delony?

  And there's still consequences.

• 1:01:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. But it, right. And I, I think one of the things that I've found and it seems to be supported by literature is like, shame doesn't really work. Like it actually makes it worse in some cases, right? Like I thought, well, if I just beat myself up about this, I'll never do it again. No, because you don't end up like changing the wiring that got you there. Right? And so, um, I think when it comes to a lot of these behaviors with, I mean, the stuff to do is not complicated.

• 1:02:04Dr. John Delony?

  I, I think, I think that's the, the thing I want people to walk away with is it's very hard and it's not complicated. It's simple. It's hard, but it's simple.

• 1:02:13Speaker 00

  It's, it's like the baby steps, right?

• 1:02:15Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 1:02:16Speaker 00

  You look at those, you go, that's not complicated.

• 1:02:18Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  It's gotta be more complicated than that. Right? But it doesn't mean it's easy.

• 1:02:23Dr. John Delony?

  It's very uncomfortable.

• 1:02:24Speaker 00

  Calories in, calories out.

• 1:02:26Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:02:26Speaker 00

  Not, well, doesn't appear complicated. Doesn't mean it's easy.

• 1:02:31Dr. John Delony?

  No. And, and, and, and when I started using Carbon, like the app that you guys created.

• 1:02:37Dr. John Delony?

  I was astounded that the peanut butter cups that I grab on the admin's desk, walking by my cubicle every single day of my life, had 120 calories each in them.

• 1:02:49Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:02:49Dr. John Delony?

  Like, what? I eat six of those a day. Just one here and one here. They're little bitty things.

• 1:02:53Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:02:54Dr. John Delony?

  I worked out hard this morning, laying for an hour. I did 60 minutes.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:59Dr. John Delony?

  And I think I was at 750.

• 1:03:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:02Dr. John Delony?

  So that hour that I burned this morning getting after it.

• 1:03:04Speaker 00

  Which, by the way, you were actually more like 400 or 500.

• 1:03:07Dr. John Delony?

  Of course.

• 1:03:07Speaker 00

  Cause these overestimate, but.

• 1:03:08Dr. John Delony?

  Disagree. Agree to disagree. I ate the whole thing back and, right? And so, I didn't like it. It was uncomfortable. When I'm just having a steak with the family and it's like, that steak's 3,000 calories after you get done all the stuff on it, right? And so, it does take an adjustment. And the same as I tell young people when they're like, hey, we can't afford our apartment. And I say, here. And I hate that for you. Cause you've had a picture in your head for your whole life and everyone told you, if you just go get this degree and get this job and get this thing, you can do whatever you want, wherever you want it. And they didn't tell you the truth, cause math doesn't care. And I hate it.

• 1:03:44Speaker 00

  Sell the car.

• 1:03:44Dr. John Delony?

  Let's hug. Yeah.

• 1:03:45Speaker 00

  Sell the car.

• 1:03:46Dr. John Delony?

  Y'all might have to live in Kansas, cause it's cheaper to live there. If you want to be a book editor, if you like. So it's just this reckoning with reality. And I think for me, the quicker people can wrap their head around, okay, here I am.

• 1:04:01Dr. John Delony?

  The quicker you can get about the business of, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take the next right step.

• 1:04:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, like I was saying, don't smoke, exercise, don't eat too much. I mean, those are, if you do those three things, I mean, don't drink or limit your alcohol intake.

• 1:04:21Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:21Speaker 00

  Don't do drugs.

• 1:04:22Dr. John Delony?

  Sleep enough. Sleep, yeah, have some friends.

• 1:04:24Speaker 00

  That's 95% of it right there. Like, we can argue in the margins, but that's it right there. And it's.

• 1:04:29Dr. John Delony?

  I think, I think letting most people know, okay, it is fun to go down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole so that there's some secret group putting stuff in the water, sources to make us all, that's cool. Awesome. And I love those like anybody.

• 1:04:45Dr. John Delony?

  But let's pick up the dollars.

• 1:04:46Speaker 00

  You know what's really funny? So I read several studies that actually showed that stronger conspiracy is like people who are more likely to buy into conspiracy theories are more likely to have narcissistic tendencies.

• 1:05:00Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:01Speaker 00

  And I have those proclivities as well to like believe some of these things.

• 1:05:06Dr. John Delony?

  That I'm seeing something that nobody else is seeing.

• 1:05:07Speaker 00

  It's sexy, right?

• 1:05:08Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 1:05:08Speaker 00

  But there is, a lot of it is because, again, if there's some grand conspiracy working against you in the background, you don't have to take responsibility for your own bad choices you've made, right?

• 1:05:21Dr. John Delony?

  Or walking through the hell that somebody else put in your life, right?

• 1:05:26Speaker 00

  Or like a, you know, market crash in 08.

• 1:05:30Speaker 00

  Well, if you weren't over leveraged.

• 1:05:33Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 1:05:33Speaker 00

  Okay. Yeah, like, bad stuff happens, but bad stuff's always gonna happen.

• 1:05:39Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 1:05:39Speaker 00

  And.

• 1:05:40Dr. John Delony?

  Do you, what's the foundation you built your house on?

• 1:05:43Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:05:43Dr. John Delony?

  Thank you for being my friend.

• 1:05:45Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:05:46Dr. John Delony?

  Like, for real. I'm glad you're my friend. And I'm glad you always, always pick up the phone when I call you. And I can't say that about a lot, so thank you.

• 1:05:55Speaker 00

  Same.

• 1:05:55Dr. John Delony?

  That means the world.

• 1:05:58Dr. John Delony?

  All right, hey, everybody, listen to this. Helix, the makers of the best mattresses in the universe, are having a new year's sale going on right now. I was traveling a ton this holiday season, and when I was out on the road, I was counting down the days until I could get back into my Helix mattress. Sleeping on my Helix mattress has transformed my rest, and I'm getting into new levels of deep, refreshing sleep. And I've said this a lot, and I'm gonna keep saying it. Everyone in my immediate family now sleeps on a Helix mattress, all of them. My son, my daughter, all of us. And my family is all different, just like you are all different. And because everyone sleeps in their own unique way, Helix has created different mattress models designed for side sleepers and stomach sleepers and back sleepers for everyone.

• 1:06:43Dr. John Delony?

  And if your spine needs a little extra love, they have mattresses for you too. Plus, Helix offers a 100-night trial, and all Helix mattresses come with either a 10 or 15-year warranty. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to get online and take the Helix Sleep Quiz, just like I did, and it will help you find the perfect mattress for your sleep preferences in less than two minutes. Here's the best part. Helix has a new year sale going on right now. 25% off site wide plus two dream pillows with a mattress purchase and a free bedding bundle. Go to helix, H E L I X, helixsleep.com/deloney today. That's helixsleep.com/deloney for all of this great discount.

• 1:07:28Dr. John Delony?

  With Helix, better sleep starts right now. All right, that was my conversation with the great and powerful, literally great and powerful, Dr. Lane Norton. We're going to link to everything, including the Carbon app in the show notes. The Carbon app is the app that I use to help me maintain calories in, calories out, and energy usage, all that stuff. We're going to link to everything there. And if you get nothing else from this episode, know this. All of us, from world champions to knuckleheads like me, to everybody, we're all just trying to scratch and claw and make the world a little bit better place. And so if you ever feel like I'm not getting this perfect, I messed this up, even though

• 1:08:12Dr. John Delony?

  I got this right, just know you're not alone. You're not alone. We're all walking through this madness together. And that's how we're gonna get to the other side. Thanks for being with us. I love you guys. Stay in school. Now go lift some weights, you need some protein. Or, you know. Love you guys. Bye. Hey, what's up, folks? Big news. The Dr. John Deloney Show is now available a full week early in the Ramsey Network app. That's right. You can catch all the real talk of mental health, relationships, emotional health before anyone else. And the best part? It's completely free. Just click the link in the show notes to download the Ramsey Network app and start watching early today.