Kind: captions
Language: en
Fat is a three-letter word that like
provokes like intense negative reaction.
The fat that is harmful. The worst kind
is called visceral fat. Turns out when
you have temperatures, you turn on your
brown fat. Your brown fat is like click
click click whoosh. Good fat fights bad
fat. You will shape shift lean muscle to
fat ratio. So you'll wind up actually
being in better body composition shape.
It's kind of like the modern-day
cigarette. It's not few. Every study
that's ever been done shows that
drinking a lot of is associated with
really really negative health outcomes.
How do I, you know, eat healthier? What
should I do? I always tell people, I
said, you know, number one, let
be afraid of walking in cool weather.
I'm not talking about a blizzard. uh you
know, snowaged and don't don't be be
safe. But if it's cool outside the fall,
even in the winter, get the right shoes,
go for a walk because cold temperatures
do something amazing to burn down
harmful body fat. Cold air shock, which
is received by the thermo the uh
thermostats in our body, will
immediately trigger something called
brown fat.
Brown fat is a special kind of fat. It's
uh distinct from white fat. So there's
two colors of fat. So think about you go
to the uh hardware store. You got a a
paint job in your house and you're going
to do two colors on one color on each
wall. You got to they paint one brown
and one white. All right. So you just
pick two cans of paint. Well, this is
actually how mother nature designed body
fat. The fat that is harmful that you
can see and actually packs are the tubes
of our body that are inflammatory that
is white fat. The worst kind is called
visceral fat. It builds up even in a
skinny body. You can have a ton of
visceral fat. Visca meaning guts. This
is a kind of fat that basically turns
like a baseball glove wraps around your
organs. It's very very inflammatory. It
can leak fat. It's kind of dangerous fat
actually. and the stuff that pooches out
your belly and it spills off over to the
side and you get like the the the the
muffin top and all that kind of stuff.
So, turns out when you have cold
temperatures, you turn on your brown
fat. Your brown fat is like a gas range
because it undergoes thermogenesis. It
generates heat. You're confronted with
cold. Your body wants to be heat. So, it
wants heater. So, it's a space heater.
Think about like the gas range in your
kitchen. You turn on the knob, click,
click, click, whoosh. Got a flame. All
right. Now, in the kitchen, that uh
flame is being fed, gas range is being
fed from the gas lines that go to your
town or maybe a gas tank by the side of
your house, drawing down the energy in
your body. The brown fat that is the
space heater. Click click click whoosh
with cold temperature actually be
drawing the fuel from the brown fat
draws the fuel from the white fat. Good
fat fights bad fat. And brown fat, by
the way, is not wiggly jiggly. It is
wafer thin and it's plastered around our
neck. It's a little bit underneath our
breast bone, a little bit between our
shoulder blades, a little bit scattered
in our gut. My point being, go for a
walk after dinner. You're exercising.
You're actually going to be working your
muscles. You're going to and if it's if
you don't be afraid of cool air because
you're actually going to accelerate the
burndown of extra calories. All these
things will actually allow you to tip
the balance for more muscle, less fat,
and you can accentuate that. You can be
as exaggerated as you want, but if you
keep doing that kind of stuff, burn down
extra harmful body fat, build up more
muscle, you will shape shift your own
lean fat, I mean lean muscle to fat
ratio. So, you'll wind up actually in
and being in better body composition
shape. The reality is is that body fat,
which most people associate with weight
gain and you want to lose fat for weight
loss, actually um is actually a really
really beneficial thing. And I think by
first letting people know you to manage
your weight, you are not really trying
to get rid of all your fat. Those are
you got to separate those things. Body
fat is really important. the cells uh
that make up body fat. I call them
adiposytes. Adapose is the name for
adipose tissue is what we call is a
medical word for fat. Adiposytes, those
are the cells that make up fatty tissue
actually serve an incredible role,
healthy role in the body. And a lot of
people don't know this, but our fat
cells adiposites are the fuel tanks for
our energy that we need to just go about
our day. Forget about running a
marathon. I'm just talking about like
getting to work or doing your laundry
or, you know, making a meal. You need
energy to be able to do any of those
things. You need energy to be able to
take a shower. So, what I want people to
know, they're really interested in this
whole idea of fat and weight loss is
don't curse your fat. You need that fat.
It is something that you need to have
the right amount of. Too much fat is a
real problem and it can actually lead to
the situation where you need to actually
lose weight and do weight management.
>> There's a connection between the brain
and body fat and it's connected through
the nerves. Here's something really
really interesting and this does bridge
a little bit to foods that fight body
fat but it turns out that when we're
eating food, okay, um the taste of the
food that we have in our taste buds
naturally go to our brain, right? So,
everyone can remember uh have a memory
of a favorite smell of a food that came
from their mother's kitchen as they were
growing up, right? That's that's comfort
food. It's a smell that takes us back to
something that we grew up with and and
find comforting. Well, so you already
know that there is some connection
between food and our brain, but that
those signals have to pass through our
nose and our taste buds. And it tells
you that there's wiring that connects
our mouth to our brain. That's the first
start to signal uh that there's some
mouth brain connection. But did you know
that our brain the nerves that come out
of our brain actually course down our
neck on both sides of our neck and they
actually go to our body fat. All right?
So when we st stimulate our uh mouth
with different kinds of foods, they do
text message our brain and then our
brain releases other signals and
hormones that communicate with our body
fat, good and bad. All right? And and it
changes the hor the neurotransmitters in
our brain as well. So there's also
direct impact on what actually happens
in our brain. And by the way, those
nerves continue beyond our body fat down
to our gut, our lower gut, where our gut
microbiome is. And of course, you know,
with Zoey and all these other really uh
fantastic scientific programs that are
going on, we're beginning to realize
more and more just how important our gut
microbiome, healthy gut bacteria. So
you're talking about the gut brain
connection and that gut brain connection
goes from you know the tailpipe of our
gut all the way but it starts in our
mouth it goes to our brain and it can
affect how our brain goes. I want to
tell you one more thing that from my
perspective as a researcher where this
could affect the size of our brain as
well. Please.
>> Okay.
>> We used to think that the human body is
unable to regenerate,
right? Because when we were kids, I'm
sure Sarah and you, even though we went
to different grade schools, uh, uh,
kindergartens, I'm sure your teacher and
my teacher said the same thing. Starfish
can regenerate, salamanders can
regenerate, but humans cannot
regenerate. Right? That's what we learn.
>> Not true. Not true anymore. that chapter
in that textbook has been ripped out and
thrown out the window. We know in fact
the humans do regenerate. And we've
started to figure out that our stem
cells, 70 million stem cells in our
bodies, actually contribute silently
behind the scenes to regenerating our
health. We don't even know that our
liver needs a little regeneration. Um,
oh, you had that weekend where you, you
know, had had a little bit too much to
drink. Guess what? Silently, your body
sends out those stem cells to repair.
You drink a little too much alcohol,
your brain shrinks. You got to
regenerate that. So even the brain we
now know has a capability of
regeneration. And this is actually a
dynamic process that happens every
single day behind the scenes. So, one
hypothesis of why uh excess body fat
might actually impact on brain size
could be the impairment of our stem
cells to be able to help maintain the
rejuvenation, the renewal, the support
of the structure and revitalization, the
regeneration of our brain tissue itself.
We don't know this for a fact, but it's
a scientific hypothesis that the our
brain actually has to be maintained in
its size. You don't keep you don't keep
replenishing it with healthy cells. It
will naturally start to shrink. There
are foods you can eat that will do the
same thing that cold air does. It'll
trigger your brown fat. It'll turn on
the switch to set your internal space
heater on so that you go click click
click whoosh. And now you got to draw
down fuel from your harmful body fat. So
protein will actually make you full a
little bit faster. Fiber will make you
feel fuller sooner, which then counters
your um maybe un instinctive desire to
actually eat more and more. Um and then
the other thing that a lot of people
don't think about and we'll talk about
I'll talk about some specifics in all
these categories is water liquid. Okay.
When you drink water, like so put your
pour your glass of water and put it in
front of your plate so you're looking at
it and have a few sips of water before
you dive into your meal. Number one,
hydration is key for overall health.
It's underrated. Number two, just having
a couple of sips of water puts the water
in your stomach and your stomach is just
a bag. It's a sack. Well, that's what
happened when you sip some water. You're
actually filling the bag of your stomach
with some water. It stretches and it's
when your stomach stretch, it sends a
signal to your brain, oh, you got a
little food in there, you know, um,
we're going to we're not going to we're
going to start signaling pretty soon
that there's food. And when you actually
have enough food, your brain will say,
you know, you're enough society. Let's
let's stop. So, liquid, water,
hydration, non-alcohol, which is garbs,
okay?
And if you have coffee or tea, it's
fine, but not with dairy and not with
sugar or artificial sweeteners. Those
things will actually mess mess up your
metabolism. So, plain tea, black coffee
is a great way or with some plant-based
milk could be fine. Um, those are
practical ways to actually um uh help
you get a little bit more full when you
sit down. beans are, you know, um my
friend Dan Butner who's well known for
uh kind of like uh shedding light on the
blue zones where people live a long time
really really old and really really
healthy. He always likes to say beans
are my favorite food. Beans are the
common foods and everyone in every
culture that lives for a long time,
these blue cells, people are eating
beans, you know, beans are really
healthy, great source of protein which
helps to make you full. The fiber also
makes you full and it doesn't make you
only full for that meal that you're
eating. The beans, makes you full going
into your next meal as well, right? So,
if you have some beans for lunch, that's
a great way to actually manage your
satiety or give you some head start in
satiety for dinner time. So, that's
you're you're eating for the next meal,
which is another uh little um uh trick
for it. So, um, you know, I think those
are just some ways to actually approach
the the the, um, what foods would be
useful for society. Now, look,
chocolate's a confection, so it's a
candy. So, I want to be really careful
to make this distinction. Dark chocolate
is better because it has more cacao.
Cacao is a plant-based food. comes from
a cacao pod which comes off a tree and
it is very much packed with dietary
fiber which is good for our gut
microbiome, good for overall health, but
it has polyphenols called
pro-anthocyanidins.
Okay, so you know for your listeners and
viewers don't worry if you can't
pronounce or spell these things like let
people like me who study food as
medicine do the heavy lifting for you
but just know that dark chocolate
plant-based has more of the plant-based
cacao has these bioactives. Now what
does proanthocyanins do? These chocolate
dark chocolate polyphenols, cocoa
polyphenols, they call out stem cells.
In fact, there was a study done out of
San Francisco in the University of Texas
that showed that in 60year-old men with
coronary heart disease,
bad blood vessels, bad hearts, that if
they drank two cups of dark hot cocoa
>> that is really enriched with
polyphenols,
they could double the number of stem
cells in their bloodstream that can
repair their circulation and improve
their heart function after 30 days. So
if you just drank two cups a day for a
month, that's how this experiment was
done. And then they measured the number
of stem cells in the blood. That's a
blood test. Bada bing, twice. All right?
Then they measured functionally how
resilient their circulation was. That's
using a test called FMD, flow mediated
dilation. How resilient are the your
circulation? That also doubled. That's
how powerful your stem cells can
actually be. And there's a whole other
list of foods as well. Um, dried fruit
because the skin of fruits contain
erolic acid. Ersolic acid which is found
in the skin of of of fruits, dried
fruits, you get a lot more skin per unit
that you put in your mouth. Right? So
this is why it's better to whether for
if you're going to get for the skin of
the fruit to get organic fruits because
um the skin tends to accumulate the
pesticides. It's very hard to wash them
off. You can imagine overeating putting
more fuel into your tank is just going
to blow up your fat mass which is how
overeing causes weight gain because you
just and then you can see it in the
mirror. Okay. The key thing about this
is not to overconume.
There is a Japanese saying of called
harahachi buu or harachi buni which just
means that when you're eating
stop when you're 80% full. I translate
that like I have no idea what's 80%.
Okay. But what I say is that you eat
savor your food and eat um mindfully
thoughtfully and stop eating when you're
satisfied
not when you're feeling full. We are
trained from from as kids, you know, and
and you know, especially you're at work,
you're busy, and you got to wolf stuff
down. We're trained to eat as fast as we
can. And what happens when you eat
really fast, you could easily
overconume. You trick your brain because
you're putting you're loading food
faster than you can process it. But if
you actually eat slowly and what happens
is that, you know, you when you in saber
your food, you realize, you know what,
I'm quite satisfied now. I don't really
feel I don't think I need it anymore.
Put less fuel in your body, you'll
actually gain less weight. And it has to
be countered by move more. So, by
staying physically active, you're
burning the fuel down. So, it's kind of
like watching how much fuel gas you put
in your car, but making sure you're
driving the car as well. Okay? And if
you didn't uh do out of there, all you'd
be doing is filling up more fuel tanks
and putting uh jerry cans of gas in your
trunk, loading up your garage, and then
you're still letting car sit there.
You're going to wind up accumulating
weight. That's actually what happens to
many people over the course of their
life. And this is not an issue of a
couple of months. I'll tell you some
ways, some simple things that I think
are important to recognize
as reasons that people overeat and
things simple things that you can do to
not overeat. Number one, when you eat
alone, it's easiest to overeat. Eating
alone is easiest to overeat. You know
why? Because we usually distract
ourselves when we eat by ourselves. You
would b your phone and you're scrolling
through stuff, uh either looking through
social, checking your emails, watching
the news, whatever it is you're doing.
The moment you have that mobile device
in your hand while you're eating, you're
not paying attention to your body.
You're not paying attention what's on
the plate. You're just shoveling it
down. So, what I would say, eat with
company. That's what they do with, you
know, in in lots of countries with
healthier eating habits. You eat
together. Um, and and and don't be
distracted. Put your phone away. It's
not just for politeness. It's really
don't be distracting. Then what you do
is you savor your food. I refuse
categorically to eat something that I
don't want to eat. I'd rather not eat
honestly than have than just eat
something that like I don't want, you
know? So, if I'm
and I think that that's okay. You're not
going to shrivel up and die, blow away
if you don't eat something. But, you
know, if you don't eat what you if you
if you then then say, "I'm going to eat
what only what I want." Now you have the
ability to savor your food.
>> So is sugar bad? No. Your b your brain
needs sugar normally. Your body will
make sugar normally if you don't get
enough of it from your diet. And and
fruits and vegetables, even ones that
are not very sweet, have sugar in it.
Sure, a summer peach has a lot of sugar.
Uh watermelon has a lot of sugar, but
you know, broccoli also has a fair
amount of sugar, natural sugars in it as
well. Those are all super good for you,
not because of the sugar, but because
those calories that you're getting are
um high value calories, right? You you
have all these other polyphenols and
dietary fiber, all the bioactives from
the fruit that counterbalance the
potential detriment of whatever sugar it
is. So, I always say when it comes to
produce, fruits and vegetables, if
you're eating normal healthy amounts
that are good for your taste buds, a
healthy part of a balanced meal, don't
worry about the sugar in them. If you
have normal blood sugar control, like if
you're diabetic or pre-diabetic, maybe
that's something to be more careful
about. You want to talk to a
nutritionist or dietitian about, but I
think for most people, it's fine. Um,
now, what about added sugar? Well, just
like you know fat, too much of a good
thing becomes a bad thing. Added sugar,
which is what we, you know, we started
this conversation about. Well, what
about soda? Lot of added sugar in a
typical can of soda, like nine teaspoons
full of refined sugar. If I gave you an
empty cup, Sarah Anne, and put nine
teaspoons of granulated sugar and said,
"Drink that down," you would be
horrified, right? Like I would be. But
it turns out that um you know added
sugar is detrimental for your health.
But natural sugars in the quantities
that you would eat normally in fruits
and vegetables are just fine. I think
sugar gets vilified, you know, just like
the way the fats gotten vilified. Um uh
and I think this is where this is where
the conversation needs to go and I'm so
glad that you brought this up um Sarah
an which is that look we we should stop
taking black and white views. Sugar will
cause cancer. Actually, you know what?
The uh the the something more likely to
cause cancer is not sugar, but breathing
in the offging for your new carpet or
from your um at the gas station pump,
you know. So, these are things that, you
know, we don't have the same
conversation about. Let's try not to
vilify our food. Let's try to respect
what it is that mother nature delivers
to us and let's just make better
choices. So, fruits and vegetables,
sugar is fine. You ask about dried
fruit. Look, it is true that you could
eat um six, you and I could eat six
dried apricots pretty quickly, but we
would probably not eat six whole
apricots quite as much uh quite as
quickly. We'd be reluctant to eat it.
So, we would actually be eating more of
the sugar in there. Uh and that's why
everything in moderation. I would say
that eating six dried apricots at a
sitting is probably in excess, but you
know, having two or three of them
probably fine if they're part of your
fiber gaining polyphenol regenerative
kind of um snacking pattern. Much better
than a bag of chips, crisps that you
might actually want to uh eat, right? So
again, let's try to be a little bit more
um refined in the choices that we make.
We do it all the time, by the way. these
difficult choices uh what's better for
us, what's safer for us. We do that. If
you're if you're listening to this and
you go skiing in the winter, you know,
we all wear the same ski outfits and we
have the same skis, but you know, you're
going to make a decision of which track
you're going to go down that mountain.
You're going to go the green, the blue,
or the black diamond, you know, and so I
think that everyone can make better
choices as a way to confronting food.
>> Foods that we tend to think of as not so
good for you. um lure us into the bear
trap of uh assigning uh black and white
thinking to good and bad food is either
you know great for you or it's terrible
for you. No such thing you know I mean I
think everything in moderation is a good
way to go and that brings me to my point
about you know the guardrails. I think
that if you generally say you're going
to stay in the center of the lane,
you're not going to go to any order or
you're not going to go to any extreme,
that is the safest place to be if you
want long-term overall health. What I
think is important is to know yourself
and understand what it is that you enjoy
eating. A lot of people don't
haven't spent enough time thinking about
what do I really enjoy eating. Okay,
some people will joke around and say,
"Oh, I like French fries. Oh, I like
hamburgers. like uh you okay maybe you
do like those things but let's really
think about among all the foods that are
out there which ones you know like this
is a kind of a like a checklist I I tell
people desert what did your mom cook
when you were growing up do you remember
coming out of the smell kind of your
kitchen that you that brings you close
to home like what what what's comfort
food to you like I'll ask that and and
they'll say one thing oh be loaf you
know oh no no no okay good what are some
other ones and eventually you'll find
something that they associate that's
actually not so bad for you. In fact, it
might be really good for you. And that's
the unfair advantage I have is that
like, you know, I I know what these
healthy foods are and that's why I wrote
I put more than 200 foods in my books, E
to beat disease and eat to be your diet.
Like, you want to let me do all the
heavy lifting on what are the good
foods. And so, um, I think knowing what
you enjoy gives you permission, uh,
knowing what you enjoy that's healthy
gives you permission to engage in things
that are good for you and that you like.
That actually alignment is that that's a
bullseye. I call that a bullseye. And
you can do that for a long time because
you like it. Look, everybody knows you
shouldn't be smoking if you want health.
All right? Um, there's some clear-cut
things like soda is one of those stakes.
Drink a lot of soda is not going to be
good for you. That's like soda is kind
of like the modern-day cigarette. It's
not every study that's ever been done
shows that drinking a lot of soda is
associated with really really negative
health outcomes. All right. But every
now and then, a hot day, you know, you
just you're out there on vacation or
something, you just like dying for a
soda,
go for it. Do it. just don't do it too
much, you know, get get that
satisfaction and give yourself
permission to, you know, um,
occasionally treat yourself to
something, but if you spend most of your
time focusing on doing the things that
you already enjoy that are good for you,
you're you're going to be very resilient
to an occasional off-road adventure. How
do I, you know, eat healthier? Uh, what
should I do? I always tell people, I
said, no, number one, life is for the
living. I really believe that you should
enjoy your life. You know, we're only
given one life. It's not that we don't
know how long we have. Um it's
unpredictable. You really want to enjoy
your life. Um so first find out what are
the things be be honest with honest to
yourself. What are the things that you
really really enjoy? And if you have the
right kind of way to interrogate
yourself and sometimes you need somebody
else to help draw it out of you and
that's what I try to do to my patients.
You'll find that the things that some of
the things they like are actually quite
healthy and give them positive
reinforcement for those things. If you
can make a checklist of things that you
love that are good for you, you're way
ahead of the game.
>> Hey, if you like that video, then you're
going to love this one. Check it out.