The Art of Manliness - The New Science of Metabolism and Weight Loss

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:10.940 You hear a lot about metabolism. You probably know it has something to do with weight loss.

00:00:14.480 And even if you don't go in for the supposed hacks around speeding up your metabolism,

00:00:17.940 you likely figure you can at least increase it by exercising more.

00:00:20.620 This isn't actually the case, though, and my guests will sort through this and other

00:00:23.840 misconceptions around metabolism on today's show. His name is Dr. Herman Ponser, and he's a professor

00:00:28.260 of evolutionary anthropology and the author of Burn. New research blows the lid off how we

00:00:32.260 really burn calories, lose weight, and stay healthy. We begin our conversation with an

00:00:36.340 overview of how metabolism powers everything your body does from thinking to moving to simply

00:00:40.800 existing, and how it uses the food you eat as the energy needed to fuel these processes.

00:00:44.940 We then get into Herman's field research, which shows that increasing your physical activity

00:00:48.420 doesn't actually increase the number of calories you burn, but why it's still hugely important

00:00:53.140 to exercise anyway. He also impacts whether certain kinds of foods are better for your metabolism,

00:00:57.260 offers his recommendations on how to use diet to lose weight, and answers the common question

00:01:01.400 as to whether it's true that your metabolism goes down as you age. After the show's over,

00:01:05.460 check out our show notes at aom.is slash burn.

00:01:20.960 All right, Herman Ponser, welcome to the show.

00:01:23.800 Thanks for having me.

00:01:24.460 All right, so your field research has uncovered some, I think, counterintuitive things about

00:01:29.620 our metabolism, and we're going to dig into that today. But before we do, I think it would

00:01:33.560 be helpful to do sort of a short Metabolism 101 class for our listeners. Because I think

00:01:38.800 people throw around that word metabolism a lot, like, oh, I've got to speed up my metabolism.

00:01:43.540 But they might not know exactly what that means. So what exactly is metabolism? And then we'll go

00:01:49.640 from there. Sure, sure. So yeah, I think you're right. People kind of aren't always told the right

00:01:55.240 thing. Metabolism is all the work that your cells do all day. So you've got 37 trillion cells,

00:02:02.340 give or take, and each of them is a tiny microscopic factory that's bringing in raw materials. That's the

00:02:08.800 nutrients in the foods that we eat and turning them into various molecules, hormones, that kind of

00:02:13.940 thing, burning them for energy. And all of that work that our cells do, each of those little factories

00:02:18.600 do, that takes energy. And so metabolism is all of that. It's all the work that's happening.

00:02:25.420 And since work requires energy, we can think about metabolism either as the work itself. So people do

00:02:30.780 focus on things like how molecules get changed around by cells. It's called metabolomics, the kind

00:02:36.020 of products that they make. Or you can focus on the energy it takes to do that work.

00:02:40.700 And that's what most people focus on in metabolism research, like me. We measure all the work that

00:02:46.700 our cells are doing by measuring the energy that our bodies burn.

00:02:50.920 Gotcha. Okay. So metabolism is the measurement of energy our body is using to do what it needs to do.

00:02:57.140 Breathe, heart beating, reproduce, get off the couch. That's metabolism. 1.00

00:03:02.900 Okay.

00:03:03.040 Yeah, that's right. And most of it, you're only kind of dimly aware of or not aware of at all.

00:03:08.760 So for example, every nerve cell in your body needs to keep a very precisely amount of negative

00:03:15.820 charge inside of its cell relative to the outside of its cell, or else your nerves don't work.

00:03:21.180 And so to do that, it's constantly pumping these ions, these sodium and potassium ions in and out

00:03:26.400 to maintain that balance, maintain that negative charge. Your liver is constantly at work detoxifying

00:03:32.760 all the stuff you ate, helping break down nutrients. Your spleen, your immune system,

00:03:37.820 all of it, there's so many things that are happening. Your brain, your brain runs a 5K every

00:03:43.140 day. Your brain burns 300 kilocalories of energy every day. That's the equivalent of going on a

00:03:49.080 five kilometer run. And none of this you're aware of. You're only aware of the very small amount of

00:03:55.140 energy that you spend relatively proportionally that you spend on things like exercise.

00:03:59.660 Yeah. So that's, I think, an important point. I think people, when people typically think about,

00:04:02.900 you know, speeding up their metabolism, and we'll talk about why that actually isn't a thing.

00:04:07.440 They think, well, I just got to like exercise and move more and that's going to burn more calories.

00:04:11.480 But you make the point like, no, most of your, the calories you burn, it's just functioning,

00:04:17.200 just sitting there, existing, listening to this podcast.

00:04:19.420 Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even if all you did is binge listen to the Art of Man podcast

00:04:26.180 all day, you'd still burn about, you know, 70% of the energy that you would have burned in an active

00:04:32.200 day. So, okay. So I think you break it down. There's like a chart, like the kind of percentage

00:04:36.500 of our calories that are, that we burn throughout a day that are geared towards just existing. And then

00:04:41.860 there's movement. And then there's another one, another kind of criteria of how we burn calories.

00:04:46.580 I think it's called NEET, N-E-E-T. What is, what is, what is NEET?

00:04:50.860 Well, so NEET is this concept that, you know, you're kind of moving when you're not paying

00:04:55.200 attention to it. So fidgeting, you know, standing up and walking over, you know, to get a cup of

00:05:00.600 coffee, that kind of stuff. It's called, it stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis.

00:05:06.800 And it's, yeah, it's a nice acronym for, NEET is a nice acronym for that. And it's this idea that

00:05:12.700 not only are you burning energy to move when you're paying attention to it and exercising,

00:05:17.040 but you're also paying attention, you're also burning energy in these other ways as well.

00:05:20.460 But there's even more than that, right? Because NEET's not to, okay. So NEET was kind of a concept

00:05:26.260 that people developed because they were having a hard time making the numbers add up. When they

00:05:32.240 would try to understand how people are spending their energy, they would look at basal metabolic

00:05:35.600 rate. That's your energy at rest at like, you know, six in the morning when your body's super

00:05:39.300 calm and still, and you're at the kind of the nadir, you're in the valley of your energy

00:05:45.440 expenditure for the day. Your organs are as quiet as they're going to be. You take basal metabolic

00:05:50.480 rate, you take how much people exercise, you take how much energy it takes to digest food,

00:05:56.560 you add those up and there's kind of missing calories because people are burning more calories

00:05:59.900 than those three components would suggest. You add those up, you don't get the same numbers you

00:06:04.100 get when you really measure it as a real empirical measurement. It being total calories

00:06:09.120 burned over 24 hours. And so people thought, well, there's this NEET stuff too. There's

00:06:12.900 movement when we're not paying attention. And that's true. So we could add that in as well.

00:06:17.760 And I would say there's other things as well that we don't always pay attention to that we need to

00:06:20.800 think about as well, which is like the circadian fluctuations, the circadian rhythm of our energy

00:06:25.500 expenditure, right? You're burning more energy in the middle of the day, especially when you're

00:06:29.620 alert than you are at night while you're sleeping, right? So even without moving, just the act of being

00:06:36.040 alert and awake and at the peak of your circadian metabolic cycle is going to be burning more energy

00:06:42.660 than at your lowest point. So we can get into the weeds, you know, we can get into kind of the

00:06:47.000 nuanced weeds about how the body spends energy, but you're right. We can break it down into those

00:06:50.460 components as well. But I think the big takeaway, the majority, like you said, the majority of our

00:06:54.620 calories burned throughout the day is this BMR, this basal metabolic rate. It's just when we're at rest,

00:06:59.480 thinking, breathing, heartbeating, liver producing all the hormones that it does. That's where most

00:07:07.020 of our energy is geared towards. Okay. That's right. So let's talk about how our body takes the food we

00:07:11.800 eat and converts that into energy. So basically when we consume food, you can categorize the nutrients

00:07:18.800 in that food into three broad categories. They're called macronutrients. We got protein, carbs,

00:07:24.340 and fats and our body metabolizes these different macronutrients differently. Can you walk us

00:07:30.960 through, you know, big picture? And we don't have to get into the Krebs cycle, but big picture, like

00:07:35.580 what are the differences between how our body takes these different macronutrients and turn them into

00:07:39.760 energy so we can power our bodies? Yeah, sure. So we can start with carbs. So carbs include starches,

00:07:48.040 they include sugars. And no matter whether it's a complex carbohydrate, like you get from a potato,

00:07:53.160 or if it's a simple sugar, like you get from the sugar in your coffee, your body in your digestive

00:07:57.440 tract breaks those down into very simple sugars, things like glucose and fructose. Glucose is by

00:08:03.580 far the major simple sugar. So that's why we talk about blood glucose levels because that glucose

00:08:07.840 gets absorbed into your blood. And then really it only has a couple of places to go. It can go and

00:08:14.400 get stored as glycogen, which is kind of a short-term savings account for glucose because the glucose is

00:08:19.260 really just all about energy. It can get turned into fat if your glycogen stores are already full

00:08:24.520 because glycogen, there's a limit to how much glycogen your muscles and liver can hold, or it

00:08:28.880 can get burned as energy. And so that's what it's going to eventually end up happening is it's going

00:08:33.180 to get burned as energy. But if you're not using it right now for energy, the glucose, you can store

00:08:37.220 it as glycogen or fat. The fat that you eat will also get broken into the fatty acids and those get

00:08:44.140 stored as fat or burned. And the proteins you eat get turned into tissues like muscle tissue. You're

00:08:51.000 constantly cycling through muscle tissue because you break it down during the day and you build it back

00:08:55.160 up at night. And your other tissues need protein as well. We're kind of protein robots walking around.

00:09:00.180 We need a lot of protein to build our tissues. And then when proteins get degraded, when tissues break

00:09:05.720 down, your body will break those down into amino acids and burn those as well. But the main energy

00:09:12.660 supply for your body is the glucose and the fat. And protein is mostly a building block.

00:09:19.260 And we can get into the weeds there. Like you say, there are, for example, there are sugars that

00:09:23.140 help build your DNA. There are fats that help build your cell membrane. So things get used for different

00:09:28.500 jobs, but those are the three big jobs. Gotcha. Okay. And so I think, okay, the big takeaway here is

00:09:33.240 you literally are what you eat, right? When you eat carbs and fats, that stuff's in proteins,

00:09:39.240 it's broken down and it's powering every part of your existence. And the idea is, okay, if you eat

00:09:46.900 this stuff, you say you eat a pizza, use this example. If you eat a pizza, pizza, your body's

00:09:51.040 going to process that, break it down. You might use it right away for energy. If it doesn't need

00:09:58.140 that energy right away, if it's glucose or carbs, it's going to store it as glycogen. If the glycogen

00:10:04.300 stores are too full, well, then the body's like, okay, well, we're going to save that energy for later.

00:10:08.000 We're going to turn that into fat. We're saying with fat, you eat fat, you either use it right

00:10:12.300 away to power your body. If your body doesn't need it then, then it will store it as fat around

00:10:17.220 your belly. Is that the- That's right.

00:10:19.200 That's the basic idea. Okay. Okay. So now we have kind of this basic understanding of how

00:10:22.200 metabolism works. Let's get into your research because like I said, it's counterintuitive what

00:10:26.640 you found because I think a common idea out there that people have is that if you move your body

00:10:31.660 around a lot, you're going to burn more calories than someone who moves less. And that's exactly why

00:10:37.320 people, when they say, I'm going to start losing weight, what do they do? They sign up for the gym,

00:10:41.620 they start exercising. Yeah.

00:10:43.580 But what you've done with your field research as an anthropologist, you went to a group of hunter

00:10:48.940 gatherers in Africa called the Hasda. And you measured their daily caloric expenditure. And the 0.82

00:10:56.260 Hasda, their hunter gatherers, they're moving around all the time. They have to move to eat, 1.00

00:11:00.680 whether they're gathering tubers or hunting animals out in the wild. They've got to work a lot

00:11:06.540 to get their food. And you figured, well, they probably burn a ton of calories because they're 0.91

00:11:12.060 moving all the time. What did your research find?

00:11:15.380 Yeah, that's right. So we did this project because humans evolved as hunter gatherers.

00:11:21.680 So our species is Homo sapiens, right? So we're in this genus Homo. The genus Homo is older than us.

00:11:27.420 It's two and a half million years old. And for the last two and a half million years,

00:11:30.780 the entirety of the genus Homo's evolution, we've been hunting and gathering. And then our species,

00:11:35.340 Homo sapiens, shows up about 300,000 years ago. And we're just one more hunter gatherer group

00:11:41.500 in a hunting and gathering genus. And so if you want to understand anything about how our bodies

00:11:47.400 evolved or what our bodies are built for, a hunting and gathering community, that's the best

00:11:53.240 context you can have. Now, they're not living in the past. They're not trapped in

00:11:57.320 amber or anything like that. They're as modern humans as you and I are. But because they've

00:12:00.820 held on culturally to this hunting and gathering lifestyle, it allows you to ask, how do our

00:12:06.180 bodies work in a hunting and gathering lifestyle? So it's one of the best windows you'll get

00:12:09.800 into how our bodies were shaped for hunting and gathering. And like you say, they're incredibly

00:12:14.940 physically active. We worked with a group called the Hadza in Northern Tanzania. They get more

00:12:19.760 physical activity in a day than most Americans get in a week.

00:12:23.060 And so going into it, we thought, well, gosh, we have to understand how many calories they're

00:12:28.220 burning because obviously it's going to be a lot different than you and me.

00:12:31.540 And so we went there. We stayed the first time I went there. I went for about two months

00:12:36.200 living with them, measuring energy expenditures over the course of a week with this isotope

00:12:40.400 tracking technique, which is a really, really good empirical objective measurement of calories

00:12:44.960 burned per day. And you get it over about a week long period. So it's a really good look

00:12:49.400 at daily energy expenditure. And yeah, we got back to the States with our samples because

00:12:56.100 we use urine samples to track this stuff. We had to get them analyzed in a lab down at Baylor.

00:13:01.100 And we got the numbers back and we're shocked because Hadza men and women were burning the 1.00

00:13:08.960 same amount of energy every day as people in the US and Europe and other industrialized countries.

00:13:14.580 There was no difference. I mean, in fact, Hadza men and women are burning less energy.

00:13:19.400 Every day, fewer calories every day than men and women in the West. But once you account for body 0.98

00:13:23.660 size, they tend to be a bit shorter. So once you account for body size, it's indistinguishable.

00:13:27.520 You cannot distinguish daily energy expenditures between us and them. It's really, really remarkable.

00:13:33.740 Okay. And just to be, I want to, I want to emphasize this point. Like they on average walk

00:13:37.500 like five miles a day, I think it was like one at least. Yeah. That's the women, the men walk further. 1.00

00:13:42.160 Yeah. Absolutely. And you know, Western like me, I don't, I'm lucky if I get my 10,000 steps in

00:13:47.120 a day. Yeah. So that's a fun way to do it. The women get about 13,000 steps a day on average, 1.00

00:13:53.100 you know, often with a kid on their back. Men get about 19,000 steps a day on average.

00:13:58.180 All right. So what's going on there? How is it that they're able to burn the same amount of calories

00:14:02.640 as us not so active Westerners? What's going on? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was the big puzzle.

00:14:08.820 And so we've been trying to figure that out for the last 10 years. Here's what we know. We know that

00:14:13.560 there, there's nothing magic about the way that they're moving, right? So there we've measured the

00:14:19.100 energy cost of, of their walking. We've taken a system out there that allows us to measure the

00:14:22.820 energy cost to walk. And it's the same as you and me. So there's nothing special about their muscles

00:14:28.080 or not more efficient that way. Instead, what seems to be happening is the energy that they spend on

00:14:33.260 activity is being, rather than kind of adding on top of everything else and creating a higher

00:14:40.140 total energy expenditure per day, the energy that they're spending on, on all that activity is

00:14:44.520 taking away from other expenditures. So basically they're, they're reducing other expenditure and

00:14:51.720 other aspects of their, of their bodies to make room for this really large amount of energy spent on

00:14:58.880 daily physical activity. And like, where do you, have you been able to see where,

00:15:03.240 you know, the body's taking away what's going on? Like what, where's, where's the body reducing

00:15:07.100 caloric expenditure so we can, they can take into account that extra activity?

00:15:10.900 Yeah. So this is, this has been the focus of research over the last few years.

00:15:14.700 Here's what we know. And part of this is based on what we know from groups like the Hadza. 0.99

00:15:18.960 And part of this is what we know from other people, like, for example, athletes in the U S and

00:15:23.720 elsewhere who are also really physically active and, and in some times are easier to study because we can

00:15:28.640 get them into labs here. Here's what we know. When you're really physically active, you have lower

00:15:34.440 levels of baseline inflammation. So things like C-reactive protein and the other stuff that's,

00:15:38.900 that is your immune system kind of overreacting all the time. There's high levels of inflammation

00:15:42.880 that Westerners tend to have. It's lower in people who are really physically active. So that's your

00:15:48.700 immune system, basically dialing it back, spending less energy. If you're really physically active,

00:15:54.120 reproductive hormones, testosterone levels, estrogen levels in men and women, respectively,

00:15:59.580 are lower in groups like the Hadza and in, in athletes as well. Um, endurance athletes as well.

00:16:06.180 If you are a Hadza man or a Hadza woman, your, your reproductive hormone levels are going to be 0.91

00:16:12.620 substantial, you know, maybe like 20% lower, 30% lower than an adult, your age. There's an age effect,

00:16:18.860 of course, as well with reproductive hormones. So we're accounting for age with that.

00:16:21.860 And that's your reproductive system spending a little bit less energy on, you know, uh, keeping 1.00

00:16:27.180 its itself up. And that's, that's going to save energy. Now that doesn't mean I want to be really

00:16:32.480 clear. That doesn't mean there's fertility issues or anything like that, or that they're any less

00:16:35.820 manly than men, because they have slightly lower testosterone levels that not nothing like that,

00:16:41.020 but just the reproductive system is just taking a little bit less energy per day and really physically 1.00

00:16:45.420 active folks. And then the other big thing, and we don't have measurements of this with the

00:16:50.560 Hadza, but we do it with other physically active groups and with athletes, stress levels

00:16:54.660 and stress reaction, stress reactivity, right? So if I stress you out, I cost you on the street

00:17:01.380 and, you know, give your heart a bump and in your epinephrine levels go up, your adrenaline levels

00:17:07.180 go up, your cortisol levels go up. Or if I do that in the lab and I make you do mathematics

00:17:11.240 in public, that's a really fun way to get people to get stressed out. Your heart rate will

00:17:15.200 go up, your cortisol levels go up. But if you're an athlete, or if we think if you're

00:17:20.300 someone like the Hadza, who's physically active all the time, that reaction will be not as sharp, 0.67

00:17:25.600 not as big, and you'll go back to baseline faster. You'll spend less energy on that stress reaction

00:17:31.500 than if you are a sedentary person who doesn't exercise a lot. So these are all the different

00:17:37.700 various ways we think that the body's able to kind of take energy away from other tasks

00:17:43.880 in ways that actually are really healthy for us. We can talk about that too.

00:17:47.680 And make room for more physical activity.

00:17:51.600 I guess to help people understand this, why this is going on, basically our body's

00:17:55.120 regulation system for metabolism, it's all geared towards surviving and reproduction,

00:18:00.220 right? And so, yeah, it makes sense. Like, you know, you talk about the reproductive hormones

00:18:04.040 going down. Well, if you were facing extreme physical activity, extreme caloric expenditure,

00:18:09.700 just to survive, right? To get food, your body's like, well, we're going to prioritize

00:18:13.040 survival over reproduction a bit more. So we're going to adjust things. So, I mean,

00:18:18.260 I guess that people just understand that your body's metabolizing energy to either

00:18:21.100 to survive and reproduce, it's going to modify things to further those goals. I guess survival

00:18:26.940 is the first goal and the reproduction is number two.

00:18:29.960 Well, yeah, I mean, it depends. Some species that are short-lived, it's all about reproduction.

00:18:33.880 They'll throw away the survival piece. Humans, because we're long-lived, we're evolved to be here

00:18:38.280 for the long-term and to get through the tough times. Yeah, that's right. Well, in a bad time,

00:18:42.640 we'll focus more on the survival piece. Our bodies will. But, you know, we see this kind of

00:18:46.740 reproductive issue, reproductive effects in the Hadza. So a woman in a Hadza community, you know,

00:18:52.740 they like big families, they don't use contraception typically, but a woman will still have a kid 0.99

00:18:58.060 every, between two and three years, right? So that's without, you know, without any contraception.

00:19:05.140 In the West, women who have a kid, you know, this year, even if that woman decides to breastfeed 0.93

00:19:12.440 and is, you know, so she's nursing, if she doesn't use contraception, is likely to be pregnant again 0.95

00:19:17.920 within a year, right? So it's much, the reproductive system is actually kind of, it's dialed back a little

00:19:25.340 bit in these really physically active groups. And by the way, that's probably more, more healthy

00:19:29.600 that most guidelines for things like pregnancy say, you should put more time between pregnancies,

00:19:34.240 right? So, so that's one, you know, it's a, it's a good thing, but you can see the impact of how the

00:19:38.900 energy is being spent. And so what you guys have found, what your research has found is that basically

00:19:42.780 our bodies, all human bodies have this sort of constrained daily expenditures, like the kind of,

00:19:48.000 there's a range kind of upper limit range of how many calories you can burn through a day.

00:19:52.560 Yeah, that's right. So it's not just the HODs. I want to be clear about that. We've done,

00:19:56.880 you know, if you're a scientist and you find this really interesting result,

00:20:00.840 the first thing you assume is that you're wrong. So you got all the, you know, we've done all the

00:20:05.240 work to try to make sure that that's a really strong state, a good result for the HODs. And it

00:20:09.420 is, you can use different techniques, different approaches, you get the same answer. So the HODs 0.89

00:20:13.540 data are solid, and then you want to replicate it. You want to make sure it's not just one

00:20:18.040 society where you're seeing this or even one species. And so we've seen this in other human

00:20:23.440 groups. Now we've looked at other like farming and hunter gatherer groups and mixed groups.

00:20:28.600 You see the same thing, same daily energy expenditures as Westerners, industrialized 0.99

00:20:33.380 communities, even though they're much more physically active. We see this across species. So,

00:20:38.360 you know, we've done this study where we looked at different species of primates, monkeys and apes

00:20:42.280 and lemurs and lorises in the monkeys in a zoo from the same number, number of calories every day

00:20:48.620 as monkeys in the wild, right? You can do this in a laboratory setting. You can get mice, you can take

00:20:53.720 out their running wheel away from them for a while and then give it back. And, you know, they're less

00:20:58.860 active and they're more active and you don't see any effect on their daily energy expenditure.

00:21:02.880 So this is a really robust thing. Our bodies and probably all, all mammal species, maybe even bird

00:21:09.400 species too, seem to be built to, to really try to regulate how many calories we're burning every

00:21:14.180 day. So in humans, what's the constrained daily expenditure? Like what's the range?

00:21:18.480 Well, it's going to be a function of your body size. Bigger people will spend more energy than

00:21:21.960 small people, but women burn about 2,400 kilocalories a day. I'm saying kilocalories 1.00

00:21:27.100 because we always say calories is actually not correct, but you can, you can just replace that with

00:21:31.780 capital C big calories if you want to, but women burn about 2,400 kilocalories a day. 1.00

00:21:37.060 Men burn about 3,000 kilocalories a day. And that can vary a little bit again with your

00:21:42.320 body size. That's the biggest factor, but lifestyle has a really small effect on it.

00:21:46.340 All right. So this is across about 3,000 calories, whether you're a Hadza or some guy in New York,

00:21:51.500 your body's probably burning about three. And this, this is like total. So this includes,

00:21:55.280 this is like a BMR. So that resting based on metabolic rate and like your activity.

00:21:59.720 Yep. It includes that. It includes the energy to digest your food. It includes whatever exercise

00:22:05.380 you did. It includes, you know, taking that walk to go get a coffee. It includes the stress reaction

00:22:11.020 from your boss throwing extra work at you at five o'clock, all that stuff.

00:22:15.580 Okay. So the implication of this finding is that relying solely on exercise to lose weight

00:22:21.400 is probably not an effective strategy because you know, your body, because you exercise to burn more

00:22:26.680 calories than you're consuming. Yeah. But you're basically, we've discovered our body's going to

00:22:30.660 figure out a way to compensate for the increased physical activity so that you stay inside your

00:22:36.200 constrained daily expenditure. Yeah. There's, there's two reasons that exercise ends up being

00:22:40.300 a poor tool for weight loss. One is what we've been talking about. Your body will adjust and you

00:22:45.080 know, you're adding, you think you're adding 300 calorie kilocalories a day to your daily routine

00:22:50.460 of exercise, but you're not really because that 300 kilocalories of exercise is at least partially

00:22:55.820 being eaten up by adjustments, other places. The other thing is that even if you are able to

00:23:01.920 manage to pump your energy expenditure up a bit with exercise, especially in the short term,

00:23:07.200 because it takes a while for the body to adjust, you're going to eat those gains because your body

00:23:11.840 is also part of the system is your body's very well evolved to match energy intake with energy

00:23:19.180 expenditure. And that also happens below our conscious thought. So if you are able to increase

00:23:24.160 your metabolic rate by a bit, you're just going to eat those gains and you're going to end up

00:23:28.140 right back where you are, where your energy intake matches your energy expenditure and you're not

00:23:32.840 changing your weight at all. All right. So I'm sure people are listening to this like, well,

00:23:35.480 this is depressing, but we're going to talk about why exercise is still important.

00:23:39.280 We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.

00:23:43.380 And now back to the show. Okay. So people might hear this and think, okay, if I want to lose weight,

00:23:47.900 then exercise doesn't do anything for me. What I need to do is reduce the number of calories I take in

00:23:53.020 by a lot to lose weight, but that doesn't work either and can even backfire sometimes. So what

00:23:59.480 happens when we significantly reduce our caloric intake? Yeah. If you go on a crash diet, you know,

00:24:05.140 really like cut the calories in half kind of thing, then you're, this is another evolved

00:24:10.940 survival response. Your body says, oh my gosh, we're, we're starving. There's no food in the world

00:24:16.500 and we got to get through this lean period. And so what it'll do is without your being aware of it,

00:24:23.640 it will reduce your metabolic rate. So all those systems that you're not aware of,

00:24:28.340 your body can take the foot off the gas and spend less energy on those. And all of a sudden,

00:24:33.620 you know, you aren't burning as many calories as you were before. And not only do you feel

00:24:37.940 miserable because you've, you've, you're starving yourself, but you're actually making a, your body

00:24:42.980 is actually trying to frustrate those weight loss attempts, the weight loss effort, because it is

00:24:48.140 reducing the energy expenditure that you had before. So it's actually, you know, that, that,

00:24:51.900 that difference between the energy you're taking in and the energy you're burning gets smaller

00:24:54.760 because your body's saying, oh my gosh, we're starving, turn the energy down.

00:25:00.080 And so that we've seen this with, with the biggest losers contestants, right? Like they,

00:25:04.340 they go like, they're losing a hundred, like, I think it was like 152, like basically like a human,

00:25:10.120 they lose a human off of their body, a full grown human. And then you do the follow of like,

00:25:14.720 well, how do they do afterwards? And I think most of them gain the weight back.

00:25:19.060 They almost all do. And that's really, it's sad because of how much effort that, you know,

00:25:23.040 they put into it and how much it meant to them. But it's also kind of predictable because your body

00:25:27.880 doesn't want to change weight, right? For, you know, there have been, you know,

00:25:32.920 vertebrates were the group of animals called vertebrates. We've been around for half a billion

00:25:37.160 years. And for almost all that time, probably all of it, losing weight's been a really bad thing,

00:25:43.640 right? You're losing weight, you're on your way to dying. And so there are all these evolved

00:25:49.040 mechanisms not to lose weight, which is why it's actually the most important thing you can do for

00:25:53.420 your health is to try to not get overweight in the first place. And that's, you know, that gets us

00:25:57.520 into discussions about how we think about how we take care of our kids and how we take care of

00:26:01.120 ourselves, especially in our early, you know, in our early years. But yeah, it's really hard to

00:26:05.940 change once you do, once you're overweight, the best thing you can do is, you know, if you're

00:26:10.880 looking at behavioral strategies is to try to change your diet. But like you say, if you go too fast,

00:26:16.500 too hard and too fast, too soon, then that can backfire because your body responds to that by,

00:26:22.080 again, reducing energy expenditure and frustrating that weight loss.

00:26:26.060 Right. So yeah, the metabolism, you can't outsmart the metabolism. Like there's no,

00:26:30.860 it's going to figure things out.

00:26:32.340 Yeah. One of the biggest frustrations I have when I look at like online,

00:26:34.600 you know, self-help, here's how you're going to take charge of your metabolism and boost your

00:26:38.880 metabolism or whatever. All of this stuff, it all makes people think that they're in charge of

00:26:44.400 their metabolism, right? Which is completely not the case. Your metabolism is working behind the

00:26:49.680 scenes. It's smarter than you. And it, you know, it, it adjusts to you. You can't really

00:26:55.740 push it around in a way it'll, it'll manipulate things behind the scenes in ways that, that are

00:27:02.200 going to frustrate what you're trying to do now. And I hope we're going to talk about this. You

00:27:05.400 should still exercise. Absolutely. And if you do want to try to lose weight with diet, there's

00:27:09.920 some strategies you can take. But I think, you know, this idea that we're in the driver's seat,

00:27:15.820 you know, revving our engines, our metabolic engines in a sort of really simplistic way. And that's

00:27:19.280 how we burn calories. I wish we could move away from that because it's just not the science.

00:27:23.480 Right. So you can't speed up your metabolism. Like that's, yeah, it's really hard to do. And

00:27:27.360 basically, yeah, you can't do it. Okay. So let's talk about this. So while exercise can't be the

00:27:31.440 sole driver of weight loss, you make it very clear, you devote a whole chapter to this, like

00:27:35.200 that doesn't mean you shouldn't exercise. And you actually make the case that because of humans'

00:27:40.520 unique metabolism, maybe we can talk about how it differs from the apes because of our unique

00:27:44.940 metabolism, we actually, it's really, really important for us to move a lot.

00:27:48.560 Why is that?

00:27:50.280 Yeah. Well, so, you know, like I said, we've been evolving as hunter-gatherers for two and

00:27:53.580 a half million years and hunting and gathering takes a lot of work, you know? And so our bodies

00:27:59.440 are actually evolved to expect and require a lot of physical activity every day. It's what our

00:28:07.120 organ, you know, as a, as a evolved organism, it's what we're evolved to do. And if we don't do it,

00:28:13.440 we get sick. And so, you know, yeah, getting all those steps every day is really important.

00:28:18.900 And ape, apes are lazy, right? I mean, I've done, I've done field work with apes. I've worked with 0.79

00:28:22.800 apes in zoos. They're impressively lazy. Getting 5,000 steps a day, maybe, you know, is kind of a

00:28:29.900 typical day for, for an ape, even if you count up the climbing and all that stuff. And so, and they're

00:28:34.540 just fine like that. They, they don't get sick from being like that. In fact, a chimpanzee in a zoo

00:28:38.380 probably has less than 10% body fat. That's, that's a typical, that'd be typical for a

00:28:43.020 chimpanzee in a zoo, even though they're just sitting around. And so we, we can't do that.

00:28:47.260 If we, if we act, you know, on our ape-like impulses just to be lazy all day, yeah, we get real sick.

00:28:53.620 Yeah. That, that, that was really interesting to me is that apes in captivity don't really get fat.

00:28:58.180 Like when they eat more food, instead of, you know, turning that into body fat, apes just turning 0.98

00:29:02.320 that into lean tissue. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Humans are, it's another evolved piece of our,

00:29:07.460 you know, of our physiology. We are evolved to put on fat really, really easily. And it probably

00:29:13.160 goes hand in hand with having a faster metabolism. So we've actually evolved a faster metabolism

00:29:17.900 than apes have that allows us to have things like these big brains that we are so energetically

00:29:23.260 expensive. And we have big fat babies more, and we have them more often than apes do. That takes a 0.99

00:29:28.340 lot of energy. We are physically more active than apes. So all of this is like, so we're a high energy

00:29:32.620 ape, you know, and as a kind of a backup plan, we've also evolved this propensity to put on fat,

00:29:38.820 because if you're, you're always burning a high level of energy, you have a high metabolic rate

00:29:44.140 that you can't kind of turn down. You can't adjust much at all. As we've been talking about,

00:29:48.540 you need to have a backup in case, you know, you have periods where there's not much food

00:29:52.620 and that's where our, our body fat comes in. Right. So yeah. Okay. Okay. Just to make sure I'm

00:29:58.480 getting this right. So apes, they don't have to move around a lot to get their food. Right. So

00:30:02.140 they have a slow metabolism and there'd be no reason for them to put on body fat really, because

00:30:07.760 they would never, they would probably wouldn't be long periods of time where they wouldn't go

00:30:11.260 without food. It's like, well, I'll just grab this leaf here. Humans, we have to hunt and gather

00:30:16.000 to gather our foods. That requires a lot of energy. Yeah. And so we have to, if there's instances

00:30:20.760 where we don't have a lot of food available, our body's like, well, we need to have, we need to store

00:30:25.380 body fat in case that ever happens so that we have the energy to walk and find tubers and gazelle

00:30:31.180 again. Yeah. And reproduce and do all those things that, that we're built to do. Absolutely.

00:30:35.760 Okay. So we have to move a lock. So our body uses a lot of energy. You also highlight research that

00:30:40.200 exercise, while it isn't, isn't useful to lose weight, it's really important in maintaining weight

00:30:45.420 loss. What's going on there? Yeah, that's a really interesting piece of this. So, you know,

00:30:49.640 if you go on an exercise program tomorrow, yeah, you might lose a couple pounds over the course of a

00:30:55.060 year, but that's not the big benefit of it. Big benefit is how it kind of makes a lot of our

00:31:00.500 systems more healthy. And if you, you know, if you're able to lose the weight with, with usually

00:31:06.220 with diet as the big intervention, that exercise helps you keep it off. And we don't entirely know

00:31:12.040 why. What we think is happening is that the exercise, when you exercise, your muscles send all

00:31:19.860 these signals to your body, all these hormones and paracrines, all these things. So your body

00:31:25.360 knows you're exercising. It affects every part of your body. And one of the things we think it helps

00:31:31.520 do is regulate how hungry and how full we feel. So how much we eat. And so, you know, the kind of

00:31:39.620 exercise has this effect of keeping our hunger and fullness better regulated. So we don't overeat.

00:31:47.840 Once we've lost the weight, if you exercise, it helps you keep at that weight and not overeat and

00:31:53.940 gain all that weight back. So, yeah, I think when people, okay, I want to, there's some interesting

00:31:58.960 things going on here because our metabolism is, again, is weird. When we exercise more,

00:32:02.220 we're going to eat more because we need more energy. Right. But I think what you're saying here

00:32:06.860 is that when you exercise, like there's a better connection between the calories you need and like

00:32:12.440 your hunger levels. Right. So it's like, yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. And once,

00:32:15.820 once you've lost the weight, the energy that you need is actually less, right? Because you've lost

00:32:20.620 all that weight. And so if your body was just trying to match how much you need and how much

00:32:25.960 you're taking in, you'll match that at that lower level and maintain the weight better. That's what

00:32:31.780 we think is going on. It's actually not entirely well understood why exercise is such a good tool

00:32:36.080 for keeping weight off, but it absolutely is. That's what all the data show.

00:32:39.780 Okay. So overall exercise, it's going to help you lose a little weight,

00:32:42.740 but it's really useful in helping you keep the weight off and maintaining your weight loss.

00:32:47.980 And it's probably because it helps match your appetite to your actual caloric needs. It's

00:32:53.640 helping control those hunger signals. And something that's interesting with this research is that they

00:32:59.160 found that sedentary people, like people who don't move hardly at all, they actually eat more than those

00:33:04.840 who are active. And it's probably because their bodies have somehow become out of touch with how much

00:33:10.720 food they actually need. And then something else, we talked about Biggest Loser contestants.

00:33:15.400 Something else that's interesting with the research there is that with all the contestants,

00:33:19.080 their metabolisms dropped after the show, and then it stayed low long-term. But among those who

00:33:25.260 exercised, even though their metabolisms were low as well, they actually did the best in keeping the

00:33:31.000 weight off. And again, it's probably because of the way exercise regulates appetite.

00:33:36.040 So yeah, exercise plays a big role in weight maintenance.

00:33:40.960 The other thing that it's doing, all of the other adjustments it's doing, keeping your

00:33:44.920 inflammation levels down, your reproductive hormones in a healthier place, your stress reactivity down,

00:33:49.600 that is going to add years to your life. Those are all ways to avoid heart disease,

00:33:55.180 avoid diabetes. The things that we're most likely to die from is by exercise. So thinking about exercise

00:34:01.640 as a weight loss tool kind of misses the point. It's actually really good for all this other stuff

00:34:05.960 that's going to keep you healthy and active and add not just years to your life, but healthy,

00:34:10.700 good, vital years to your life.

00:34:12.620 Well, let's talk about diet because I think that's the way we can lose weight, right?

00:34:16.760 Just reducing calorie intake. But then there's people who have created diets based on how our

00:34:22.560 body metabolizes different macronutrients. And I think the most popular one is a low-carb,

00:34:27.300 high-fat diet. And I think the big idea is Gary Taubes' idea is like, well, the reason why you

00:34:32.200 get fat is insulin. And when you eat carbs, insulin levels spike, and it drives the storage of carbs or

00:34:39.800 fat as body fat. So you cut the carbs, you reduce the insulin, you're going to lose weight.

00:34:45.800 What does your research reveal about diet and weight loss based on a macronutrient?

00:34:52.160 Yeah, the carb idea. It's a beautiful idea. It just doesn't fit the evidence, unfortunately.

00:34:59.320 So first of all, we can say a group like the Hadza, and there are lots of them still that are 1.00

00:35:05.440 farming and hunting and gathering and doing that kind of stuff. They eat a lot of carbs. In fact,

00:35:11.280 they eat more carbs as part of their diet than people in the US do. So if it were all about carbs,

00:35:18.180 then folks like the Hadza should be incredibly obese. But of course, they're not. They're quite

00:35:23.300 healthy weight throughout their whole lives, and they don't ever gain weight in their middle and

00:35:28.020 older age. They're just fine. And so if it were really just about carbs, then groups that eat a

00:35:32.640 lot of carbs ought to be overweight. They're not. Secondly, when you do the controlled laboratory studies

00:35:40.640 and you put people on low-carb diets versus on low-fat diets, you don't see any difference in

00:35:47.660 weight loss outcomes. In fact, depending on the study, sometimes you see people do a little bit

00:35:51.560 better on low-fat. But the main outcome is that you just don't see any difference at all.

00:35:57.460 If you cut calories by cutting carbs or you cut the calories by cutting fats, you get the same

00:36:01.240 outcomes. And the third is, if you do a study where you take people and you randomly assign them

00:36:07.980 to a low-fat diet or low-carb diet, this has been done a few times now, there's no difference in

00:36:16.060 outcomes. People, again, lose weight just as easily, just as well on low-fat as they do on low-carb

00:36:22.840 diets. And so there's just really no... The carbohydrate insulin model of obesity, which is

00:36:29.140 the Gary Taubes idea, it's been tested in a lot of different ways. And it's a beautiful idea. It's very

00:36:34.080 elegant. It just doesn't work. It just doesn't fit the data. Now, low-carb diets work for a lot

00:36:39.260 of people. That's a different question, right? The question is, why are they working and how do

00:36:44.380 they work? And the answer is, basically, you're cutting calories. But that doesn't mean that the

00:36:49.200 mechanism that's been proposed, this insulin-based mechanism, is really what it's all about because

00:36:52.640 that just doesn't bear out. All right. So again, you can't trick your body, your metabolism.

00:36:58.080 Well, no, I think this is a different thing about tricking, right?

00:36:59.940 So the counter-argument from the folks like Gary Taubes would be like, oh, well, you're saying

00:37:07.020 all calories are the same. You're saying that it doesn't matter what you eat. Is that what you're

00:37:10.240 saying? And the answer is, well, no, no, we're not saying 100 kilocalories of broccoli is going to

00:37:17.780 affect us differently and feel different than 100 kilocalories of potato chips, right? So in both

00:37:23.940 those cases, those are very carb-heavy foods. And so the kinds of foods you eat matter, but all the

00:37:31.160 evidence says that the way that you feel full on fewer calories, which is really the goal to lose

00:37:35.740 weight with diet, is that we have to think about the way that those calories affect our brains,

00:37:41.360 right? So we talked about how your brain is really well adapted to match the calories in and the

00:37:45.280 calories out, to match our fullness and hunger to our weight. The way that you kind of push that

00:37:52.540 system to lose weight without feeling miserable is to find foods that make you feel full on fewer

00:37:59.500 calories. So things like higher fiber foods can help, higher protein foods can help. That's where

00:38:04.780 low-carb diets come in. By the way, you take a whole macronutrient group out and you give yourself

00:38:10.160 foods that you typically have a lot of protein in them and you feel better. You feel full on fewer

00:38:14.380 calories. That's why low calories work for some people. Yeah. So that's what we're talking about

00:38:18.460 here. So we're not saying that foods don't have different effects, that kind of stuff. Of course

00:38:23.660 they do. But do all diets work through the insulin pathway or do they work through manipulating the

00:38:29.780 way our bodies feel, our brains feel? That seems to be the more likely mechanism.

00:38:34.680 Yeah. We had Steven Guine on the podcast a while back ago and he talked about this,

00:38:37.980 right? Like our brain, how it feels about our food that we're eating. And one of the interesting

00:38:43.600 takeaways I got from him was one thing you can do is just eat like less palatable food because

00:38:47.960 like palatable food, like you just want to eat a lot of it, right? Like we're talking about Doritos

00:38:50.820 and cheeseburgers. Like, oh, I just want to keep, but it's like, if you look at the diet of like the

00:38:55.360 Hadza, it's like the most boring thing. There's no spices. It's just like, well, I'm going to eat a

00:38:59.800 tuber. It's kind of burnt and like some zebra. Yeah. That's just gross. And so it's usually like,

00:39:04.540 well, I'll eat enough to get the energy I need to do what I got to do, but I'm not going to.

00:39:09.100 So one takeaway is just like eat a, instead of eating a potato chip, eat a baked potato. Yeah, that's right.

00:39:13.600 I mean, there's actually a great, you know, set of, most of it's anecdotal because nobody,

00:39:18.420 no real nutritionist would ever recommend this diet. And I'm not to be clear, but there's great

00:39:22.980 anecdotal evidence of people who just eat potatoes and lose, you know, lots of weight that way, you

00:39:28.560 know, hundreds of pounds sometimes, because if all you eat is potatoes, guess what? You are sick of

00:39:33.180 potatoes well before you have overeaten your calories that day. And so that's one way to do it

00:39:39.960 for sure. And I think that's what low carb is doing as well, right? You take a whole

00:39:43.320 class of foods, you know, off the menu and you know, how much steak can you eat? You know,

00:39:48.940 how much spinach can you eat? You're just, you're going to feel full before you overconsume.

00:39:54.440 And, and that's, that's a great way to go for some people that works really well,

00:39:57.820 but it's not the only way to go. And it's not because of this kind of carbohydrate insulin

00:40:02.020 magic. I think it's much more about our brains than that.

00:40:06.960 So I think another common idea people have about metabolism. So, okay. I guess, okay.

00:40:11.260 We kind of debunked a lot of things, right? Exercise isn't going to do much for you to lose

00:40:15.520 weight diet, you know, basing a diet on a macronutrient, probably not, it's not going

00:40:20.640 to do anything for you. I think another popular idea people have about metabolism is as you

00:40:24.900 get older, it slows down. That's why people when they're 50 or 60, you got the belly.

00:40:31.100 Is that true? Does our metabolism slow down?

00:40:33.540 You know, man, I'm in my forties and I was really sure that one was true. And then we just

00:40:38.160 recently did this big study. We took measurements from 6,400 and some people. And those are people

00:40:44.640 from, you know, people who had just been born eight days old up to folks who were in their

00:40:48.400 nineties. And what we did is we were able to use that big, big data set to measure how many calories

00:40:54.320 people burn every, over the course of a day and ask how that changes over a lifespan.

00:41:00.560 What we found was that your metabolism is really steady and stable between about 20 years old

00:41:08.960 and about 60. And so there's no slowdown in your thirties and forties that we were able to detect at

00:41:15.700 all. Yeah, that turns out to be another one of these myths. So that, you know, that's not to say

00:41:21.280 that it feels the same to be 44 as it does to be 24. I can attest to that, but it's not metabolism.

00:41:28.260 It's not the energy burning that's changing. It's, it's something else. It's about, you know,

00:41:31.620 stress levels or hormone levels, that kind of thing. Uh, so, but it does start slowing down

00:41:36.100 after 60 at 60. Yeah. And that's really interesting because 60 is also kind of that inflection point

00:41:41.980 where people start to, you know, people get into their sixties, seventies, eighties. That's when you

00:41:46.040 see your risk of different, you know, different diseases, pick up heart disease, Alzheimer's disease,

00:41:53.260 other diseases that we associate with aging. That's, those are when those really start to

00:41:58.620 kick in is after 60. And we're seeing your metabolic rate decline too. What does that mean?

00:42:03.400 That your cells are slowing down, right? That's what your metabolic rate, we started off by talking

00:42:07.200 about what metabolism is. It's all your cells at work. When we see that metabolism is starting to

00:42:11.840 slow down, well, that's telling us our cells are doing less work and man, we would love to know

00:42:18.100 exactly what's happening there. What's, what's changing that is, you know, is either promoting

00:42:26.420 or just kind of signaling and telling us about these changes in how our cells work that seem

00:42:31.400 to be related to the disease risk that we see picking up there. Because maybe, you know, maybe

00:42:35.680 we could find a way to keep our cells burning more energy and keep them at a younger state.

00:42:41.340 Maybe that would be protective against disease. I don't know, but it's a, yeah, something we need

00:42:45.940 to look into next is figuring out exactly why that, why that decline happens. And is that telling us

00:42:50.360 about healthy aging? I suspect it is, but we're going to have to have more work to figure that out.

00:42:55.860 Well, one idea that crossed my mind when you told me that at 60, it starts going down. That would

00:42:59.760 make sense if we understand that metabolism is about survival and reproduction. If you're over 60,

00:43:06.380 especially for women, like that's reproductions out off the table, like your body doesn't need 1.00

00:43:10.760 calories for reproduction.

00:43:12.600 Yeah. So that's interesting, right? Because menopause typically happens when women are in 1.00

00:43:17.140 their forties, late forties. So actually from an evolutionary perspective, that last 15 years,

00:43:24.400 if we go to 60, let's say, that's kind of hard to explain. And what that seems to be about is that

00:43:31.060 the elders in our communities, and this is true in the Hadza, and this is also true here in the States,

00:43:35.680 and it's true, you know, historically and across cultures. Folks who are in their later middle age

00:43:41.220 are doing a lot of work and helping out their own kids and helping out the next generation.

00:43:47.180 And that seems to be really important. So we have this evolved strategy to share and to help.

00:43:54.020 It's one thing you cannot escape when you go to work with a Hadza. They're always sharing, 1.00

00:43:58.380 they're always helping each other out. And it's not just being nice, it is baked in to being a human,

00:44:03.500 right? And I love that about kind of the way the doors that this kind of metabolism work opens up,

00:44:08.740 you're like, oh my gosh, hunting and gathering, right? Like, it's not just one or the other,

00:44:13.480 you have to do it together. And that comes out of every celebration you've ever had, I bet,

00:44:18.660 involves hanging out with other people and sharing stuff, sharing food, sharing birthday cake,

00:44:22.740 right? That's what's been so hard about all the social distancing with COVID is we're built to be

00:44:27.220 social and together and sharing. Anyway, so getting up to 60 actually gets you past

00:44:33.640 your reproductive years for most of us. And that makes sense because again, it's really,

00:44:38.900 we need to work together. Maybe at 60 is around the time that most folks in hunting, gathering

00:44:45.120 communities, mortality rates kind of kick in at a higher rate there. And maybe that's kind of what

00:44:50.420 we're evolved to get to at least 60. And then the rest of that time you're in the bonus,

00:44:55.060 if you're in a hunting and gathering group, that would fit the mortality data all right.

00:44:59.540 So that's an interesting idea. But I do think it's clearly, it's an evolved piece of our

00:45:03.720 physiology. It's not something we decide to do is just slow down at 60. Our cells are built to start

00:45:07.780 doing that. All right. So what's a person supposed to do with this information, right? If someone's

00:45:11.780 listening to this and they think, well, I need to lose some weight, how should this research guide

00:45:14.980 their approach to losing weight? Yeah. Well, I think that a couple of things, you got to start

00:45:19.720 thinking about diet and exercise as two different tools, two different jobs, right?

00:45:24.280 Diet is your best tool for weight loss. Exercise is your best tool for staying healthy, especially

00:45:30.900 as you age. And there's some crossover there, but those are the main strengths of those two

00:45:36.040 approaches. For diet, if you want to lose weight, focus on foods that make you feel full

00:45:42.020 with fewer calories. And so we know what that looks like. I don't study diet per se, but lots of

00:45:49.400 people do. And if you look at that literature, people like Kevin Hall have shown stay away from

00:45:54.080 processed foods, the ultra processed foods, the Doritos, right? The sugary beverages, not because

00:46:00.420 of a carb or a fat or whatever, but the whole package is built, literally built, engineered

00:46:05.900 to make you overeat, right? They want you to overconsume. So whole foods, if you can do it,

00:46:12.640 and foods that are high in fiber or high in protein tend to make you feel full on less.

00:46:17.860 And the other thing I hear a lot about from people who are dietitians and work with people with

00:46:21.860 obesity is try to find the parts of your day that you're eating and you're not even hungry,

00:46:27.360 right? I mean, I know that, for example, when I get home from work, I get the kids in bed

00:46:32.400 and I finally have a little bit of time to breathe. I'll tell you what I do. I sit down on the couch,

00:46:41.120 catch them on work emails or watch TV or something like that, read a book, and I have a beer.

00:46:45.940 Now, I don't need that beer. And if I was trying to lose weight, that'd be one of the first places

00:46:52.260 I'd go is I would cut that beer out because I'm not hungry. I'm not even thirsty. If I was thirsty,

00:46:57.240 I could have some water, right? You know what I mean? But that's just calories that I'm just

00:47:00.520 doing out of habit that don't have any nutritional impact on me at all other than the calories.

00:47:06.320 So that's the focus you got to take if you want to lose weight.

00:47:09.080 And no extreme calorie cutting because that was just...

00:47:11.540 No, I think that's a mistake. I think cutting your calorie intake by a half,

00:47:15.520 for example, or by a third, yeah, you'll see some effects faster, I suppose, maybe,

00:47:22.960 but you'll also really mess up your metabolism. Your metabolism will slow down. Your body will freak

00:47:26.920 out, go into starvation mode, reduce your expenditure. And there's no way to go. It's

00:47:32.020 also unsustainable, right? You will feel hungry. You'll feel miserable. And those feelings will win

00:47:39.680 out. And you'll go back to your old ways. You'll think, oh, gosh, it didn't work. Well,

00:47:44.280 it didn't work because, in part, because it wasn't sustainable to begin with.

00:47:49.100 Well, Herman, this has been a great conversation. Is there someplace people can go to learn more

00:47:51.940 about the book and your work?

00:47:53.440 Well, yeah. I hope they'll check out the book. You can get that anywhere you buy books,

00:47:56.440 your local bookstore or places like Amazon. You can check us out here at Duke University.

00:48:01.240 I'm on the... We've got a website here for the lab. You can find out what research we're into

00:48:04.580 right now. And I'm on Twitter. I'm on social media generally, but Twitter is where I'm most

00:48:09.620 active at Herman Ponser.

00:48:11.220 Fantastic. Well, Herman Ponser, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:48:13.680 Thank you. It was really fun.

00:48:15.520 My guest here is Dr. Herman Ponser. He's the author of the book, Burn. It's available

00:48:18.800 on Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about his work at

00:48:22.040 our show notes at awim.is slash burn, where you find links to resources where you delve deeper

00:48:26.180 into this topic.

00:48:34.060 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website

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00:49:07.020 McKay. Remind you on the list of the AOM podcast, put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - April 11, 2022

The New Science of Metabolism and Weight Loss

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