The Weight Loss Scientist: You've Been LIED To About Calories, Dieting & Losing Weight: Giles Yeo

1. 0:00 – 2:43

   Intro

   1. SBSteven Bartlett0:00

      Do we get fatter with age? (drums play)

   2. GYDr Giles Yeo0:01

      Yes. (whoosh sound) Between 20 and 50 years old, the average person will gain about 15 kilos in weight. (whoosh sound)

   3. SBSteven Bartlett0:09

      I don't wanna be that guy. What can I do?

   4. GYDr Giles Yeo0:11

      Okay, so- (bell rings) Dr. Giles Yeo.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett0:14

      He's the world-leading expert on fat and how to burn it.

   6. GYDr Giles Yeo0:16

      His book is called Why Calories Don't Count. What you eat does matter. (bell rings)

   7. SBSteven Bartlett0:21

      Let's talk about how we fix the obesity. How we burn fat. Mm. How we all get into a healthy weight. (bell rings)

   8. GYDr Giles Yeo0:27

      Everyone's brain hates it when they lose weight. We're talking even a few pounds. It goes, "This is reducing my chance of survival." The moment you stop the diet, the weight will come back on. (drums play)

   9. SBSteven Bartlett0:36

      Calories are not accurate. What's the truth?

   10. GYDr Giles Yeo0:40

       The calorie tells you absolutely nothing. Zero. (whoosh sound) So if you actually look at a stick of celery, raw, it's got only six calories. (whoosh sound) If you cook the celery, that six calories becomes 30 calories. (whoosh sound) Understand the limitations and caveats of calorie counting. (bell rings)

   11. SBSteven Bartlett0:56

       Veganism. (whoosh sound) What are the general stereotypes that need addressing?

   12. GYDr Giles Yeo1:00

       Veganism, plant-based in particular, is a diet for the privileged people who can choose to do so. We do not need everyone to be vegan. (whoosh sound)

   13. SBSteven Bartlett1:08

       Sustainable weight loss. What is the way that you would suggest to do that? The simple way?

   14. GYDr Giles Yeo1:13

       Okay. It is the set of numbers that you can apply to whatever diet you like. So the first is- (bell rings)

   15. SBSteven Bartlett1:20

       Let's talk about something else which I feel like I was lied to about-

   16. GYDr Giles Yeo1:23

       Oh, God. (laughs)

   17. SBSteven Bartlett1:24

       ... which is juice.

   18. GYDr Giles Yeo1:25

       Oh, yes. (drums play)

   19. SBSteven Bartlett1:28

       I just wanna start this episode with a message of thanks. A thank you to everybody that tunes in to listen to this podcast. By doing so, you've enabled me to live out my dream, but also for many members of our team to live out their dreams too. It's one of the greatest privileges I could never have dreamed of or imagined in my life to get to do this, to get to learn from these people, to get to have these conversations, to get to interrogate them from a very selfish perspective, trying to solve problems I have in my life. So, I feel like I owe you a huge thank you for being here and for listening to these episodes and for making this platform what it is. Can I ask you a favor? I can't tell you how much, um, you can change the course of this podcast, the, the, the course of the guests we're able to invite to the show, and to the course of everything that we do here just by doing one simple thing. And that simple thing is hitting that subscribe button. Helps this channel more than I could ever explain. The guests on this platform are incredible because so many of you have hit that button. And I know when we think about what we wanna do together over the next year on this show, a lot of it is gonna be fueled by the amount of you that are subscribed and that tune into this show every week. So, thank you. Let's keep doing this. And I can't wait to see what this year brings for this show, for us as a community, and for this platform. (electronic music)

2. 2:43 – 6:36

   Professional bio

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:43

      Giles.

   2. GYDr Giles Yeo2:44

      Hello.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett2:45

      A pleasure to sit with you. I've been a big fan of your work for a very long time, and I've consumed many of your YouTube videos, conversations you've had, interviews, and these fantastic books you've written. But I wanna, I wanna start by asking you to give me a bit of an overview of your academic journey as a, um, as a researcher, um, as a graduate of Cambridge, and a f- an overall flavor of the work you do, the experience you have, and the expertise you have.

   4. GYDr Giles Yeo3:13

      So, so I am, uh, I'm from San Francisco. Um, that's where I did my high school. I did my undergraduate where I studied, um, genetics. That's what, that's what I studied as an, as, as an undergrad. Then I came to Cambridge to do my PhD. Um, and I worked on the genetics of the Japanese puffer fish, fugu riprapis. I, I know. I know. So there's a long reason why I did that, but I was looking at molecular evolution. Um, so, and I was well-trained as a geneticist, but then I realized that (laughs) genetics of puffer fish was not gonna pay my mortgage. And it was at this point I needed a job. So I finished my PhD. I, I went knocking on doors, actually. I didn't look at any adverts or anything. I just went the department. I says, "Do you know what? I'm just gonna see if anyone has a job." And the second door I knocked on was a guy named Steven Ratley, and he had just identified the very first obesity gene in humans when mutated caused really severe obesity. This was 1998. Um, and I joined his lab. I was, I was from a famous lab. I was a geneticist. He needed, um, he had just found the first obesity genetics genes. He needed a geneticist. That's how I got into genetics of obesity. So that's how I started. And then I started with the genetics of severe childhood obesity. So, um, kids who are three years old but 100 pounds. So, so this is not... We, we're not talking just a little bit chubby, just, just drink too much, uh, Coca-Cola type, type of things. I mean, these are mutations which cause really, really severe obesity. That's where, that's where I started my career.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett4:46

      Where they can't stop eating.

   6. GYDr Giles Yeo4:47

      They can't stop eating because, in particular, so because they lack the signal between fat and the brain. There is a signal. There's a hormone which lets your brain know how much fat you're carrying.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett5:02

      Wow.

   8. GYDr Giles Yeo5:02

      That's important because how much fat you're carrying is how long you would last in the wild if there was no food. So if your food source was to stop today. So it's an important piece of information. But if you lack that signal, like some of these children do, this is one of the 100-pound kids I was telling you about, then what they have is a brain that thinks that they're starving, because now there's no signal. So the brain thinks they have no fat. When don't you have any fat? When you're starving. And so these poor kids who we think and we judge, "Look at that fat kid. What is that? Look, the parents don't care about them." Right? Because there is a mutation, the signal is broken, the child cannot control their diet. That's what I started studying, um, um, 30 years ago, sorry, 25 years ago.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett5:47

      Fascinating. What happened next in terms of your academic journey?

   10. GYDr Giles Yeo5:51

       I began to move away from extreme obesity-... to look at all body weight, whether or not you were skinny, medium-sized, or large. And secondly, I also began to think, "I can't just hide myself in a lab and do this, because otherwise there are becoming people thinking that this kid's fault that he is a hundred pounds." Or someone might be a BMI of 30, someone might be 10 pounds overweight and think it's th- their fault as well. Um, that was, for me, a big turning point to change what I was doing, what I was studying, to make it more general, um, and to also begin to do things like, uh, uh, do podcasts, like to speak, speak to you, and write books and do... so do things more broadly and speak to people outside the academic environment.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett6:35

       And

3. 6:36 – 10:41

   Why did you decide to focus on food?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett6:36

      you've done a number of shows on the BBC and documentaries, right?

   2. GYDr Giles Yeo6:39

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett6:40

      I, I, I found three at least. Um, the first one in 2016 called Why Are We Getting So Fat?

   4. GYDr Giles Yeo6:46

      Mm-hmm.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett6:46

      In 2017, Clean Eating: The Dirty Truth. And in 2018, Vitamin Pills: Miracle or Myth?

   6. GYDr Giles Yeo6:52

      Mm-hmm.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett6:53

      And o- obviously as well, you've written these two fantastic books called Why Calories Don't Count and Gene Eating. So my question becomes, why, why did you focus on food? Why did you care personally enough to pursue, with such persistence, the topic of food? Why is that personal to you? You could have done anything with your, with your intelligence. Why food?

   8. GYDr Giles Yeo7:13

      So, oh, well, first of all, I love food (laughs) .

   9. SBSteven Bartlett7:15

      Yeah.

   10. GYDr Giles Yeo7:15

       S- so, so, so there's that. I do, I, I do love food. But actually, no, we followed the biology. So we now understand, more broadly, that when we study the genetics of body weight, we are, by its very definition, studying the genetics of how our brain influences our feeding behavior. So there was an academic reason f- uh, uh, um, for this. So just as an example, why do some people respond to stress by eating, whereas other people respond to stress by not eating? It's exactly the same hormone, but people literally respond in diametric opposite fashions. Okay? Why do people love food? Some people use food as fuel, et cetera, et cetera. And so on my academic side, I began to try and understand the mechanisms. I was interested in that. But then it got me thinking about food. It got me thinking, "Well, hang on a second. When I travel," just as an example, um, particularly pre-COVID, "and I end up in an airport somewhere international, O'Hare in, in Chicago or something like that, and I'm transferring planes, for whatever reason, I have to... I, I find myself having to... I get stressed a little bit. I find myself having to eat a big bowl of carbs, particularly rice or noodles." And I was thinking about this. This became a habit. Whatever airport I'm in, particularly if I was transiting, I would try and find the closest place I could get a big bowl of noodles. In fact, ju- just before I came here, what I had for, what I had for lunch, I went to Bone Daddy's to have ramen. So, so that's-

   11. SBSteven Bartlett8:37

       Were you stressed?

   12. GYDr Giles Yeo8:37

       ... e- exactly that. I, I was... No, I wasn't stressed, but-

   13. SBSteven Bartlett8:39

       (laughs)

   14. GYDr Giles Yeo8:39

       ... but I was trying to relax.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett8:42

       Okay.

   16. GYDr Giles Yeo8:42

       And so that was what really got me and so I says, "Well, hang on a second. What is it about food that makes me relax and calm and that I love? And then, what is it about food that makes some people so angry?" You know, we're almost religious, almost evangelical about it, and that is where I started thinking, there is a link here between what I do in my day job in the lab, and I teach, and I, and what have you, and what I think about, you know, from broadcasting, from writing. And that is when I says, "Do you know, if I'm gonna do something, I want to enjoy it." I love food, I research food, I, I, y- you know, I write about food. That's the reason why, because, because I love it and I thought that it was an... I wanted to know more about myself, and hence, then more about other people as well.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett9:29

       You referenced your day job there. What is your day job as we sit here today?

   18. GYDr Giles Yeo9:33

       So m- my day job is, I'm a professor at the University of Cambridge, and I teach and I research there. So that's my day job. Um, and I have a, I have a group, and we study how the brain controls food intake through using cells, using molecules. So that's the day job. I, I say that. I mean, this is obviously... (laughs) I mean, the writing i- is also a job, obviously, but it's, it's, it's what I do in my spare time. And actually, what's interesting is, it's what has made me, I think, a better scientist. I think too many scientists lose perspective. And that... No, that's fine, right? I mean, I mean, I'm not more brilliant than, than... There are many more, much more brilliant people than me. But I think people do lose perspective, and I think you need to go out, out of the lab, you need to speak to... You need to ask what people are interested in in a broader, broader society, what they understand about what you do. And so that's, that, that's the reason why I do what I do, and why I say the day job versus this, even though I merge it all together.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett10:32

       You've been studying food, genetics, these topics for almost three decades. Is that accurate?

   20. GYDr Giles Yeo10:37

       Um, since 1998, 25 years.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett10:39

       Okay.

   22. GYDr Giles Yeo10:40

       Mm-hmm.

4. 10:41 – 19:18

   How has our perspective on food changed since you started?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett10:41

      Where are we in terms of culture, um, as it relates to our opinion and perspective on food? Do you know what I mean by that? Like, if you started 25 years ago, when you observe how society views food, the relationship it has with it, versus your perspective today, where are we today?

   2. GYDr Giles Yeo11:02

      I think it depends. I, I think there is a polar response to food, b- much. We are in a polarized society, we live in today, and I think the same is true about food. I think... I'm... I would like to think there are people who enjoy food, who love food. We, we watch MasterChef, we watch cooking programs, we love the food. You know, we... Everyone loves Nigella, that kind of thing. But then, equally, I don't know if there's the same number of people, there are also people who fear food. Okay? Now, I study obesity. I do study obesity. Um, and I know that most of the non-infectious diseases we suffer from today is because of poor diet. Most of it. Obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, certain heart diseases, cancers, et cetera. Okay? This is true. And so undoubtedly, we need to know more about our diets and we need to fix the diet that we actually do it. But I don't do it through fearing food. I do it about understanding food, about loving food, about learning how to cook food better, sourcing better food, that kind of thing, right? Whereas there are a lot of people in society...... who are talking about restriction of food, removing entire food groups. Um, saying that this is the only way to eat, if you don't eat this way, it is the, not the right way. Um, so I think we are in a polar situation, where in one, on the one hand, we cannot consume enough food, uh, uh, uh, tellies and cookbooks and- and everything, but yet there is a huge section of society that fears food so much that they, that diet has become this toxic, um, um, word, whenever we talk about diets. So, I think that's where we are at the moment. We are in a polar situation.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett12:40

      I read, I read this word over and over again in your work called orthorexia.

   4. GYDr Giles Yeo12:45

      Hmm.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett12:45

      What does orthorexia mean?

   6. GYDr Giles Yeo12:47

      So orthorexia is a type of eating disorder. People would have heard of anorexia, okay? People would have heard of bulimia. So anorexia clearly is a, is a controlling thing where you don't want to eat. Bulimia is there's the binging and there's the purging. Orthorexia is a fear of not eating properly. It is another, I think it's an- uh, uh, look, I'm not a- a psychologist and- and a psychiatrist, and I'm not an eating disorder expert, but I think it stems from the same, um, from the same root. There is an, there is an effort to con- wanting to control something that you feel like you need to control. Some people try and control their diets. Other people pick something. It doesn't have to be, I mean, you could say, "I want to be vegan, or plant-based, or I want to be keto, or I want to do carnivore," whatever it is you want to do, but then you become so hung up on it that if it's not exactly perfect, if it's not exactly like- like, right, you don't eat it. So that is orthorexia, where suddenly you have to have the burger, but it's only cooked this way. It is a, for lack of a better term, it is a analogous to obsessive-compulsive behavior, but specifically with regards to the way you prepare and are willing to eat that specific food.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett14:03

      I read something, um, in your first book-

   8. GYDr Giles Yeo14:06

      Hmm.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett14:06

      ... ab- about orthorexia, gene eating, I believe it was this book, um, in chapter 10, where you cite a study of hundreds and hundreds of women that follow food-eating accounts on Instagram, and I think the study concludes that about 49% of the women that follow food-eating accounts or food accounts on Instagram have what you would describe as orthorexia, um, which is startling, 'cause that's 50, that's half the pop- half the population that follow those Instagram accounts have this fear of messing up with their diet.

   10. GYDr Giles Yeo14:42

       But if you look, I mean, Instagram, I think, is a very interesting thing. I mean, first of all, I th- uh, as far as I understand, someone may correct me if I'm wrong, the majority of Instagram users are female-

   11. SBSteven Bartlett14:52

       Yeah.

   12. GYDr Giles Yeo14:52

       ... um, um, um, they're still... and actually, the biggest, I think, probably, what? What are the two biggest Instagram, um, uh, styles that are there? Th- we talk about food or you talk about fitness. Tho- those are the two big things.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett15:05

       Mm-hmm.

   14. GYDr Giles Yeo15:05

       There's- there's many other things as well. And you're absolutely right. When you actually look at... In fact, if I look at my Instagram followers, okay, just- just when you go to- to the little things, 89% are women. Now, there's no reason to follow, I just want to point out, there's no reason to- to- to follow me other than the fact that I talk about diets all the time. 89%, really? I mean- I mean, I think that... So if you consider me and I talk about food, okay, and suddenly I'm some ne- ne- you know, Joe Schmoe Nobody from Cambridge who just, who writes about food and 89% are women, then what happens if you actually begin to talk about diets, and- and it is, it's- it's- it is true, and a huge number of them, it's easy... You know, I look, I look at Instagram too, and clearly my pictures are gonna be a little bit blah, but there's some very, very well-curated Instagram pictures. The- the- the food is beautiful, the people are beautiful, um, and, but that's the purpose, right? It's- it's sort of like a little ad- advertisement campaign. But I think there are many, many people, even though they know, because people know, "I'm looking at a curated, curated item," which I think deep down inside think that this could be real and this could be them. And I think when you take people who are susceptible to this obsessive-compulsive, to- who are susceptible to eating disorders, and you suddenly put that in front of- of someone, then I think you- y- y- it can be triggering for some people.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett16:24

       For me, I, my sort of confusion with food and dieting and weight loss and all of these things stems from almost getting too much advice. And I think if you hang around on Instagram for long enough, if you hang around just for like maybe a day or two, you would hear so much conflicting advice on what the right thing to do is, this diet, paleo, keto, you should eat these plants and not eat that, don't eat meat, you don't... and you, eventually you go, "Fuck it, I can't eat anything." You know, if you listen to that much advice, you go, "Well, I can't eat anything." And that st- stifles you to a point where you're like, you're eating lettuce, but then you realize you're not ge- you know, and it's just, "What can I eat?" And that, the more food advice I've consumed, the less confident I've become in what I can eat, interestingly. I think when I was naive and ignorant, I was happier (laughs) in terms of the orthorexia you described, that like fear of messing up on my diet.

   16. GYDr Giles Yeo17:15

       I- I think the- the re- the real answer is this, the reason there is so much conflicting advice is because there is no one singular right diet. I think there's some general principles we can probably agree with.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett17:28

       Okay.

   18. GYDr Giles Yeo17:28

       We probably eat too much sugar. We probably need to not eat so much, uh, um, we need to eat a little bit less meat, and we need to eat more vegetables. Okay? So look, if I say those three things, is anyone going to an- if anyone going to argue with me? No. Because it's a, it's- it's... and that's probably one of the gen- some of the general rules.But if you then begin to apply it into your own self, then the problem with eating, the problem with eating is everyone is an expert at eating, by its very definition. You're an expert at eating, I'm an expert at eating, long enough for us to be sat here having this conversation. And so when I eat a certain way, and I look at someone else... And, and eating is a very visible thing. Ev- It's, it's an open event. And not only that, you then see what the person looks like, okay? Then in your head... And we are human beings, simple. We are nothing but mammals. We think red berry, poison. Blue berry, lion. Whatever, right? And so you look, "Look at that fat person eating. He's eating something." And so we begin to judge other people based on what we're talking about. And now, the major issue is most people keep their mouth shut, mind their own business, and eat- and do what, and do what they're doing. But then you get loud, opinionated people who go onto Instagram and say that, "Look at that person. They're eating the wrong way. The right way is the way I eat. Look at me, I have a six-pack." You know, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that's the problem. So the reason why the information is conflicting is because there is no one singular right diet, so it is gonna be conflicting. You have... People have to find a right diet for themselves, not only biologically, psychologically, but also lifestyle-wise. Because if, because if you don't find the right diet for you, you're never ever gonna be able to stick to it and, and thrive from it because you, you, you're just not. So I think that is the major problem. That's my biggest message, if anything, is there's no right diet.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett19:10

       So on this, on that point of there being no right diet-

   20. GYDr Giles Yeo19:12

       Mm-hmm.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett19:12

       ... a lot of that, I guess, is because we have genetic differences.

   22. GYDr Giles Yeo19:16

       That's one element of it. There are genetic differences.

5. 19:18 – 23:59

   Genes & the link between obesity

   1. GYDr Giles Yeo19:18

   2. SBSteven Bartlett19:18

      Let's start there then.

   3. GYDr Giles Yeo19:19

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett19:19

      With my genetic makeup-

   5. GYDr Giles Yeo19:22

      Yep.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett19:23

      ... um, how might there be differences in my genetic makeup that make my relationship with food and eating and weight loss different from yours?

   7. GYDr Giles Yeo19:32

      Oh, okay. I, I probably don't have as good an answer. Genetics does not have as, as good an answer about why different people eat differently, aside from cultural differences at the moment. Okay? So, so the genetics. The reason behind that is because it's very difficult to accurately determine what someone has eaten in order to do genetics. What we do know, because we can a- actually observe, is how people of different ethnicities have, are susceptible to different diseases. So famously, um, East Asian people, people that look like me, South Asian people, um, Indian, Pakistanis, uh, uh, Bangladeshis, cannot get as large BMI-wise before becoming at risk of type 2 diabetes, right, compared to white people, Polynesians famously, okay, who can get pretty large before they actually end up ge- getting diseases. So that's a classic example where this is why South Asian people, East Asian people have a higher predisposition of diabetes even though obesity is not particularly a big thing in their, um, in, in, in their cultures. But then you then begin to look at body shape. That does, that does matter as, uh, matter as well. Where do you put your fat? Do you tend to put the fat on your bum, on your tummy? You know, what is your, um... H- how tall are you, how short are you? And all of these things which we can see visually, we, we, we, we can see, um, there are people who are then susceptible or not susceptible to specific diseases. Other things, you can't see, okay? Why, um, are African Americans, for example, more likely to end up with cardiovascular, heart disease, okay, less likely with diabetes? Whereas why are Indians, you, you know more... And so that you then begin to ask the question, and there we have genetics.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett21:15

      What about in terms of, um, this obese gene? I read in chapter two of your book that there is a gene for obesity.

   9. GYDr Giles Yeo21:24

      There are more than a thousand genes for body weight. The obese gene in chapter two which I talk about is this leptin gene, is this gene which lets your brain know how much fat you have.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett21:34

       Ah, okay.

   11. GYDr Giles Yeo21:34

       So that's the exact gene. Leptin is the gene that I talk about in chapter two with the obese. It's called the obese gene because the mouse was called obese. There was a lack of imagination, um, um, be- because the mouse was a naturally occurring mouse, um, that, that had a mutation in the same gene. Scientists found out what that was and then found out that it was conserved in humans, and that's where my boss, Steve Arati, then came in and found that that m- gene was also mutated in, in some humans. So that's the obese gene. It's the, it's the, it's the fat gene. Fat gene, meaning gene from fat, that lets your brain know how much fat you have.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett22:09

       And is that possible to, to be not just on or off, but slightly defective? So some people can just get a little bit more hungry than others. Or is it a binary thing where it can be on or off?

   13. GYDr Giles Yeo22:20

       So leptin, for whatever odd reason, is pretty much binary. So if you have a little bit of it, you're fine. If you have none of it, you're not. However, there is obviously a, there is obviously a pathway. Leptin signals to the brain, which signals to something else. And there is another gene that I loo- that I looked at called MC4R. It's part of the pathway, it's part of the same fat-sensing pathway. That is a, a rheostat. It's like a thermostat. And so for example, we have found thousands of different mutations in this, in this gene. And you can imagine that depending on the severity of the dysfunction, some are completely dead, some are 70% functional, you- we can predict how much someone will eat in a test buffet meal scenario, um, if they have a 50% functioning gene versus a 0 functioning gene. And we now know that .3%, okay, in this country at least, so point- so s- 200,000 people in the UK, a million people in the United States, will carry mutations in this MC4R gene, okay, making them more likely to end up with obesity. So that at 18 years old, at 18 years old, if you carry a mutation in this MC4R gene, you are on average 18 kilos heavier, 40 pounds heavier, at 18 years old on average. And that's 200,000 people in this country. So it's, it's, it's not super common, right? It's still 99.7% of the people's body weights not determined by this. But there are a lot of people's body weights who are d- dependent on this specific gene. But it is a, it is a tunable system, so it's a little bit or a lot. It means that you're either slightly heavier

6. 23:59 – 33:05

   Our brain hates us losing weight

   1. GYDr Giles Yeo23:59

      or a lot heavier.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett24:00

      D- does our brain, like a sc-... losing weight. I, I did the keto diet recently-

   3. GYDr Giles Yeo24:06

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett24:06

      ... for about two months. And-

   5. GYDr Giles Yeo24:08

      Why did you do it, and why'd you come off?

   6. SBSteven Bartlett24:10

      I did it because I wanted to... Okay, this is interesting. It shows how much of a Neanderthal I am.

   7. GYDr Giles Yeo24:17

      (laughs)

   8. SBSteven Bartlett24:18

      Um, I, I thought I was allergic to gluten.

   9. GYDr Giles Yeo24:20

      Okay.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett24:21

       So I thought, "I'll cut out all of the things that have gluten in them, and I'll try that." And so, I then watched this video online, and it talked about the keto d- diet. So I thought, "Oh, that sounds good." And I, this guy had lost so much weight doing it, so I gave it a try. Now, I lost so much weight, more weight than I've ever lost in my life. Like, I... e- extreme. Um, I did it for about eight weeks. I lost about a stone in weight. The reason I came off it-

   11. GYDr Giles Yeo24:47

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett24:48

       ... was because (laughs) it was hard.

   13. GYDr Giles Yeo24:49

       It was hard.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett24:51

       In, in a, in a simple word, it was difficult. And, uh, I don't know. I felt like I was fighting against something.

   15. GYDr Giles Yeo24:58

       How long ago did you come off it? And-

   16. SBSteven Bartlett25:00

       Mm-hmm.

   17. GYDr Giles Yeo25:00

       ... the crucial information, piece of information I'm, I'm interested in is, have you gained any weight back?

   18. SBSteven Bartlett25:05

       Um, 45 days ago, none of your business. I'm joking. (laughs)

   19. GYDr Giles Yeo25:10

       (laughs)

   20. SBSteven Bartlett25:11

       But, no, um, I gained so much weight back. I gained... I didn't just gain the stone I'd lost. I think I gained a little bit more back. I think I gained a stone and a bit back. Um, I mean, I'm not in bad shape. But like, for me, I went from being absolutely lean, like I'm ready for Men's Health, to being like, back to being like, you know, like, um, I'd say athletic now. But I gained back the weight I'd lost and more. So, this is why I asked the question about the brain. My brain didn't seem to be on board with me. It didn't seem to want the best for us, and it seemed to want to return me back to my default base state.

   21. GYDr Giles Yeo25:50

       Your brain, everyone's brains, hates it when they lose weight. It doesn't matter your starting point. You could start from a point where you are athletic versus someone who's not athletic, couch potato, type, type, type, phenotype. The moment you lose a little bit of weight, we're talking even a few pounds. I'm not even talking... You're talking about a stone. Even if you lost five pounds, what happens in your brain is your brain is used to you carrying a... you or me carrying a certain amount of weight. The moment your weight starts to go down as an adult, it goes, "Hey oh," you know, this is a big flag comes up. "This reduce, this is reducing my chance of survival." This is what the brain thinks. (imitates alarm) And so what it does is it begins to use strategies, not conscious, nothing to do with our brain, anything like that, to drag us back up, kicking and screaming, to where we were before. First of all, it makes us hungry. Okay? So, so, so it makes us, it makes us hungry. And second, it actually very, very secretively lowers your metabolism ever so slightly, so that even without thi- even eating exactly the same thing, you are now storing more than you're burning. Even eating exactly the same thing. Part of the strategy to get you back up to where you were before. So once you were on that keto diet, and we can debate wh- uh, how it... talk about how it works and whether it's useful. But once it's on the d- you're on the diet, your weight goes off, you're able to keep it, but you say, "Man, I can't do this." And so you stop. And the moment you stop, your brain goes, comes back on, and starts dragging you back up. This is gonna be true for pretty much every single diet that is, that is out there. The moment you stop the diet, the weight will come back on eventually.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett27:25

       Why does my brain hate me? (laughs)

   23. GYDr Giles Yeo27:28

       It's what... Look, this is the brain. R- you have to remember, um, that that's what's kept us alive. I mean, g- we have lived, aside from probably the last 40 years, we probably most of the time never had e- en- enough food. Now clearly, over the past 100 years, we've had sufficient food compared to b- b- beyond that. But you know as well as I do when you turn on the TV and watch Only Fools and Horses from the, from, from, from the '70s, or whatever, you know, people are all skinny. You think, "Oh, no, they look skinny." They don't look skinny. They are look, they look normal weight for the time that they're, that they're there. Whereas we have clearly, over the past 40 years, now have too much food. So this is now a different problem, okay? That we have too much food. And so, e- our brain is trying to respond to, to this environment, but it's responding in a natural fashion. 'Cause what used to happen was, because there was not enough food, when there was food there, you made sure you ate it. Uh, otherwise, why would you, why would you not do that, right? So s- we have a brain that's wired for a feast-famine environment. Feast, famine, feast, famine. The problem is, we live in a feast-feast environment at the moment, and that's the issue. We have a maladapted brain for a feast-feast environment.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett28:39

       And this is because of how we've set up society because of supermarkets' fridges, preservatives that keep food lasting for longer, and food's more available and cheaper than before, it's more processed, et cetera, right?

   25. GYDr Giles Yeo28:51

       So, so this is true. Now, now without going all food Nazi, I mean, you have to remember that the, all of whatever you just said, preservatives, you know, pickling, cooking, you start with that. Then you say, "Oh, we're gonna do highly processed foods. We're gonna do pre-packaged foods, frozen foods, microwave foods, et cetera, et cetera, supermarkets." It has kept us alive. Okay? We're seven and a half billion people and counting. We need to feed all those people. And this is fine. The problem is, we've now got to the point where the efficiencies, the scales of efficiency in our food production is now so high, we can now get... Calories have never been cheaper. So this is, this is the, um, the, the, the, the issue today. You can, on, uh, um, in this country, for example, in the UK, people have calculated that you can get about 1,000 calories for 90p. Now, how good are those calories? What the quality of the food are those calories? We're not talking... we're just talking pure calories. Because of efficiencies of scale, calories have never been cheaper, and we don't have to go run after an antelope in order to get, in order to get the calories. This has kept us alive until it is killing us, which is now... Over the past 10 years, there have been i- important inflection point in, in human history. You know, previously, we never had enough food.... whereas now, since the past 10 years, more people are dying from overnutrition than undernutrition. And overnutrition in a bad way, because you can be... Uh, you can have loads of calories but still be malnourished because you're eating the wrong kind of foods. And can you believe it? We are now in a world where there are more people dying because they eat too much than because they, because they don't eat enough.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett30:32

       Is the worldwide trend that we are getting skinnier or fatter?

   27. GYDr Giles Yeo30:36

       We are getting fatter as a, as a worldwide trend. And- and- and true, the- the- the problems are more obvious at the moment in higher income countries, okay, because- because A, di- they're studied more, and B, the kind of food that's available. But you are good... But what is the goal of- of, um, of a country that is less developed th- than us, for example? They wanna pull their people out of poverty. They wanna make sure that their poor people don't die of starvation. They wanna make sure that fast food and- and- and- and good food, you know, and crap food are available to everybody, uh, uh, there as well. Now, the problem is the moment that happens, you then switch from being dying of undernutrition and- and starvation to then now dying of overnutrition. So we are at that inflection point where the whole world very soon will get into a severe obesity problem, and- and we do need to fix the food environment in order to fix that.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett31:33

       Do you consider it to be an emergency?

   29. GYDr Giles Yeo31:35

       It is definitely an emergency. Oh, it is definitely an emergency. And it's an emergency because- because... Well, let's ask the question. Why is it a problem to have obesity? Why is it a problem to carry too much fat? Okay, so- so that is a... So you might think, "Well, it's obvious." Well, is it? Because the- the- the... There are issues with gravity when you're too heavy, um, arthritis, mobility, sleep apnea, you can't breathe at night, but that is- that isn't what kills us, okay? If- if... What kills us is all the diseases that are associated with obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, certain cancers, et cetera, et cetera. That is what kills us, okay? Heart disease. And- and so it is an emergency because with obesity, at a population level as it goes up, then you have millions upon millions of people, um, that, uh- uh, that end up, you- you know, with diseases. So the- the estimate is that direct cost to the NHS, direct cost, for treating obesity and related illness is six to 7 billion a year, okay, pounds. That's the direct. But the moment you take into account, uh, the broader economy, days sick, um, et cetera, et cetera, it's estimated we are running at 27 billion a year just on economic effects on- on- on obesity. So it is an emergency because... Well, because many people are getting ill, many people are dying, m- m- you know. And actually, it makes economically no sense. We have to fix the obesity because then we would save ourselves a lot,

7. 33:05 – 44:40

   How to burn fat

   1. GYDr Giles Yeo33:05

      a lot of money.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett33:06

      So let's talk about how we fix the obesity-

   3. GYDr Giles Yeo33:08

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett33:08

      ... how we burn fat-

   5. GYDr Giles Yeo33:09

      Mm.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett33:09

      ... and how we all get into a healthy weight. Now, I know you think that BMIs are largely bullshit and unhelpful. Is that an accurate description of your opinion?

   7. GYDr Giles Yeo33:18

      I... (stammers) Okay, look, before... I- I- I don't wanna end up, um, with my colleagues throwing shoes at me. So I- I think... (laughs) So- so BMI, for- for those of you who- who don't know, BMI is obviously, um, your weight in kilograms divided by your height in meter square. It's a, it's a way of controlling for your height and your weight. Um, now, on a population level, okay, it is actually remarkably effective. Why? Because A, it's free to measure, it doesn't cost anything, um, and on average in a population, sadly, um, the higher your BMI, the more fat you carry. And we know that the more fat you carry, the more likely you are to be unhealthy, okay? On a population, on a population level, all this is true. You might argue rugby players different this, and this- this is true. On an individual level, however, it is not particularly useful for- for- for your- for your health other than tracking your weight. It's about as useful as tr- uh, uh, as that because each of us are different shapes, different sizes, can carry different amounts of fat, uh, can carry different amounts of fat safely. So- so that is the problem with- uh, um, with- with obesity, right? It's, it depends on who you are, um, how heavy is heavy before it actually b- begins to actually influence your- influence your health.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett34:35

      So let's talk about food a little bit.

   9. GYDr Giles Yeo34:37

      Mm.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett34:37

       Um, I'm currently doing some kind of version of intermittent fasting, right?

   11. GYDr Giles Yeo34:44

       D- detail, details, what some kind of version?

   12. SBSteven Bartlett34:47

       Well, I just don't... Well, I just don't... Let's call it time-restricted eating.

   13. GYDr Giles Yeo34:49

       Oh, okay. Yep. Right.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett34:50

       You know? Um, basically, I don't, uh, I don't have breakfast. I actually don't really get hungry at breakfast, to be completely honest with you. I tend to get hungry a bit later in the day, so I haven't eaten anything today and God forbid, uh, it's 3:30 PM. Um...

   15. GYDr Giles Yeo35:03

       Wow.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett35:04

       I know, but I just don't, I just don't seem to get hungry yet.

   17. GYDr Giles Yeo35:07

       Okay.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett35:07

       Um, and then I read your book, and in chapter three of Gene Eating, you talk about front-loading your food in the day. Now, I was like, "Ugh, fucking hell." You know? I'm trying my best here, Giles. And they told me (laughs) to eat later in the day, to skip breakfast, we don't need it, and then to time-restrict your eating, and then I read your book, and then it says front-load your food, have a big breakfast, medium lunch, small dinner. What's the truth?

   19. GYDr Giles Yeo35:38

       Okay. So- so that is the... I mean, I think most societies have a similar saying. The Chinese have a similar saying, uh, uh, as- as this as well. So, um, a- a couple of things. I think-

   20. SBSteven Bartlett35:48

       What saying?

   21. GYDr Giles Yeo35:49

       Eat like a king at breakfast, a prince- a prince at lunch, and a pauper at, um, at- at dinner time. And so the Chinese have- have a similar, have a similar saying because I think people kind of worked this out. Now, there is some truth to this, but then I'll come back and explain what the truth, what the truth is. So the some truth is that actually, clearly, we are metabolically... Our metabolism's highest during the day.... because we have to avoid becoming food and we have to look for food, okay? So, so, so that's the thing. Whereas at night when we're asleep, our metabolism drops. So if you eat your biggest meal at night, and then a couple of hours later you go to sleep, then clearly you're, you're, you are loading your calories and then going to sleep, which is in storage mode. Whereas if you eat your biggest meal during the day, you have the whole day left in order to burn it. Now, homeostasis, it does balance itself out, so it's not the driver of obesity, but undoubtedly, it will make a little bit of a difference there, okay? But then a friend of mine, um, uh, Alex Johnstone, Alexandra Johnstone, Professor Alexandra Don- Johnstone, up at the Rowett Institute in, in Aberdeen, just published a study, I think probably only three months ago, okay, which was very interesting. So, what she did was she got, um, people, (smacks lips) um, a, a cohort of people, and got them to eat exactly the same number of calories. They supplied the food, so they knew what they were gonna do, okay? And they did it either by front-loading all the calories at br- at breakfast or back-loading all the calories at dinner, but everyone a- a- ate exactly the same thing. And then everyone then swapped, okay? So everyone did the who- did the whole thing. And what she found was that there was no difference in body weight change whether or not you were eating most of your calories at breakfast or most of your calories at dinner. It was the total amount of energy during the day. But the difference was if you ate more at breakfast, you felt less hungry during the day than you, if you ate more at dinner. So while if you ate exactly the same foods, but at breakfast or dinner, dinner or lunch, it doesn't actually matter. But for some people, it may very well be easier to have the big breakfast because it means, particularly if they love food in particular, because it means they get less hungry throughout the day. So, that is the truth. That is the nuance.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett38:03

       But does that mean y- you know, I've got a firsthand experience in this, that if I'm not hungry throughout the day, then when it gets to midnight, I'll be thinking, "Hmm."

   23. GYDr Giles Yeo38:14

       No, but it doesn't matter, right? Because, because it's not like, it's not like... well, it de- depends, depends how much. If you suddenly ate 3,000 calories at dinner, then, then, then maybe there-

   24. SBSteven Bartlett38:23

       No, I'm not talking dinner. I'm talking midnight snack.

   25. GYDr Giles Yeo38:25

       (laughs)

   26. SBSteven Bartlett38:26

       (laughs)

   27. GYDr Giles Yeo38:27

       So, I, the, I think the reali- the, the, the reality is you have to eat when you have to eat, uh, uh, is, is, is the answer. Now, if you were trying to lose weight, so if you were actively trying to lose weight because you are active, because if one was actively overweight, then you might begin to think about when you wanted to eat more. I would probably cut the calories from your dinner rather than the cutting the calories from your breakfast. But if you are surviving during the day, and this is true about many people, right? Nurses, doctors who work shifts, firemen, police p- police officers, whatever they do, you gotta eat when you gotta eat. So these, a lot of these, um, pieces of advice are fine until they smack into the reality of life, your job, and what you actually, and what you actually do.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett39:10

       But as general-

   29. GYDr Giles Yeo39:11

       Mm-hmm.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett39:11

       ... advice for the gen- general person-
8. 44:40 – 54:29

   Calorie counting

   1. SBSteven Bartlett44:40

      Obviously I talked to Tim Spector a lot about that, and, um, it really is a, a kind of a narrative buster that calories are not accurate.

   2. GYDr Giles Yeo44:49

      So look, I, I, I under, I, I speak a lot about calories. I understand that 200 calories of chips is twice the portion of 100 calories of chips. But so is 200 grams of chips twice the portion of 100 grams of chips. And no one is trying to compare 200 grams of chips to 200 grams of carrots. Broadly speaking, that's what it is. The calorie is a very useful tool, um, to give you a general idea how much you are eating during the day. That is true, okay, how much you're eating. But it tells us nothing, zero, about the quality of food you're eating, about how much protein, how much fiber, what type of fat, how much sugar. The calorie tells you absolutely nothing. So it gives you a piece of information, how much food you're eating, and that's, yes, I can see how that could be important. But I would like to see a world we live in where we were more concerned about the quality of food we are feeding ourselves, our kids, other people, than necessarily just the pure caloric content.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett45:48

      'Cause I've got a friend that said to me, won't name him, but he've got a friend that said to me that, um, you can basically, as long as you count the calories, you can eat whatever you like. So you can have the Domino's pizza, you can have this, but you just gotta make sure the calories are under your sort of calo- calorific allowance, and then it's, it's all good.

   4. GYDr Giles Yeo46:06

      So now if you're c, it depends what your calorific allowance is, and it will clearly, if you stick to a purely calorie-counting diet of say 2,000 calories, and you stuck to that religiously, okay, you probably, the chances are you probably would lose weight, because we, we probably burn, burn more than that. But how healthy would you be? I think is probably the question. Whereas if you had a healthier diet, but ate 2,500 calories of a healthier diet, would you, would you be healthier? And that's the, that's the more important question I think you ask, because there's two things you're trying to look at. You're trying to look at the number on the scale, and that probably would work, or you're trying to look at your health, your blood glucose levels, your blood pressure, your ability to be energetic during the day, you know, how fast you wanna run, whatever it is, whatever metric, can you lift your grandkids up? What, whatever you want to do. And so I think it's a, it's a, it is a measure. Clearly it is. I'm not, I'm not denying it, uh, that it is not a measure. But it is a very blunt tool, and I don't think it is measuring what we need to measure, which is the quality of our food.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett47:09

      What is calorific availability? In fact, reading your work is the first time I've even heard that phrase before, but it seems to be incredibly important.

   6. GYDr Giles Yeo47:16

      So cal- calorific or caloric availability is the amount of calories that you can extract from a food versus the total number of calories in a food. So the example which I cite in, in both books actually is if you had 100 calories of sugar, just, just pure white sugar, you would probably end up getting 98, nearly 100 calories out of it, uh, nearly 100%, okay, because sugar is our base fuel. We, we chop one as we absorb it. There's no digestion that's involved. The one example which I give is imagine if you ate sweet corn, corn on the cob, and then you looked in the loo the next day, it is quite clear you haven't absorbed most of the sweet corn, uh, uh, because you can see it, okay? But if you take sweet corn, desiccate it, convert it into corn meal, make corn bread or corn tortilla, uh, do something else with it, suddenly exactly the same source of food gives you a different amount of calories, okay? But yet it starts from corn. It's exactly the same thing. So that's caloric availability. You can start with a source food, but depending on what you do to that food...... different calories are available. There's nothing wrong with corn tortilla, there's nothing wrong with cornbread, and there's nothing wrong with sweet corn. I'm just saying that the calorie counts make no sense because you will extract different amounts of calories from the food even though we're working with exactly the same food.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett48:36

      That's crazy. So if I, I had, um, corn on the cob (smacks lips) like you. I'm just mimicking your action there, um, and then I had a corn tortilla-

   8. GYDr Giles Yeo48:46

      Yes.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett48:47

      ... if both of them said on the package, "This is 100 calories"-

   10. GYDr Giles Yeo48:50

       Yep.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett48:50

       ... the truth is my body might, with the corn on the cob only have 50% of the calories available because of the, the nature of the, the food.

   12. GYDr Giles Yeo49:02

       Yeah.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett49:02

       Versus if I ate the corn tortilla, which says 100 calories on the package as well, it might-

   14. GYDr Giles Yeo49:08

       You might get 80 calories from it.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett49:09

       I might get 80 calories from it.

   16. GYDr Giles Yeo49:10

       Yes. So, so, um, I'll give you another example. Celery is probably something that's easy, and, and we've actually measured this. So if you actually look at a s- just a typical medium size stick that you might get with some buffalo wings or something like that, okay, of, of, of celery, raw. Okay? People say that celeries have an, uh, uh, has a negative calories. Not really. But it's got only six calories. It's nearly negative, okay, for, for that. If you cook the celery, chop it up and put it into a stew, what, whatever the hell you're gonna do with it, that six calories becomes 30 calories because you've cooked it. Exactly the same food, and this time, I'm just cooking it, all right? Because the cooking, you can almost consider cooking as an extension of your stomach. It does some of the digestion for you, right, because you're cooking it, particularly with a stew. You know, it's just an hour, two hours, and then you eat it. So then all that energy ... The reason why we only extract six calories from, from, from a raw celery is, you know, it's cr- it's 99% fiber and water. And so you (chewing sounds) . Whereas if you cook it, then what happens is some of the fiber breaks down, we're able to do it. That's a clas- another classic example. Exactly the same food. You cook it, suddenly six times the number of calories you get from it. It's an extreme example, but I thought that's a-

   17. SBSteven Bartlett50:22

       That's crazy.

   18. GYDr Giles Yeo50:22

       Yeah, exactly.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett50:23

       Because I could go to a supermarket and I could get a, um, a six calorie stick of celery.

   20. GYDr Giles Yeo50:30

       Mm-hmm.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett50:30

       It could literally say on the package six calories.

   22. GYDr Giles Yeo50:32

       Mm.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett50:32

       I take it home. I think, "Great. I've got six calories left in my, my calorie deficit today." I pop it in the pan, I stew it, I eat it, 30 calories out of nowhere. Correct. That's false advertising. Cor- (laughs) I know that ... I'm gonna get myself into trouble. No, but it's true. That, that, that is exactly, that is exactly true. That's crazy. That's why I don't think ... That's, that's why I don't think calories are the most useful thing to be, to, to be measuring because they shift. They're a moving, they're a moving target, which is fine as long as we know what, what, what, what we're expecting. But to ... But if you are a religious calorie counter, once again, you have to do you in order to ... So some people do that, and it's, and for them, it is a useful strategy to keep the weight off and be healthier. Uh, I'm not gonna be bag on you. You do what, you, you do what you want. But you have to understand that religiously counting it means that depending on what type of calories you eat, that no matter how religious you are, you're gonna be absorbing different amounts of calories anyway. But again, as you, as you've highlighted there, the positive upside to that is it gives people something to measure- ... which is relative. ... and, and that's the benefit for them, that if they're measuring it every day and it's the same food that they're measuring, it's all relative, um, and there's some benefit to, to them because obviously people do, are very, um, passionate that they've had great results from calorie counting in their lives. It's something to measure. But most people, well, many people who calorie count, just to be clear, means they, they stick to eating the same thing which they've done, roast chicken, whatever it is, but eat fewer calories of the roast chicken dinner. Yeah. Now, that does work because what you're doing is you're now reducing the portion size of what you're eating. Whereas if you're saying that, wait a minute, I'm going to switch meals entirely and go from eating 2,000 calories of chicken, but I'm now gonna have 16- uh, 1,600 calories of sugar. That's a stupid example, but imagine that was the case. Okay? Then calorie counting is not gonna work because you could be ... Chicken is better for you than sugar. Yeah. And, and so, and so that is an extreme example, but f- s- few people do that, but I, I highlight it only to make sure people understand it, understand the limitations and caveats of calorie counting. (page turns) Quick one. One of our sponsors of this podcast, BlueJeans, recently did some research and they found that almost a third of companies are still spending almost a quarter of a million a year on launching and hosting virtual and hybrid events. This is obviously bonkers. With BlueJeans new software called Events and Studios, you can host these professional world-class feeling events for a fraction of the cost. So now going forward for all of my companies and for myself, I think we did our last one in Telegram not so long ago, every event I will host will be hosted on BlueJeans Events and Studios. And I've never seen a software tool that allows you to personalize and brand an interface and the interface itself with such ease. That's the real thing about the, the software. I, I've done I think two events on BlueJeans Events and Studios. The ease of not having to be an expert to create an unbelievable event. If you've got an event coming up, if you've got a virtual event coming up, do me and yourself a favor and check out BlueJeans Events and Studios. It's honestly incredible, and I'd love to hear your responses if you do give it a try. (page turns) You know, I never really usually pick the chocolate flavored Huel's. My favorite are the banana flavor. I love the salted caramel flavor. But recently, I think I in part blame Jack in my team who's obsessed with the chocolate flavor Huel's. I've started drinking the chocolate flavor Huel's for the first time, and I absolutely love them. My life means that I sometimes disregard my diet, and it's funny, that's part of the reason why I've had a lot of guests on this podcast recently that talk about diet and health and, and those kinds of things because I am trying to make an active effort to be more healthy, to lose a little bit of weight as well, but to be more healthy. And the role that Huel plays in my life is it means that in those moments where sometimes I might reach for, you know, junk foods, having an option that is nutritionally complete, that is high in fiber, that is incredibly high in protein, that has all the vitamins and minerals that my body needs within arm's reach that I can consume on the go is where Huel has been a game changer

9. 54:29 – 59:52

   Is gluten bad for us?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett54:29

      for me. (page turns) I started to believe, I think, as I said to you earlier, maybe (smacks lips) 12 months ago, maybe a bit more, 24 months ago, that I was gluten-free.

   2. GYDr Giles Yeo54:36

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett54:36

      And I believed that because I'd, I'd eaten some things, and then I had like a bad gut reaction, um, some pains, bit of bloatedness. And, and then when I didn't, like, eat those things that had gluten in them, that kind of pain and bloatedness went away. So my genius brain assumed, self-diagnosed that I am gluten intolerant, and then I marched through the world for the next two years being that kind of like pretentious asshole that's asking if there's gluten-

   4. GYDr Giles Yeo55:02

      (laughs)

   5. SBSteven Bartlett55:02

      ... in everything and, you know, interrogating the ingredients of everything I put in my mouth to try and avoid this thing called gluten. Now, from reading your work, I've started to consider that I'm not in fact a genius, that I'm in fact an idiot, and that I'm probably not gluten intolerant. Um, and that, because y- you look at society, you look at packaging, and you look at signage on f- in restaurants and on menus, they, they have gluten-free everywhere now. Everything is like gluten-free. You go in the supermarket aisles, it's gluten-free pasta, gluten-free this, which creates the impression that we're, humans are just not meant to eat gluten, and we're all gluten intolerant, or 50% of us are. How much truth is there to that?

   6. GYDr Giles Yeo55:37

      So 1% of the human species are celiacs, okay, and they are completely allergic to gluten. And, and you don't, you wanna stay away from gluten, okay, like literally. That's, they, they get to the point where it's so bad that their guts don't work anymore and can't absorb food carefully, and so it can kill you. So that's no joke. And so gluten-free was originally designed to cater to s- people with celiac disease, 1% of the human species. Now 3 to 4% of humans, and they're slightly more difficult to measure, are probably genuinely gluten intolerant, and this could be maybe from a little bit farty to some severe gastrointestinal distress, um, and gen- but genuinely so. And probably is best for them to at least not s- have a big bolus of glu- gluten. But the rest of us are not, but yet 25, as a, as a market, 25% of us buy gluten-free at any one point. So it's become profitable to sell gluten-free. They now label rice as gluten-free. Rice doesn't have gluten, never had gluten, (laughs) okay, okay, okay, from, fr- from it, and so they label rice as gluten-free thinking that it's some product. It's not a product. It's just rice. So I think the issue here is it's been a boon for people with celiacs, uh, uh, for, for celiacs. I've spoken to, uh, to people with celiac disease. They go, "We've never had it this good, okay?" Because before, you had to go, you had to be really concerned. Now every place you go to, the moment you say gluten-free, you get a gluten-free meal and everything, and everything is fine. The only downside is some people look at them. (laughs)

   7. SBSteven Bartlett57:07

      Yeah.

   8. GYDr Giles Yeo57:07

      You know, but, but so, but that is a classic example of, of people thinking that it's healthy. But can I just, once again, I'm, I'll, I'll stop asking you questions soon. But did you actually go and get yourself diagnosed about whether or not you are gluten intolerant? Because it doesn't mean that you're not, 'cause you could be.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett57:27

      By the way, you can always ask me questions, and to answer your question-

   10. GYDr Giles Yeo57:30

       (laughs)

   11. SBSteven Bartlett57:30

       ... yes, I got diagnosed by Dr. Stephen Bartlett-

   12. GYDr Giles Yeo57:32

       Right? (laughs)

   13. SBSteven Bartlett57:35

       ... (laughs) in the comfort of my own home, but my brain, my brain, uh, wrote out the slip and made the diagnosis. So-

   14. GYDr Giles Yeo57:43

       Have you gone back to eating some gluten?

   15. SBSteven Bartlett57:45

       Yes.

   16. GYDr Giles Yeo57:45

       And nothing has happened?

   17. SBSteven Bartlett57:46

       Do you know what's really interesting?

   18. GYDr Giles Yeo57:47

       Mm.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett57:47

       Something, uh, after I finished the keto diet-

   20. GYDr Giles Yeo57:51

       Yeah.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett57:52

       ... fad, uh, keto diet, I then tried a little bit of gluten, and everything was okay. It was, it was a, I had a little bit of gluten, and I didn't really notice any, any issue. So then I was wondering if like keeping myself off gluten or keeping myself off something for those two months had almost restored my, my gut in some respect, that I could have a little bit of gluten again, because I'd, I'd kind of, I don't know. It was interesting, but...

   22. GYDr Giles Yeo58:20

       Uh, the, the issue with gut is that many... So for, for example, I will have exactly the same symptoms of what you just said, bloated, blah, blah, blah, all these things, when I have lactose. I am lactose intolerant, because it is a food substance that influences the gut. So I think the issue is, I wouldn't put out of hand some thing which you've had with your gut. It could be actually real. Is it necessarily gluten? Was it, uh, uh, w- was it lactose? Was it something else? So, so the problem is, and the reason why people immediately think gluten is because that's what's in front of them, but it could be a number of other things which cause your gut just for a little bit, or it could just be eating the wrong type of chilis, right? And, and, and that, that could als- also do it. But the moment it begins to influence your gut, it has, broadly speaking, the same phenotype, the same, the same presentation-

   23. SBSteven Bartlett59:07

       Mm-hmm.

   24. GYDr Giles Yeo59:07

       ... whether it's gluten, lactose, or Mexican chilis.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett59:10

       So that's, that's interesting. So y- you're saying, you know, 1 to 4% of people really do have an intolerance roughly?

   26. GYDr Giles Yeo59:16

       Yes.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett59:17

       And then 25-ish percent of us buy gluten-free assuming we are gl- you know.

   28. GYDr Giles Yeo59:23

       Either assume you are gluten intolerant or think it's healthier.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett59:27

       Oh, think it's healthier. Okay. We think gluten's a bad thing.

   30. GYDr Giles Yeo59:29

       Yeah.
10. 59:52 – 1:02:17

    Lactose intolerance

    1. GYDr Giles Yeo59:52

    2. SBSteven Bartlett59:52

       What about, you said lactose intolerance though-

    3. GYDr Giles Yeo59:54

       Mm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett59:54

       You're lactose intolerant.

    5. GYDr Giles Yeo59:55

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett59:56

       And in your book you say that 65% of adults-

    7. GYDr Giles Yeo1:00:00

       Mm-hmm.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:00

       ... are lactose intolerant.

    9. GYDr Giles Yeo1:00:01

       That's correct.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:01

        That's crazy. Uh, th- that was, that's a huge, huge majority.

    11. GYDr Giles Yeo1:00:05

        That's a huge majority because the mutation is lactose tolerance. So, and so under normal circumstances, so lactose is a sugar like glucose, like fructose. But mammals, obviously all mammals can drink milk as babies. We are mammals. Um, all mammals can obviously drink milk and absorb lactose as babies. But then most mammals, including 65% of human beings, become lactose intolerant the moment they become adults.I guess that's a question of why and then, and then how. Why, probably because if university-aged Johnny is clamped onto your boob and there's limited space, there's no room for baby Johnny, and so you need to encourage a rapidly growing mammal, "Get away, go eat f- solid food," so that other babies can actually get on. I think that probably is the real reason, to encourage animals to do the more difficult thing of finding solid food. So you make yourself lactose intolerant. How? Okay. So, uh, lactase is the enzyme that breaks down lactose, and this happens in your small intestine, and it turns, it's turned on when we're babies. But then, as we become older, something else comes and shuts off lactase, like in me, and so I can't drink a lot of milk. But then around 7,500 years ago or so, people, people have actually worked this out, a mutation occurred near this gene, near lactase, which prevents the shutting off of the gene. Okay? And so 85% of white, northern European Caucasians, for example, can drink milk as adults. Every single one of them has exactly that same mutation that occurred 7,500 years ago. Now, there are other populations throughout the world, there are certain pastoral populations in Africa, and certain populations, um, particularly those who had, who had goats and sheep and stuff, who then had their own independent way of dealing with drinking milk, because it was a rich source of food, so if it was available, you were able to, to, to, to drink it. But, so that is the mutation. Whereas for the vast majority of us, Chinese people, for example, you know, we didn't end up drinking milk as, as adults, um, and so we never had that, we never had that mutation, and so most of us are lactose intolerant as adults.

11. 1:02:17 – 1:06:07

    Genetic components

    1. GYDr Giles Yeo1:02:17

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:17

       Oh, wow. And these things we can find out. How does one go about finding out about my genetic predispositions to certain foods and diets?

    3. GYDr Giles Yeo1:02:26

       So, you can... Okay, not every single food has a prediction for g- for genetic-wise, but if you take any of the direct-to-consumer genetic tests that are available, they will test all of the known... They'll d- they'll definitely test lactose intolerance, your ability to handle alcohol, okay, I- I know mine, your ability to, to metabolize caffeine. So these are all individual genes, so it's predictable. So some people can drink a lot of coffee, other people can't. Some people can drink a lot of alcohol, other people can't. I'm probably in the middle for alcohol, and I can't drink any milk. So all of those are predictable, and you can get from any of the genetic tests that are there. The problem, I guess, with these genetic tests is they make predictions beyond stuff that are predictable. They say that, "Oh, we can predict that you'll respond to a Mediterranean diet," for example. A Mediterranean diet is a whole diet. It's- it's got, like, whatever, 200 foods. How is it gonna predict whether or not you'll respond to it? And so I think some of the genetic tests overstep their mark in trying to predict what they can predict, but some things are predictable, milk, caffeine, alcohol.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:26

       Have you done g- any genetic tests?

    5. GYDr Giles Yeo1:03:28

       I have, for a, um, a 23andMe, DNAFit, uh, Circle. I- I've just done them for, some for papers, uh, newspapers in- in writing reviews for, others just for personal, um, interest, just, just to find out what, what it is.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:43

       What was your favorite? Because I know people are gonna be listening and they're gonna be going, "You know, I wanna take action." So where's step one? And I have to be honest, my girlfriend texted me yesterday asking me this exact question. So the minute this conversation's done, I'm gonna say, "I've just spoken to this genius from Cambridge, and I've... For you, babe, and I've got you the answer." She texted me yesterday asking me for a good, uh, DNA genetic test that will help her understand diet.

    7. GYDr Giles Yeo1:04:09

       Help her understand her diet?

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:10

       Yeah, like her, like, tolerance to certain foods and predispositions.

    9. GYDr Giles Yeo1:04:13

       Okay. So there are many different tests out there testing different things. So, um, there is an advantage to going with size, like 23andMe obviously, I'm not paid by them. It has an advantage to size because they have tens, hundreds of millions even, people's data. And so, as with most things, the more data you have and people constantly interact with the app, the more you can improve your product, the more you can then improve your, your predictions. But 23andMe only tests a limited number of the genes in your, in, in yourself. Okay? So in other words, we have three billion base pairs in our DNA, each, each individual mark. Uh, 23and- uh, andMe pr- I'm gonna get this wrong now, probably tests about two million or so, okay, of the three billion. Whereas if you go to some other companies now that now, in effect, sequence your whole genome, or at least all your genes, so you get a lot more information, um, then they get more information. The problem there, however, is A, it's more expensive, but B, fewer people have done it, and so they haven't yet had the time to begin to tweak their algorithms and their predictions to get a more optimized, optimized prediction. So, that's the problem, right?

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:26

        Okay.

    11. GYDr Giles Yeo1:05:26

        Whereas 23andMe is cheap. So that's probably a good place to start to ask certain questions. Look, I am happy to, to... Like, literally, li- li- li- literally happy to give you a better prediction than 23andMe's algorithms, because I can, um, um, for, for that, for, for, for example, but they probably give a pretty, uh, helpful look about lactose, alcohol, you know, uh, uh, um, whether or not you may or may not be, uh, um, gluten intolerant. They give some pretty good, uh, uh, uh, pre- predictions there.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:57

        Okay, I'm gonna do that.

    13. GYDr Giles Yeo1:05:59

        (laughs)

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:59

        We'll have a chat after. (laughs)

    15. GYDr Giles Yeo1:06:00

        (laughs)

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:00

        Yeah. I really need to do, I really... Now, I've been, I've been thinking about it for a long time, so I'm gonna pull the trigger. Um, it's quite remarkable that I haven't yet.

12. 1:06:07 – 1:16:36

    Veganism

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:07

       Um, you did a documentary called Clean Eating-

    2. GYDr Giles Yeo1:06:09

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:10

       ... which is, um, predominantly about plant, plant-based eating.

    4. GYDr Giles Yeo1:06:14

       It wasn't predominate, um... I did look at plant-based. I also looked at the alkali diet, and I also looked at gluten-free.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:20

       So let's talk about those last two then.

    6. GYDr Giles Yeo1:06:22

       Yes.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:22

       So, um, plant-based diet. I, I, I heard that there was a lot of adverse reaction from some people in some communities regarding the plant-based, um, component of that documentary. Is that true or false?

    8. GYDr Giles Yeo1:06:36

       That is true. That is true. And- and the reason there was a problem was... Look, I, I, I hope you think...... speaking to me, that I'm a reasonable person. I speak with some nuance, I don't think s- ... So, what we did was, was, uh, plant-based has taken on a different meaning today, okay? Based on the supermarkets and what have you. But when I did the program, plant-based meant a far more restrictive version of veganism. Plant-based meant that you ate, you ate minimally processed foods, n- hardly any sugar, and you ate, uh, whole foods only. It's fine. It's a, it's a perfectly healthy, it's a perfectly healthy diet, as long as you take the right supplements. The problem is, the plant-based, people become vegan or plant-based for many different reasons, ethical reasons, environmental reasons, and health, okay? All three or, or, or, or a mix of the three. The, the, the one issue I took with the plant-based community in their program, is that they believed that there was no safe dose of animal protein, okay? Which meant that even eating a bit of egg white, the moment you started eating a bit of egg white, it begins to kill you, slowly. And, you know, you know beca- ... I says, "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life and it doesn't support, the, the science doesn't support it." We eat too much meat, the science does support that, okay? But eggs, okay? Uh, um, um, you know, people, veget- ... then you're calling vegetarians, they're killing themselves because they're eating eggs or, or something. That was what I took them up on, and they thought that because I was challenging and says, "There is a safe dose of animal protein, we do need to eat less meat." That's b- that's ... They went after me. They went after me. Oh my God. Um, um, it was am- it, it, it was amazing. In fact, the, the program has probably gone around the world probably four or five times, and the reason why I know is because every time it pops up in a new d- ... and the BBC doesn't tell me. Every time it pops up in a new country, I, I wake up to my inbox on my social media, and I suddenly I get a rush of hate. "Ah, the Canadian vegans have seen it again. Oh, look. It's in Australia. Ooh, the Swedish vegans. Hello." You know? And, and, and so, and it's just this really odd risk- evangelical, evangelical, I wanna point out. I know (laughs) this, this but, but, uh, you know, please. It's the people that believe there is no safe dose of animal-based protein. Clearly, there is a safe dose. Um, there are different reasons for doing things but don't s- say silly things. That's what, that's what got me in trouble, with, with the evangelical vegans.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:54

       'Cause I've watched some sort of plant-based vegan documentaries on Netflix-

    10. GYDr Giles Yeo1:08:57

        Mm-hmm.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:57

        ... and I come away from them thinking, "Christ, I should never eat any meat ever again," for a variety of reasons. Actually, the reasons that I think they tend to lead with are, are more about the impact upon your health and your diet. I think that that's a much more compelling, um, sell for, for most people, especially for people in, in parts of the world where they, they have another set of problems they're dealing with first, which is trying to take- feed themselves, period. Um, but w- as it relates to health-

    12. GYDr Giles Yeo1:09:27

        Mm.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:27

        ... and ve- veganism, plant-based diets, what are some of the stereotypes there that, that you've highlighted? One, that there is a quantity of meat products that i- is healthy. What are the general stereotypes there that are, that need addressing?

    14. GYDr Giles Yeo1:09:42

        So a c- a couple of things that, that ... Is it healthy to be on a plant-based diet? Let's just deal with that first. Okay? And I think as long as you do it carefully and think about it, and take the right supplements, it is. You have to supplement when you're on a plant-based diet. Okay? You have to supplement certain things, vitamin B12, iodine, iodine, pardon me. Um, you gotta watch your iron, you gotta watch your calcium. But you can do it safely. Okay? But I just ... The biggest myth that I wanna bust is that it's a diet for everybody. It is not. Veganism, plant-based in particular, is a diet for the privileged people who can choose to do so. I can choose to do it. You can choose to do it. If you live in a developing country, okay? Or, no, no, no, let me stop there, not even living in a d- developing country. If you are Mrs. Smith working two minimum wage jobs, okay? In this country trying to feed your kids, are you really gonna be concerned with your pulses and making sure the supplements are right to actually feed your kids so they can have a vegan diet? No. You wanna feed your kids. All right? And so what annoys me about, about evangelical, uh, plant-based and vegan is not that people do it. People should do what they wanna do. But what they do is they make other people feel bad by not having that diet, particularly when they don't have the choice to do it. That is what, that is what annoys me.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:09

        I've seen some videos on social media, we've probably all seen them, of certain activist groups that want people to stop eating animal products, going into supermarkets and taking the lid off of the milk and just pouring it all over the floor in protest. If you were sat with one of those people that goes into supermarkets, pours milk on the floor, and goes into the meat section and does whatever, and they came to you and they said, "What should we be doing instead, in your perspective, to move people away from animal products for moral or environmental reasons?" Whatever it might be. What would be a better strategy based on what you've, you b- you believe and what you've studied?

    16. GYDr Giles Yeo1:11:45

        We do not need ev- we need to move the curve. We do not need everyone to be vegan. We j- we, we don't. We n- ... Okay, there are gonna be people who are vegan, and that's perfectly fine. I wanna stress, I am not anti vegan in the slightest, but what we need as a world is for everyone to eat 10 to 20% less meat today. That is achievable. Don't eat meat at lunch. Don't eat meat on Fridays. Whatever it is. Don't eat meat one, what, what, once a week. We need to eat 10 to 20% less meat and less meat products.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:15

        Why?

    18. GYDr Giles Yeo1:12:17

        For two, for, for, for two different reasons. That the environmental impact would be enormous. Beyond anything, the environmental impact would be enormous, and that would help the, the, the, the environment. That's the first thing. It's interesting. So COP26, I think was just finished, and COP27 is, is ... The, the ... People were talking about sustainable farming, people were clearly talking about fossil fuels, all of these n- n- n- need, need to talk about, but n- the term eat less meat, not eat no meat. Eat less meat-... did not even make it to the discussion. It was not even mentioned in the, in, in, in the final thing because people are too afraid about the farm, about the farm lobby, okay? But that's because we are framing this in a slightly the wrong way, because people think, "Oh, you want us to cut out meat entirely. You want us to destroy our farming industry." No, we need to just eat a little bit less meat, all of us immediately, for, for the environment, and actually that will also turn to, to, to our health as well. So, that I think is the framing we need to go for rather than saying that veganism and everyone needs to be, everyone needs to be, um, um, v- v- v- vegan, because that puts people off. And that's... Whereas if you don't have meat one day a week, two days a week even, if you wanna do it four days a week, whatever you wanna do, most people can do that quite easily.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:36

        You know, on this discussion, on, on this debate, some people are very morally in touch and, you know, they care a lot about the environment and the world, and I applaud those people. But then other people will think, and I've heard certain commentators who I shan't name, say, "You're not taking my steak from me, I don't care." And, and that's a real... So, so there has to be something it feels like more systemic that we do in society to really affect change, because people are, I think quite naturally often, not always, but often quite selfish, and they don't really think about the big picture. They think, "Well, I'm not gonna be alive to observe the effects of those things anyway." So, is there anything that we could do at a systemic level, whether it's supermarkets, whether it's, I don't know, I dunno, tax or whatever it is, to try and reduce the amount of that, of meat that people are eating? Or is that the right approach?

    20. GYDr Giles Yeo1:14:24

        I th- Okay. Okay. I mean, the, the, the term taxation always scares people. It does.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:29

        Yeah, yeah.

    22. GYDr Giles Yeo1:14:30

        Okay? And I guess actually punitive sort of taxation is always, always does two things, it always disproportionately affects poor people, and it always makes lawyers rich. Two thing-

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:39

        Yeah. (laughs)

    24. GYDr Giles Yeo1:14:39

        Two, two, two things happen. I think a better way of doing it is to try and get people to choose the healthier choice, whatever the healthier choice might be, make that the easier and cheaper choice. Now this could be, um, subsidizing it. This could be putting it in different parts of the supermarket. This could be, um, stopping subsidizing, um, um, um, dairy, r- re- you know, the, the, the meat industry. There are any number of different things you can put in place so that you sort of, you can't make something more expensive without making something cheaper. That's the bottom line. Otherwise it will... It's not equitable. So I think that's what we need to do, but subtly. Once again, I, I'm gonna sound... It's, it's... On one hand I'm saying that there's a safe dose of meat, on the other hand, I'm saying eat less meat. But that is the, that is the answer. It's a nuanced answer where we eat too much meat, and, and for us the privilege, we at least have a responsibility to try and eat, to try and eat-

Episode duration: 1:52:31