WEIGHT LOSS EXPERT: ''If You’re Counting Calories, You’re Doing It ALL WRONG'' (Do This Instead!)

Jay Shetty 0:00 Why is it so difficult to lose weight?

Giles Yeo 0:01 Because your brain hates it when you lose weight. You're fighting biology.

Jay Shetty 0:06 Dr. Giles Yeo, welcome.

Giles Yeo 0:07 Thank you so much for having me. [applause]

Jay Shetty 0:10 So if calories is such a myth, how come so many people have used it as a strategy for weight loss?

Giles Yeo 0:16 Because people get so obsessed with just the number, that when they're cutting calories, they're considering the quality of the food that they're eating. The major issue is not the quantity, it is the quality.

Jay Shetty 0:28 So what truly is healthier? How do we know what healthy actually is?

Giles Yeo 0:32 Calories are not all equal. For every 100 calories of protein you eat, we are only ever able to use 70 calories. Protein counts are 30% wrong everywhere.

Jay Shetty 0:42 So if you could encourage people to change part of their diet, what should they be focused on?

Giles Yeo 0:47 Those are the three numbers I would use. Deploy it to your culture, your type of diet. If you actually focus on those three numbers, your diet will automatically become healthier.

Jay Shetty 0:55 So we have to go do some shopping, which my wife will be very mad at me for, that I've brought things into this house that she would never allow me to have.

Giles Yeo 1:02 You see here, Berries. These are called Incidental Virtuous Foods. Automatically made everyone lower their calorie, uh, estimates-

Jay Shetty 1:13 Wow

Giles Yeo 1:14 ... by 10%.

Jay Shetty 1:16 If you're predisposed because of your genetics to being overweight, are you stuck? [drumbeat]

Speaker 1:24 The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty.

Speaker 1:27 Jay Shetty.

Speaker 1:28 The one, the only, Jay Shetty.

Jay Shetty 1:30 [laughs] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier, and more healed. I'm so grateful that you tuned back in. Make sure you subscribe if you haven't already. And today's guest, I know, is gonna be someone who's gonna answer a lot of your questions. We've been reading the comments. I've been reading all of the things that you've been asking about, posting about, when you're sharing the podcast, and this episode is dedicated to you. Today's guest is Giles Yeo, a geneticist, author, and professor at the University of Cambridge, where he studies how our genes influence hunger and body weight. He's the author of Gene Eating and Why Calories Don't Count. This is the book that we're discussing today. If you're listening and you're loving the information, go and grab your copy. And he's one of the leading voices in challenging diet myths through science. We all know there's a ton of diet myths out there right now. Today, we're gonna bust them. And Giles also hosts the podcast, Chews the Fat. Go and subscribe if you haven't already. Please welcome to On Purpose, Giles Yeo. Giles, it's great to have you here.

Giles Yeo 2:40 Jay, thanks so much for having me.

Jay Shetty 2:41 Yeah. I'm so grateful for the work you're doing and excited to be educated and illuminated, surprised today with everything you have to share. But the first thing I want to ask you that I want to dive in with you is

Jay Shetty 2:55 do calories actually matter?

Giles Yeo 2:57 The book obviously says Why Calories Don't Count. Um, and every time I say that, people think I'm anti-physics. But particularly the gym bros, like, the guys who are all co- counting, counting calories, they think I'm anti-physics. I'm not anti-physics. I know that 200 calories of chips is twice the portion of 100 calories of chips. I do understand that. 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. I think ultimately that is it. So we eat food. Our body then extracts the calories, and depending on what we eat, your body has to work more or less hard

Giles Yeo 3:33 to extract the calories.

Jay Shetty 3:34 So when does our body have to work more hard, and when does it have to work less hard?

Giles Yeo 3:39 Primarily, if food has more protein in it and if food has more fiber in it, fiber only comes from plants, obviously, then your body has to work harder in order to get, you know, to get out the carbs, get out the fat, and ge- and get everything, um, out of there. It's if there's less protein and less fiber, then your body finds it far easier to actually extract those calories, put simplistically.

Jay Shetty 4:01 But that's not always good for us.

Giles Yeo 4:03 No, that's not always good for us. That's not... So, so I think it depends why you need the calories, how healthy or unhealthy you are a- as you are actually eating to get the calories. It probably was good for us 50,000 years ago as, as-

Jay Shetty 4:15 Why?

Giles Yeo 4:16 You can imagine if you've taken down the antelope, okay, and, and you're sitting there and eating raw meat, okay? You've taken really a lot of energy to take the antelope, and you're eating the raw meat, and so you're getting a certain amount of calories from it. Until someone suddenly invented fire, okay? And so when you then put the raw meat into the fire, you suddenly have a kebab, okay, and you eat it, the cooking makes it easier for your body to extract the calories. So in that sense, for X number of energy you've taken to chase down the antelope, you're now getting more energy, more calories. So in that sense, it kept us alive. In fact, people think that at around the time when we had fire and then suddenly were able to cook food, that is when our brain began to grow more, okay? Because we then had time not to always think about food, but we could then get more energy from the food that we were currently eating. So at that point, excellent. Today, less

Giles Yeo 5:12 good.

Jay Shetty 5:12 So, so if calories is such a myth-

Giles Yeo 5:15 Mm

Jay Shetty 5:15 ... how come so many of the gym bros or the people have used it as a strategy for weight loss for so long?

Giles Yeo 5:21 You know, calorie counting has been around, around for a long time. It has been around since the early 1900s. There was a doctor called Lulu Hunt Peters, based here, Los Angeles, okay? Los Angeles-based clinician in 19 whatever time, right, right after World War II, larger lady, and she began to realize that actually she needed to lose weight, okay? And I realize obesity wasn't a problem at the time, but she began to say that, "You know what? You can't imagine yourself lighter. You have to really begin to think about, about how much you're eating." And so calories were a new science at the time, and what she did was she decided that... And, and I, I read the book. It's a good book. It's, uh, if you look up Lulu Hunt Peters. And what she would say is, "Don't think about eating a slice of pie. Don't think about eating bacon. Think about eating 100 calories of pie. Think about eating 100 calories of bacon." And she published this book, New York Times bestseller for five years running, okay, in-1917 or something like that. She was the first calorie counter. The thing about calories is, sure, okay, if you are cutting calories in a balanced way, so say your diet is actually fine, but you're eating too much of the diet, hence you have obesity, well, then if you then take a sort of a balanced way of reducing your calories, it does work. The problem we have today is people get so obsessed with just the number, that calorie, 400, 500, 600, that when they're cutting calories, they are no, no longer cutting it either evenly, but they're also not even considering the quality of the food that they're eating, just thinking, "Okay, if I'm only have to have 400 calories, I'm gonna have it as a shake. I'm gonna have it as a this, as, as a that," rather than thinking more in terms of nutritional quality of the food. That is my major issue with calories.

Jay Shetty 7:04 Right. So it's almost

Jay Shetty 7:05 like the age-old quantity versus quality issue.

Giles Yeo 7:08 Absolutely. Quantity does matter to a degree, clearly.

Jay Shetty 7:11 Of course.

Giles Yeo 7:12 But I think today, the major issue to my mind is not the quantity, it is the quality. I think our diets, on average, have not improved. [laughs] So in fact, they've gotten worse as the quality of diet. We, we get far more calories now. Calories have never been cheaper. In the UK, which is, which is where, where, where I'm based, you can get, um, you can get 1,000 calories of chips, french fries, okay, for less than a pound, okay, which is what? A dollar, a, a buck 30 or something like that. Excuse me? Really? So it is very cheap, but are they good for you?

Jay Shetty 7:44 Mm-hmm.

Giles Yeo 7:44 Okay. Well, are th- do those calories really, really matter? Are you getting all the micronutrients? Are you getting everything that you actually need? Think about the quality of the food. The quantity matters, but it's a secondary concern

Giles Yeo 7:56 to me.

Jay Shetty 7:57 What is different between 500 calories of french fries, because that's probably what it is, right? If it's fried as well, and the oil, and everything that you add to it, versus what would you compare that to? In our head, what, what are the mistakes people are making when they're just calorie counting? When they're only looking at quantity, what are they comparing to be equal almost that isn't really equal from a micronutrient level?

Giles Yeo 8:20 Let me give you a, a more ex- like an extreme example first, okay? The same food. Uh, corn on the cob, sweet corn. Now, if you had 100 calories of corn on the cob, and then you, you looked in the loo the next day, it's quite clear you haven't absorbed anywhere close to 100 calories of sweet corn. But when you take sweet corn, exactly the same corn, you desiccate it, you know, you, you sort of, you turn it into a masa, you make a corn tortilla, you make corn bread, suddenly a far greater percentage of the calories are made available to you, but you always started with 100 calories of sweet corn.

Jay Shetty 8:51 Mm-hmm.

Giles Yeo 8:51 Okay? So that, so that is the two, thing where processing gets you more calories. Think about a steak, okay, where you have a steak, just a normal steak, 400 calories of a steak, say, you cook medium rare, so it took five minutes, eight minutes to cook. Imagine that same steak, murdered, okay? So you then mince it up, you put it into a ragu Bolognese sauce, which you have to cook for two hours, then you layer that into a lasagna, you cook it again for another three hours. Suddenly, the same 400 calories has been cooked for three hours before you eat it. You're gonna get more calories out of that. Not more than 400 calories, you just have to work very hard to get the 400 calories, compared to getting something which has been cooked for three to four hours. So it's not, when you take the same food, and think about how you prepare the food, then the different calorie counts then begin to matter. The moment you then c- cross compare food, if you're trying to compare chips to a steak, then it's very, very difficult to, to, to do, because now you're talking about there's iron in steak, you know, there's obviously a lot of protein in steak, um, there are some fat in steak as well. All, all these things that happen, whereas if you're now looking at a, at, at, at, you know, french fries, it's a lot of fat. Obviously, there's a lot of carbohydrates. There's nothing wrong with carbohydrates. We need carbohydrates, but comparing 400 to 500 calories of each of them, very, very, very different.

Jay Shetty 10:10 Mm-hmm. And, and you're saying that most of us look at them as the same. Because we're looking at quantity, we're ultimately saying 500 calories of this and 500 calories of this.

Giles Yeo 10:19 Now you gotta go, uh, uh, certainly it's true in the UK as well, I think it's true here in the US, you go into any of the big food manufa- not manufacturers, the restaurants, okay, big chain restaurants, and you open it up, and you see the calorie counts. Now, when you see the calorie counts by the meal, you're going, " [gasps] No, this is 1,000 calories. I don't want to eat that. Oh, wait a minute, I'm gonna go with this one. It's got 800 calories, it's 200 calories." And most people just look at that and don't even really consider, well, is it 800 calories of a salad versus this? How much dressing in a salad? No one is thinking about these things when they're just comparing the 800 versus the 1,000 and thinking, "I'm going for 800 because that is healthier, because it's a smaller number." And a lot of us do this. That's the danger of obsessing over one individual number.

Jay Shetty 11:04 So what truly is healthier?

Giles Yeo 11:06 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 11:06 How do we, how do we know what healthy actually is?

Giles Yeo 11:10 That is a very difficult question, because it depends. Now, clearly, if you are a child, um, clearly if you are an Olympic athlete and exercising, or if you are an old person, um, in a hospital, in bed, you know, and, and you're, you're trying very, very difficult to, to, to absorb calories, then from that specific, uh, scenario, you need a lot of energy that you can metabolize easily, okay? Now, if you're Joe Schmo like me, sat on a couch, okay, or if you're doing, or you're an office worker, well, then your needs, what is considered healthy, then becomes very, very different to someone else. So what is healthy really does depend not only on who you are in terms of your age, your ethnicity, you know, your sex, right, but it also does matter what you're doing at the time. So it does depend.

Jay Shetty 11:59 When did obesity

Jay Shetty 12:00 start to become a real problem, and why?

Giles Yeo 12:03 It's obviously a spectrum. I don't think suddenly one day we woke up and said, "Ah," it's, it's obesity. I think people began collecting numbers, the United States in particular, in around 1984. So if you go back and look, prior to 1984, there were, there was not a, a great deal of data. Obviously, some people were still collecting data. There had always been people who had obesity, this is not a unique thing, but very few.Around 1984, and, and coincidentally, that's also when Domino's Pizza made it to, um [laughs]

Jay Shetty 12:31 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 12:31 To, to the UK. We'll leave that alone.

Jay Shetty 12:33 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 12:33 Okay, fro- from, um, from that, but 1984 appears to be the ground zero for when people began to collect data.

Jay Shetty 12:41 Mm.

Giles Yeo 12:41 And so I think that most people accept that the mid-'80s was when we began to see a problem, and it's only gotten worse and worse since the mid-'80s.

Jay Shetty 12:51 When was the

Jay Shetty 12:52 rise of fast food? When did that really begin, do you know? I'm intrigued now.

Giles Yeo 12:56 So I think the first true... Well, depends what you mean by fast food, right? I mean, because the-

Jay Shetty 13:00 I mean, like, when we just started to be able to go buy a burger or buy a pizza in the same way as you said, yeah.

Giles Yeo 13:05 So the first, the first of the big fast food manufacturers was obviously, well, one of the first, was McDonald's.

Jay Shetty 13:10 McDonald's, yeah.

Giles Yeo 13:11 Okay? Mc- McDonald's, and I think there's a movie about that, right? How-

Jay Shetty 13:13 Oh, it's a great movie. It is a great movie

Giles Yeo 13:14 ... you know, how he's fine, how they worked it out.

Jay Shetty 13:16 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 13:17 But he didn't set out to make unhealthy food.

Jay Shetty 13:20 Right.

Giles Yeo 13:21 He was setting out to make a consistent, uh, product-

Jay Shetty 13:25 Mm-hmm

Giles Yeo 13:25 ... that people could afford and enjoy to eat.

Jay Shetty 13:28 Mm-hmm.

Giles Yeo 13:28 Okay? And at the time, obesity wasn't a problem, so trying to increase access to foods that at the time were only available to people with more money, you know, was a positive thing. As we begin to con- to value convenience more, and also, oddly enough, begin to value portion sizes more, I like a big steak like anybody else, but now portion size has also overwhelming become, um, you know, part of the goodness of a meal. So it's very, very difficult to, to, to say, but I think it went drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, and as suddenly we're in the situation we are now. Then boosted, I want to point out, completely boosted by the Deliveroos and Uber Eats of the world, where suddenly we're at least... Okay, in fact, let's back away. First of all, you could drive through, okay? So that was probably the first of the-

Jay Shetty 14:16 Yeah

Giles Yeo 14:16 ... true conveniences. "Ooh, I, I, I can drive through." Okay? You don't even get out of your car. Then I think, then we obviously had the situation, then the supersize me. There's, you know, can I... Where it actually was a marketing ploy where you can add that in. Then you have Deliveroo, Uber Eats, where now you don't have to get off your couch. I can go beep, beep, beep, beep, and someone will actually deliver the food to my door. It has been ampli- so each step has amplified it more till today, we're sat here. If we wanted to eat what- whatever, I mean, we do it 20 minutes, suddenly we'll have a whole fast food, you know, feast-

Jay Shetty 14:50 Mm-hmm

Giles Yeo 14:51 ... um, um, in front of us. So I think it wasn't one single thing, but each of these, each of these things suddenly increased, uh, our, our ability and ease of getting, of getting these foods. The foods also became cheaper.

Jay Shetty 15:03 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 15:04 Thus the problem today.

Jay Shetty 15:05 Yeah, and so since we've started measuring-

Giles Yeo 15:07 Mm

Jay Shetty 15:08 ... we are putting on more weight.

Giles Yeo 15:10 We are.

Jay Shetty 15:10 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 15:10 We are, we are putting on-

Jay Shetty 15:12 As, as, as a whole. On the whole, we're just putting... Humans are just putting on more weight.

Giles Yeo 15:16 We are putting more, uh, on more weight, and not-

Jay Shetty 15:19 In an unhealthy way

Giles Yeo 15:19 ... and, exactly, and not the good weight. You know, we're not putting on, we're not putting on muscle. Interestingly, actually, if you go back to the time when we were working more physical jobs, none of us really works physical, you know what I mean, we're, we're sat on our backsides and doing things. We have dishwashers and, and, and stuff like that. Actually, if you go around to the turn of the 18th to the 19th century, Victorian times, people were probably eating more calories then. Actually physically more cal- but, but people were doing coal mining, they were working in, you know, in the steel mills and, and et cetera, et cetera. So they would probably be on average, certainly in Victorian era in, um, in the UK, people were doing 3,000 average calories a day, but that's because they were coal miners, that's because they were washing clothes, that's wh- that's because they were doing everything else. So we on average are probably eating fewer calories, but where they come from have really, really changed, right?

Jay Shetty 16:09 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 16:09 The type of food we're eating. See, calories are not all equal. If you know you need to lose weight for whatever reason, then what you've got to do, the f- the easiest thing to do, okay, don't go take a genetic test, anything like that, it's free, okay? Is be honest with why you eat when you eat. The reason these drugs are good is because they're powerful and they work. The reason these drugs are bad is because they're powerful and they work for everybody. They make you feel fuller, whether or not you're 300 pounds looking to lose 100, or whether or not you are a 16-year-old girl who's 75 pounds. That is the problem. It'll still make you eat less. They're not cosmetic drugs. The marker that most predicts your health span is the amount, your percent, your ratio to muscle to fat heading into your late 60s and into your 70s. The more muscle me- lean mass you actually have going in particular into your 70s, the healthier you're likely to be.

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Jay Shetty 17:45 into your shower. You say the body digests obviously carbs, fats, and proteins absolutely differently.

Giles Yeo 17:52 Correct.

Jay Shetty 17:52 Why is that important, and tell us the difference.

Giles Yeo 17:54 Okay, there are three things. So these are obviously, uh, uh, fats, the, the macronutrients, okay? So fat, carbs, and protein are primarily made... In fact, fats and carbs are only made of three atoms, okay? So carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, but in different configurations, okay? Protein, however, has carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, but it's also full of nitrogen. About 16% of protein is nitrogen. So whenever our body is dealing with this stuff, it is far easy, easier for your body to digestAnd then metabolized, which is two different steps, right? So digestion means the food, uh, is converted, the f- fat is converted to fatty acids, protein is converted to amino acids, and, and carbs are converted to sugars, unless you're eating sugars, and then it passes across the gut wall. That is digestion. That's wh- that's when that happens. Metabolism is when those individual, uh, uh, amino acids, fatty acids, sugars, are transported to the cell, and your cell then converts it to energy. That's metabolism. So each of those two stages takes time, takes energy, and your body has to invest energy into it. So protein is the most complicated. So for every 100 calories of protein you eat, pure protein calories, we are only ever able to use 70 calories. Seven zero. So protein counts are 30% wrong everywhere, because we give it off as heat as, as part of the energy we put in to sorting out, to sorting out protein. Fat is nearly 100% available, so to speak, because, because it's very, very dense. Carbs, this is where the fiber comes in. So if you have refined carbohydrates... No, if you have sugar, if you have sugar, that's 98, 99% available, okay? So let's not ignore sugar, but sugar is a very simple carbohydrate. But if we have something starchy, now, if you had white bread, so r- so, so polished fr- where the fiber has been stripped out, then it probably takes five calories for every hundred, so 5%, to deal with carbohydrates without fiber. Whereas if you put in fiber, if you have whole meal, if what have you, then it takes 10% of energy to deal with, with, with, with it. Y- your body's just de- just dealing with it. So calorie counts are probably 5 to 10% wrong everywhere because of the amount of energy it takes to metabolize these macronutrients.

Jay Shetty 20:07 Yeah,

Jay Shetty 20:08 I think you said that, you write that we absorb fewer calories from almonds than the packaging actually says.

Giles Yeo 20:14 Yes. Far, far, far, far, far fewer.

Jay Shetty 20:16 Explain that.

Giles Yeo 20:17 So because almonds are, you know, they're, A, they're a whole food. You've got to bite through them. There's obviously fiber in them. There's all kinds of things. And so what... Okay, in fact, let's back away. So how do we count, calculate how many calories there are in a, in, in, in a product, okay? A guy called Atwater, and this Atwater was a professor of biochemistry in Connecticut, um, between 1880 and 1900. So this, this is a while ago, okay? He used a technique called bomb calorimetry, and, and in effect, what you do is you take food, you burn it in a sealed container, and then you measure how much heat it gives off through a, just water and the temperature. So how much heat it goes up. So, like, one calorie is the amount of temperature it takes to raise one liter of water one degree Celsius at sea level. So that's a calorie. And so what he did, Atwater did, was he took almonds, celery, carrots, steak. He burnt them and figured out how many total calories were in there. He also knew how much fat and protein. He then fed the almonds, carrots, and to people, and then he burnt their poo. Okay? For, for 20 years he did this.

Jay Shetty 21:23 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 21:23 And from there, that is where he came up with the Atwater general factor. So for all of us who have done high school biology, four calories for a gram of carb, four calories for, uh, for a gram of protein, um, and nine calories for a gram of fat. So that came from Atwater and, and his, and, and, you know, and what, what he was doing. The issue is obviously that when you actually burn all of it, everything goes away, and so all the calories are there. Whereas when you have to metabolize it, and it goes into your body, then your body begins to metabolize. M- Energy has to go in in order to extract stuff out. I'll give you another example, actually. Celery, okay? Now, celery famously people have said has, uh, negative calories. That's not quite true.

Jay Shetty 22:05 Okay. Don't make me hate celery now, Giles.

Giles Yeo 22:06 No, no, no, no, I'm not making you hate celery.

Jay Shetty 22:08 Okay, okay, okay.

Giles Yeo 22:08 So, so like a medium stick of celery, like you might-

Jay Shetty 22:10 Yeah

Giles Yeo 22:10 ... get with buffalo wings or something like that, is probably, you may get, raw, you may get six calories out of it, if you're lucky.

Jay Shetty 22:17 Okay.

Giles Yeo 22:17 If you cook that stick, however, you chop it up, you put it into a stew, what have you, suddenly cooking it, you get 30 calories from it.

Jay Shetty 22:23 The celery?

Giles Yeo 22:24 That's exactly the same stick of celery.

Jay Shetty 22:26 Right.

Giles Yeo 22:26 You're not adding energy to it. It's because the fiber and everything like that, it's just very difficult to extract calories out.

Jay Shetty 22:31 Right.

Giles Yeo 22:31 Whereas when you cook it, and you process it-

Jay Shetty 22:34 Mm-hmm

Giles Yeo 22:34 ... okay, suddenly it's easier for you to get that calorie out.

Jay Shetty 22:37 Mm.

Giles Yeo 22:37 So therefore, an almond, which is not a processed item, right? Because the only thing you've done is y- to take it off the skin, okay, and then you eat it. Now, if you make almond milk, if you, if you, if you actually put down and, and, and, and put an almond powder and do things like that, then you begin to get more calories out of the, out of the almond.

Jay Shetty 22:56 Got it. So I have to ask you this.

Giles Yeo 22:57 Mm.

Jay Shetty 22:58 Because every summer-

Giles Yeo 22:59 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 23:00 ... a lot of people from the States will go to Europe.

Giles Yeo 23:02 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 23:02 And they'll say, "I ate pasta, I ate pizza, and I lost weight. But when I eat that in America, it's never gonna happen." Is that true? Like, why is it that people feel when they go to Europe, they can eat all the things, they can eat bread, they can eat pasta, and they're not putting on weight, they're not feeling the same?

Giles Yeo 23:21 I think there are probably two different reasons for that.

Jay Shetty 23:22 Okay.

Giles Yeo 23:22 Okay? So I think, first of all, I think they're walking more. Because, because when you go, when you go to Europe, and you're doing-

Jay Shetty 23:27 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 23:27 ... thing, you're not gonna drive around Rome, right?

Jay Shetty 23:29 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Giles Yeo 23:29 I mean, you're gonna be, you're gonna be walking, you're gonna be doing this. So I think there's a walking element here. Try and walk around here in, in LA, impossible. Um, so I think there's probably that as well. But everything there is made by hand and from scratch. No, I, that's not a lot, uh, that's... Obviously you can go to fast food places as well.

Jay Shetty 23:47 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 23:47 But if you're going to Rome or you're going to Sicily, you're gonna go to the mom and pop shop. You're gonna go to, to what they're doing.

Jay Shetty 23:54 The local place, yeah.

Giles Yeo 23:54 Exactly, the local places. And so they would have cooked the food for less, they would have used other techniques. And so things just, you, you are going to get less calories out because they're less processed. Processing of food, there's nothing wrong with processed foods per se, because everything that you do to a food is processed. So cooking is a process, fermentation is a process. Ultra-processing, the super processing of food, that's another story entirely, because obviously what then happens is those are industrial processes. And I think a lot of the food that we eat, 50% of the calories-Okay? That we get, certainly in the UK as well, and in the US, 50% come from prepackaged foods, okay? Or so-called, quote-unquote, ultra-processed foods. This is less so in somewhere like, like, like Italy. They're more likely to make the pizza from scratch. You're more likely... No one's gonna serve you a frozen pizza.

Jay Shetty 24:42 Mm.

Giles Yeo 24:42 You're gonna get it, it's gonna come out of the oven, it's gonna be fed to you. The pasta's gonna be dried in a specific way. There's gonna be doing all kinds of things. So I think the way they make the food does matter, but you need to then take that into account that if you're on holiday in Europe, you're probably walking as well.

Jay Shetty 24:57 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, because I think

Jay Shetty 24:59 it's, you just hear it all the time.

Giles Yeo 25:00 You do.

Jay Shetty 25:00 And I'm like, "Wait, is this, is this real?" And even, even my wife says, I mean, when we saw the difference in water quality, even in England versus here, food quality for sure, so much stuff.

Giles Yeo 25:10 Bread quality.

Jay Shetty 25:11 Bread quality for sure.

Giles Yeo 25:13 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 25:13 Is it that everything here is being ultra-processed? Is that the challenge? Like, are just normal foods being... Like, what about tomatoes and they taste different. Like, I remember one year I was in, when I spent more time in India, I remember the vegetables just taste different, like they have flavor. Whereas here, every cucumber tastes the same. You won't, you won't notice anything different.

Giles Yeo 25:35 Okay, so I think the flavor really, really does matter. I think nutritionally, I mean, people say that the n- the, the, the vegetables here, or if you grow them in a certain way, you get less nutrients from them. That's probably overstating it. I don't think that's necessarily true.

Jay Shetty 25:46 Interesting.

Giles Yeo 25:47 I do think, however, that if you are, if you're growing vegetables, first of all, using more natural techniques rather than intensive techniques, you are gonna get less pesticides and less things. So I, just on that, that's better for you already, right? Because you're not eating so many chemicals.

Jay Shetty 26:03 Mm-hmm.

Giles Yeo 26:03 I do think that they are more intense in flavor, okay? And does flavor mean more minerals and more, and more things? Probably a little bit of that, but ultimately I don't think the vegetables here are bad for you. They just are not as tasty and, depending on what you're eating, I think are gonna be full of pesticides and, and, and, and other things that we probably don't want to eat that much of.

Jay Shetty 26:23 Mm.

Giles Yeo 26:24 I don't think that actually there, there are f- fewer good things in the vegetables here, they just don't taste as nice.

Jay Shetty 26:28 Yeah. How is it that, another thing I hear a lot is, "Hey,

Jay Shetty 26:32 I'm eating the same exact thing as this other person over here, but they have a six-pack and I can't even lose weight."

Giles Yeo 26:39 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 26:40 Why is that happening? I'm sure you hear this too.

Giles Yeo 26:42 I do.

Jay Shetty 26:43 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 26:43 I do hear this. I do. So an el- there is an element of truth there that we deal with calories differently, so there are two, there are two elements, um, of it. So obviously there's, there's... You, you can break down why someone gains weight into a number of different things. First of all, how much do they eat? That is my expertise. That's primarily what I study. But even if you ate exactly the same thing, once it gets into you, there are two elements. There's first of all, the, your efficiency. So in other words, for every given calorie, how many, for amount of protein, for what have you, how efficient are you dealing, uh, at, at releasing the calories? That's gonna differ between you and me. That's the first thing. The second thing is what we call nutrient partitioning. So when it comes in, how much do you burn, how much do you store? And crucially, when you store it, where do you store it? And so all of those have genetic elements to it, which means that they, they, they explain differences be- be- between different people. And so undoubtedly it's gonna be a case where some people can eat more than someone else and not actually gain as much weight. The six-pack element to it, probably overstated. The six-pack element-

Jay Shetty 27:46 Yeah

Giles Yeo 27:46 ... would, would, would, would be obviously be a more of an exercise and thing. But yes, it is true that people can eat more and maintain the same weight as other people.

Jay Shetty 27:54 Okay.

Giles Yeo 27:54 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 27:54 And what, what do I do about that? 'Cause that obviously doesn't feel good when you're like, "Hey, I'm trying to do the thing, I'm trying to..."

Giles Yeo 28:00 I think it is not the reason for the obesity epidemic that we're facing. That is down to eating. I think that the energy expenditure and the metabolism, these things play a small role, um, that we have nothing, that, that we, there's very little we can actually do about it, right? Because the on- interestingly, the easiest way to increase your metabolism is to gain weight. And people think it's counterintuitive, right?

Jay Shetty 28:22 Right, explain that, yeah.

Giles Yeo 28:22 Right, right. But if you take a mini, a, a small, ti- tiny mini car, it is always gonna have a lower fuel consumption than a big SUV.

Jay Shetty 28:30 Mm-hmm.

Giles Yeo 28:30 Okay? Ultimately, that's, that, that's the case. So the easiest way to increase your energy expenditure is to gain weight, but then that's not the aim of the game. And the other thing is when you lose weight, your body also reduces its metabolism, right? So that is, that, that is gonna be an issue. So the only way is to try and increase your metabolism temporarily. There's no... There are no foods that can increase your metabolism. Coffee probably does it briefly, okay? Chilis don't do that, okay, briefly. Exercise is probably the thing that most effectively increases your metabolism, at least temporarily, so when you're doing it, and then there's a tail off as you stop, so you're continuing burning. That's the first thing. And second is building muscle mass, because your muscle, your lean mass, is more metabolically active than fat mass. So you could be of the same weight, but if you have more muscle, uh, um, in your body as a, as a ratio, then you will have a higher metabolism. But your underlying metabolism, if you divide your metabolism by the amount of muscle you're carrying, that cannot change. That, that won't change until you get older. So ultimately that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to say, "Well, okay, I've got a lower metabolism than you," for example, "Well, then maybe I need to make sure I gain a bit more muscle to sort of, to sort of mitigate against that."

Jay Shetty 29:42 Got it.

Giles Yeo 29:43 Mm.

Jay Shetty 29:43 So how does someone

Jay Shetty 29:45 get rid of that stubborn belly fat?

Giles Yeo 29:47 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 29:47 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 29:48 See, that's an excellent question, and you cannot direct where you lose fat. It's very, very, very, very, very frustrating. So you know you go to classes and there's booty busting and there's what have you, and then, ooh, you know.

Jay Shetty 30:00 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 30:00 But, but, and, and you know what the, the, the deal is? The only way to get rid of the belly fat is to eat less and probably exercise more a- as well, and people are going, "What, what, I'm coming onto this podcast to hear that?" It is, because it, because it's, it's physics, okay? It's difficult to do, but it's physics. No, your, your weight will go on to where genetically it's going to go-

Jay Shetty 30:22 Mm

Giles Yeo 30:22 ... and will come off from that. You know, what size of your boobs, what's the size of your bum, what's the size of your belly?People wish they could direct where they get their weight loss from. I want it from my tummy. You know, for example, when I gain weight, I know I get a bit jowly, okay? This is where it goes on first. My wife always tells me this. Why? No clue. No clue. And it's also, it does go off first when I begin to lose weight.

Jay Shetty 30:42 Mm.

Giles Yeo 30:43 But so you, it's very difficult to get rid of the stubborn fat by trying to do sit-ups, but what you have to do is to, right, you, uh, you do actually have to sort of shift your eating patterns in order to lose belly fat.

Jay Shetty 30:53 Let's

Jay Shetty 30:54 talk about the genetics piece because I think that's the hard part. If you're predisposed-

Giles Yeo 30:59 Yep

Jay Shetty 30:59 ... because of your genetics to being overweight-

Giles Yeo 31:02 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 31:02 ... are you stuck?

Giles Yeo 31:04 If you are predisposed genetically to, to, to eating more because you are more driven to, to food for, for a number of different reasons, then it will always be harder for you to lose weight, okay? Ultimately, that is true, and there's no need to sugarcoat it. But I guess the analogy I'll use is this: I will never, ever be able to run as fast as Usain Bolt, okay? Because it's my genes. [laughs] But it doesn't mean that if I train, I won't run faster than I do now. So I think ultimately that's it, right? None of us here are gonna become an Olympic athlete, but if we train, we'll get fitter, we'll get better. And so you've got to sort of deal with the genes you have. You can't blame it. You can blame your parents, that's where the genes have come from, but ultimately, you deal with the hand of cards you have. I wish I looked like Brad Pitt, but there are many, many reasons why that is not gonna happen, right? And so you deal, you deal with the hand of cards you are dealt. But even with a more difficult hand of cards, so to speak, a more difficult set of genes when it comes to being overweight, it doesn't mean that you can't do anything about it.

Jay Shetty 32:06 What are you seeing in terms of gene limitations? Do you see demographics having certain gene limitations and drawbacks compared to others? Like, I know as a South Asian man, generally putting on weight is easy, building muscle is hard, and a lot of South Asian men will have that conversation with each other and say, "Hey, it's w- it's quite easy for us to be lean and skinny, but it's easy to put on weight around our stomach," like you said you put on. What, what, what do you see when you look at the genes and the genetic research?

Giles Yeo 32:36 So the genes telling us why people gain weight tend to be quite universal, so the eating too much genes.

Jay Shetty 32:43 Mm-hmm.

Giles Yeo 32:44 Where the different ethnicities come from comes into the consequences of gaining that weight. There, yes, there's muscle building, there's, there's... You're right, right? Because Chinese people, I'm, uh, ethnically I'm Chinese, we're smaller framed individuals. We too cannot get that much weight, gain that much weight before we actually tilt into disease. So but the genes underlying why we eat are quite universal, okay? But why we get specific diseases, very, very genetically driven, very ethnically driven. As you said, South Asian, East Asians, the moment-- We don't have to go anywhere close to a BMI of 30, and we are suddenly increasing our risk of a number of different metabolic diseases. So we c- compared to white people, who can always gain a bit more weight, compared to Polynesians. A, a colleague of mine, actually, I was in New Zealand giving a, um, a, a lecture, and I saw there's a big South Asian diaspora in New Zealand.

Jay Shetty 33:36 Mm.

Giles Yeo 33:36 And so I saw a, a diabetologist, a, a diabetes doctor who's, who is South Asian, giving a talk in which she was comparing BMI and rates of type 2 diabetes in the local Polynesian population versus the South, the South Asian diaspora, and the local Polynesian population could get to something like nearly twice the BMI before actually reaching the same risk of type 2 diabetes. It is down to, I guess, how much muscle you can put on a little bit. It's down to how much fat we all can store safely, and so that is a crucial bit of, bit, bit of information. How much fat can you store safely? Can I store safely? The safest place to store fat is in your fat cells, okay? They're like balloons. They go bigger, they go smaller. You don't gain fat cells. Boop, boop, boop, boop. The, but they get full, and the moment they get full, that's when the fat goes into your liver, your muscles, places that are not designed to store fat in high am- in large amounts, and that's when you become ill. So that, very, very genetic. And it also comes with body shape. Where you put your fat also matters, right? Because then you can look at different populations and realize, "Oh my God, all these people are completely different shapes." They are, because where you put your fat also influences how much fat you can store safely. So that bit, very genetic.

Jay Shetty 34:54 Yeah. So if you

Jay Shetty 34:55 could encourage people to change part of their diet-

Giles Yeo 34:59 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 34:59 ... what should they be focused on, and what are the mistakes that you think people are making right now when it comes to what we eat, what we put into our mouths? What are the mistakes people are making, and what would you encourage people to think about differently if it isn't calories?

Giles Yeo 35:11 Then it is very, very culturally specific, but I think there's probably some universal rules in, in, in order to, in order to follow. You know, like a lot of South Asians, well, I mean, there are a lot of vegetarians in South Asia. People in the Mediterranean eat Mediterranean diet. Try delivering a Mediterranean diet to Texans, that's just not gonna happen. So culturally, ev- it, it, it does make a difference. I do think there's some sim- relatively simple quote-unquote rules. I hate to use the word rules. I think we need to eat enough protein, I think most importantly. So I think about 16% of the energy in your diet needs to come from protein. It is possible to eat too much because we have to use the protein we eat. If we don't use it, we don't store protein, okay? All the muscles in us, the pr- all the protein in our body is active. So if you eat a lot of protein but don't use it, it gets converted to fat.

Jay Shetty 35:59 Mm-hmm.

Giles Yeo 35:59 Okay? [laughs] And then it begins to stress out your kidneys and stuff as well, right? And your, and your, and your liver, unless you're lifting or doing so- or doing something else. So 16% protein, okay? You need to, we need to eat way more fiber, way more fiber. We need to double the amount of fiber we com- we eat. Fiber only comes from fruit and vegetables, so we pretty much need to double the amount of fruit and vegetables that we, that we actually eat, and we probably need to limit the free sugars we eat. Now, free sugars are sugars, sugar-Anything that has been detached from fiber. So orange juice is a free sugar, uh, honey is a free sugar, maple syrup is a, is, is a free sugar. We probably need to-

Jay Shetty 36:38 All the good stuff. [laughs]

Giles Yeo 36:39 All the good stuff. But the, the sugar's all the same. It tastes nicer-

Jay Shetty 36:42 Yeah

Giles Yeo 36:42 ... for any number of different reasons, but all the good stuff. You probably need to limit it, limit it to 5% of energy or less. Now, if you take those three numbers, right, 16% of protein, uh, 30 grams, double the amount of fiber, and keep your free sugars, le- you can eat as much fruit and vegetables as you want, but free sugars are 5% unless, you can deploy it to any culture.

Jay Shetty 37:03 Mm.

Giles Yeo 37:03 Because the protein, I'm not only talking steaks, right? I mean, this is what people think here when I say protein, steaks. But no, I mean tofu, beans, veg- it doesn't matter the source of the protein. Those are the three numbers I would use. Deploy it to your culture, your type of diet you wish to, you wish to actually eat, then obviously you can tweak it. But I think if you actually focus on those three numbers, I think it's... Your, your diet will automatically become healthier.

Jay Shetty 37:26 So 16% protein.

Giles Yeo 37:27 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 37:28 30% fiber.

Giles Yeo 37:29 30 grams fiber.

Jay Shetty 37:30 30 grams fiber.

Giles Yeo 37:30 So double the amount of fiber. We're at, on, on average, on average-

Jay Shetty 37:33 Yeah

Giles Yeo 37:33 ... in the United States and North America, and United States and in the UK, we're probably only having 15 grams of fiber a day. It's difficult. I think this is part of the problem of, of, um, of focusing on calories is that I... What does that mean when I tell you 16% protein and-

Jay Shetty 37:48 Yeah

Giles Yeo 37:48 ... and what have you? So I, I, I do these things. I, I speak to, to, to people like you, I speak to industry, I do this, to try and push back and say, "Can we highlight different things on your prepackaged food?" I mean, highlighting the calories, useless, right? Whereas if you highlight how much protein it is, how much, you know, fiber is in it, and how much free sugar is, in a traffic light system or something-

Jay Shetty 38:09 Yeah

Giles Yeo 38:09 ... I think that's easier for you to actually, to actually do.

Jay Shetty 38:12 Let's actually talk about that.

Giles Yeo 38:13 Mm.

Jay Shetty 38:13 So

Jay Shetty 38:14 we had to go do some shopping-

Giles Yeo 38:15 Yes

Jay Shetty 38:15 ... which my wife will be very mad at me for-

Giles Yeo 38:18 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 38:18 ... because I've brought things into this house that she would never allow me to have in the house.

Giles Yeo 38:22 Okay.

Jay Shetty 38:23 And so I've got to make sure that I give this out to someone else afterwards, because-

Giles Yeo 38:26 Don't give it to me

Jay Shetty 38:27 ... if she thinks I've been eating it, she'll be mad.

Giles Yeo 38:28 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 38:29 But we brought in some products that people are eating, because I think partly the issue is when you go out and you buy something-

Giles Yeo 38:35 Yep

Jay Shetty 38:35 ... once you're educated, so my wife trained me in this, and I want to help pass it on and learn from you as well in how to actually read-

Giles Yeo 38:42 Yep

Jay Shetty 38:42 ... food labels.

Giles Yeo 38:42 Yep.

Jay Shetty 38:43 Because I used to just be like, "Yeah, that's 50 calories. I'll have that. That's 100 calories. It's easy." So I'm gonna throw you some products, and, uh, you know, you can tell us whether this is actually healthy or not, and just walk us through all the packaging on the front-

Giles Yeo 38:55 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 38:55 ... and the back.

Giles Yeo 38:56 So a, a couple of things about, about this. So before, be- be- before we start, I, I, I think I see where this is going.

Jay Shetty 39:02 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 39:02 All right? One of the things that annoys me the most about food and advertising for food is the health halo, right? This is what we're talking about, the health halo. No one thinks that drinking Coca-Cola and eating thingies is healthy for you, but we do it because it's a treat, we do it. But I'm not thinking I'm having a health drink, and so most of us take the precautions. Now, if you're... No one thinks that when you get a, many tortilla chip brands are available. Let's look at this one. First of all, it's green in packaging. It has this, "I am green," okay, from all the things. Okay, tortilla style protein chips. What the freaking hell is that? As a fact, let's see where the protein comes from. Okay, where, I don't know, does it tell you where the protein comes from? They added, uh, milk protein isolate, whey protein. So they're trying to increase the amount of protein you actually get, and so hence they're telling you that this is a healthier option. But you're still eating a tortilla chip, right? If you look at the-

Jay Shetty 40:08 It's still fried, right?

Giles Yeo 40:09 It is. Let's have a look at the back here. I'm not... It should be fried. I mean, sometimes they bake it, I guess.

Jay Shetty 40:15 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 40:15 But tortillas tend to be fried. Oh, this, this one says it's baked.

Jay Shetty 40:20 Okay. Okay, so it's baked.

Giles Yeo 40:20 Okay, so that does, so that does make, make, make, make a difference, but it is still a, it is still a chip, but they're trying to sell this as a health food, okay?

Jay Shetty 40:26 And you would say it's not a health food, because-

Giles Yeo 40:29 I don't, I am not anti tortilla chips, but I know why they've done the, the packaging as they've done here, so people will go and says, "Oh, these are the terrible to- to- tortilla chips. I'm gonna buy this one because these are gonna be tortilla chips that are gonna be better for me because it's in a green packaging and because it says high protein, high protein for it." So I don't know. You know, it's still a tortilla chip.

Jay Shetty 40:51 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 40:51 And, and, and ul- ultimately,

Giles Yeo 40:53 so this is the kind of thing.

Jay Shetty 40:54 What is the difference between baked and fried? Because I don't... I speak to a lot of people about this, and I don't think they, people even think to think about that.

Giles Yeo 41:01 So baked would mean that you use less oil, okay? And because things like tortilla chips and potato chips and, and all the kinds of things you, you, you, you get are very porous, so in other words, they absorb a lot of fat to crisp up, okay?

Jay Shetty 41:17 Mm-hmm.

Giles Yeo 41:17 A fried tortilla will taste better than a baked tortilla, so undoubtedly they'll have, they'll have more, more, more fat. I'm not saying that this isn't slightly better for you. It's still not a health food, though.

Jay Shetty 41:25 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 41:25 So that's the difference. The difference is that when you f- fry something, it, more of the fat gets absorbed into it, whereas you bake it, you sort of, you do put oil in it. You have to, because otherwise... It's like using an air fryer. Why do you use an air fryer? You use an air fryer because you put in a little bit of oil, it then heats up the oil, and then mists the oil so, so that what you're doing is you're frying with less oil. That's why you're getting, you're getting less of the fats that, that, that, that are actually, uh, out, out there.

Jay Shetty 41:50 Got it. Okay.

Jay Shetty 41:51 I'm gonna pull out some more. We had a lot of bags of chips in here, but let me s- take this one out.

Giles Yeo 41:55 Oh. All right. So this is shredded wheat.

Jay Shetty 42:01 Mm-hmm.

Giles Yeo 42:02 Okay, let's have a look at this, actually. Now, they're always... Oh, wait a minute. This is... So if you look at, so a couple of things before we go to the back. Whenever you look at a cereal, you see here, for example, in the front, berries.

Jay Shetty 42:15 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 42:16 All right?

Jay Shetty 42:17 No one ever does that. [laughs]

Giles Yeo 42:17 No one ever does it. I mean, I have shredded, right? I'm not, I'm not against this, but I eat it. Do you know what these things are called? Within the, within the field of, of sort of food science, these are called incidental virtuous foods.Okay? So someone did an experiment where what they did was they asked a few thousand people, all right, and they put a burger, just a normal standard burger, and they asked everyone to sort of estimate how many calories are in the burger. And, you know, obviously you get people getting it right, people getting it completely wrong. Then they took the burger and they put a stick of celery next to the burger. That stick of celery, same burger, that stick of celery automatically made everyone lower on average their calorie, uh, uh, estimates-

Speaker 43:02 Wow

Giles Yeo 43:03 ... by 10%, just the presence of it. Now, if you... In fact, we'll go back to the, we'll go back to the chip, okay? So here is a tortilla chip, and obviously, uh, uh, there, there is lime, there is chili. I appreciate they probably flavored it for some, but nevertheless. But here, cereal is, is one of these things. That is why the berries are there. Go into your favorite supermarket, look, anything you buy, once again, this is not anti shredded wheat, okay? Anything you buy, they'll always have these things because it automatically makes it a virtuous food. Why do people, when you watch a, an advert or, or something, why is there a little bit of coriander, a bit of watercress, you know, over the steak?

Speaker 43:43 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 43:45 Like, really? It is incidental virtuous foods. Okay. So, so that, that's the first thing to-

Speaker 43:49 Yeah

Giles Yeo 43:50 ... to, to note.

Speaker 43:50 Really great note.

Giles Yeo 43:51 Now, if you're going to look in the back, uh, let's look at the sugar. I mean, this may be perfectly healthy, I'm not entirely sure. Okay, so this just has no added sugar, which is fine, which is good. Um, so I, I do think that that's the one thing you wanna, you wanna look at.

Speaker 44:04 So that's when we're reading a label-

Giles Yeo 44:05 When you're reading a label, what do you want to focus on? Now, clearly this is shredded wheat. I'm not eating this for protein. Okay? So you can look at the back of the protein, but the amount of protein on here, uh, where does it say? Polysaturated, mon... Where's the protein?

Speaker 44:19 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 44:19 I bet you there's a... Oh, no, there is protein here.

Speaker 44:21 Yeah. [laughs]

Giles Yeo 44:21 So seven grams of, seven grams of protein. So it's quite high, surprisingly high for, for the amount of stuff that is here. What you want to do, however, on this, is not worry too much about the protein because you're eating a shredded wheat, is to look at the sugar, because oh my God, I mean, if you actually look at some of the cereals, including some varieties of shredded wheat, you may as well be eating a chocolate bar as far as I can gather, the amount of sugar, the amount of sugar that, that, that's in there. So this, you would look at it, and broadly speaking, it's probably a relatively healthy thing to eat.

Speaker 44:49 Mm-hmm. Got it. Okay.

Giles Yeo 44:50 Except for the incidental virtuous foods.

Speaker 44:51 [laughs]

Speaker 44:52 All right. Very good. Well, you spoke about this earlier, so let's take a look at it. We might as well.

Giles Yeo 44:59 Okay. OJ. Now, what makes it light? Very interesting. So let me just-

Speaker 45:05 Yeah, what does it say on it? Tell us

Giles Yeo 45:07 ... it's an orange juice with-

Speaker 45:07 That tells us it's-

Giles Yeo 45:08 ... 50% less sugars and calories than OJ. Then how did they make it? 'Cause OJ is O- OJ should be OJ.

Speaker 45:15 Right.

Giles Yeo 45:15 You should take juice, you squeeze it out, maybe you put some heat in it to, to make sure it lasts longer. What have they done to it to reduce the amount of-

Speaker 45:23 Sugar and calories?

Giles Yeo 45:25 Ah. So what they've done here, so first of all, is they have concentrated the orange juice. So in other words, they have just... This is in effect orange juice mixed with water. So can I say something? Can I please say something? Save your cash, buy an actual bottle of o- if you want to drink orange juice, buy an actual bottle of orange juice and dilute it with water. Same effect.

Speaker 45:45 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 45:45 Because it says here, the first thing on here is filtered water. First ingredient, ingredient list. It's fine, okay? But n- now you're buying half the amount of orange juice for the same amount of cash-

Speaker 45:54 Yeah

Giles Yeo 45:54 ... whereas you could buy exactly the same amount of orange juice and use water. Now, what else i- is there? Okay, now let's have a look. No pulp.

Speaker 46:02 Mm.

Giles Yeo 46:02 Why is this a good thing? So here's, here's the issue with OJ, right? So OJ, the full concentrated OJ, has the same, in fact, let's... We'll, we'll read it out just to make sure. So total carbohydrates here are 10%. Okay? So, so 5%, so it has 5% because it's half. Coca-Cola has a sugar content about 11%, okay, in a, in a can of Coca-Cola. So OJ actually has the same amount of sugar as Coca-Cola. This is diluted, we have already established this. And it's the same sugar, it's not because it's natural sugar, it's healthier for you. You've squeezed it out of the, you squeeze it out of the orange. So the pulp was the only good thing about this. I mean, there's probably vitamin C and stuff, but this, the pulp was the only good thing because that was the fiber. So what this has said is that we have made extra sure there is no fiber in this orange juice.

Speaker 46:48 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 46:48 That's what this is telling you.

Speaker 46:50 Right.

Giles Yeo 46:51 Okay?

Speaker 46:51 Right.

Giles Yeo 46:51 I, I have no problems with o- with OJ as a, as a small thing, but people think it's a health food, and people will then drink a ton of this.

Speaker 46:57 Mm.

Giles Yeo 46:58 And you have to treat it like you're drinking a high sugar drink.

Speaker 47:02 Mm.

Giles Yeo 47:03 Eat the orange, because when you eat the orange, you're chewing it, there's fiber, your body takes longer to release the sugar, exactly the same amount of sugar, because orange juice actually comes from, c- comes from there. You get a lot more goodness out of eating the orange. If you have to drink orange juice, drink, you, you know, do it in moderation. This is a waste of money because, as it says on the back, it's diluted orange juice. For Pete's sake.

Speaker 47:27 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 47:27 So, so, so [laughs]

Speaker 47:28 It's good analysis.

Giles Yeo 47:30 So this is-

Speaker 47:30 This is useful. This is useful. All right.

Giles Yeo 47:32 All right. This is fun.

Speaker 47:33 All right. Yeah, yeah.

Giles Yeo 47:33 [laughs]

Speaker 47:33 It's, it's fine. I'm enjoying it. Let's do... Let's do this one, because this-

Giles Yeo 47:43 [laughs]

Speaker 47:44 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 47:45 These are great. Where did you get these from? This says, uh-

Speaker 47:48 These are all from... I won't say where they're from.

Giles Yeo 47:50 Now, look.

Speaker 47:51 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 47:52 Just c- can I please say?

Speaker 47:53 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 47:53 Dried apricots, th- these are wonderful for you, okay? Because obviously, uh, they're full of fiber, and yeah, you might say, "Well, aren't they high in sugar?" Yeah, but then they're all tied up in the fiber. They're... And how much are you ris- are you really gonna eat anyway? Wonderful for you. Okay? You shouldn't need to enhance it with any probiotic apricots. Now, what have they made it? So ma- so probiotic means, there's prebiotic and there's probiotic, and prebiotic is adding fiber, probiotic is taking the bugs, 'cause this is what confused me when I was looking at this. So this is probiotic because they've taken normal apricots, which is full of fiber, and added bacteria. Now, this sounds a bit dodgy, uh, because are they telling me that the, the bugs cannot be alive?I don't think, because they're in this thing. What is the shelf life of this?

Jay Shetty 48:39 It looks-

Giles Yeo 48:39 Okay, [laughs] March 2026. It's sterile, right, in here. So they say they've put the bugs in, but the bugs cannot be alive, so it is not gonna be probiotic if the bugs are dead, and they have to be dead, because this thing is not gonna rot in a sealed container, and it's good till March 2026. So this, the bugs have got to be alive. When you're eating yogurt, uh, yogurt, if you're eating, you know, kombucha, the bugs are alive.

Jay Shetty 49:09 Yeah, yeah.

Giles Yeo 49:09 That is why they work, because they pass, you need, you need those actually to, to, to survive the gut and go in in order to survive. These are dead bugs.

Jay Shetty 49:17 They won't work.

Giles Yeo 49:17 Complete BS.

Jay Shetty 49:18 Interesting. Wow.

Giles Yeo 49:20 Wow.

Jay Shetty 49:20 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 49:22 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 49:22 I love how shocked you are right now.

Giles Yeo 49:24 [laughs] This is-

Jay Shetty 49:24 All right. Let's do this as the last one-

Giles Yeo 49:26 Oh, okay, okay, okay

Jay Shetty 49:26 ... 'cause we've done all the other versions of this, but...

Giles Yeo 49:29 [laughs] Okay, let's, let me, just let me see. I wa- let me, let me see what the back is. Per serving, so 65 grams. Holy cow. All right. So this is a bar. Now, I know what this is. This is for the gym bros, right? But, but if you actually look at the, uh, first of all, it tells you the amount of protein, so they're selling this as a health food bar by its very definition, because we're not, we're not dealing with it. But if you actually look at the, at the back, yes, there's more protein in it, okay, for that, but it's 22% sugar. [laughs] It's 22% sugar, okay? Uh, 14% fat, of which 13% is saturated fat, okay? And the protein amount is 13% protein, so actually I'm saying we need 16%. It's already below the actual, what you should be eating in your, in your total diet anyway. I don't understand this bar. I do understand it if you are take- taking it as a recovery bar. Fair, okay. If you've just done a workout, or if you're, maybe you're cycling, you're, you're trying to do that, I can dig that. The problem is if it's there in a supermarket shelf, and you're coming and thinking, "This is gonna be healthy for me," but you're not working out, you're not doing any, you buy it and eat it, this is far worse for you than eating a chocolate bar, unless you're exercising at the same time.

Jay Shetty 50:39 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 50:40 So that being the-

Jay Shetty 50:40 I mean, the sugar in that's high

Giles Yeo 50:42 22?

Jay Shetty 50:42 It's really high, yeah.

Giles Yeo 50:43 It's high.

Jay Shetty 50:44 Yeah, it's high.

Giles Yeo 50:44 Oh my God, is this even edible? I mean, it's 20-

Jay Shetty 50:46 I, uh, I used to... So I used to eat those nearly every day until I looked at the back.

Giles Yeo 50:50 Was it like-

Jay Shetty 50:50 No, no, no, until I looked at the back.

Giles Yeo 50:51 Then you went, "Dude."

Jay Shetty 50:52 Yeah, and I realized even when I am working out, I don't need that.

Giles Yeo 50:55 No, you don't need 20% sugar.

Jay Shetty 50:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Giles Yeo 50:56 I mean, yeah, you, you want, you want more protein probably, actually, than that.

Jay Shetty 50:58 Yeah. I've shifted to one that does only one gram of sugar now.

Giles Yeo 51:01 'Cause you do need some sugar.

Jay Shetty 51:02 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 51:02 You need some carbs. Obviously you do.

Jay Shetty 51:03 Yeah, yeah. But not that.

Giles Yeo 51:05 No.

Jay Shetty 51:05 Yeah, not that. Good analysis. So,

Jay Shetty 51:07 so walk us through, two questions I have.

Giles Yeo 51:09 Yes.

Jay Shetty 51:09 One is, how can people read food labels better?

Giles Yeo 51:12 Okay.

Jay Shetty 51:13 What were you doing that was making it effective for you to figure it out that quickly? Because the challenge is we have little time, we look at the back, there's, like, 50 ingredients.

Giles Yeo 51:22 Okay. The, the, the major problem I have with this is this isn't a lack of information problem, because all the information is there. But you need bright lights. I, I need to have my reading glasses with me. But what you would do, I, I, I think ultimately in order to better do it, the industry needs to change what they label, but I don't have the power to do that. So I think what I would do is I would focus on, first of all, the amount of, depending on what you're eating, the amount of protein, the amount of fiber. Do they put fiber? They do put fiber. The amount of fiber that's actually in there, and the amount of sugars.

Jay Shetty 51:51 Protein, fiber, sugar.

Giles Yeo 51:52 Protein, fiber, sugar.

Jay Shetty 51:53 Those are the three things to look at.

Giles Yeo 51:54 Protein, fiber, sugar, yes.

Jay Shetty 51:55 And what you don't want is to see an equal balance of all three. You want to try and see the percentages you said earlier.

Giles Yeo 52:01 Yes, exactly.

Jay Shetty 52:01 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 52:02 That's what I would do.

Jay Shetty 52:02 Yeah. And of course, it won't be, you're not expecting to get all your protein from-

Giles Yeo 52:06 No

Jay Shetty 52:06 ... a bar anyway.

Giles Yeo 52:07 No.

Jay Shetty 52:07 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 52:07 So I think what you want to do as well is not concern... Okay, not obsess about one item of food. What you should do is be thinking about your diet over a, a week. A week's a good period, because there are work days, there are weekend days. You may have a birthday, you go to a restaurant for your friends, and you're eating on the run or what have you. So over a week, how much protein, fiber, and things have you been eating? That's better, because then that allows you to go to the pub, the restaurants, your child's birthday, and then, then say, "Well, I had my child's birthday party last night, so I've got to do something else." So you need to consider that, but over the context of a full week, rather than obsessing over one individual bar, would be

Giles Yeo 52:45 what I would say.

Jay Shetty 52:45 And what are the three hidden ingredients that you think people should watch out for on food labels?

Giles Yeo 52:51 I, I think sugar is probably the big- the biggest thing to look for, because they... [laughs] My wife sent me to the supermarket to buy, she goes, "Can you get me some beetroot? I want to make a salad."

Jay Shetty 53:00 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 53:00 Okay. And so I went into a supermarket chain in the UK, and I bought their finest, because I'm a mug, okay? I bought their finest item, and I brought it back, and she yelled at me. She goes, "Did you see the amount of sugar on here? Why didn't you get the one made with vinegar? Why didn't you get m- one..." And so sugar is the thing that they shuffle in the most, because it's so, it improves the flavor so quickly, and they put it into beetroot. It's a beetroot. Why do you have to boil it in sugar? It's completely ridiculous. Sugar is probably the big- it's the easiest thing to shovel in, so, so watch that.

Jay Shetty 53:32 How addictive is sugar?

Giles Yeo 53:34 I don't think sugar is addictive. I don't think there is such a thing as food addiction, if you speak to addiction biologists. They do hijack certain pathways, okay? Because-

Jay Shetty 53:42 Which ones?

Giles Yeo 53:43 So, so the, the, the part of the brain that makes things feel nice, your rewarding part of the brain, it's the same part of the brain for everything. It doesn't matter if we're talking about food, sex, or drugs, or alcohol, okay? It hits the same place. The routes to it are different, but it's the same, it's the same part of the brain. And so I think that clearly sugar tickles the nice part of the brain, because why, why would it not? But it is not crack cocaine. People say it's worse for you than crack, but it isn't, okay? Because you clearly get used to it, you like it, there are addictive behaviors, but sugar in of itself is not addictive. If I took sugar away from you, you're not gonna go into cold turkey, okay? You're not. You might think, "Ugh, I want to eat that," and, and, and what have you. You're not. So it's not addictive, but we need to eat less of it, and clearly there is an addictive behavior of getting used to eating sugars as well.

Jay Shetty 54:29 Is healthier food more expensive to produce?

Giles Yeo 54:32 No.

Jay Shetty 54:32 Or is it, what is the reason that healthy food has become expensive?

Giles Yeo 54:36 So I think there's a marketing element to it, so therefore healthy food, they, they, they can make money from it. But then what then happens is there are cultural differences as well, right? Because then what happens is people say lentils are cheap.Which is true, but that's a culturally specific thing. If you go to India, you go to South, everyone knows how to cook lentils, so lentils are cheap because everyone can do it, but other things are, are, are not. Here, okay, here or in the UK for that matter, first of all, do people know how to cook lentils who are not South Asian, for example? That's the first thing. The second is it will always require half an hour on the electricity or gas, and it's always cheaper to stick a pre-meal into the microwave and put two minutes, zzt, and, and in order to do it. So you have to take the whole life cycle of the food, and also the amount of time and effort and education you actually have about that specific food. So it's a holistic view of how expensive something is.

Jay Shetty 55:25 Yeah, it could be expensive in terms of time as well.

Giles Yeo 55:28 Exactly.

Jay Shetty 55:28 Yeah, as well.

Giles Yeo 55:28 And some people don't, some people don't have the time, and culturally it does make a difference because, like, lentils are cheap-

Jay Shetty 55:33 Yeah

Giles Yeo 55:33 ... obviously, and, and you go to some countries that they-

Jay Shetty 55:35 Beans and, yeah.

Giles Yeo 55:36 Exactly. Those are, those are... But if you buy them from scratch, you need to know how to soak them overnight, you need to then boil them for X period of time. And if this is part of your culture and you always have a, you always have beans pre-ready to cook and everything is ready, perfect, and you have the spice mix ready, perfect. But for a lot of us, that's not the case.

Jay Shetty 55:53 Great answers. That was fun. I'm glad we did that. That was, uh,

Jay Shetty 55:56 really cool. I wanted to ask about this idea of you say that weight is biology, not laziness.

Giles Yeo 56:01 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 56:02 Let's talk about that.

Giles Yeo 56:03 Okay. I think weight is more biology than people think. How about that, okay? So if we actually look at the genetics, heritability, okay, so what percentage does genetics actually play into body weight? And we can use that by looking at twins, identical twins and non-identical twins. Then actually the heritability of fat mass, of weight, is around 40 to 70%. So in other words, let's take the average, 50/50. So 50% is gonna be driven by biology and 50% by non-biology. And in the non-biology it could be socioeconomic status, how rich or poor you are, it could be your culture, it could be any number of different things. So weight is probably about 50%. Now, within that 50%, it does play a pretty powerful role, and I guess the one example I'll give is this: we do not gain or lose weight overnight. We just, we just don't. Any meal, no matter how big, is not gonna perceptibly change your body weight, okay? Your body weight is the function of thousands of feeding be- uh, events that have happened over the past couple of years, okay? That's... Okay? Now imagine, however, if because of your genetic hand of cards that you've been given, you are slightly less likely to say no, 5%. That's the kind of scale we're looking at. So one out of every 20 times you say, "Hang it, I'm gonna have the extra slice of pizza," or what have you. 5% over thousands of feeding events is hundreds of thousands of calories. So over the period of time that food intake does begin to influence your body weight, it is not a choice. In, in, in casino terms, the house will always win-

Jay Shetty 57:28 Mm

Giles Yeo 57:29 ... if the die is weighted a certain way. In that sense, there is a lot of biology, but clearly if you take the top 20% socioeconomically versus the bottom 20%, the bottom 20% are more than twice an- as likely to have obesity, and most diseases to be fair, as the top 20%. There's no genetic difference between rich and poor people. It's an accident of birth. And so there your environment really, really, really does matter. So even with a same, the same genes, the same genetic burden and drive, if I live in a leafy Cambridge village, which I live so far out that Deliveroo won't deliver to my village, and so this is a true story, okay? Then if I'm hungry, um, and I just, I don't have a corner shop, I have to drive to the next village. If I'm hungry on a Sunday night, well, either I have to, to get in my car and drive somewhere, or I have to open my fridge and eat the carrots or hummus that's in my fridge, right? Whereas if I lived in a city, if I live above a chicken shop, if I live above, then exactly the same genetic drive will make me go and I'll, I'll make different decisions. The different things will be made. So there's a huge genetic drive undoubtedly, but the environment also matters.

Jay Shetty 58:38 How much is willpower

Jay Shetty 58:39 in- involved?

Giles Yeo 58:40 What is willpower?

Jay Shetty 58:41 What is it?

Giles Yeo 58:42 I think willpower is an interesting term. I think that if we're talking about food intake, which means to say that, "Oh, I'm not gonna eat the chocolate bar or pizza or something today," I think willpower is simply the physiological manifestation of how much you want that item of food and whether or not you say yes or no. So willpower is simply part of the biology that drives you or stops you from eating, from eating it. So that's what I think is willpower. So if that plays a role, yes, willpower plays a role because it's part of your biology.

Jay Shetty 59:10 It's

Jay Shetty 59:11 almost like a sense of... I, I like the word discipline more.

Giles Yeo 59:14 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 59:14 So as someone who grew up eating, and I've spoken about this on the show before, I literally grew up eating every day a chocolate bar, a chocolate biscuit, a chocolate yogurt, and a chocolate ice cream every day-

Giles Yeo 59:25 Okay. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 59:25 ... because that's how I was raised in my house.

Giles Yeo 59:27 Yeah, yeah.

Jay Shetty 59:27 And I was overweight growing up, and then in my teens I started playing a lot of sports. I lost lots of weight and, but then still, even when I was at university, I drank a sugary soda every single day, and I had a chocolate bar every day. And because of my genetics or my metabolism, I was lean throughout college and, and all the rest of it, but I wasn't doing anything healthy. And what I found was that I had to create discipline at one point in my life because my natural instinct is to want sugar to solve my fatigue or energy or whatever it may be, because that's what I've been taught, or at least trained to believe, is that sugar will solve my lack of energy right now, not realizing that actually I could get that from a healthier place.

Giles Yeo 1:00:11 I mean, I guess discipline is one, is one way. I mean, I don't like the term lifestyle. A lot of people go, "This is a lifestyle problem"-

Jay Shetty 1:00:16 Got it

Giles Yeo 1:00:16 ... because lifestyle makes, means choice. But I do think that many of us need to make behavioral changes. So that's-

Jay Shetty 1:00:21 Talk to me about that. Yeah, yeah

Giles Yeo 1:00:22 ... that's the, that's the terminology I li- I'd like to use because ultimately this is, this is the issue. It doesn't matter whether or not the genetic drives makes it easier or less easy for you to lose weight. It doesn't matter. Ultimately, because if you carry too much fat, you're the one that's gonna suffer, right? So I think life's unfair, okay, and sometimes biologically unfair and, and, and what have you. So I think what we've got to do is, for a lot of us, we do need to think about behavioral changes. And you're absolutely right. We need to be more educated about certain things. We need to... Just this conversation we've had, right? I mean, just look, look, looking at these things, and if you then begin to notice, so even just what I've said, if you notice a couple of these little things and you incrementally make-A better, you buy a better bar, you buy a better, you know, bag of chips or, or anything like that, but then that's a positive thing. These are behavioral changes, but we need to sort of get the word out there, right?

Jay Shetty 1:01:13 Mm-hmm.

Giles Yeo 1:01:14 Where it's not always... There's the obvious things, but the not obvious things also matter.

Jay Shetty 1:01:18 I think for me, one of the behavioral changes that has helped so much is out of sight, out of mind. What you just said, like when you walk in and look at your refrigerator and there's only carrots and hummus.

Jay Shetty 1:01:29 Like I said, like I bought this bag in today for this episode, but we wouldn't have this available. So do I want those chips? Of course, I want tortilla chips. I would rather eat tortilla chips than any whole foods because that's what I'm conditioned to want. But when they're not available in our snack drawer, you know, then I have to think, "Oh, I've got to wait 20 minutes."

Giles Yeo 1:01:47 So, so, no, that is very true. Right? So I think we have to control the environment we have control over, which broadly speaking is our household. And so e- same for me, my wife bans me from buying... So she loves chocolate, and she-

Jay Shetty 1:01:59 I love too

Giles Yeo 1:01:59 ... I mean, me, me, me chocolate, I, I like chocolate, but if it, if there was a chocolate bar there, for example, I would eat a piece, and then I would continue talking to you.

Jay Shetty 1:02:07 Yeah, I couldn't do that.

Giles Yeo 1:02:08 My wife would-

Jay Shetty 1:02:08 I'd eat the whole thing.

Giles Yeo 1:02:08 Yeah. So my wife says, "Please don't buy chocolate in the house." So if we go to a restaurant, we go to a meal, that's different, right? Because we're outside. But within our house, like you said [laughs] , there are no... And I love crisps, so I don't buy crisps in the house because I know that if it's there and I hear the rustling, I'll eat it. Out of sight, out of mind is a, is a good way of handling it.

Jay Shetty 1:02:24 Yeah. That's been one big thing for me, and the other one that's really helped me is having a plan for when that craving comes.

Giles Yeo 1:02:31 Strategy.

Jay Shetty 1:02:32 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 1:02:32 Strategize.

Jay Shetty 1:02:33 Strategy, right?

Giles Yeo 1:02:33 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:02:33 Like, rather than feeling like, "Oh, you know, I'm in a good discipline mode, I'm not gonna have the craving today," it's like, no, I know that at 8:00 PM at night, I'm gonna get a craving. And so let me have a plan B option available that is healthier, better, more natural than putting myself and then grabbing one of the unpro, uh, u- ultra-processed foods.

Giles Yeo 1:02:54 So whenever I talk to people and, and then someone come up to me and whatever their genetic drive, they says, "Oh, you know, I need to lose weight. How would you do it?" I say, "Look, if you know you need to lose weight for whatever reason, then what you've got to do, the fi- the easiest thing to do, okay, don't go take a genetic test, anything like that. It's free, okay? Is be honest with why you eat when you eat." And some people eat when they get stressed, other people don't. Some people have a, a craving for chocolate at eight o'clock. Understand this, and the moment you understand that, put a strategy in place to kind of mitigate against a- against that, and that is your way into dealing with your biology. Don't worry about the fact that, well, when I go to my friend's house, anything like that. That's fine, because you live in your house. So fix your house first.

Jay Shetty 1:03:36 Mm-hmm.

Giles Yeo 1:03:36 Then everything else you can kinda, you can kinda take it day by day. Fix what you have in your house.

Jay Shetty 1:03:41 Absolutely. Those two things have helped me. Out of sight, out of mind, and making sure that I have a plan for the things I know are gonna happen, not hoping that they don't happen.

Giles Yeo 1:03:50 Yeah, exactly.

Jay Shetty 1:03:51 Right? Yeah.

Giles Yeo 1:03:51 Don't, don't lie to yourself.

Jay Shetty 1:03:52 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 1:03:52 Do not lie to yourself.

Jay Shetty 1:03:53 Yeah, exactly, because, yeah, it's, I've lied to myself too many times, and then ended up overeating or over-sugaring or whatever it may be because I didn't have a plan, and so I fell to my devices.

Jay Shetty 1:04:06 I was intrigued to something you write about is why is it so difficult to lose weight?

Giles Yeo 1:04:11 Because your brain hates it when you lose weight. So it thinks, "I'm losing weight. This is lowering my chances of survival," in a world where there's not enough food. This is not true now, but in a caveman brain that is actually dealing with this, thinking, "I'm losing weight. I need to put the weight back on." And so your brain does everything in its power. It does two things. It makes you hungrier, as you know, when anyone who's dieted, you feel hungry. And more insidiously, because this you don't know, it lowers your metabolism. Okay? S- so imagine if I were, uh, I'm an 80-kilo human being. Okay? Imagine if I used to be 90 kilograms, and I've lost, so I've lost 10% of my body weight. Okay? The previously, the me who lost 10% of the weight versus me never been 90 kilos, he has to eat less than me to maintain the same weight as me. Okay? 80 and 80, but he used to be, because he's lost that weight and the brain is trying to drag him back, kicking and screaming, back up to, to the weight he was before. Your brain hates it when you lose weight, and it puts into homeostatic measures. It's all to make sure you gain the weight back again.

Jay Shetty 1:05:13 So that's why-

Giles Yeo 1:05:13 It's very depressing

Jay Shetty 1:05:14 ... you're literally working against-

Giles Yeo 1:05:15 I know it's very depressing, but it's, yeah, you're fight, you're fighting biology.

Jay Shetty 1:05:17 Yeah. And as we get older, we're putting on more weight naturally.

Giles Yeo 1:05:22 You do for a couple of different reasons. I think, I would've given you a different answer five years ago. But new work has come, has, has shown that actually you don't begin to drop your metabolism per gram of muscle in you. All right? Just to be clear. So in other words, how much muscle you're carrying, really till your mid-60s. So people thought it happened earlier. It doesn't. Okay? The problem is when you get into middle age, okay, is this. First of all, we tend to get richer, uh, not rich, but richer. We sat on our backsides. We have more money. We have more money. We don't, we eat richer food. We're not gonna eat less [laughs] , right? We're moving less. We tend to exercise less. I'm sorry that's true, which means that your muscle mass begins to, begins to lower. So a mix of all that, you have more money, you eat better food, you exercise less, okay, and that is the toxic mix that then ends up with you gaining weight, middle-aged spread, um, et cetera, et cetera.

Jay Shetty 1:06:13 How do we stop that?

Giles Yeo 1:06:14 I think the most important thing, if we, if we're de- dealing with actually zeroing in, clearly we can say we need to improve our diets and things. This is all true.

Jay Shetty 1:06:21 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 1:06:22 The most important thing about health span rather than longevity, right? Who the hell wants to live forever, you know, with tubes in? You just don't. Okay? But people want to live healthy for longer. The marker that most predicts your health span is the amount, your percent, your ratio to muscle to fat heading into your late 60s and into your 70s. Okay? It doesn't matter very many, clearly how heavy you are matters, okay, but more importantly, how much muscle are you taking into that period of time? The more muscle me- lean mass you actually have going in particular into your 70s, the healthier you're likely to be. So do not neglect, do not neglect moving and keeping your muscles in shape.Particularly as you get older, and that is the way to fight, um, ev- ev- all the, the bad things that can happen.

Jay Shetty 1:07:11 Yeah. What's,

Jay Shetty 1:07:12 what's really interesting is that as a society, I feel like we've been struggling with weight loss for so long, and that's why we've obviously seen the rise of weight loss drugs, and especially more recently with Ozempic, and it's become commonplace now, it seems at least. I don't know in the UK, but-

Giles Yeo 1:07:27 Yeah

Jay Shetty 1:07:27 ... definitely in the States, and people are open about their usage. There's a debate over whether it's good or bad, and people have different views on it for different reasons, but there has been this almost pressure that we've placed on people, not always from a health point, but from a vanity point, to lose weight.

Giles Yeo 1:07:45 Yes.

Jay Shetty 1:07:46 Whereas what we're talking about today is a healthy-

Giles Yeo 1:07:49 It's health

Jay Shetty 1:07:49 ... yeah.

Giles Yeo 1:07:49 We're talking about health, and, and, and I think, look, there is nothing wrong with these drugs, as long as the right people get them. I think ultimately that's true. Now, if you have a lot of fat, you, you have, you, you know, you have severe obesity, then the drug is for you, because you're ill. You're, you, you are getting diabetes, the drug is for you. The drugs are not a cosmetic drug. So, so these drugs are modified gut hormones. They're, they're modified versions of natural hormones that we actually have, so in one way of looking at things, we could say that, well, I've only tweaked one hormone in your body and suddenly you eat less, then you can argue that a lot of people with obesity probably just have a hormonal deficiency that you're trying to fix. However, the reason these drugs are good is because they're powerful and they work. The reason these drugs are bad is because they're powerful and they work for everybody. They make you feel fuller, whether or not you're 300 pounds looking to lose 100, or whether or not you are a 16-year-old girl who's 75 pounds. That is the problem. It'll still make you eat less. So they're not cosmetic drugs. They're powerful drugs. They should be used as drugs, not as a red carpet tool.

Jay Shetty 1:08:49 So you're saying that there are a group of people who it's healthier for them to use it.

Giles Yeo 1:08:53 Yes.

Jay Shetty 1:08:53 And there's a group of people that shouldn't be using it.

Giles Yeo 1:08:56 Correct, because I, I think everyone who needs the drug should get the drug, and these are people who... In fact, there's more nuance about this. At the moment, certainly in the, in the UK, there are s- rules where, about how, what your BMI, what your weight should be before you're allowed the drug, and it's above a certain amount, et cetera, et cetera. We've already discussed, for example, that South Asians and East Asians, we can't get that much weight before we get risk of disease. So we need to be more nuanced about who gets the drug. And the person, the people that get the drug need to be closing in on a, on their disease state, okay? They should get the drug. Okay? So in other words, you could be a little bit heavier, but actually be perfectly healthy. Do you need the drug? Right? Whereas maybe a South Asian man who's BMI 27 but actually is already close to being type 2 diabetic, maybe he should get it. So I think at the moment, people draw a line in the sand about your BMI. I think we need to be more... In fact, just talking about obesity in general, we need to be more nuanced.

Jay Shetty 1:09:57 Yeah. It's really hard, because people will say, "Well, I feel more confident now that I've taken it, and, you know, I feel better about myself now that I've taken it."

Giles Yeo 1:10:04 I, I mean, okay, as a, as a game, if we game it in our head, d- do I see if these drugs were shown to be fully, fully, fully, fully safe over a long period of time, and broadly speaking, we know the right people will get it, can I or do I think that if I can walk into a drugstore... 'Cause at the moment, for example, we go in and buy Tylenol. Okay? We buy, we give it to our kids, right? Now, we also know that if I had a whole bottle of Tylenol, I may endanger my liver. Okay, so there, right? It's, it can be toxic as well, but now society has accepted that this is something that we can choose to self-medicate with without a prescription. If we can get to that level of safeness for these weight loss drugs, why not, I guess. Please, I am not saying we will get there, and I'm not saying it's possible to get there for the reasons which I've told you. But I think as a principle, I don't mind doing that as long as it's safe and only the right people get it. Those are the two critical things.

Jay Shetty 1:11:01 What

Jay Shetty 1:11:02 are the dangers of weight loss drugs like Ozempic? Like, what are the actual ramifications?

Giles Yeo 1:11:07 The ramifications are if the wrong people get it. I mean, think, very rarely I think there are, there, there are certain things that could happen extremely, extremely rarely. The biggest danger is the people who are taking it for cosmetic reasons and are, don't have a lot of fat to lose and take too much of it, and then what then happens is they then lose too much weight. That's, that's the one thing.

Jay Shetty 1:11:25 And what are they da- and what are they damaging? What are the consequences?

Giles Yeo 1:11:27 Because what these drugs do, because they make you feel fuller, the, the drugs itself w- don't do a great, you know, there are positive effects to the drugs, they just make you eat less. So if you are already skinny and take it, you are in effect starving yourself. That's the one thing. Starvation is not a good thing, okay, for that. Now equally, if you take the drug and don't improve your diet, because these drugs also don't improve your diet, they just make you feel full. So if your diet was crap to begin with and you're eating chips and Oreos all, all the time, what these drugs will do is to make you eat less chips and Oreos. And so actually what happens is you could end up malnourished. So even, yes, you're losing weight, because you're now eating calorie wise less food, so, "Ooh, I'm losing weight. Look at me, I'm, I'm, I'm good." But then if that's all you're eating and you're not doing your fiber, your protein, and all that jazz, right, and micronutrients, then you're gonna be skinny and malnourished at the same time on the drug. So the drug is a silver bullet for the feeling fuller bit. It doesn't improve your behavior, it doesn't improve your diet, it doesn't stop people from not taking it who shouldn't be taking it. So I'm pro-drug for the people who need it.

Jay Shetty 1:12:31 Got it. Really, really appreciate

Jay Shetty 1:12:33 that. I wanted to ask you this question, 'cause I think you've alluded to it, but if you could put a warning label on one part of the diet industry, what would it be?

Giles Yeo 1:12:43 I, can I have two things?

Jay Shetty 1:12:44 Yeah. [laughs] Of course you can.

Giles Yeo 1:12:45 So, so I, I think, I think that, that we've really alluded to it, I think two, two things. The first, which is most important, is don't obsess over one item of food. Because look, sometimes life demands a chocolate bar, sometimes life demands a banana. It depends what you're doing, okay? Can you make a healthier chocolate bar? And actually, over a period of time, we don't eat choc- we shouldn't eat chocolate bars every day. So that's the first thing.

Jay Shetty 1:13:07 We shouldn't

Giles Yeo 1:13:08 ... we shouldn't eat chocolate bars every ... Well, we shouldn't. Why should we?

Jay Shetty 1:13:11 [laughs]

Giles Yeo 1:13:11 It's like saying that we shouldn't eat burgers every day as well.

Jay Shetty 1:13:13 It's very normal, though, that people do that, right? That's common.

Giles Yeo 1:13:17 But we shouldn't.

Jay Shetty 1:13:18 It is common, though, right?

Giles Yeo 1:13:18 It is.

Jay Shetty 1:13:19 No, no, I'm just-

Giles Yeo 1:13:19 I think it probably is quite common

Jay Shetty 1:13:20 ... yeah, yeah. It is common.

Giles Yeo 1:13:21 Is it?

Jay Shetty 1:13:21 I don't ... I assume so.

Giles Yeo 1:13:22 Well, I may ... You're right.

Jay Shetty 1:13:23 I mean, grocery stores are full of them.

Giles Yeo 1:13:24 They do sell ... The grocery store's full of them.

Jay Shetty 1:13:25 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Giles Yeo 1:13:26 The grocery stores are full of them.

Jay Shetty 1:13:26 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Giles Yeo 1:13:26 So, so I think what you gotta do is-

Jay Shetty 1:13:28 I did up until I was 21.

Giles Yeo 1:13:31 So-

Jay Shetty 1:13:31 Every day

Giles Yeo 1:13:31 ... so that's what you gotta do. What you've gotta do is there's nothing wrong with a chocolate bar. You've gotta think about your whole, your whole diet with those numbers that I read. So that's the, the ... The second are, are those numbers that were, that I was actually telling you about, that the numbers that just focusing on the calories. I, I really wish that it, they'd make it in small numbers. I think maybe the genie is out of the bottle, and we can't get those calories. I think obsessing over the calories is the wrong thing to obsess about because it doesn't improve the quality of our diet.

Jay Shetty 1:13:57 To me, the

Jay Shetty 1:13:58 big thing that I think I really want people to take away is this idea of look at the protein, look at the fiber, and look at the-

Giles Yeo 1:14:05 Sugar

Jay Shetty 1:14:05 ... sugars.

Giles Yeo 1:14:05 Yes.

Jay Shetty 1:14:06 Because that solves it, right? Like, I'm thinking right now, if someone's feeling overwhelmed, if right now they're listening, they're watching-

Giles Yeo 1:14:12 Because there's so much, there's so ...

Jay Shetty 1:14:13 They're just thinking right now, like, "Giles, I wanna do this, but I, I don't even know how to have time to do..." Where would you suggest they start? Is that where you'd suggest-

Giles Yeo 1:14:20 Yes

Jay Shetty 1:14:20 ... they start? Yeah.

Giles Yeo 1:14:21 Yes.

Jay Shetty 1:14:22 Yeah. It's me too. I think that's a really clear way of looking at it is think about your diet as protein intake, fiber intake, and sugar intake in the percentages that Giles broke down, 16% of protein, 30 grams of fiber, and-

Giles Yeo 1:14:37 5% sugar

Jay Shetty 1:14:38 ... 5% sugar or less. And all of a sudden, now you're hopefully gonna feel healthier, have more energy, and naturally eat less-

Giles Yeo 1:14:47 Yes

Jay Shetty 1:14:47 ... or eat less-

Giles Yeo 1:14:49 Eat less crap.

Jay Shetty 1:14:50 Yeah.

Giles Yeo 1:14:50 You're gonna eat b- better. And you might say that, "Well, wait a minute, they don't label fruits and vegetables, and they don't label meat." Because they don't need to.

Jay Shetty 1:14:57 Mm.

Giles Yeo 1:14:57 Ultimately, if you get ... If you're actually eating a piece of meat and some fruit and vegetables in which there's no labeling, and it's just, "How do I know? How do I know?" If you're eating that, you don't need to know. That is the point because if you're cooking a steak, and you're having broccoli, and you're, you're, you're doing the things, and you're peeling the potato and boiling it, and you're then concerned about, "Well, I don't know how much sugar they put in it," well, it's because you have to add sugar if you wanna do it. And, and you wanna do ... So the moment you're cooking from scratch, not everybody can cook from scratch, which is what, this is, right? So but if you are eating foods with no labels, then they tend to be fresh stuff, then-

Jay Shetty 1:15:31 That's a great point.

Giles Yeo 1:15:32 Right?

Jay Shetty 1:15:32 That the foods that don't have labels-

Giles Yeo 1:15:35 Correct

Jay Shetty 1:15:36 ... is because they don't need to.

Giles Yeo 1:15:37 Correct.

Jay Shetty 1:15:38 That, I've never even thought about it like that. It sounds so simple, but that's a really good point. And if you're eating that way, then generally you're gonna be healthier, safer, more secure.

Giles Yeo 1:15:47 Yes, there's still danger of eating too much-

Jay Shetty 1:15:48 Of course

Giles Yeo 1:15:48 ... and what have you, of course.

Jay Shetty 1:15:50 Yeah, yeah.

Giles Yeo 1:15:50 But as, as a general rule-

Jay Shetty 1:15:51 As a general

Giles Yeo 1:15:51 ... if we're looking at a general rule-

Jay Shetty 1:15:52 Yeah, yeah

Giles Yeo 1:15:52 ... I think that's gonna be-

Jay Shetty 1:15:53 Amazing. Giles, it's been so great talking

Jay Shetty 1:15:55 to you today. We end every On Purpose episode with a final five.

Giles Yeo 1:15:58 Oh, God.

Jay Shetty 1:15:59 These questions have to be answered in one word or one sentence maximum. So Giles Yeo-

Giles Yeo 1:16:04 Yeo

Jay Shetty 1:16:04 ... you look prepared.

Giles Yeo 1:16:05 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:16:06 Uh, here's your final five. The first question is, what is the best health advice you've ever heard, received, or given?

Giles Yeo 1:16:13 You know what? Move more.

Jay Shetty 1:16:14 That's a great one. Uh, question number two: What is the worst health advice you've ever heard or received?

Giles Yeo 1:16:19 Count calories.

Jay Shetty 1:16:20 [laughs] Uh, question number three: Something you used to believe was true about health, but now you know it's not true.

Giles Yeo 1:16:28 I used to think that the moment you hit your 40s or 50s, your metabolism dropped, and that's not, that's not true. It's only because your muscle mass drops. So I think this metabolism thing-

Jay Shetty 1:16:35 Mm

Giles Yeo 1:16:36 ... your metabolism stays stable through your life. That was a very long answer. I'm so sorry.

Jay Shetty 1:16:40 No, that's good.

Giles Yeo 1:16:41 But that, but that, but I used to think that five years ago, and now I don't think that anymore.

Jay Shetty 1:16:44 Mm. What's the most recent study or research that you've read about the work that you do that blew your mind or fascinated you, or something that made you really curious and interested?

Giles Yeo 1:16:56 When I first learned that this lowering of metabolism when you lose weight is pretty much permanent, right? And so in other words, this is why it's so difficult for you to lose weight. This is probably, it's probably 10 years old, so it's not new. It's part of the reason why your brain hates it when you lose weight, or why it's so difficult to actually lose weight. So once again, let's just ... So I'm 80 kilos. If I used ... And I'm not, I've always been, okay? So but imagine if exactly the same, my twin, got to 90 kilos and then came back down to 80 kilos. Then from a physics perspective, you think, "Well, this is an 80 kilo gentleman. I'm an 80 kilo gentleman. We should be able to eat exactly the same thing." We can't. He will always have to eat less than me to maintain the same body weight-

Jay Shetty 1:17:37 Mm

Giles Yeo 1:17:37 ... because he has a brain that used to be 90 kilos and is dragging him back up. And I remember seeing, the very, very first time, seeing those studies. I was going, "This is depressing."

Jay Shetty 1:17:46 Mm.

Giles Yeo 1:17:46 But, but then, then you think, "Well, how do we mitigate against these things, and how do you do it?" I mean, the drugs do a job for that, for example. People who exercise. So exercise is terrible for weight loss because we don't exercise enough, but very good for weight maintenance for that very reason, right? Where when you exercise, your, uh, your e- expenditure goes up, and it mitigates against this loss of metabolism. So this is not brand new study, but I, I found it very interesting.

Jay Shetty 1:18:08 Is there a way to trick your brain?

Giles Yeo 1:18:10 There is a way to trick your, your brain in a bad way. So in other words, if you gain weight and stay there for a long enough time, your brain begins to defend that higher weight.

Jay Shetty 1:18:19 Mm.

Giles Yeo 1:18:19 Okay? Whereas if you lose weight, your brain, from what we know so far, never defends that lower weight because evolutionarily, there is no reason to do that, right? Because this is less likely a survival. So your brain can train in the other direction, vicious cycle, not, not in losing weight.

Jay Shetty 1:18:35 And fifth and final question, we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

Giles Yeo 1:18:45 I think that healthy food should always be the cheaper option wherever you go. At the moment, that's not true. It's very uneven, where at the moment unhealthy food is cheaper. And so if we want to cure diseases and obesity equitably across the world, regardless of how rich or poor you are, then by default, the food that you eat must be healthy.

Jay Shetty 1:19:09 Giles, thank you so much for your time and energy. So grateful to connect with you today, and, uh, learned so many things from you. You blew my mind multiple times. And, uh, everyone who's been listening or watching, go and grab the book, Why Calories Don't Count: How We Got the Science of Weight Loss Wrong. Uh, follow Giles across his podcast and social media if you don't already. And make sure you tag us on TikTok and Instagram, and let us know what you're connecting with, what you're experimenting with, and what you're trying. I love to see how you're putting all of this insight into action. Thank you so much again, Giles, such a pleasure. Grateful to meet you.

Giles Yeo 1:19:43 Thanks for having me.

Jay Shetty 1:19:45 If this year you're trying to live longer, live happier, live healthier, go and check out my conversation with the world's biggest longevity doctor, Peter Attia, on how to slow down aging and why your emotional health is directly impacting your physical health.

Speaker 1:20:01 Acknowledge that there is surprisingly little known about the relationship between nutrition and health, and people are gonna be shocked to hear that, 'cause I think most people think the exact opposite