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Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Hello everyone good morning. So I'm gonna cover two studies I covered a while ago I think and, it's important because I'm having more chats now with people and realizing there's still some of you that think that eating a rigid clean quote unquote clean diet plan or meal plan will give you better results than eating the foods you like but managing the total energy from those foods and actually trying a bit harder to hit your protein target. So what that looks like is I list on the foods I like, I list on the meals I actually like, this is what all of you should be doing, and I go right I like a burrito, I like a bowl of oats, and I like my scrambled egg on toasted avocado, I like this, alright write them down. I work out the calories of those meals and the protein of those meals. Right?
Speaker 1:So when I then I'll just eat a day of the foods I actually like eating. I know this sounds like maybe basic, but most people don't even do this. So I'll eat the meals I like. So I love my breakfast that I like, I love the lunch that I like, I love a dinner that I like, and I love snacks that I like and I'll actually track that whole thing and I'll see where it lands. And then you'll notice oh wow it's like 2,800 calories and my protein is like 70 grams.
Speaker 1:And then you'll say well the targets I need to lose weight are 2,300 and my protein target's a 105. Sorry, blocked nose. And my protein tag is 105. What do I do from here? Well you don't throw away the food you like and go to a diet plan that is chicken and and rice, chicken and rice, chicken and rice or fish and rice, fish and rice cake, fish and rice or you know like boring asparagus and green veg and lean meat.
Speaker 1:You don't go that route. You go down the route of what do I need to tweak from the foods I actually like that I was sick to to hit my calorie target. Most often than not it's reducing the portion size of something realizing that woah woah the granola I'm eating is like wow 450 calories maybe I'll drop that down to 300 or woah I'm having like two frappuccinos from Starbucks a day, and that's, like, loads of calories. Sorry. Or or woah, like, I'm not having enough protein.
Speaker 1:Like, one of the meals I'm having has got, like, no protein in there. Maybe maybe can add some chicken to it or add my vegan alternative to it and you go oh wow I've now designed food that I like eating and it's hit my calories and protein that is it. The end you have hit the optimal thing for fat loss, for how you stick to it, for your mindset, for not feeling trapped, for literally enjoying the process. Like you've literally reached the holy grail of where you need to get to. Some of you still stuck in, oh give me a meal plan, me meal plan, give me something to eat.
Speaker 1:You can go off templates and work off them if you want to try meals that you don't know if you like. But honestly the first thing you need to do is just list out the meals you actually like eating. Three breakfasts, three lunches, three dinners, five snacks list them out what you like eating and go from there. Now to back this up let's have a look at early studies of flexible dieting okay. These are important.
Speaker 1:So in 1991 there was a study on looking at dieting restraint okay so we had rigid control which meant inflexible all or nothing approach to eating so food choices and timings are based on set non negotiable rules for example you must eat a breakfast, you must eat a lunch, you must eat a dinner, you must eat these foods, you must not eat these foods and it's either you're on this or you're off it, you lose it, right. That's that. And you've got a flexible approach was you can pick different serving sizes, you could, pick the foods you like, you didn't have any foods that were banned, had more flexibility in when you wanted to eat as well, you didn't have to eat breakfast, you could eat lunch, you could have bigger lunch, pick a dinner, you could you didn't label foods as healthy or unhealthy you pretty much just ate the food you like. Okay, so those are the two different groups they looked at the research and let's look at what happened in the research. The rigid group was associated with overeating because they were emotionally stressed, they had more problematic eating behaviours and have been more binge eating.
Speaker 1:Why is this? Well you are literally putting yourself in a dietary cage. You're eating 5% of the foods available to you if less. You're typically eating foods you don't really like because you think they're healthy or clean. You don't have much of a variety because you're stuck into that small subgroup of foods.
Speaker 1:You're always feeling like you're trapped because you don't feel free. You can't go out socially and have food out and drinks. You feel pressured when it comes to the weekend because you've been good in the week but the weekend is coming and oh no I got an anniversary or a dinner or a wedding and oh my god everything's gonna go down the pan. No you have more stress. Obviously this isn't the way to live guys.
Speaker 1:Whoever told you to live this way and we just fall away, like what are we doing? The other way is actually healthier. Not only like this isn't even a scenario where one way's got loads of some pros and one way's got some pros and it's kind of balanced. It is literally the flexible approach, you lose more weight over time, you keep it off, you retain more muscle mass, you're happier, you're less stressed, you have less binge eating, you have less problematic eating behaviours, you enjoy more social scenarios, you're a better person to be around, you are free from the prison of diet culture. Like it is literally so one-sided that it is absolutely baffling why there's still a lot of people still falling down the trap of eating the same old diet plans whether it's keto or there's paleo or some of these might be like you're doing a vegetarian is fine but like you're falling down these traps you think one is superior, none are superior.
Speaker 1:When protein and calories are the same and what I mean by this is if there's research done it's like what's the best diet? Mediterranean diet, the keto diet, the paleo diet, Atkins diet, you're all claiming to be the best. If all of you did this diet but you had to hit the same calorie target and protein but you can do the rest of it you can go and do your little plays on foods you can have well you keep it to this period as this. You can do your little variation, but you must keep your protein and calories the same in all the diets you're doing. Right?
Speaker 1:Who wins? Nobody. It's the same results for fat loss. Wow. Okay?
Speaker 1:So why do I have to pick one or other? You don't. You don't even wanna be associated with each of those tribes. Those tribes are just gonna battle each other, waste your energy. I don't wanna be tribalism.
Speaker 1:Don't wanna be tribalism in the world in general, but I definitely don't wanna be tribalism in the nutrition space because, woah, it's full of shit. Right? So Greater flexible control was linked with fewer reports of disordered eating and dysfunctional eating. The stricter the diet the more likely the dieter was to break the rules and overeat. Simple.
Speaker 1:In 1994 Schirring colleagues found the flexible control was inversely associated with body mass index BMI so the more flexible people were with their dieting or their eating and diet as their diet is in food the lower their body weight. Wow okay 1999 Smith says and his colleagues found flexible dieting lower body weight absence of overeating low levels anxiety and depression rigid dieting associated with overeating and increased body weight wow. Also 1999 Weston Hof and colleagues right Rigid control, higher body weight, more frequent or severe episodes of binge eating. Do I have to keep going on 2002 the same thing was found again by Stuart and colleagues rigid dieting when eating disorder symptoms, body image disturbance, higher BMI. God we can go on and on and on.
Speaker 1:On and on and on on and on. But you know what to do now. If you're thinking diet plans or someone telling you what to eat is the solution it's not. Imagine being told what to eat by someone else. You like all these foods yeah, Ben?
Speaker 1:You're gonna eat these foods, what is it? All foods you don't like. You get results or oh well I really yeah yeah yeah you'll definitely get results doing this way. Oh wait there let me look at the research. Mate sorry if I follow your way of your strict diet plan I should get worse results.
Speaker 1:Not that I'm at high risk of anxiety and depression and binge eating, disordered eating. What are you doing? What are you doing promoting this stuff? Who do you think you are promoting this stuff to people? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1:Like, well, look at the research absolutely clear. So what you're doing is you're you're you're damaging me and I'm damaging myself by even agreeing to go down that route. And you think, wow, what's going on in the fitness industry when it's this clear? Well, one thing you got people who are lazy, just tell I just wanna be told what to do and then I'll do it. Okay?
Speaker 1:What's the consequences of this? I don't know, don't care. Well, you should care because this is the exact problem you're in from the start. I mean, following, following, following following following the cheap magazines, any online course blah blah blah puts you in the shitter then you have got all of this conditioning to unravel still all or nothing or nothing mindset ingrained in so many of you because of these diet diets that tell you you're either on it or you're off. Simi World you're either on or you're off.
Speaker 1:Weight watches are either on it or you're off. Know this new Zoe thing you're either on Zoe Ponce or you're off the Zoe Ponce. Alright where do we stand then? Why can't I just be bumbling about in the middle Some days my energy intake is great, some days my energy intake is more, some days my protein intake is good, some days my protein intake is not so good. But overall I'm around about my calorie target, I'm around about my protein target, one day I'll have McDonald's, one day I'm gonna have a pizza, then I'll have few drinks with my family in the weekend, then I'll have a Sunday roast.
Speaker 1:Wow. I'm living life losing weight over time or maintaining a body weight and I'm cracking on with living. Because let me tell you when you get to your deathbed which I hope is in a very long time what are you gonna be thinking, well I hope you don't think about this stuff but when you think back wow I spent decades, decades eating just stupid diets and made me gain more weight over time which is what the research says. Even our own survey with Turtle says this 1,800 people on the Slimming Worlds, the more diets someone did the more time they were dieting or the longer they were taking to diet to lose weight. So they basically the more diet you do the higher the chance you're gonna be trying to lose weight for the rest of your life and that is absolutely terrifying.
Speaker 1:Why are you gonna be losing weight for the rest of your life? Imagine a life where you're not trying to lose weight anymore.
Speaker 2:And this doesn't mean a
Speaker 1:life of not caring about your nutrition. We eat every single day. We're obviously going to be thinking about food every day but we don't let it take over our lives. I brush my teeth twice a day so do you. You're not thinking of brushing your teeth all throughout the day.
Speaker 1:But you're thinking, fucking living a shit day now. Did I brush my teeth right? Did I use the best toothpaste? Oh, shit. I think
Speaker 2:I missed the back
Speaker 1:of my tooth. Oh, damn. Oh, no. Mean, oh, shit. Shit.
Speaker 1:Shit. Shit. Shit. No. We don't think this way because it's just something we do for the benefit of it and it's gone.
Speaker 1:When it comes to nutrition we need the same similar type of mindset you know. We should be looking at eating, we should be looking at eating as favouring as well right we should be looking at it as I'm eating now and I'm gonna knock on if if thoughts come in about eating between when I'm meant to eat say well think about eating when it's time I'll go for a walk and we know sometimes cravings kick in but really there's a lot of things that we can do, there's a lot of things we do daily where we don't let it override our brain. So just because you're thinking about something daily doesn't mean you have to override the brain all day. If you're doing a strict meal plan on a severe deficit you probably will be thinking of food more because you're going to be very hungry and that's not helping but sometimes you're going to feel a bit hunger in a deficit. So I just want you to sorry remember that.
Speaker 1:And I want to finish on this really important study and now I'm not saying eat 100% of your diet with Mars Bars. That's not what I'm saying here. This next study is not saying this either so please don't say oh Turtle is saying or Papa is saying this. No. So are ultra processed foods really that bad?
Speaker 1:The first thing in your brain is gonna go obviously ultra processed. Woah. What does process mean? Take something from its raw form and it goes through a process ends up here. Does that process have to be bad?
Speaker 1:No of course not. Whey protein goes through a process it ends up from kind of a byproduct to a high quality source of protein which has got loads of benefits. The Greeks who even found out of whey protein called the elixir of life they saw the benefits of it without the science behind the back end. So you've got these processes when you think of process you think of sausages the bad stuff. There's processes that some foods go through that improve them or make them into a different type of food or product that we consume in a different way.
Speaker 1:Yogurt is highly processed. Yogurt is considered ultra processed. Right? Obviously it's not in its raw form of milk, because in a cheese goes into another process, another process, adds vitamins minerals. We love yogurt, happy days.
Speaker 1:But we only think processing part, right? So in 2001 a study found that a diet with a combination of processed and unprocessed foods had more nutrients than a diet composed of only unprocessed foods with the same calories. The study also found that food patterns created using unprocessed foods were significantly more expensive than those created using foods in the ultra processed category. The study determined whether nutrient adequate food patterns could be created using unprocessed foods only which is you know fruits, lean meats, veggies that type of stuff right or using ultra processed foods. The goal was to create an optimised 2,000 calorie food pattern that MET standard for 22 nutrients magnesium, folate, iron, fibre, vitamin C, vitamin A all that type of stuff right.
Speaker 1:So can you get an optimised 2,000 calorie diet hitting all the 22 nutrients they're looking at using only unprocessed foods. Is it possible? The researchers used machine learning models all this type of stuff and not look at the combinations okay. Here some vitamins came largely from unprocessed foods okay so when we look at the results here linear programming models machine learning models generated optimized 2,000 calorie food patterns by selecting from all foods, unprocessed foods only, ultra processed foods only or some other combination. Are you with me?
Speaker 1:So some vitamins came largely from unprocessed foods these include vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin B. Eighty four percent of vitamin B12 came from unprocessed foods. Similarly vitamin A mainly comes from unprocessed foods in diets than in ultra processed foods right so we got this kind of mix here. As shown by the observed diets and model food patterns ultra processed foods accounted for the bulk of added sugar, total sugar obviously, sodium, carbohydrates and saturated fat. Although ultra processed foods were the principal dietary sources for added sugar, sodium and saturated fat they also provided substantial amounts of vitamin E, thiamine, niacin, folate and calcium.
Speaker 1:These micronutrients mostly come from the ultra processed foods in observed diets and model food patterns in the study. So iron came mainly from ultra processed foods as well and we know how important that is. In both diets and in model food patterns well zinc was more evenly split. Food patterns created using unprocessed foods were significantly more expensive at a daily cost of £13 60 compared to those using ultra processed foods. Okay, so it's much more expensive.
Speaker 1:So the study concluded that some ultra processed foods are needed for nutrient adequate diets. Ultra processed foods are the main sources like I said of added sugar, saturated fat, sodium but also many vitamins vitamin E, thiamine, niacin, folate, calcium, iron. So when you look at the results of this study what it's saying is that it wasn't possible for them to hit a 2,000 calorie diet, diet, hit all the 22 vitamins that the thresholds with just unprocessed foods. They had to add to the machine learning model ultra processed foods to hit those targets. So it is optimal for you to figure out the foods you love, look at them and go what is the composition of my diet, is it very ultra processed, is it processed, is it unprocessed.
Speaker 1:And don't be scared to have your favourite cereal, don't be scared to have your yoghurt, don't be scared to have your dark chocolate or chocolate bar. Don't be scared to have the ice cream, don't be scared of the bag of crisps, scared to have these things, don't be scared to have you know once or twice a week you go and have a McDonald's or a Burger King or an eating out restaurant. It says variety, this range of foods that brings us those vitamins and minerals that we do need so it's optimal to do this. I hope that's enough of a kick in your ass for you to realize yeah okay, it's okay if I have my chocolate bar today, it's okay if I overate a bit today on this food, it's okay if I had that cake in work, it's okay if I went out for food tonight and I did have like a pie and chips. It's okay to have these things as long as overall over time your calories which is your energy is about where you need to be for a deficit and your protein target is there, bam done.
Speaker 1:And one more thing about calories, wow. This cough is really annoying. Not all calories are created equal, people say. Well, the mistake people make here is is that a calories is a unit of measurement. So it's like saying a kilogram is different to another kilogram.
Speaker 1:It's not. A kilogram is a kilogram. Whilst you can have a kilogram of feathers and a kilogram of, you know, like, metal, that's obviously gonna look different or whatever. The composition of the kilogram is different, but the kilogram is a kilogram. When it comes to fat loss, it is mainly down to energy.
Speaker 1:Energy. Mainly down What that energy contains in terms of macronutrients is where the energy comes from is also important, and this is why this mix is great but in the end of the day like what the total energy is what matters this doesn't mean eat all your energy from Mars Bars it just means that you can have a mix of that energy coming from different sources of higher to lower nutrient dense foods and you can still get the same fat loss results as seen in numerous studies plus you're at less risk of anxiety depression about all these food stuff, less risk of disordered eating, less risk of hate in life, less risk of hate in eating, less risk of hate and social events and so forth. So think about it make some changes now this is important break free and it'll change your life. So hope this podcast was useful speak to soon.