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Expand your running knowledge, identify running misconceptions and become a faster, healthier, SMARTER runner. Let Brodie Sharpe become your new running guide as he teaches you powerful injury insights from his many years as a physiotherapist while also interviewing the best running gurus in the world. This is ideal for injured runners & runners looking for injury prevention and elevated performance. So, take full advantage by starting at season 1 where Brodie teaches you THE TOP PRINCIPLES TO OVERCOME ANY RUNNING INJURY and let’s begin your run smarter journey.
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In today's episode, the safest way for runners to lose weight with Dr Nick Fuller. Welcome to the Run Smarter podcast, the podcast helping you overcome your current and future running injuries by educating and transforming you into a healthier, stronger, smarter runner. If you're like me, running is life, but more often than not, injuries disrupt this lifestyle. And once you are injured, you're looking for answers and met with bad advice and conflicting messages circulating the running community. The world shouldn't be like this. You deserve to run injury free and have access to the right information. That's why I've made it my mission to bring clarity and control to every runner. My name is Brodie Sharp. I am a physiotherapist, a former chronic injury sufferer, and your podcast host. I am excited that you have found this podcast and by default become the Run Smarter Scholar. So let's work together to overcome your injury, restore your confidence and start spreading the right information back into your running community. So let's begin today's lesson. Okay. Do we have a doozy this one? I think weight loss has been a surprisingly popular topic on this podcast. And so I'm looking forward to seeing what the download rates and what the feedback is like for this episode with Dr. Nick Fuller. By way of bio, he is the commercial and industry program leader at University of Sydney, working with governments and industry to identify and develop a cost-effective treatment. for the treatment and management of obesity and related physical and mental health disorders. He has this program, which is all over his website and social media handles called the interval weight loss program, which he'll obviously discuss. Um, we dive into a lot of things. We dive into a lot of weight loss misconceptions. And I was actually extremely surprised, um, and learned so much from this content and yoga diets and just diets in general, tend to be resoundingly successful in the first couple of weeks and then hilariously unsuccessful in the longterm. And we go into the science, we go into why this is always the case and the way that we should be losing weight. And I won't give too much away, but we also do answer some patron questions. So thanks to Janine, Maxine, Rachel and Dima for submitting your questions. The other thing I will mention is that Moving forward in the podcast, I'll be putting in a couple of ads here and there, just my ads, just me promoting myself, uh, because I do realize that when people are reaching out to me and asking questions and they're listeners of the podcast, they don't really know what I do. They don't really know what I sell. For example, not many people know that I offer online physio for runners around the world and that I sell courses that are through the run smarter app. And so. trying to help my business model a little bit and trying to help you with the right information and helping you out with some discounts and some promo codes as well is also why I try to keep you guys informed, but also make sure that I'm really rewarding and saying thank you for being a podcast listener. So yeah, I've put together, I've spent the last couple of days putting together five ads and I will be putting one ad per episode and just rotating the five ads. They go for about 30 to 60 seconds each. Hopefully it provides you with answers and maybe additional resources that you might not have known and it helps me in my work get more recognized. so win-win. And there is a little bit of a jingle in the background of these ads as well. Those who are super long fans of mine and have paid attention back to the old podcast that I used to do, the Everyday Running Legends, I have kept that intro music. So perhaps you might recognize that, but I think it's a very catchy jingle. All right. This was a longer episode. um, without further ado, let's dive into the episode. Um, do I call you doctor? Do you have a doctorate? Dr. Nick? Yeah, Dr. E you can call me Nick. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Well, anyway, for the official, um, yeah, the official intro, Dr. Nick Fuller, welcome to the run smarter podcast. How are you today? Very well. It's great to be on your show. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for reaching out and being a listener. For those who don't know you, let's start off with you introducing yourself and how you found the field you're currently in. Sure. I guess from a social point of view, I am a runner myself, live and breathe, track and field, still do it socially, but a couple of years stopped competitively as a 400 hurdler. So that's sort of the link there with I'm a big fan of your work. And then I guess from a health point of view, also work in your field, allied health, but specifically weight management. So I work at the University of Sydney in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, a centre called Charles Perkins. It's a joint initiative between the two institutions. And basically we run Australia's largest weight management service. So we see thousands of patients every year. to trial different programs, treatments, devices, et cetera, for people on their weight loss journey. And I guess what we're trying to do is paint a better picture of what weight management should look like. So I work in that hospital clinic facility and I guess one of the biggest frustrations that I have as a clinician and researcher and other colleagues have is that people that come to us some of them only have a couple of kilos to lose, some have 50, 100 kilos to lose, is that they have been on every diet possible and they have been on a lifetime, I guess, struggle with their weight. And when you look at the stats now, everyone knows about the obesity epidemic, but quite simply, the numbers show that two in three people are clinically diagnosed as overweight. So when you walk around, Uh, lunchtime next time you're, you're out and about two and three of those people that you're looking at will have a few extra kilos around the waistline, around the mid drift, which is putting them at increased risk of other diseases like type two diabetes, heart disease, um, for example. Yeah. And I'm glad like you're doing this kind of work. And for the audience that listened to this podcast, I had a previous, I guess the closest relation to this topic was, um, the episode around. What's a healthy race weight. And it was surprising to me how popular it actually was. And then asking my patrons questions to prepare for this. was some really nice feedback and, um, it's a, it's a really good topic that I didn't think the audience would be really interested in, but I guess they are really interested, which is funny that you reach out and, um, want to talk about all these different strategies and what's the best and your kind of field of work. And so. You do revolve most of your treatments around this interval weight loss program. But before we dive into that, we do know that the podcast loves breaking down myths and misconceptions and addressing that on the forefoot, like being up in front with that. So what are some common myths and what's some common misconceptions around weight loss that you currently hear? Let's hear them all. Absolutely. There are so many. mean, this is a... $100 billion dieting industry. So you've got people out there promising all sorts of magic cures and pills and potions to help you slim down or improve your health. But when it comes down to it, diets are contributing, a lot of these fad diets are contributing to the problem they've proclaimed to solve. So there's some great research to show that dieting can accelerate your weight gain. Many people start in a normal weight range. and then that societal pressure is on there, put onto them, particularly women to conform to a body image that is pushed through social media, sensations, big name celebrities, and they end up signing up to that dietary program. And of course losing weight, but what happens is, and what we're shown again through research is your body fights that weight loss. So it will go down into a shutdown mode, conserve all of its energy and we can talk about that in greater detail soon so that you claw back to your start point. So one of the greatest, I guess, miss is that obesity or weight, that struggle with weight is not due to a lack of willpower. you know, many people, I guess, we sort of shame them and say, look, you're not succeeding because you're just not sticking to it for long enough. But really the most important thing to educate the listeners on is that there is this biological imperative to regain the weight. So a good example is, you know, I take up running because I want to lose weight. Now that's fantastic. There's all sorts of benefits of activity, particularly running. But what happens is, yes, your body weight does decrease, but as it starts to decrease, this is when your body will go into shutdown mode. And even if you continue to run, You're gonna find that your body starts to regain that weight you lost. You're starting in many instances with a higher or that excess body weight, which means you've got extra stress on the joints. So you end up getting injured and going back to your old habits and again, regaining the weight you lost. So I guess that biggest myth is that people aren't failing due to a lack of willpower. They're actually failing due to their biology. And when it comes to all of these different diet promises in terms of one minute, it's whole grain carbs are bad. The next it's dairy foods should be avoided. There's a new one every day of the week. And a lot of this is nonsense. And the very foods that we're told to cut out with these diets and dietary programs is actually doing more harm than good because not only are they good for our weight, long-term weight management, but they're also important for our health and our training goals. So if you're running and you're going on a diet in conjunction to that running program, training program, many of these fad diets at the moment are telling you take out carbs. So when you take them out, you're going to be lacking in energy, glucose glycogen stills are depleted. So it's also going to compromise your output in your training goals. Now there's just so many different myths and I guess, dietary misconceptions. When it comes down to a large part of my role is actually translating what we do beyond an academic and clinical setting. So it's one thing for us to do all this research here at Charles Perkins, publish it in academic journals, but it's also to take it to the general public and to educate them on one, the dangers of dieting, but two, equipping them with evidence-based care so they can regain control of their health and their weight. And if you're going out and you're starting on this, on this running journey, knowing how to do it so that not only do you meet your training goals, but you also meet your weight loss goals. So you prevent weight regain because I promise you at some point your body will fight that weight loss. You'll claw back to your start point. You're going to end up heavier than you you began. And it's due to your biology, not to be mixed up with your genes. actually due to your biology. It reminds me of like, um, when I'm at uni and they teach me about homeostasis. And they say that the body, like if there's a change in the body conditions, the body will do certain actions in order for it to return back to its normal state that it likes being in. And so what you're saying is, that's what I just think about when you talk about a diet or trying to change your food in a certain way to have a drastic change. If you're trying to lose weight, then you try and do something different. And then the body would just be like, what are you trying to do? Let's try and get back to homeostasis. And that's why you're saying we're trying to fight biology. And I guess, um, with saying that the more drastic actions that you take, the more the body's going to want to fight. Um, is it the same concept? Exactly. You are spot on. It's a, it's a good, I guess, analogy as well. Um, it is this body's homeostasis and it's our body working back towards what we term our set point. So. you for you Brody, can be X kilos, for me, can be X kilos, for Pat down the road, it'd be 90 kilos, someone else 103 kilos. But that set point is that weight that you protect. So as you just mentioned, you know, we go out, we start on our weight loss journey. And sure, you might go down from 100 to 90, but along the way, your body shutting down to fight that weight loss and to take you back to your set point, your starting weight. But not only that, It's very good at shutting down and staying in the shutdown modes that you put on a little bit extra to prepare for that next bout of starvation. Right. Yeah. And in terms of what's happening in your body's physiology, to put this, you know, I guess to give those listeners an understanding, your metabolism will drop. sure, when you lose weight, your metabolism drops because you have less body mass. You've lost muscle, you've lost body fat. but it actually drops by a further 15 % that us scientists can't account for. So this is just your body going into shutdown mode. So the burnless calories at rest, your burnless calories at rest, you're gonna climb back to your start point. A very good example comes from a research study looking at participants from The Biggest Loser, very famous TV show. When they started the show, they were at about 2,600 calories per day in terms of how much energy they were burning, the metabolic rate. They lost this drastic amount of weight. Their metabolism went down to about 2,000 calories per day. But even after they regained the weight six, when they were followed up six years later, their metabolism didn't go back to 2,600. It stayed down at 1,900 calories per day. So it stayed. down below baseline and was further suppressed so that people kept putting on more more weight and these people end up in a worse off position than before they started. This is only one of the well-researched pathways that kicks into gear when you go and restrict your body of calories or follow a diet. And there are many others, another really good example to, so guess highlight is the appetite signaling system because everyone talks about, your appetite. When you go on you lose weight everyone says I just can't control my hunger. I'm so hungry. Well that's again because your body starts working differently. This very clever wiring system between your gastrointestinal tract and your stomach and your brain basically signals your brain to eat more food. Grelan for example that hunger hormone that goes up when you haven't eaten for a long period of time well that goes through the roof. It's telling you to go and reach for more food. If you reach for more food, again, you stack on more weight, you go back to your start point. Look, I describe this in great detail in my series of interval weight loss books, and there's some wonderful papers on all of this. But what I guess I'm reinforcing is that your body is fighting this weight loss, and you described it very well, that, you know, there's this body homeostasis. It doesn't know any better. it knows to stay at that starting point. And this is due to evolution. We'd often go long periods of time without food, hunter gathering. And when it was available, would gorge at the sight of it. When it wasn't available, days, sometimes hours, sometimes days, we would steal that food and our body learned to shut down. So you put basically our ancestors' genes in the mundane environment. You've got this evolutionary mismatch foods everywhere. We have a hard time saying no. Our weight goes up, we react by dieting, but our body reacts by saying, hang on, in order to survive, I need to stay at that weight I was at. Now this is something the dieting industry won't tell you because they really do thrive on people's failures. They wanna see you succeed from anywhere between the four to 12 weeks. And that's the easy part. But when you finish that program, even if you can stick to some of those habits you've picked up along the way, you're going to see your body fight the weight loss. That's crazy. It's, um, it's something that the basic concept is something that I've, I understand it kind of had intuitive, um, feeling that that's what the body would do. But when you're talking about how the actual reaction that the body has, and like you said, the, drop in metabolism, and then that continues, even when you've regained the weight, that's, it sounds something that's quite dangerous. And it's like quite, um, quite shocking to learn. It's quite, yeah, it's puzzling for me, but it seems like it's worse than what I thought it would be. Yeah. I mean, this point you raised too, in that it's damaging, it is. So we have patients that come in and we'll say, Hey, I just can't seem to shift the weight because I have a sluggish metabolism. Well, to be honest with you, they do have a sluggish metabolism now because they have ruined their metabolic rate through dieting. through this continual yo-yo cycling. So, you you think of yourself as that person that's lost the weight and metabolism's gone down, but then you regain the weight. But remember your metabolism actually stays down here. It doesn't go back to its start point. That is unfavorable. It's working against you and it doesn't know any better. So yes, we are actually imposing damage on our body. You can restore that damage. It does happen. You can do that through good evidence-based practice over time. when people, you know, do put up their hand and say, Hey, I just can't control the appetite. have a sluggish metabolism, my thyroid's slow. Well, this is actually what's happening within their body. And with every bout of starvation, every diet you sign up to, it becomes harder and harder and harder to lose the weight because your body becomes smarter and smarter and smaller. And in terms of eliminating that stress and shutting down and saying, hang on, weight loss no more. That's it. can't go down that route. We've laid this up really well to, um, for the next question. So you have, I guess, a method, you have a program, a strategy that does like assist and doesn't fight this biology. So you've called it the interval weight loss program. What exactly is it? Yeah. So we have found that when you lose weight, um, in cycles through, uh, intermittent energy restriction, this interval weight loss period, you do prevent your biology kicking into gear. So remember, this is the most important thing we want to do. Even if you do follow a program that's not as restrictive and healthier long-term and easier to adhere to, you're still gonna have your biology fighting itself. And this is why even all of these latest and greatest diets that might be more nutritionally balanced aren't achieving long-term results because people are having their body. body fight that weight loss. So with interval weight loss, you're getting a person to lose roughly two kilos every second month, 0.5 kilo a week. It's an easy achievable format for most people. And those weight maintenance periods every second month allow your body to rest, allow your body to sort of recalibrate at that new lowered set point. And most importantly, prevent your metabolism going down. prevent your appetite hormones changing, telling you to eat more, prevent the suppression of your thyroid function, prevent your adrenal glands pumping out more cortisol, which also leads to weight gain. You're basically switching off all of those physiological responses that take place through dieting. And that's what we're trying to do. And our only interest is in preventing weight regain, allowing a person to regain control of their health and weight, but most importantly, setting them up for success. long-term down the track. this is, yeah, this is a big part of my research and translating what we do. Sure, know, diet is only one aspect of it, but for everyone that's first starting out on a weight loss journey, lifestyle intervention should be first line therapy. And it should be something that everyone's doing rather than just going down the route and saying, Hey, give me that drug, give me that surgery or whatever it might be. Um, it's lifestyle intervention, making changes, sustainable habits. So you can prevent, so you can stick to it and then prevent that weight regain. Yeah. And it, seems like this strategy isn't going to be like the flashy, sexy sort of stuff that a lot of the marketing diets are putting out there. But like we're saying, if you, the more you disrupt that homeostasis, the more the body's going to fight back. And so it seems like what this approach is doing is just being so gradual and. just not allowing any of those triggers that body to fight because it's just a very subtle movement, a very subtle shift that the body just gets used to and then you're moving on. So you say every second month you'll have like a very gradual weight loss month. And then those alternate months, the design isn't to lose weight, it's just to stay at the current weight that you're at. then month by month you're losing two kilos every two months. And the body's just getting used to it. It's shifting the, um, there's no abrupt sort of disruption to homeostasis. then, um, yeah, the body just learns to peel off this, this weight loss. that correct? So like you said, the slow long-term approach. And that's the hardest thing for a person to overcome initially. Okay. So you sort of summed up very nicely again, then it's not that I'm not going to sugarcoat this and we don't through, um, our our workers as researchers, it's about looking to the long term and saying, hey, in 12 months time, I'm going to be the 10 to 12 kilos lighter. I'm not going to be 10 to 12 kilos in 10 weeks. If you want that, then sure, you can get that with the latest and greatest diet. There's no doubt about that, but your body is going to climb back to its start point. And if diets worked, we wouldn't see this increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity that we see. today. So yes, you need to look to the future. You need to say, hey, you know, my goal is to, yeah, sure, lose that five, 10 or 20 kilos, but most importantly, prevent the regain. So you don't have to go through this cycle over and over and over again, because people are doing that. They're doing it five times every year, 60 diets by the age of 45 and spending 31 years of their life dieting. It's now become this cultural obsession, weight loss, the dieting industry thrive on it. And again, it's about educating the population so that they can follow evidence-based care. And I guess a really good example too is if you're a runner and you wanna lose weight, well, it also helps you achieve your training goals because if you just go out all guns blazing and increase that intensity over time and not allow your body to rest, then you're gonna break down, you're gonna get injured. So those weights maintenance months along the way also allow your body to rest at needs, but importantly allow your body to recalibrate at that lowered set point. So yes, guess to sum it up, it is about setting a goal outside of weight and saying in a year or two years or three years or whatever it might be, but many years down the track, that is what I'm focusing on. Yeah. In the same way that I talk with runners about if they're building like their weekly mileage, if they want to build up their weekly mileage, they want to do so gradually. It's not sexy. It's not flashy, but it's the right way to do it. And when I talk to them and say, Hey, you can, let's reflect back on your old training habits and let's focus on the last say 12 months, two years, and see all these injuries that you've had. How about we just do this slow, sensible approach and have a look at that and. if someone's wanting to lose weight and they're saying, Oh, but you know, I just don't know if I want to lose two kilos every two months. I don't know if it's too gradual. too boring. I don't know if that's something for me. Maybe I'll try something else first and then I'll go back to this. Um, perhaps maybe they need to self reflect. Let's look back on the last year or two when you've done these diets. Are you any, have you lost any weight, um, where you were or are you gaining weight and you've look at a very long-term trend rather than like this month by month in the moment, trying to do something that's flashy and that will get like promising results. know, it's, it might be that someone does need to self-reflect quite a lot just to see if it's the right thing. How about the, the evidence, the research behind it? Do we have like robust studies that have put people through this and do we have the evidence to back up this approach? Yeah, so we obviously at our facility do clinical trials. And when you look at research relating to everything that we do and science, randomized controlled trials are the gold standard. These are the ones where you put an intervention or a group through the intervention and you're trialing the intervention versus another group that go through the control group, which is say current standard. care or current in this instance, a traditional calorie deprivation or a traditional diet. So when we use this IWL method and intermittent energy restriction, you are achieving, we're finding they're achieving over a year 11 kilos in the intervention group in these RCTs versus half of that. now sometimes even less in the control group. So traditional caloric restriction or diets will achieve anywhere between three to six kilos over the course of a year, about 5 % of their body weight. But with IWL you're achieving double that because remember it's sort of catching up over time. Initially the traditional diet, you'll see this aggressive drop. Okay, and IWL is doing this, but then over time, It sort of catches up and then surpasses it, continues to go down while the traditional diet will get the V-shaped response where they're clawing back to the start point. And then when you follow them up with longer term studies in RCTs, it's about eight and a half kilos at 19 months. Traditional diet is about one to two kilos around that time period or 24 months, two years. It does achieve superior weight loss, but more importantly, it's also equipping people with a healthy lifestyle plan because a lot of these diets are telling you to cut out foods. We touched on this briefly at the start. It's one of those myths. You you cut out the carbs, you get the instant gratification. The number on the scale goes down because glycogen stores a lot of body water, which results in a lot of weight. on the scales when you're jumping on and off. So it's actually equipping people with the information around diet, sleep and exercise so that they're setting themselves up for long-term health to prevent the type 2 diabetes, the heart disease, the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Because a lot of these diets that are telling us to cut out foods do contribute to disease and we will not see the long-term ramifications of these dieting approaches for many years to come. And that is the real scary thing about it. So yes, IWL has that evidence to support its claims, but remember we're only interested in the longer term. We're not interested in the four, eight, 12 weeks. Some people don't get any results initially because they've done so much damage through dieting. It takes them a few months to restore. They might be regaining from the previous diet, but then eventually the body welcomes this approach and says, you know, hang on, why didn't you give me this all along? And then eventually the weight slowly, but surely comes along. And if anything, actually gets a lot easier for them over time, as opposed to with traditional diets, where it's very easy at the start, you should see the weight loss coming off, but then your body shuts down. And can be very encouraging when trying these traditional diets to see the, the kilos kind of peel off and in the short term, like in you say the four to six weeks or so. and can be very encouraging to be like, let me just continue doing this because it's working because I'm seeing results and people love that gratification, you know, jumping on the scales and seeing them a kilo less this week, a kilo less the next week. And perhaps if you notice that the, there's such a rapid change in your weight, maybe that should start being a warning sign that you're actually shifting too much and knowing what we know now from your, your insight, that's, it sounds like it's more of a dangerous thing. And instead of it, Being encouraging, Oh, I've lost four kilos this week. Maybe that should be more dangerous because we know the body's going to fight back from it. Yeah. So that's right. It's about changing the messaging and saying, um, your body is going through, uh, guess something that it shouldn't be going through. It's it's you're imposing a serious sort of health risk on it. It's gonna shut down and yes, you're gonna damage it. You're gonna damage your metabolism. You can damage your appetite hormone signaling system, your thyroid function, your adrenal glands. And what that means is you're gonna get a short term fix for very long term pain. Not only from physical point of view with the weight, but the mental health, the psychological ramifications that come through weight cycling and the body image disorders you develop, you know, through the continual jumping on the scales, negative relationships. develop with food and looking in the mirror and seeing that body image changing so much over time. So that's a good point. If people think next time they're going on the diet, oh wow, I've got four kilos in a couple of weeks. Well, think about the damage you're doing to your body. Okay. That's, that's what's really happening. This episode is sponsored by the Run Smarter app. This includes all my free and paid content along with housing the patron exclusive podcast episodes. You can download this free app by searching Run Smarter app in your app directory and start scrolling through past podcast episodes, blogs and videos. You'll find categories like injury prevention, running misconceptions, strength and performance, and of course, injury specific information. You've already learned a lot listening to the podcast. Why not kick it up one more gear through the Run Smarter app? I did say on your website and on YouTube, when you look up the Interval Weight Loss Program, you've covered six tips and it's kind of like six practical lifestyle changes and advice. And so perhaps we go through those now and the number one that I looked up was you can't fight evolution and maybe we'll just go off the, through these six points. Yeah, great. So, I mean, you can't fight evolution. That is the losing weight in four week cycles. Okay. So you've got to impose the breaks every second month. If you don't, you're going to see your body fight. The weight loss, you're gonna get the same result you always got. Now this is again, one of the hardest things for people to sort of comprehend, okay? If they hadn't been on a diet or many in particular that don't typically diet, and they follow it, then they go and follow IWO, they're gonna see weight loss definitely from the get go, because they haven't imposed damage on their body. But what happens is you see the weight loss, you get excited, you wanna continue, but you can't. So it's about saying to a person, You can't fight evolution. You can't fight your body's desire to go back to its start point and think about that homeostasis that we've been talking about. So you're getting a person with step one just to lose weight in four week cycles. And it's not picture perfect. We say a rough two kilo, some months it might be a little bit more, some months it might be a little bit less. But why two kilos? Because that is what we consider clinically significant. Once you start losing more than say two to three kilos or 5 % of your body weight, that is when your body will start to work differently. That is when the metabolism will drop, the appetite hormones will change, et cetera, et cetera. And it's also very achievable, the 0.5 per week. Most people can lose that amount of weight per week pretty easy. But yeah, that's the first principle, the most important principle. And for those that want a PDF guide, you can go onto the website and jump it off because it is a good reminder of something you can just put on your fridge and it ties in very nicely again with your training plan because the second month or every second month, it just allows your body, know, rest it might need, you could reduce the intensity, it might be the volume and all those other things you're mentioning before, but it does prevent injury coming or setbacks through injury. And if that happens, if that's not happening, it's great because you can continue on with your training, but you can also continue on with your weight loss goals. So you've got to really embrace these weight maintenance periods. And from a training perspective, just allowing that your body the rest it needs. Yeah. Okay. Let's, let's move on. We've got number two, which is nature first. Nature first. mean, food addiction is one of the reasons why we're seeing the weight go up in the Monday environment. have a very hard time saying no to our favorite foods. We are wired to all these process and package foods. might be the bakery treats. It could be the, the, the fast food restaurant take away down the road. We go there all the time. We're not designed to put these foods into our body all of the time. again, during our time as hunter gatherers, our ancestors used to seek out foods that were high in sugar and high in fat. There's no doubt about that, but they were naturally high in fat, naturally high in sugar. And they were nature's treats. So the nuts and seeds, the honey, the fruits. So they're the ones that you've got to retrain your brain towards. This is what the IWEL program is allowing you and helping you to do. overcome food addiction and explaining and educating on you how you can change that wiring system. Because in your brain, there's all these neurons connected, this wiring that's making you reach for those foods, that's seeing that pleasure response every time you eat them, the dopamine, the learning chemical and all of the other feel good chemicals come into play, but you get the same feel good response from nature's treat. So I guess a very good example from a research perspective. we put a person or a group of people in front of the fast, convenience takeaway foods. We measure the brain activity, you get this heightened response of all the feel-good chemicals and dopamine in particular. Then you put them in front of the nature's treats, you get the same heightened response of all those feel-good chemicals and dopamine. So you can retrain your brain to nature's treats. You're going to get that high you're looking for from foods that naturally occur in the environment, foods that are nutritious, that contain naturally occurring sugars and naturally occurring fats, which are good for us, despite what the dieting industry might have told you. Fruits, nuts, all of these foods are excellent and they're ones we should be including. So just think of your brain as actually soft-wide instead of hard-wide. You're not hard-wide to these... processed foods, can change the wiring over time, six out of seven days in a week, you've to learn to say no. And then once a week, you can have whatever food you like. It could be the pizza, it could be the burgers, whatever it is. And then in the maintenance months, you can actually have two of those treat or takeaway foods. So we're not saying cut them out altogether. They play an important part of the Monday environment and enjoyment of food, but it's about rewiring a brain to reach for nature first most of the time. Yeah, I think, I think it's really nice to have those set boundaries and say, okay, one day a week, I can do this because if you don't allow those boundaries, then you can just say, ah, a bit of pizza here, bit of like, you know, takeaway there, a bit of sugar here. Um, but you're also allowing yourself a bit of time just to not fight too many urges. If you're trying to go three weeks strict, you know, not like avoiding all of these foods. And then if you have those sort of maintenance. months, then you're allowing yourself those two days, which I think is very, very achievable to have like two, two days where you can kind of let loose a little bit, but still allowing yourself those strict boundaries. So you don't seep into a third day and then to a fourth day. then those habits creep back in. absolutely. And, and, know, we have the online, um, app online program, so people can be accountable and they can monitor those habits over time. Sure. You might start off as. five or six days where you find yourself eating out, you're trying to work towards that one to two and you can visually track that because that wiring of the brain, you can't change it overnight. You go cold turkey and do the all or nothing approach. You'll only sustain that for four to 12 weeks. Research has proven this and this is what the dieting industry neatly package up to sell you. But eventually you go back to your old ways. You will crave those foods you're cutting out. Think of the wiring as something that's malleable. You can change it over time and you will get there, but it's gonna take you 66 days. It takes more than a couple of months to do it. But just like training, if you repeatedly apply that same sort of training regimen over time, it becomes easier and easier. The load and your body adjust to it. think of similar sort of. environment here where you learn to say no as you're saying no six out of seven days the wiring is moving to the other state in a favorable state towards nature's treats. think anyone who is like maybe started running late in life and didn't like running to start with can agree that you know it's a bit of a hurdle to start with and you put on your shoes and you get out there even though it's rainy even though it's cold you tell yourself a lot of um a lot of things to stay inside but enough, like if you go for six months, 12 months, a couple of years of running, it just becomes so automatic and you actually enjoy running. And then it becomes, you know, five, six days a week rather than struggling to do three. And because you've got that link with endorphins as well, you've got that link with exercise and habit and that it becomes quite ingrained. But yeah, I think that's, I think most of the listeners would have experienced some form of that habit formation, which can be done through diet. How about number three, we've got full rainbow. Is that as very, is it a very similar frame of mind to the nature first? It's basically saying, look, we've got to encompass all foods, all food groups, don't cut anything out. Again, know, diets will tell you to cut out certain foods and food groups, but every meal should contain a whole grain carbohydrate. it should contain a source of protein and it should contain a good source of fat. Plenty or unlimited salad and vegetables, so plenty of color as well. So full rainbows basically saying every meal has to contain all of the main food groups. Whole grain carbs, could be a quinoa, your brown rice, a protein source, it could be a bean, a legume, it could be some fish or some meat, and then a good source of fat, which could be avocado, some olive oil, and then salad and vegetables with every meal. This next one I found really interesting. Number four, use chopsticks. Yeah, it is the most fun for most people. Look, it can also be use an oyster fork or use a teaspoon, but basically this is about portion sizes. You don't have to count calories. You don't have to weigh out grams of food and do all of these. Late nights looking for obscure ingredients. IWL, interval weight loss is all about making this easy and practical to implement. Portion sizes are simply big to small throughout the day. research studies show that you burn two and a half times, you burn the calories two and a half times more efficiently at breakfast compared to dinner. So if you sit down in front of two meals and you have them at breakfast and then you have them. Again, at dinner, you're gonna burn them two and a half times more rapidly at the morning meal. So that's why breakfast is the most important meal and a key part of this IWL plan. And you simply should have about three fists of food for breakfast as a rough guide, two for lunch, one for dinner. Now with dinner, you sit down at the table away from technological distraction and use something you're uncomfortable with. So it could be the chopsticks or if you've mastered the chopsticks, then an oyster fork or a teaspoon, anything to slow down your eating consumption because we typically sit down and don't even appreciate what's in front of us, let alone allow for that appetite signaling system to take or to work. So you've got to really slow down the food consumption. Dinner is the most important meal from the social and cultural perspective, but it's the least important from the portion size perspective. Now, again, that's not something that's going to happen overnight. takes more than a couple of months. And you're gonna continue to tell me, just don't feel hungry in the morning time. That's because you've been doing the same thing for decades. Sometimes, you know, again, it will take a person a few months for them to say, hey, I'm starting to feel hungry in the morning. I can now eat in the morning. Your body's welcoming that nutrition at once more at the start of the day, unless at the end of the day. It's gonna help you with your weight loss goals. Okay. So for point four, we've got kind of two takeaways. One is to slow down your eating. And the second one is to go from big to small. So your biggest meal should be the breakfast medium is lunch and then your smallest being dinner, which thinking about Western or Australian kind of cultures and diets, quite the opposite. Most people just have a coffee for breakfast and then have a feast for dinner. So it can help reframe all of these habits. Yeah. We sort of get home at the end of the day, don't we? We overate, we reach for anything. get our hands on. And we do, we, tend to put the bulk of our volume or food consumption at the end of the day. So that's, that's not good. Your body's very good at slowing down at that time. Um, look, it doesn't matter about the time of the day. You just got to eat from big to small. It's simple as that. And yes, like you said, slow down your eating habits because we just don't, don't do that. We just eat too quickly and we eat on the go. Yeah, I'd be guilty of that for sure. Um, especially like when I used to work in clinics and I had. I'd make myself a big bowl of pasta a couple of years ago and then I'd have 15 minutes in between patients and I'd just scoff it down as fast as I could. And that was just like the lifestyle. It's either that or wait till nine o'clock at night for me to eat. so sometimes lifestyle does get in the way, but you can come up with other strategies so you can start slowly developing these good habits. Yes, absolutely. And sometimes it might mean if you are know, flat out could be working in a clinical environment and you're seeing patients having a few mouthfuls of food as frequently as you can that that can be helpful because then if you prevent ghrelin levels getting out of control and those hunger pangs creeping in, you're not going to reach for the easy, convenient, unhealthy option and see yourself at the vending machine or getting the takeaway on the way home. So, you know, prevent hunger because it does help you with making healthier food choices. Yeah. Um, number five, I've got choose to move. Hopefully the listeners of this podcast are moving, but, uh, what are the guidelines around this? Yeah, look, it's obviously embracing, um, activities you love. Um, could be anything, you know, running, um, is obviously wonderful. It's very helpful from a weight loss perspective because it's really using so many, um, muscles, muscle groups in the body, which means you're burning a lot of energy, but More importantly, outside of that, outside of the structured environment, just monitor your incidental activity because most of us are only doing four to 6,000 steps a day. We're sedentary. And then what we go and run or we go to the gym or whatever it might be and we say, I'm doing my exercise but I still can't see the weight loss. Well, that's because you're actually leading a very sedentary life. So we evolve to move and it's most important that you do increase and get in a level of incidental activity that is healthy. So you get yourself a wearable, try and work up to the 10,000 steps a day. Some people can't get that many steps, but that's fine. You can incorporate lots of non-body weight bearing activity in there as well. It be in the pool, in the bike, et cetera. But yeah, it's about choosing to move in a way that's sustainable. So something that you're gonna stick to lifelong and importantly, incorporate into your life and your day-to-day life through incidental. Yeah. And, um, like exactly you, you've chosen to stand up doing this interview because you spent too long sitting down. you've decided to move. I did have, um, I had JF school, a, who, um, on one of my podcasts and he actually did the entire interview on a treadmill, just walking a treadmill and talking about that. um, yeah, things can happen. Like you can modify things throughout the day to slowly work in this, um, this incidental exercise, which can become a habit in itself as well. Yeah, make it opportunistic. It could be anything like you go to a kids sport, you're dropping them off to training. You don't have to stand there on the sideline and watch them. You can actively be moving around. You can do a quick 15 minute shuttle runs on the side. It really doesn't matter what it is. But think of every opportunity as an opportune movement, time to move. If you do that, you're going to be getting plenty of incidental. But what we typically do is we just drive everywhere. We stay there stationary. drive to the next spot, et cetera, et cetera. We're not actually getting any movement day to day. And like you said, I've been sitting, writing most of today. So now I'm making the most of at least getting up standing while I'm talking to you. perfect. Our last, our sixth one out of our six tips was to avoid blue light before twilight. So do you want to talk about that? Oh, after twilight, sorry. Yeah, very simple one and very important. for sleep health because again, from the science, research, poor sleep does result in poor lifestyle choices. You're gonna think it's an easier option, a healthier option to just go to the vending machine and get the chocolate bar when you sleep deprived. Okay, so poor sleep does have all sorts of flow and effects. So what it means is this evening routine is gonna need a little bit of a shake up and... you're going to need to find other activities to do. So instead of sitting down, scrolling through your phone, social media, watching TV, whatever it might be, turn off the technology, start with at least half an hour before bed, work up to an hour and ideally two hours of no technology, no screens before bed. So it might mean you need to find another hobby or read a book or whatever it might be. This is because technology emits blue light. Blue light. suppresses melatonin production, melatonin, and if that's happening, what it means is your brain is told that it's daytime instead of nighttime. So that's not a good thing. You're gonna find it hard to get to sleep, but then importantly, stay to sleep. just find a period of time every night where you have this no blue light and get away from technology, get away from blue light to improve sleep health. It plays a very important role in weight management. It's a key part of. you know, these six steps. Yeah. And I did interview Sean McCormick, who's like this biohacker talking about a lot of our blue light. And if someone wants to learn more about that, you can have a listen to that episode. But I like how you say just start with 30 minutes before bed and then get used to that and try 60 minutes before bed and then try two hours. Um, that's that habit formation or at least finding solutions, finding something you can do in that 30 minutes and finding something you can do for 60 minutes, I think is a really nice approach to that. Yeah. It has to be practical. mean, everyone leads different lifestyles and a lot of people have their work life largely in the afternoon, evening time, but you can still have a block of time just before bed where you do switch off the technology. It's going to really make a big difference. so give it a try and start with something small. Yeah. Okay. We're going to get into some patron questions, but before I do, let me just quickly recap those six points. So we have number one, can't fight evolution. Number two, nature first. Number three, eat from the full rainbow. Number four, chopsticks. Number five, choose to move. And number six is that no blue light after twilight. And so, yeah, if anyone wants more details, like you said, we've got more resources and videos to go to if they want to look at that. Yes. So, um, patron questions, we've got a couple come in. So Janine, I'll start with her, which after reading this question now kind of just supports exactly what you've been talking about, but she asked, uh, should we be, be focusing on health? So like healthy foods, healthy lifestyle rather than the weight loss. And it seems that, um, around a question, it seems that people tend to focus too much on the number and focus too much on weight loss, like actually losing kilos when, perhaps it's more just the focus should be. more towards a healthy lifestyle. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. This is a really good question. We have to be focusing on health. The goals need to be healthy. Could be to be a better father, be a better mother so I can see my kids grow up in terms of, know, I want to be healthy. So yes, you've got to set a goal aside from weight fixating or having this fixation on number on the scales is not going to help you long-term. Again, with this plan, we talked about that you can't fight evolution, the first principle, you just weigh yourself once a week, same time, same day to monitor the trend over time. We've got patients coming in here that weigh themselves 20 to 30 times a day. It's sad, it's this, you know, again, it's this cultural obsession with the number on the scales. We've got to help people move away from that. Once a week, same time, same day, monitor the trend over time. It does become easier. And yes, you need to focus on health. If you do that, what you're gonna find is, guess what the side effect is? Weight loss. That is what we always see. So set a goal, and it could be again, something related to your metabolic biochemistry. Your cholesterol levels could be high. You wanna see cholesterol levels come down. Well, focus on that. And when you start to implement all these foods with this plan, you're gonna see your health improve. from day one. that's a very good question. And it helps us achieve long-term goals. If we focus on health and not weight. If only there was some scales where you can step on and tells you your health score or like how healthy your lifestyle is. And then you go back and it's we're slowly improving our health rather than losing weight. Yes. It's sort of where we need to move to the future. Because yeah, this fixation on weight is sending us the other way. Yeah. Thanks for that, Janine. Rachel and Maxine kind of had around the same questions. So I've kind of fused into one. I'm curious for your thoughts. What, do you think on intermittent fasting, especially with intermittent fasting and exercise? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is a good question again, because it's the topical thing of the moment. Everyone's talking about intermittent fasting could be 16, eight, five, two. When it comes down to it, they're all very fancy ways of cutting calories from the diet, which can help people speak to it for longer. Great. But again, we're only achieving the same results we achieve with every other diet, short-term weight loss, followed by long-term weight gain. That's because your biology will fight the weight loss, it'll go into shut down mode and you'll go back to your start point. Now, from a health point of view, remember we evolved to go long periods of time without food. So from a health perspective, sure, we know that intermittent fasting or fasting can improve our health, but the reasons we're following intermittent fasting is not for health. It's for weight loss. It's become a popular diet due to very big name celebrities pushing that out onto their supporters. But when you look at the long-term research, it's no better than any other diet. And I'll put that into perspective with a good report that comes out each year, US News and World Report. They get together a leading group of experts, scientists, clinicians, and they're required to objectively rate each of these diets according to the evidence they hold. Now, all of these popular diets, the ones we're talking fixated on at the moment, the Keto's, the intermittent fasting, for example, they appear right down the bottom for the report of 2021. their claims just don't match up with respect to the science or research or evidence they hold. And often a lot of these programs grow. gained such mass momentum because of that validation through a quick drop on the scales. And then Joe talks about it and Pam and everyone's on it. And then you've got celebrities, social media influencers talking about it. And this is how they get these sort of cults following. But yeah, when you look at this report, which is one of the best things we have in the dieting industry, because they're objectively rating it, scientists, experts in the field, these are the diets that are down the bottom. Um, and you should be staying clear of them from a health point of view. Sure. But that's not why we're following it. Um, from the long-term weight management point of view, we've got to stay away from them. I could be a good example of this because I regularly do intermittent fasting and I don't do it for weight loss. have like a lot of gut issues and I find that Regularly throughout the week, uh, maybe twice a week, sometimes three times a week. If I go and extend a period without eating, that just gives my gut bacteria like time just to settle down rather than just like continuously eating and like being disrupted and constantly moving and working. found that's really helped my gut bacteria. like, like I said, I haven't, I don't do it for weight loss. I don't lose weight when I do intermittent fasting because I still eat the same amount. It's not a calorie restriction for me. because out like in my eating window, I still eat the same amount I would if I wasn't taking that break. And so I guess that's the approach of doing it from a health focus rather than a weight loss focus, which you're saying if it is a weight loss focus and you are dropping that weight, it's exactly the same as any other diet where you're constantly, well, you're disrupting that body and it's going to want to fight back. doesn't matter how you're dropping that weight excessively or quickly. the body's still gonna wanna fight back the same way. Yeah, you're spot on. From a health point of view, yes, again, the science, the research shows that it's good for us, but that's sadly not why we're following it. And also even more sadly, remember two in three people are struggling with their weight. You're in healthy normal weight range. You're managing weight very effectively. Occasionally you do some intermittent fasting, you get some, the health benefits from that. But yes, from weight management, weight loss, It's not the answer. It's no better than any other diet out there. And just quickly with that one, Rachel wanted to clarify, does protein, eating protein reduce the sugar cravings? No, what reduces the sugar cravings is reaching for nature first. So look, it's fine to have the sugar cravings. We all have them. Remember we evolved to seek out high sugar, high fat foods, nature's treats. So when you... have that sugar craving, embrace it. But go and reach for something naturally high in sugar. A very good example is your fruits. Most people can find at least a fruit they love. You need to surround yourself with those nature's treats. And when you have it, that craving, reach for the nature first, and you'll get all of those feel-good chemicals released in your brain, the endorphins, the dopamine, and you're gonna feel great. Not only at the time of eating it, but also for many hours afterwards, because it's nutritious, it fills you up. Now, if you, for example, went to the vending machine and got the lollies or something else that's high in added sugar, you're gonna get a very short term high, again, for long term pain. You're gonna feel like shit afterwards and it's not gonna fill you up for long periods of time because those foods are not nutritious. So it's about rewiring the brain, doing it over time. Remember that sort of six out of seven days saying no, during the weight loss months and five out of seven during the weight maintenance months saying no. Not every day has to be no, you can still have your favorites, but you've got to retrain your brain back to the nature's treats. It's funny. I was just talking with my girlfriend the other day around how much I'd crave like a certain dessert. And then while I'm eating it, I'm like, thinking to myself, is it really that good? Like is the taste and the flavor is really, really that good? And I think it's more the excitement of it than actually eating it. And it's just a bit of. I guess awareness or self-reflection I've been doing the last couple of weeks, but I'm maybe I don't actually need this. Yeah. And it's, look, that's the hedonic pathway. In most instances it's kicking in. every day we've got these homeostatic regulation of that body weight. Um, clever part of the hypothalamus is telling us when and when we shouldn't eat and then your energy stores are full. But guess what? The dessert comes out and we always seem to be able to say yes. And that's the hedonic or reward pathway kicking in saying, Yes, I'm going to have that even though your energy stores are full. So look, when you get to that situation, you're craving something sugary or fatty, even though you've had enough or sufficient food, do again reach for nature first. Because like you said, sometimes those foods don't even give us the pleasure we want, but we have them anyway. It's just become a habit. And I promise you, you get the same feel good response from all those nutritious nature's foods. Yeah. Okay. Last patron question, Dima, he asks, uh, I'm finding that as I get older, the weight loss is harder to shift. Should I adopt a different strategy? Or I guess a way to reframe it is I guess, as people get older, should they change their strategy? Yeah, this is a, um, a very common complaint for many people. My very latest book, Into the Weight Loss for Women actually tackles some of these challenges women go through, for example. in particular like going on the contraceptive pill, going through pregnancy, going through menopause and the weight challenge that comes with that. Now for men, I mean, we also have our weight challenges and throughout life, we do see this decrease, small decrease in muscle mass. Okay, so psychopenia, scientific term known as psychopenia where you do see a... roughly couple of cent decrease in muscle mass over the age of 40 means it's harder to regulate your weight because your metabolism does lower a very small amount. But what it also means is you just need to work a little bit harder on your lifestyle because what happens is over time, you're seeing this slight decrease in how efficiently your body's working, but you don't compensate for that change. You still continue to eat the same poor food, not move, sleep. and body shut down a little bit resulting, Lee, your weight goes up. So even though there's a small hormonal change going on for both men and women throughout life, the most important thing is you need to be able to compensate for the lifestyle changes that yeah, that really are not compensated for as we age, because that's the real reason why we're putting on that weight. in terms of, yes, it's harder to shift the weight with age, But again, if you're equipping yourself with this evidence-based information, you're gonna be able to regain control of your weight. And you have to stop putting your hand up and saying, you know, whatever it might be, menopause has made it harder for me to lose the weight or aging as a male has made it harder for me to lose weight. You can still lose weight regardless of the stage of life, but you just need to... Prioritise your health, prioritise your lifestyle because this is the most important thing. Without it, you have nothing. And over time, if you do nothing about it, you're going end up having a serious health scare and you're going to be maybe lucky enough to get through that particular life event. So do something about it before it's too late. And stop dieting. Most of the females out there are out there trying to do something about their weight. Full kudos to them, but they're actually doing more harm than good in most instances. And I think I've talked a lot about the inevitable processes that the body goes through when it ages, especially when it comes to running, like our tender, properties in our attendance change, like our muscles change and our ability to recover changes. Like it just takes longer to rebound and bounce back from a, an intense session. It's just something that's just inevitable. It's an inevitable part of life and aging. might need to start prioritizing more strength training. I start having to prioritize more recovery days than what you did in your thirties. guess this form of weight loss just is along the same lines as like you say, hormones change and chemicals change and just the ability, you just might need to start prioritizing the healthier habits in order to start seeing more benefits than what you did when you were in your thirties and forties. Yeah. Your body doesn't bounce back. as it used to, you're right. And just means you're still gonna be able to achieve your training goals, but you have to really think outside the box. And it might mean a few more recovery days, it might be a bit more non-body weight bearing activity. But yes, it does make it harder as we age, but you've really got to address that in a way that allows you to continue working towards your goals, because you can, you just got to find the alternative that will still see you achieve. uh, goals, health goals. in, um, in the instances where you're trying to lose weight, obviously your weight goals. Yeah. Thanks to all those patrons for submitting those questions. As we're wrapping up, I always like to ask, are there any other take home messages or something we haven't covered that you want the listeners to know? We've covered so much already. So, you know, I won't feel bad if you say we've covered everything, but is there any other take home messages that we haven't discussed? I mean, I could talk about this topic all day and we have covered a lot of content, but I hope really it's educated the listeners on how your body works and responds to weight loss, because there is something going on at a physiological level. There is this biological imperative to regain the weight. If you can understand that and equip yourself with that knowledge, I promise you that will make it so much easier next time that when you go and lose weight, because for so long people have just been told that it's due to a lack of willpower. but it's not, it's due to your biology. Okay, so take on evidence-based information, implement easy, sustainable habits so you can achieve your goals long-term. And lastly, focus on health, not weight, because weight does come, weight loss does come, and it's often that side effect of what you're actually setting out to achieve. What I love about some of these topics is like, first of all, it's mind-blowing, like how... how we need to shift our understanding. And it's quite the opposite of what someone might think. And when we follow the evidence, like you say, if someone was to follow a diet and have a quick rapid loss in weight, they honestly instantly see that this is working. This is what, this is the direction I'm heading and this is a good thing when in fact, it's like, there's actually dangers to dieting. It's quite the, the reality is the opposite of what we're actually thinking. And so it's fantastic that we can have someone like you on here to explain it all. And if someone wants to learn more and you've discussed the resource already, I do have the interval weight loss on the Facebook, YouTube and Instagram accounts. And I know you're also on Twitter. Do you want me to add all those social media links into the show notes? Yeah, that'd be great. I mean, it makes it even easier for people to find information in the way they want to digest it. you can go to your local library and borrow one of the books. mean, that's a great starting point as well, because I just want you to empower yourself with this information. And even though the last one's called the most recent one is called Interval Weight Loss for Women, look, it is suitable for men and women, despite the title, but it does tackle some of those significant life events like menopause, for example, that women go through that us men don't. But what it is tackling in detail is the eight biological protections or world research pathways that we did touch on today. And then in detail describing the six simple steps to the plan. You can jump on the YouTube channel as you mentioned, there's a lot of short informational videos on different topics. Again, we've discussed today, you can just digest this information in lots of different ways. And then through the help of the university, last year we released the online version. you can follow IWL, interval weight loss in the palm of your hand. We know that people don't need to come to clinics to succeed. They don't need to see healthcare professionals face to face to succeed. You can be accountable online, follow it online and still achieve your goals. And with that, there's an IWL community, which is also very supportive of whatever stage you might be at. So yeah, hopefully it has instilled in you that education to regain control of health, weight and achieve training goals. Cool. And we have intervalweightloss.com.au as the website that I'll include in that the show notes as well. Hopefully like someone listens to this and they finally like have a breakthrough. Like they've been dieting so many times and they listen to this, they implement it and they see tremendous long-term results. That's that'd be awesome. And it does seem like in a world where there's so much marketing and just like advertisements pushing the opposite message. It's fantastic. Like people like you are doing that research and following the evidence base and then trying to put the message out there. just being as a, episode on this podcast is one way that you're getting the message out there. thanks for all the work that you do. No, thanks again, bro. You've had me on, you know, keep up the good work yourself. Love what you do and it's great. So thanks mate. All the best. Thanks once again for listening. take full advantage of the knowledge you are building, you need to download the Run Smarter app. This contains all of my free access podcast episodes, written blogs and ebooks, along with my paid video courses, all neatly housed into categories for you to easily navigate through and find content you're interested in. Also be sure to check out the show notes for links to the podcast Facebook group and links to learn more about becoming a podcast patron. who contribute $5 Aussie per month to get inner circle VIP access, including an invitation into the exclusive Patreon Facebook group and a complete back catalogue of Patreon only podcast episodes, which you can access within the app. Also on the app, you can even find a link that takes you to my online physio clinic where I assess and treat runners from all over the world. So I can be on standby if you ever need one-on-one physiotherapy assistance. Once again, thank you for listening and becoming a Run Smarter Scholar. And remember, knowledge is power.