0:00

Welcome to another episode. Today we are

0:02

bringing back one of our old favorite

0:05

episode formats, the Q&A.

0:09

The Q&A. A

0:12

new theme. I think

0:14

it's really nice for us every few months

0:17

to clean out the inboxes. You guys are

0:19

sending questions to our Instagram, to our e-mail

0:21

list. Keep it up. To the website. To

0:24

the website. Yes. There's a form submission. I

0:26

get questions all the time on the website.

0:29

People on the website, they're showing up and showing

0:32

out. I get the nicest messages,

0:34

these long e-mails. I think it's because the website allows

0:36

you to write a lot. So a lot

0:38

of the questions and a lot of the e-mails. Keep the questions

0:40

coming. But let's handle a

0:42

few of them today, Leona. Yeah. Okay.

0:44

So today we're going to be talking

0:46

about a lot of different topics. Our

0:49

thoughts on pre-packaged weight loss shakes. Is

0:51

Eddie starting SlimFast? Ooh. How

0:54

long after waking should you wait to have your cup

0:57

of coffee? Whether high cortisol

0:59

is preventing you from losing weight.

1:01

And even how to break through

1:03

a fitness plateau. You guys, I know you've had

1:05

them. I have. So we're going to talk all

1:07

about it today. And if you want your

1:09

question on the next Q&A, you can send

1:11

it to Instagram at food we need to

1:14

talk. Or e-mail us at

1:16

food we need to

1:18

talk@gmail.com. On today's

1:21

episode, weight loss

1:23

shakes, caffeine, the podcasting

1:25

business, push-up plateaus, cortisol.

1:27

We're answering all your

1:29

questions. I'm

1:32

Yuna Yata. And I'm Dr. Eddie

1:34

Phillips, associate professor at Harvard

1:36

Medical School. And you're listening

1:39

to Food We Need to Talk,

1:41

the only health podcast that has

1:43

been cited by a PhD's dissertation.

1:46

More about that later. Well,

1:49

I guess technically it was our book, but whatever. We

1:51

got cited, okay? It's us. First,

1:57

we want to start off by shouting out one of our favorite

1:59

reviews. Guys we are so close

2:01

to 2,000 reviews. So if you

2:03

haven't given us a review yet, please Go

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leave a five-star rating and reviews and get over

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that 2k mark. I don't know what it does,

2:10

but I think it does help us Make

2:13

some way better. That's all that matters.

2:15

Yes guys, it takes a little time It

2:17

makes us so happy Eddie Doran to the honors of

2:19

reading their okay So first of the person

2:21

writing I love this name trying

2:24

to be rational I Think

2:27

that kind of summarizes what we try to do.

2:29

Yeah. Yeah that's all the time and it

2:31

says love the podcast good science

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and discussions Excellent nutrition

2:35

and health care presentations highly

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recommended. Thank you No,

2:44

we love it that's actually like a pretty accurate description of

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the pot I think All

2:48

of these reviews guys really help other people

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find the podcast. They make me that you

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feel better So thank you for when you

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leave them and now let's get straight to

2:57

the episode Okay, Eddie. Our first question is

2:59

from missy on Instagram So

3:01

missy asks, what are your

3:03

thoughts on pre packaged weight

3:05

loss products like Nutrisystem or

3:07

Optavia? So

3:14

I was like the question is yeah, I

3:17

was like what what are these things cuz I remember

3:19

slim fast That's the only one I remembered and I

3:22

think I've tried them before when I was like little I think

3:24

my mom or somebody Must have bought them lesson in the house.

3:26

I'm really tastes like kind of gross chocolate milk That's

3:28

all I knew about like weight loss

3:30

shakes then I did

3:32

a little research on these systems each system

3:34

in Octavia and It

3:38

appears as though they are actually not

3:40

just shakes anymore now, they're kind of

3:42

also Pre packaged

3:45

meals and you get instructions

3:47

But you most of time you're eating things that

3:49

they send you and then sometimes get instructions about

3:51

like things you cook outside of that I'd

3:53

say the first gigantic red flag. Do you know

3:55

what red flags are? Yeah Because,

4:00

let me explain. Because

4:02

I thought it was just a dating terminology that people use

4:05

on TikTok. It's like a big thing on TikTok, you'd be

4:07

like, this guy's red flags are this, this, this. No,

4:09

no. Or like, what are your biggest red flags on dating apps?

4:12

So I don't know if it was a term. That I can't help you with, but

4:14

I can tell you that there are red flags

4:16

in all walks of life. Okay, cool, I didn't

4:18

know it was a terminology outside of TikTok, thank you. This

4:22

is what happened to you online. You just lose

4:24

all sense of reality. All right, so onto the

4:26

red flags. Yeah, yeah, the biggest red flag was

4:29

the second I clicked on the YouTube system website, because I wanted to

4:31

see what was in the food, what was in the ingredients and stuff,

4:33

the very first thing you see is like, give

4:36

us your name and your email, lose seven pounds in

4:38

seven days. And I think anytime

4:40

you see any sort of company making a weight

4:42

loss claim like that, you should

4:44

be a little bit suspicious because

4:47

it's impossible to lose

4:49

seven pounds of fat in seven days, unless

4:51

you're like literally not eating all day, you're

4:53

fasting for seven days. And even

4:55

then, I don't think you'd lose seven pounds, right? So

4:57

if you're losing seven pounds in seven days, that

5:00

probably means you're losing water weight, but they're trying

5:02

to trick you by, you know, bribing

5:05

you with the scale weight. And

5:07

it's basically just because they're gonna be giving you foods that are

5:09

probably a lot lower carbs than what you usually eat, and that

5:11

makes you lose a lot of water. And so the scale goes

5:13

down, so you're like, oh my gosh, this is working. I

5:16

think there are pros in the sense that it's

5:18

extremely convenient if you don't like cooking, and if

5:20

you have a lot of extra money, and you

5:23

don't wanna cook, and you don't wanna spend the

5:25

time to think about what foods to eat, and

5:27

yeah, this company will send you pre-packaged foods. On

5:30

the other hand, when I was looking at some of

5:32

the foods they send, it didn't really look like they

5:34

were looking for healthy foods, it looked like they were

5:36

just sending low calorie foods. So for example,

5:38

the snacks were like cookies, brownies, cakes,

5:40

but just low calorie cookies, brownies, and

5:42

cakes, which aren't necessarily healthy snacks. It's

5:45

expensive, obviously, because you are paying for people to put

5:47

it together for you and send it to you. And

5:50

then also, I think it doesn't really solve the real

5:52

problem of what happens after your subscription. You're all gonna

5:54

be on Nutrisystem for the rest of your life, so

5:56

you don't know how to cook, and you don't know

5:58

how to portion your food. and then once you're left

6:01

out in the wild again, it's pretty difficult

6:03

to moderate to those levels of calories because that

6:05

food is not pre-made for you and it's probably

6:07

just also not going to taste as good if

6:09

you're making it yourself because it's not going to

6:11

have all these other artificial additives in it. So...

6:15

Oh, I might argue it might taste better. Well, it could

6:17

taste better. If you're actually cooking. It could taste better,

6:19

but if you're trying to make a low-calorie cookie

6:21

yourself, it's pretty hard because they're using all these...

6:23

I don't know what they're using. If

6:25

you're making actual good food, like vegetables

6:27

and stuff, then yeah, yours will taste better for sure. So

6:30

for many people, figuring out what to eat

6:32

at all, and we just sort of

6:34

like planning ahead, meaning not just arriving

6:36

home and saying I'm hungry or

6:39

pulling over to a fast food

6:41

on the way home, but I'm saying actually planning

6:45

for what to eat is a

6:47

really big cognitive load which is

6:49

fancy doctor talk for it's complicated

6:52

and you have to think about it and it's

6:54

sometimes hard to think about what you're going to

6:56

have for dinner when you're just had lunch and

6:58

you're not hungry. So these

7:01

systems can reduce the cognitive load and

7:03

they can also maybe break your

7:05

old patterns. If

7:09

that works for someone, so they break

7:11

their old pattern and they start losing

7:14

weight because that's what they're trying to do.

7:17

And then they mindfully then have a

7:19

minute to kind of plan for, okay,

7:21

the 28 days are up.

7:25

What am I going to do differently than I did

7:27

before? It's like I'm not just

7:29

going to go back to stopping for fast food

7:31

every night. Maybe

7:34

it will help. It makes me like a

7:36

bridge. Yeah. I mean, do they

7:38

report data on the systems of what actually

7:40

works and how sustainable? I don't know. I

7:42

didn't see any, but honestly, I would also

7:44

be very skeptical of any data they are

7:47

reporting. I would want to see somebody else

7:49

doing a study on them reporting it because

7:51

obviously they're very capable of changing

7:53

the data so that it looks good for them. The other

7:55

thing I was going to say was this was true for

7:57

Octavia. I don't know if this is true for Nutrisystem, but

8:00

It's true for a lot of companies that are,

8:03

that used to be traditional kind of weight

8:05

loss companies like Weight Watchers or then it

8:07

was called WW Noom. They

8:09

are all partnering with companies

8:12

that provide GLP-1 inhibitors like

8:14

Ozempic now. So all

8:16

of them are doing partnerships with these

8:18

companies to basically provide medication as well

8:21

as the nutritional plans as

8:23

a way to stay afloat because I think they're all terrified they're

8:25

going to go out of business. And

8:28

in my opinion the medications are a

8:31

thousand times more effective if you're just looking for

8:33

weight loss. The medication is going to be way

8:35

more effective than whatever nutrition system blah blah blah

8:37

system is and so I'm like I

8:40

think it would be more worth it to learn how to

8:42

cook and get the medication to your

8:44

doctor if you're eligible for it than to get

8:46

the medication to these companies and be given the

8:48

meals they're giving you. I don't know

8:51

I feel like it'd be better to invest

8:53

the time in learning how to cook or invest

8:55

the money in taking a cooking class or like

8:57

Blue Apron, HelloFresh, Purple Carrot, those meal

8:59

kit services like those are a really good bridge to learning how

9:01

to cook your own food too because I think learning how to

9:04

cook is just a skill you'll have to know for the rest

9:06

of your life and also managing portions is a skill we'll have

9:08

to know for the rest of our lives too. So

9:11

putting off learning those skills might buy you some

9:13

time or some short term results but it's not solving

9:15

the root of the issue. And I

9:17

could share that because of

9:20

my main cook in my house, my

9:22

wife being overly busy

9:24

recently we've resubscribed to Purple

9:26

Carrot and a couple

9:29

of meals a week come it

9:31

actually is fun. Everything is

9:33

set up in front of you

9:35

in terms of the portion sizes

9:38

and you know boy where is

9:40

that baking soda? It's

9:42

right here, you know where's the little

9:44

capers that you're putting into the dish

9:46

they're all right here and it's sort

9:48

of like to me it's like a

9:50

gateway drug. I feel more

9:52

confident to next try

9:55

cooking without having everything laid out in

9:57

front of me. I feel like

9:59

I could kind of do it. that myself. So

10:01

having a little help from the outside is probably

10:03

not the worst thing. Yeah, I agree.

10:05

And even there are other companies

10:08

too that provide prepackaged meals

10:10

that are based around actual meals. I think

10:12

like my big problem with nutritionism and Alpecia

10:14

is that a lot of things they send

10:16

you are kind of like these vitamin packs

10:18

and these shakes and things. And

10:20

that to me is also just like red flag, red

10:22

flag, red flag. It's like why are you getting this

10:24

like mush of like what is in it? And we

10:27

don't know where it came from and we don't know

10:29

what proportions are putting in all these things. So even

10:31

if you subscribe to some sort of meal kit service

10:33

that is just you're making real food at each meal,

10:35

I think even that is like taking a lot of

10:37

the burden off but also giving you real food. Shall

10:40

we move on to the next question? Yeah,

10:42

from Shannon. And you have

10:46

to help me translate. My FYP. For

10:50

you Paige. That's the page

10:52

on TikTok where all your

10:54

TikToks come up. Okay.

10:56

It's like the explore page on Instagram if

10:58

that helps. I don't know if that helps

11:00

at all. Like I said my FYP is

11:03

all full of cortisol. Is her page

11:05

full of cortisol? Saying

11:07

it's the reason I can't lose

11:10

weight. Is that true? Are we

11:12

fixing Shannon's FYP? Or if she

11:14

wants to know about the effect

11:16

of cortisol on losing weight or

11:18

gaining weight? Okay, Shannon

11:21

this is a great question. So

11:23

I've done a fair

11:25

bit of research on this for the book when

11:27

we had our whole stress chapter and

11:30

there is a lot of research on cortisol and weight.

11:32

The relationship between cortisol and weight is

11:34

bi-directional. So what that means is higher

11:37

cortisol does make it harder to

11:39

lose weight but also losing

11:42

weight increases your cortisol. And

11:46

this makes sense if you think about it right? Because first

11:48

of all if you're in a highly stressed state which is

11:50

why your cortisol would be high then

11:52

obviously your body is in some sort

11:54

of state of resources are

11:56

scarce and so losing weight is definitely

11:59

not a surprise. Already in fact, he

12:01

probably wants to hold on to wait for

12:03

that. It'll be prepared for whatever it is

12:05

dresser and that are awesome. He says if

12:07

you're losing weight that your body becomes more

12:10

stressed. be says it thinks that something is

12:12

going on because you're not in taking as

12:14

many calories as you are expanding so these

12:16

two things will make sense. I don't think

12:18

it's true that having high court is all

12:21

going to make it impossible for you to

12:23

loosely. it just makes it harder. And it's

12:25

also true that cortisol changes the way site

12:27

deposits on your body, so higher cortisol levels.

12:30

Are associated with more sat around

12:32

the abdomen area which is also

12:34

unfortunate for anybody. that's sweet spot

12:36

run the admin area that's like

12:38

that was. Also an unhealthy place a

12:40

deposit that that success that we don't

12:42

wanna have. How different our middle read

12:44

what as I see him on a

12:46

on healthier than the fat around your

12:48

your legs sort of that right? The

12:50

difference between what pear shape. The.

12:52

Weight around your your legs and your bottom

12:55

is healthier than are under mental. Yeah

12:57

they will actually like very little research to

12:59

show any negative health us as a sat

13:01

around the by the hip like area. And

13:04

all the research is basically about the Sat.

13:06

Around the abdominal area the other

13:08

thing is ed people respond differently

13:11

to cortisol. And I think

13:13

you can actually just said a look

13:15

around and look to yourself and your

13:17

nearest friends are. When some people are

13:19

under stress, they are drawn to eating

13:21

what sugars and sat So yes and

13:23

other people they are actually appetite. They

13:25

lose right there. I'd like to the

13:27

low cortisol responders south I think they're

13:29

in answering. Shannon, It's

13:31

old. It's as you're pointing out, you

13:33

know it's it's nuance. And yeah, I'm

13:35

not. Everyone's gonna respond. The same

13:37

way. So am. I. Don't go

13:40

change or f why pay somehow? I

13:43

think I didn't. People are saying

13:45

this because the businesses use in

13:47

between cortisone obesity. They have seen

13:49

that people with obesity. Do. Tend

13:51

to have higher cortisol levels. But.

13:53

We don't know if that's a causal relationship

13:55

of that's a correlational relationships. So if your

13:57

way but your cortisone levels I think you're.

14:00

action items would be do things to relax

14:02

like meditation or breathing exercises or go outdoors

14:05

and then lowering your cortisol levels. It's

14:07

not just for your weight. It's for your overall

14:09

health. So regardless of whether or not cortisol affects

14:11

your weight loss, I think we should all be

14:14

trying to reduce our stress levels because stress is

14:16

like one of the biggest things that causes disease

14:18

in the human body. So for

14:21

all of us, regardless of weight, we

14:23

should be trying to reduce our cortisol. And yeah, I

14:25

think like you said, Eddie, it really depends on the

14:27

person, how they respond to higher cortisol. Our

14:30

next question comes from Amanda on

14:32

Instagram. It says, Hey guys,

14:35

I'm a long time listener of the

14:37

pod and I was wondering about the

14:39

podcasting business. What's it like?

14:41

I've always wanted my own podcast, but

14:44

I've always talked myself out of it. Also,

14:46

have you ever considered going weekly? Few

14:49

things. One, the kind of

14:51

stuff that I really like to get into

14:53

and just love chatting with Yuna. And we

14:55

talk a lot offline. It's not just these

14:58

few precious minutes on sort of on the

15:00

air is all of

15:02

the wonderful things that we talk about, about

15:04

food and our crazy relationship with our bodies

15:07

and how complicated things are. But

15:09

the rest of the time is spent worrying about how

15:12

to keep a podcast going and

15:15

indeed how to have high level

15:17

production and to grow an audience.

15:20

And the simple answer is that

15:22

we are committed to coming out

15:24

every other week on our main

15:26

feed and we have actually gone

15:28

weekly by filling in

15:30

on our Patreon. Yeah. So

15:33

basically I think what you're trying to say is it's a tough business.

15:36

That was Eddie's the cutest way of saying

15:38

it's a tough business to be in, I

15:40

think, Amanda. I've

15:42

actually gotten a few other listeners that have reached

15:45

out with similar questions. People

15:47

that have basically said, I want to do what you do.

15:49

I've met with a few of them on Zoom before. They

15:51

reached out to me through LinkedIn and

15:53

I've met with them on Zoom and I don't want to be

15:55

the person that's like, don't do what I do. It's so hard

15:57

because I feel like adults used to always hear stuff to me.

16:00

When I would say I wanted to be a pianist, they'd be

16:02

like, oh my God, don't do this. Do something else, please. It's

16:04

so hard, blah, blah, blah, blah. And

16:06

I was like, oh, you're being such a Debbie Downer. So I don't say

16:08

that to people because I don't want to get Debbie Downer into their dreams.

16:11

But I will say it is a very, very difficult

16:13

business to be in. And

16:16

I think it's only gotten more difficult. I think when we first

16:18

started, it was way less saturated.

16:21

So it was a lot easier

16:23

to even make money just to keep the

16:25

podcast afloat. I just want you to know, Eddie and I have

16:27

never been rolling in it. I wish we

16:29

weren't. That

16:32

would be awesome if we were just like making

16:34

tons of money from the pod, but like we're

16:36

not. And it's

16:38

only gotten more difficult, I think. So I

16:40

would say if you want to do it

16:43

as like a fun hobby or like a

16:45

side thing, you can grow on the side

16:47

outside of work until it makes enough money

16:49

to be something that you can do for

16:51

work. So I'd never say

16:53

don't do it, but I will say like

16:55

quitting your job to start a podcast is

16:57

very scary because it's really hard

16:59

to build an audience. It's really hard to like

17:03

accept appropriate sponsors. That's not a thing that me and Eddie

17:05

always struggle with is that we don't accept a lot of

17:07

sponsors we get because they are not

17:09

companies that we agree with. So

17:12

that's why we've started a membership to

17:14

be able to always have ethical content,

17:16

in our opinion, like things that we

17:19

agree with without having to

17:21

shut down the podcast basically. Right. So

17:23

it's like to keep the podcast going.

17:25

We've asked listeners that really care about

17:27

it to give a little bit of money

17:29

so that they can get extra episodes. But

17:31

yeah, it's basically because we don't want to accept

17:34

unethical sponsors and because media in general has had

17:36

a massive decline over the past two to three

17:38

years. Like ever since Covid, basically, there's been a

17:40

massive decline, which you would have thought it would

17:42

have spiked it because everybody was home. Yeah,

17:45

I think the advertising money is shifting around.

17:47

So I mean, just one other thought which

17:49

comes back to maybe some of the content

17:51

that we try to get across is

17:54

if you're thinking about doing a podcast, examine

17:56

the same question I would ask a patient

17:58

is like what's your Why what

18:01

are you trying to accomplish by doing it? For

18:03

me, this is like practicing medicine

18:06

with a megaphone. I look

18:08

at it like I have the privilege of sitting with individuals

18:11

One-on-one need a knee. I could listen to them.

18:13

I can answer I can get a bunch of

18:15

patients together in a group I

18:17

put on large-scale conferences for doctors. So

18:19

there's 500 health professionals. They've

18:21

got thousands of patients Wow, we're reaching

18:24

tens of thousands of individuals

18:26

indirectly or you and I can sit

18:28

here and hopefully entertain you

18:30

and hopefully Educate

18:33

you and have over we have her 4

18:35

million downloads Yeah

18:38

So the megaphone is pretty loud also

18:40

and that's part and the lovely responses

18:42

that you get and the reviews that

18:44

you keep on Writing keep us going.

18:46

Thank you We got like a really

18:48

cute email from a girl that said she cited us

18:50

in her dissertation that warm my heart Oh, we

18:53

have to shout out. I know We've

18:56

made someone got a PhD

18:58

by listening to food And

19:03

the doctor that like bought them for the people in

19:05

his office, I just yeah those are so nice guys

19:07

anyways It's a very very fulfilling job. I will say

19:10

that And with

19:12

that we will be right back after this break Food

19:19

We need to talk is funded by a

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grant from the Ardmore Institute of Health the

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These are foods you're already familiar with

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living org And

20:02

we're back. Our next question

20:04

comes from Sharon on Instagram. Why

20:06

can't I do more than 10 push-ups

20:09

no matter how hard I practice?

20:12

Thanks. Thank

20:15

you. So

20:17

a couple of things. There's different

20:19

elements to doing

20:22

exercise. I would

20:24

immediately start asking you how you're doing your push-ups

20:26

and are you flat down on the floor and

20:28

just trying to struggle through them? Or have you

20:30

worked your way up towards doing

20:32

the push-ups? So I've got lots of patients who if

20:35

I put them down on the floor they're never gonna

20:37

get off the floor even with

20:39

the first push-up, but I can get them leaning

20:41

against the wall and sort

20:44

of doing an inclined push-up with their hands against

20:46

the wall and they could do 10, 15, you

20:48

know, work their way up

20:50

bit by bit and when that's a little

20:52

bit easier we could use our body weight

20:54

and use gravity and grab the edge of

20:56

your kitchen counter and that's a

20:58

little bit tougher and then maybe the arm

21:00

of your sofa and then maybe all the

21:03

way down, you know, so you're doing

21:05

a sort of a proper push-up. You

21:07

could do the same thing against the stairs as you face

21:09

them. Start at the fifth stair, fourth, third,

21:12

second, first, wow, now down to the floor.

21:15

And then you're not who's really into

21:17

resistance training is gonna want you

21:19

to go the other way and put your

21:21

feet up on the stairs and you can

21:23

of course keep on kind of raising the

21:26

resistance. So that's sort of like one way

21:28

of easing into it. Eunice, you want to

21:30

talk about some of the strengthening? Yeah, sure.

21:32

So I've been here before

21:34

not with push-ups specifically but with other exercises like I

21:36

get stuck in a certain number of pull-ups or I

21:38

get stuck in a certain number of squats or whatever

21:40

and I think there are

21:42

two components that you have to look at. One

21:44

is the skill aspect and one is the strength

21:47

aspect. Usually when people are down

21:49

at the super low numbers like they can't

21:51

even get the first push-up or the first

21:53

pull-up, oftentimes it can be a combination of

21:55

technique and strength. Like they don't actually have

21:58

the strength to do it, but they also... don't exactly

22:00

know how to do it in their body, which is

22:02

fine. That just means you need to practice more. But

22:04

when you're stuck at a higher number, like you're stuck

22:06

at 10 and you can't get past it, that's

22:09

more of a strength issue, right? Because obviously you have the techniques

22:11

to do the pushups because you're able to do 10 of them.

22:13

So I would say in that case, you kind

22:16

of have to mix things up and try to

22:18

increase your strength in different ways than you have

22:20

been. So if right now all you're doing is

22:22

10 pushups and you just keep doing 10 and

22:24

you just get stuck at 10 over and over

22:26

and over again, you're not really challenging

22:28

your body in new ways to actually get stronger, which

22:30

means you're never going to get to the 11, 12, 13, etc. pushups. So

22:35

one thing you can try doing is variations

22:37

of pushups that make them more difficult. So

22:39

you can see how many pushups can you

22:41

do with your hands elevated. So for example,

22:43

take two 45 pound plates at

22:45

the gym and put your hands

22:47

on them like you're doing a pushup. And

22:49

then when your chest dips down, it actually

22:51

dips down lower than it normally would in

22:53

a regular pushup because the ground is now

22:56

lower. And so that pushup is a

22:58

lot harder because it increases the range of motion. So

23:00

see if you can get up to 10 there because if

23:02

you can do 10 of those pushups, then when you go

23:04

back to the floor, you should be able to do more.

23:07

Or for example, you can try elevating your feet

23:09

like Eddie said and master those pushups. And once

23:11

you get good at those go back to the

23:13

floor. You can try putting a plate or a

23:16

weight vest on and seeing if you

23:18

can do weighted pushups. And once you're good at

23:20

those go back to the floor. So it's all about

23:22

trying to get stronger. And I think when you

23:24

get stuck in kind of a certain number of

23:26

reps, we just keep doing that over and over and

23:28

over again, hoping that it gets better. And

23:31

we need to find a way to challenge ourselves

23:33

so that our body actually does get stronger to

23:35

get better at that thing. And another

23:37

thing to think about is that your nervous

23:39

system, which is controlling the firing of your muscles

23:42

is infinitely able to adapt to whatever

23:44

you throw at it. So another wrinkle

23:47

to put in to what

23:49

a unit just described is you

23:51

could do your pushups at different

23:53

velocities. Let's do a

23:55

quick one. Yeah, and explosive pushups.

23:58

Explain how those work. Yeah, so those. are

24:00

like you push off the ground as hard as you

24:02

can as fast as you can and sometimes people's hands

24:04

will even come off the ground. Those are kind of

24:06

like clapping push-ups. It's a really fancy version where you

24:08

try to clap in between your push-ups. And then

24:11

you can concentrate on lowering slowly,

24:13

which is another way of using

24:15

in this case like eccentric contractions.

24:18

Right. Lengthening. So the idea is

24:20

to mix it up and

24:23

then when you finally go back with all of this

24:25

advice that we've given you and you go back to

24:27

do the 10 push-ups, you might be able

24:29

to sneak out 11 and 12. Yeah, but

24:31

like don't do your regular 10 push-ups for a

24:34

couple weeks. Like do these other things, pick one

24:36

or two maybe to put into your workouts and

24:38

stick to progressing those for at least three or

24:40

four weeks before you go back. Because if you

24:42

do it once and you go back, you're not

24:44

going to be stronger, right? So you have to

24:47

actually like really commit to something else different and

24:49

give your body time to adapt to it and

24:51

then go back and test your push-ups. And

24:54

with that, guys, that's all the questions that we're

24:56

going to do on here. But I wanted Eddie

24:58

to tell a quick story that he told me

25:00

about when he came in today because I just thought

25:02

it was so good and it just, it

25:04

made so much sense and he had to share it on

25:06

the board. Oh, the one about how contorted or thinking

25:09

about health can be. That's the one. Okay. So the

25:11

quick story that I just heard from a colleague the

25:13

other night, we were at a cooking

25:16

course at Harvard Medical School. Well,

25:18

amazing. Shout outs to

25:20

my colleagues who are putting this on. The

25:23

story that was told was the

25:25

menu for a new restaurant was

25:27

coming out and they

25:29

were rushing out to get the menu and they

25:31

described all the food because he starts to like

25:33

enjoy the food even when you're just sort of

25:35

reading the menu, right? You know, I'm going to

25:38

have those mushrooms and they're going to be savory

25:40

and oh, it's great. And they

25:42

didn't, and that was it. And everyone ordered

25:44

all this different food from the menu because

25:46

everything sounded delicious. And

25:48

then they caught up and they go, Oh

25:50

no, no, no, we wanted to put down

25:53

and mark which ones were vegetarian and which

25:55

ones were heart healthy and

25:57

which ones were vegan. And then

25:59

they, looked and they realized that people

26:01

stopped ordering. The ones that

26:04

were measured, you know, like it's like, oh,

26:06

this is the one you have, because they,

26:08

I imagine, thought they're not gonna taste as

26:10

good. So this is the big push

26:12

for people wanna have food that tastes

26:14

good. The story that I told the students was

26:17

that there's a corollary in the physical

26:19

activity exercise world. So here's the setup.

26:22

They invite 20 people into the study,

26:25

and everyone shows up at the study. Of

26:27

course, it's a psychology study, and there's always,

26:29

not always, but there's a little bit of

26:31

a ruse. So they said, oh,

26:34

you know, the doctor is late. You

26:37

have 20 minutes, and the first 10 people, they

26:39

say, just go for a walk. If you follow

26:41

this path, it's like a mile, it should take

26:43

you 20 minutes. It's so nice outside. It's beautiful.

26:45

You'll have a great time. See you back in

26:48

a few minutes, and it's great. And then the

26:50

other people, they sent them on the same path,

26:53

but the instruction was, you know, you

26:55

have 20 minutes, and 20 minutes, you could walk approximately

26:58

2,000 steps, and

27:00

that will improve your cardiovascular fitness and reduce your

27:02

risk of dying. And it's

27:04

really important that you do this. And they went

27:07

out, and they did the same exact walk, and

27:09

they came back, and

27:11

then they had a little spread of food out. So

27:13

you know which of those

27:16

two groups had more brownies

27:19

and food. I'm

27:21

sorry, I already know the answer to this, but I guessed

27:23

the right one earlier, I swear to God, which is the

27:26

group that thought they were doing it for their health. And

27:29

they also, when they asked them to describe the

27:31

walk, they would say, oh, it was

27:33

pretty challenging to do 2,000 steps so

27:36

quickly. And so here's my

27:38

take home. And I think we try

27:40

to get this across on the podcast, which

27:42

is eat food because it's delicious,

27:45

move your bodies because it makes you feel good.

27:48

Don't do anything for your health. Don't do anything

27:50

for your health. Unsubscribe

27:52

right now. Unsubscribe, don't do anything

27:54

for your health because it'll backfire.

27:57

You know this happens to me all the time the other day, and you may remember.

28:00

went for a run and like on our way back we saw

28:02

that my patient got canoles because we were like we deserve

28:04

it we went on a run. Of course

28:06

you deserve just one. Yeah exactly no I

28:08

got like five. No but like

28:10

it's true guys I think the overall

28:12

message is that like if you

28:15

don't find another reason to do the things

28:17

you're doing that like your psychology will backfire

28:19

on you and it'll end up not

28:22

working your favorite. So

28:24

anyways we've decided to end the podcast and with that we will

28:27

see you guys never in which case. I'm

28:29

just kidding anyways thank you so much for

28:31

joining us if you want to hear a

28:33

couple more questions including when should you drink

28:35

coffee should you wait a full 90 minutes

28:37

after you wake up which

28:39

supplements can be trusted and

28:42

more then you can head

28:44

over to our membership food we need

28:46

to talk.com/membership speaking of supporting

28:49

the pod and keeping the

28:51

pod going please. But yeah guys thank

28:53

you so much for listening. And

28:57

I usually take the time to thank our guest

28:59

but we didn't have guests today so I'm going

29:01

to thank our listeners for turning in their incredible

29:03

questions. Thank you guys. You always

29:05

send in the best questions they're always so interesting and

29:07

we love them so much. If

29:09

you want to follow us on Instagram and be part

29:11

of the next Q&A you can follow us at foodweneedtotalk

29:14

and see any of my dogs. That was a big

29:16

hit last time. You can

29:18

follow me on Instagram at the official

29:20

Yuna and Yuna Jada on YouTube and

29:22

TikTok. You can find Eddie exercising

29:25

because I like it. Oh

29:27

hey food we

29:29

need to talk is produced by me

29:31

and is distributed by PRX. Our

29:34

mix engineer is Rebecca Seidel and

29:36

we were created by Kerry Goldberg, George

29:38

Hicks, Eddie Phillips and me. For

29:41

any personal health questions please

29:43

consult your health provider. To

29:45

find out more go

29:47

to foodweneedtotalk.com. Thanks for

29:50

listening. From

30:03

BRX.