Latest / The You Project / #1864 Some Sanity In The Food Madness - Simon Hill
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: I'll get a team. Welcome to another installing the show.
- 0:02Speaker 1: It's The Bloody Youth Project. Of course it is Craig
- 0:05Speaker 1: Anthony Harper Simon. What's your middle name?
- 0:07Speaker 2: Son, John or you can call me Johnny if you want.
- 0:10Speaker 2: It's actually John Simon is Johnny Cito. So some of
- 0:17Speaker 2: my friends call me.
- 0:19Speaker 1: Really did you used to get did your mum or
- 0:21Speaker 1: dad give you the whole Simon? John Hill get in
- 0:24Speaker 1: here now when you're in trouble kind of vibe?
- 0:26Speaker 3: Absolutely?
- 0:27Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 0:28Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 0:28Speaker 1: Were you? Were you difficult? Were you a problem child?
- 0:33Speaker 3: I was?
- 0:33Speaker 2: I was the younger, the younger child and the youngest
- 0:37Speaker 2: have an older brother. And yes, fair to say, I
- 0:40Speaker 2: got up to my fair share of trouble at school.
- 0:43Speaker 2: Dad Dad was called up to school quite a lot
- 0:45Speaker 2: in high school. I remember once Craig I.
- 0:50Speaker 3: At our school.
- 0:51Speaker 2: I went to school out on Altham So also Fellow
- 0:54Speaker 2: Melbourne in and I was quite up genes. I remember
- 1:00Speaker 2: we had like some landscape gardeners that would work on
- 1:03Speaker 2: our on the school kind of length property and take
- 1:07Speaker 2: care of the gardens and mow the lawns and the
- 1:09Speaker 2: football level and all that stuff. Did a great job
- 1:12Speaker 2: and they left the golf buggy that they used one
- 1:15Speaker 2: day with the keys in it. And I took that
- 1:18Speaker 2: golf buggy, who drove it on the road with like
- 1:20Speaker 2: five or six friends on the back and hanging off
- 1:23Speaker 2: the side of it down to research shops, which were
- 1:26Speaker 2: like the closest shops to get fish and chips. And
- 1:30Speaker 2: unfortunately we drove past one of our teachers on the
- 1:33Speaker 2: way down, so that didn't end so well.
- 1:36Speaker 1: I thought you were going to tell me you drove
- 1:38Speaker 1: past a cop car on the way back to the
- 1:40Speaker 1: school or something, But yeah, well what year was that, mate?
- 1:44Speaker 1: Give your take?
- 1:47Speaker 3: Gosh, two thousand and one.
- 1:50Speaker 1: Yeah, you could probably do that. You know, that's like
- 1:53Speaker 1: quarter of a century ago. Bro, can you leave a
- 1:56Speaker 1: quarter of a century ago? You did that.
- 2:00Speaker 3: Easy? It's crazy. I don't feel like.
- 2:02Speaker 1: I don't want to tell you you're old, but I
- 2:04Speaker 1: just out of the bag. Hey, So thank you for
- 2:08Speaker 1: doing this. I appreciate you. I was made aware of you.
- 2:11Speaker 1: I don't know how it wasn't how I didn't. I mean,
- 2:14Speaker 1: I've known about you for about six months. I don't
- 2:17Speaker 1: know how I didn't discover you before that. But and
- 2:20Speaker 1: I'm not saying this insincerely, folks, if you don't follow Simon,
- 2:24Speaker 1: follow him. His stuff is great, He's great. What I
- 2:26Speaker 1: love about him is he's really objective, he's really well
- 2:32Speaker 1: thought through. He's he's not hysterical, he's not pushing an agenda,
- 2:36Speaker 1: he's not selling shit. And I love the way that
- 2:39Speaker 1: you communicate, and I love the capacity that you have
- 2:42Speaker 1: to be able to disseminate what can be complicated ship
- 2:48Speaker 1: in a user friendly way. So is that I mean,
- 2:51Speaker 1: is that that's obviously how do I share?
- 2:53Speaker 2: This can be you know, because I should change my
- 2:56Speaker 2: I should change my buyo, or I should change the
- 2:59Speaker 2: the about about us page. And I think I might
- 3:02Speaker 2: steal that from you, because honestly, I grew up my
- 3:05Speaker 2: dad's a professor of physiology, and so you can imagine
- 3:09Speaker 2: what you know when I'm five six, seven eight and
- 3:12Speaker 2: at the dinner table and he's talking like an academic, right,
- 3:16Speaker 2: I had to very quickly learn to know ask the stupid,
- 3:21Speaker 2: dumb questions to get him to kind of make it
- 3:24Speaker 2: more accessible, because it's like another language that these guys speak.
- 3:28Speaker 2: Whether you're at a conference or you're reading the peer
- 3:32Speaker 2: review studies. That is a giant arms length away from
- 3:37Speaker 2: the everyday person who really needs that information. So yeah,
- 3:42Speaker 2: that's I've kind of taken I guess, those skills that
- 3:45Speaker 2: I learned at the dinner table and use those today
- 3:49Speaker 2: to sit down with people like my dad, other professors
- 3:52Speaker 2: and get them to kind of translate or share their
- 3:57Speaker 2: often thirty forty years of research in a more accessible,
- 4:01Speaker 2: more palatable way so that we can myself included, can
- 4:05Speaker 2: make sense of it.
- 4:07Speaker 1: As I mean, it's literally like I said to you
- 4:10Speaker 1: before we started recording, like I'm I'm not a genius
- 4:15Speaker 1: at all, and I'm a procademic. And when I started
- 4:19Speaker 1: doing like I finished my last degree a long time ago,
- 4:24Speaker 1: and then when I started my PhD, and I'm at
- 4:28Speaker 1: what's called Brain Park, the Neuroscience neurocyclab of Monash University
- 4:32Speaker 1: in Melbourne, and I'm sitting amongst all these fucking twenty
- 4:35Speaker 1: three year old genie I like a fucking wombat in
- 4:38Speaker 1: a black T shirt. I'm trying to figure out. And
- 4:42Speaker 1: then we're having meetings where everybody gets together and talks
- 4:45Speaker 1: about their project, in other words, their PhD, like what
- 4:48Speaker 1: they're doing in their research, and I literally, for a
- 4:52Speaker 1: year didn't understand what anyone was talking about. I had
- 4:55Speaker 1: to keep going, what does that mean? What does that mean?
- 4:57Speaker 1: What's that word? Like, I'm writing stuff that not a
- 4:59Speaker 1: year but a rock solid six months. And I think
- 5:02Speaker 1: sometimes with academia and research for many people, and it's
- 5:07Speaker 1: not good or bad, and it's not a it's not
- 5:11Speaker 1: a slight on anyone's intelligence, but it's like you're walking
- 5:14Speaker 1: into a room where everyone's literally speaking a different language.
- 5:18Speaker 1: It's like, I'm you know, like I walk into room
- 5:20Speaker 1: and everyone in the room speaks Russian except me. Well,
- 5:23Speaker 1: I know I'm not stupid, and I know that they're
- 5:25Speaker 1: not necessarily smarter than me, but I don't speak Russian,
- 5:28Speaker 1: so I'm at a massive disadvantage. And everything they're telling
- 5:31Speaker 1: me is to them, it's clear and it makes sense,
- 5:33Speaker 1: and the research is right and it's logical and it's
- 5:36Speaker 1: even relevant to me. But I'm like, that's awesome, but
- 5:39Speaker 1: I don't fucking speak Russian. And that's what it's like sometimes,
- 5:43Speaker 1: that chasm between research and information that's relevant for so
- 5:47Speaker 1: many people. And that's why I think your stuff is
- 5:51Speaker 1: good is great, because that's you're almost like which I
- 5:56Speaker 1: try and be too, but you're kind of a conduit
- 5:58Speaker 1: between these two disparate sometimes disparate worlds.
- 6:03Speaker 2: Yeah, I think my guiding light, which I feel in
- 6:06Speaker 2: the brief time that i've I've got to learn a
- 6:09Speaker 2: little bit more about you today is curiosity. And I
- 6:13Speaker 2: think you share that, and it's it's frustrating. It's frustrating
- 6:17Speaker 2: when you don't understand something, and it can be scary
- 6:21Speaker 2: to kind of to ask the quote unquote dumb question.
- 6:26Speaker 2: But I very much since I was little and to
- 6:28Speaker 2: this date, I'm not one to sit back if I
- 6:32Speaker 2: have a question and it's it's it's silly, it's.
- 6:34Speaker 3: Dumb, and I could look stupid.
- 6:37Speaker 2: I'm still gonna ask it because curiosity is really what's
- 6:41Speaker 2: driving everything I do, and it has to be driving
- 6:44Speaker 2: what you do to put out in one episode every
- 6:46Speaker 2: single day.
- 6:46Speaker 3: And I think you said two thousand episodes so.
- 6:50Speaker 2: Far, I have to imagine curiosity is curiosity is at
- 6:53Speaker 2: the center of that.
- 6:55Speaker 1: Yeah, I I did it. I did a podcast probably
- 7:01Speaker 1: two or three years ago now with a guy from
- 7:03Speaker 1: the States called Professor Amic Goswami, and at the time
- 7:06Speaker 1: he was eighty four and he's like a super duper
- 7:09Speaker 1: professional professor of theoretical physics and quantum theory, and mud
- 7:15Speaker 1: he like all this, and I'm I started talking to him, Simon,
- 7:20Speaker 1: I'm five minutes in and I'm thinking, I'm fucked. I
- 7:24Speaker 1: do not have I'm running out of shit to ask him,
- 7:27Speaker 1: and I'm because I'm not smart enough to be in
- 7:30Speaker 1: this room. And I just stopped and I went and
- 7:34Speaker 1: he was so beautiful. He was like this wise spiritual,
- 7:37Speaker 1: it's like the insection of spirituality and research and academia.
- 7:43Speaker 1: And I said to him, professor, can I tell you something?
- 7:46Speaker 1: And he goes, yes, of course, And I'm not smart
- 7:49Speaker 1: enough to be in this chat. And then he just
- 7:51Speaker 1: laughed and he went, oh, I think you're quite smart.
- 7:54Speaker 1: And then he went I went, oh, I don't know
- 7:55Speaker 1: about that, but you know, for me, it's like that, yeah,
- 7:59Speaker 1: I've I'd rather just go I need to kind of
- 8:03Speaker 1: own up a little bit because I'm not sure what
- 8:06Speaker 1: I'm asked. I don't know. I don't even know what
- 8:08Speaker 1: to ask you in this moment to make it a
- 8:10Speaker 1: good listening experience for the thousands of people that rock
- 8:14Speaker 1: up to listen to this every day. And he was
- 8:16Speaker 1: so good, he was so and it ended up being
- 8:18Speaker 1: a really good chat. But I just had that moment
- 8:21Speaker 1: of terror where I'm I'm thinking, I don't know how
- 8:24Speaker 1: to make this okay.
- 8:27Speaker 2: Right, But it sounds like I mean for you to
- 8:30Speaker 2: say that was quite vulnerable. So it took it took
- 8:33Speaker 2: a lot of It took a lot of vulnerability for
- 8:36Speaker 2: you to kind of put your hand up.
- 8:37Speaker 3: And say, I'm not sure what to ask you.
- 8:42Speaker 2: But as is often the case, if we are vulnerable
- 8:45Speaker 2: and willing to kind of let down the wall, good
- 8:48Speaker 2: things can happen. So I'm glad that you had that
- 8:50Speaker 2: experience and he didn't. He didn't just say okay, let's
- 8:54Speaker 2: end the podcast.
- 8:56Speaker 1: That would have been That would have been hurtful. That
- 8:58Speaker 1: would have been hurtful. All right, So let's talk a
- 9:01Speaker 1: bit about you and your stuff. So I told you
- 9:05Speaker 1: before you know, we went live, that I started really
- 9:08Speaker 1: in the physical space ex sized physiology and training people
- 9:11Speaker 1: and all of that. And I still love that and
- 9:13Speaker 1: I still help a few people out in that space.
- 9:15Speaker 1: But you know, I got to the point with me
- 9:18Speaker 1: where I went, you know, bodies are interesting, but minds
- 9:21Speaker 1: for me, minds and brains are more interesting. And so
- 9:24Speaker 1: I'm going to open that door now. And did you
- 9:29Speaker 1: start in physio? Am I right with that. You started
- 9:31Speaker 1: as a physiotherapist.
- 9:33Speaker 3: Yeah, I went.
- 9:34Speaker 2: I went straight into physiotherapy Latrobe University and so I
- 9:38Speaker 2: did my under undergraduate there and then went to private practice.
- 9:44Speaker 2: So I was working at you pran sports medicine center.
- 9:48Speaker 2: Marlven wrote, Yeah, so I worked there. I was fortunate
- 9:52Speaker 2: enough to get a job straight straight out of university
- 9:54Speaker 2: there and worked there. And then I was working with
- 9:59Speaker 2: Coburg Tiger in the Richmond Football Club and so working
- 10:04Speaker 2: with elite athletes. And that was the time actually when
- 10:07Speaker 2: Ben Cousins had come back from West Coast and was
- 10:10Speaker 2: playing playing with Richmond. He was playing quite a bit
- 10:13Speaker 2: of football with Koburg Tigers, so I remember treating him
- 10:18Speaker 2: and so I was in that physiotherapy space. And then
- 10:22Speaker 2: you know, some years later we ended up going back
- 10:24Speaker 2: to university as you know, and I went to Degan University.
- 10:27Speaker 3: That's where did my masters and nutrition mm hmm, I was.
- 10:31Speaker 1: We were probably at similar time. I worked at Port
- 10:34Speaker 1: Melbourne for a few years also in the NFL, and
- 10:37Speaker 1: then before that at the Saints and the AFL for
- 10:41Speaker 1: about four years. In those it's it's it's an interesting environment.
- 10:45Speaker 1: That system isn't.
- 10:46Speaker 3: It mm hmm, yeah it is.
- 10:49Speaker 2: I mean I loved that environment because I was playing
- 10:53Speaker 2: football in the Eastern Football League and school and I
- 10:58Speaker 2: was captain of our school football team.
- 11:00Speaker 3: So I took footy really seriously.
- 11:02Speaker 2: And when I finished high school two thousand and four,
- 11:07Speaker 2: I knew that I wasn't going to take football any
- 11:10Speaker 2: any further, and so physiotherapy for me was a way
- 11:13Speaker 2: to stay involved in football, and I knew it was
- 11:16Speaker 2: like going straight into first year. I knew I was
- 11:19Speaker 2: going to go down the path of kind of sports
- 11:21Speaker 2: physiotherapy and then I ultimately try and work with footballers
- 11:26Speaker 2: in the AFL.
- 11:28Speaker 1: So what what was the prompt to move away from
- 11:33Speaker 1: physio and into nutrition was did something happen or it
- 11:37Speaker 1: was just an evolution.
- 11:39Speaker 3: It was an evolution.
- 11:40Speaker 2: I had a huge amount of curiosity for what we
- 11:43Speaker 2: eat and the effect that it has on our health
- 11:45Speaker 2: and for the kind of seed that was planted for me.
- 11:52Speaker 2: Went back to when I was fifteen years old. So
- 11:56Speaker 2: my dad and I were out in the Yarra Valley
- 11:59Speaker 2: and to go out on the weekends with my brother
- 12:02Speaker 2: and my dad and I and on this Sunday was
- 12:04Speaker 2: just my dad and I and we were going around
- 12:07Speaker 2: and jumping from small winery to small winery, and I
- 12:10Speaker 2: was like, I was fifteen, fourteen, fifteen, and on this afternoon,
- 12:15Speaker 2: beautiful afternoon, we're driving back. My dad lived in King
- 12:17Speaker 2: Lake at the time, and he started getting chest pain
- 12:24Speaker 2: and I could tell that he was uncomfortable, and he
- 12:28Speaker 2: kind of played it down, and we got back to
- 12:30Speaker 2: his house in King Lake and we cooked dinner and
- 12:33Speaker 2: I checked in on him. He seemed to think that
- 12:37Speaker 2: it was dissipating, not as much pain as before, and
- 12:41Speaker 2: we had.
- 12:41Speaker 3: Dinner and then I went to bed, thinking nothing of it.
- 12:44Speaker 2: But I awoke in the early hours of the night
- 12:48Speaker 2: to loud noises in the kitchen and went out and
- 12:51Speaker 2: he was having a full blown heart attack. And so
- 12:54Speaker 2: he was like he was basically making his way to
- 12:58Speaker 2: the phone call he had dial triples zero, and I
- 13:01Speaker 2: was the one that spoke to the paramedics and detailed
- 13:07Speaker 2: what was happening. And because we were in King Lake,
- 13:09Speaker 2: which at the time, and I'm sure now it's been developed,
- 13:12Speaker 2: so it's like right up through Whittlesea's probably lots lots
- 13:15Speaker 2: of neighborhoods and homes. But back then you drive from
- 13:20Speaker 2: kind of r MIT in Bundura up to King Lake.
- 13:24Speaker 2: There was not a lot in between. It was mostly
- 13:26Speaker 2: just farms, you know. South Brange was all farms. And
- 13:31Speaker 2: so they said, look, you're a long way from the
- 13:32Speaker 2: nearest hospital. We're sending a helicopter, and they sent a
- 13:35Speaker 2: helicopter to pick up my dad and I went by
- 13:39Speaker 2: road in the ambulance trailing them, and by that time
- 13:43Speaker 2: my mum and brother because my parents were divorced when
- 13:45Speaker 2: I was younger, they made their way over and to
- 13:48Speaker 2: the hospital and so we had this long wait to
- 13:50Speaker 2: find out like what's happening, and you know, ultimately the
- 13:54Speaker 2: cardiologists came out and said, your dad's had a huge
- 13:57Speaker 2: heart attack and we've we've managed to save these life.
- 14:01Speaker 2: But his life will look a little different from now on,
- 14:03Speaker 2: and he'll be on medications. And you guys, are you know,
- 14:06Speaker 2: fifteen and seventeen or eighteen, my brother, you're going to
- 14:10Speaker 2: need to really keep a close eye on your cardiovascular
- 14:13Speaker 2: health because cardiovasca disease runs in families, which is all true.
- 14:18Speaker 2: And at the time we were just grateful that dad
- 14:21Speaker 2: was alive. Yeah, of course, but in the aftermath of that,
- 14:26Speaker 2: my brother and I just kind of always had this
- 14:28Speaker 2: lingering idea that our heart disease runs in our family. So,
- 14:32Speaker 2: you know, Dad's had a hard to take at forty one,
- 14:34Speaker 2: and my dad didn't look like My dad wasn't obese,
- 14:38Speaker 2: he wasn't eating McDonald's and.
- 14:41Speaker 3: All fast food.
- 14:42Speaker 2: He was living the typical Australian lifestyle and was representative
- 14:46Speaker 2: of a kind of young Australian dad who yeah, was
- 14:49Speaker 2: working hard to make enough money to provide for his family,
- 14:52Speaker 2: probably a little overstressed. He would exercise, you know, three
- 14:55Speaker 2: times a week, and his diet was, you know, just
- 14:58Speaker 2: average austrained diet, but not a whole lot of fast food.
- 15:03Speaker 2: And so we didn't and he wasn't on any medications,
- 15:05Speaker 2: had no diagnoses, so we didn't kind of see this coming.
- 15:09Speaker 2: So it was that at this stage, it's forty one.
- 15:13Speaker 1: Wow, didude, that's so stupidly young.
- 15:17Speaker 2: It's so young, right, Yeah, Like I'm nearly forty one now,
- 15:20Speaker 2: so I'm I'm going through this weird phase now where
- 15:23Speaker 2: I'm like, holy shit, Like I'm basically at the age
- 15:27Speaker 2: of when my dad had this heart.
- 15:28Speaker 3: Attack, and.
- 15:31Speaker 2: As I said, he wasn't on like cholesterol medications or
- 15:33Speaker 2: blood pressure medications or blood glucose medications. He was on
- 15:36Speaker 2: zero prescription medications, so from the outside he kind of
- 15:41Speaker 2: had there was no sign of this coming.
- 15:44Speaker 3: And so yeah, there was this limiting We had this limiting.
- 15:47Speaker 2: Belief, my brother and I that we were destined to develop,
- 15:51Speaker 2: you know, cardiovascuar disease and probably had some dodgy genes.
- 15:57Speaker 2: And it wasn't until I got to my sort of
- 16:01Speaker 2: mid to late twenties when I really got a little
- 16:03Speaker 2: bit more interested in nutrition. And at that stage I
- 16:05Speaker 2: started to I was reading the literature, and I'd had
- 16:09Speaker 2: some training of how to read the literature in my
- 16:11Speaker 2: undergraduate but I can tell you it was nowhere near
- 16:15Speaker 2: specific enough to make sense of nutrition science. And so
- 16:19Speaker 2: I was reading, and I was confused and going and
- 16:22Speaker 2: reading like an article from a supposed reputable source and
- 16:26Speaker 2: then seeing another article and they seem very contradictory. And
- 16:31Speaker 2: I was in the position that I think a lot
- 16:32Speaker 2: of people listening are probably in and continue to be in,
- 16:36Speaker 2: especially with social media how that's evolved. Now it's scroll
- 16:41Speaker 2: and then scroll up, and you're exposed to contradictory things,
- 16:44Speaker 2: you know, within seconds. So I was like, I need
- 16:50Speaker 2: to understand how to read the primary literature here, and
- 16:54Speaker 2: that was the curiosity piece. So I went back and
- 16:56Speaker 2: applied to Deacon. Thankfully they let me in and I
- 16:59Speaker 2: did my master degree there, and my sole goal was
- 17:03Speaker 2: I want to understand how to read this literature so
- 17:07Speaker 2: I can actually understand how to eat to reduce my
- 17:10Speaker 2: risk of cardiovascular disease. And more and more I got
- 17:15Speaker 2: into it, and then you know, started seeing patients speaking
- 17:21Speaker 2: to people in my community.
- 17:24Speaker 3: I had the urge.
- 17:25Speaker 2: To start communicating, you know, through my podcast, which is
- 17:29Speaker 2: my primary kind of channel that I do that through now,
- 17:32Speaker 2: because there is so much misinformation and because it's so
- 17:36Speaker 2: it seems the research seems like it's all over the place.
- 17:40Speaker 2: And I understand that it seems like there's all sorts
- 17:42Speaker 2: of because everyone can say study show, right, So if
- 17:46Speaker 2: Bob saying study show, and Mark saying study show, and
- 17:49Speaker 2: Sandra's saying study show, but they're all saying different things, well,
- 17:52Speaker 2: clearly the research is just confused.
- 17:54Speaker 3: But it's that's not actually the case. It's that.
- 17:59Speaker 2: Contact matters, and so sure you can go and find
- 18:02Speaker 2: any study to kind of show anything, but what's often
- 18:05Speaker 2: met like left out of these conversations is the important context,
- 18:09Speaker 2: and when you do appreciate the context of the science, you.
- 18:13Speaker 3: Actually see that you know, of course, we.
- 18:16Speaker 2: Don't know everything. There's fucking there's so much stuff for
- 18:19Speaker 2: us to learn. I know that, like there are I
- 18:21Speaker 2: have so many blind spots. But there is so much
- 18:25Speaker 2: within the body of nutrition science research that has been
- 18:29Speaker 2: conducted for now, you know, one hundred plus years that.
- 18:33Speaker 3: We can we can use to be fairly.
- 18:36Speaker 2: Confident about a large part, like a large part of
- 18:41Speaker 2: the dietary pattern that we eat and ways in which
- 18:45Speaker 2: we can eat to reduce chronic disease. We don't know everything,
- 18:49Speaker 2: but we do understand the big picture. And I think
- 18:52Speaker 2: that when people go on social media, particularly today, they they're.
- 18:58Speaker 3: Left with a different feeling.
- 19:00Speaker 2: They're left with that, you know, nutrition science is just
- 19:02Speaker 2: all over the place, and then they end up probably
- 19:05Speaker 2: just throwing their arms up in the air and saying,
- 19:08Speaker 2: it's your status quo.
- 19:09Speaker 3: I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing because
- 19:11Speaker 3: no one can agree.
- 19:13Speaker 1: And I think that's the beauty of your work, right,
- 19:15Speaker 1: It's like you're kind of opening doors and I love.
- 19:19Speaker 1: What I love about you is you have an ability
- 19:22Speaker 1: to look at what somebody else has put up, but
- 19:26Speaker 1: not really be a prick about it. I like that
- 19:30Speaker 1: where you can go So this guy said this, and
- 19:33Speaker 1: here he is saying this, and then now here he
- 19:35Speaker 1: is saying this. So these things clearly, you know, this
- 19:39Speaker 1: suited him in this video, and this suits him in
- 19:41Speaker 1: this video, and he's saying things which are diametrically opposite
- 19:45Speaker 1: or opposed. You know, but you're not calling anyone an
- 19:49Speaker 1: idiot or a moron, and you're literally just presenting information.
- 19:53Speaker 1: And I like that and that's refreshing versus I don't
- 19:57Speaker 1: often do this, but I'm going to say one name
- 19:59Speaker 1: that you would know, and I think this guy's smart.
- 20:01Speaker 1: But Lane Norton obviously you know who that guy is
- 20:04Speaker 1: or no, yeah, yeah, Like I sometimes I'm like, dude,
- 20:08Speaker 1: I love this, but do you have to call everyone
- 20:11Speaker 1: an idiot or a moron? It makes me like you
- 20:14Speaker 1: less Just just like you're smart. You've got a PhD
- 20:18Speaker 1: in nutrition, you're smart, and you don't need all the
- 20:21Speaker 1: theatrics and the denner grading of everybody who doesn't think
- 20:25Speaker 1: like you for me. And I know he has a
- 20:27Speaker 1: lot of followers, but and maybe I'd have more followers
- 20:30Speaker 1: if I did more of that. I don't know, but
- 20:32Speaker 1: I don't care. I'd rather not do it.
- 20:34Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean fundamentally, it's if my personality is
- 20:39Speaker 2: not aligned to having like a malicious personal approach to
- 20:43Speaker 2: these sorts of things. I'm interested in the way that
- 20:45Speaker 2: the person's thinking. But you know, I do know Lane.
- 20:49Speaker 2: I've done videos on Lane, I've had Lane on my show,
- 20:51Speaker 2: so we have an interesting relationship.
- 20:54Speaker 3: But Lane seeing is rage. His thing is rage and rage.
- 20:59Speaker 2: It does create clicks and engagement and curiosity because he's
- 21:02Speaker 2: this crazy, you know, very outgoing scientist that is not
- 21:07Speaker 2: holding back, and that's his style. My my approach is,
- 21:11Speaker 2: I'm far more interested in just looking at how this
- 21:14Speaker 2: person is thinking.
- 21:16Speaker 3: And like you said, if I can show people how.
- 21:19Speaker 2: This person is being logically inconsistent, I think that's far
- 21:23Speaker 2: more valuable than saying, you know, this guy's a dickhead
- 21:27Speaker 2: and just like having some ad hominem attack, because then
- 21:30Speaker 2: I think you can immediately discredit my argument the moment
- 21:34Speaker 2: I attack them as a person. So I do I
- 21:37Speaker 2: actually do. It's conscious. I consciously try to make sure
- 21:43Speaker 2: what I'm saying is not a personal attack, and I
- 21:46Speaker 2: think very deeply about the way that that person is thinking.
- 21:52Speaker 2: And there's a whole lot of things I'm looking for,
- 21:54Speaker 2: like certain types of fallacies, you know.
- 21:57Speaker 3: One of the big ones is.
- 22:00Speaker 2: Like the naturalistic fallacy that if something is natural, therefore
- 22:05Speaker 2: it must be good. But you can point out examples
- 22:08Speaker 2: like heavy metals are natural, yeah, but if mercury poisoning
- 22:13Speaker 2: is that good? No, Like we can quickly realize that
- 22:16Speaker 2: these are these are fallacies or logical inconsistencies, like you say,
- 22:21Speaker 2: where on one day someone points to an animal study
- 22:25Speaker 2: because the rat study is supporting their position, but then
- 22:29Speaker 2: a week later they they discredit animal studies and say that,
- 22:35Speaker 2: you know, animal studies don't translate to humans. And it's like, well,
- 22:40Speaker 2: how can you have that position?
- 22:41Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
- 22:42Speaker 1: And I think there are things in you know, not
- 22:45Speaker 1: just in science but in life which are kind of
- 22:49Speaker 1: generally in the space of true or helpful, but not
- 22:54Speaker 1: always you know. And it's like, so for me as
- 22:56Speaker 1: an excise scientist, when people like this kind of what's
- 23:02Speaker 1: the best way, too, right, and then fill in the
- 23:05Speaker 1: blank build strength, improve flexibility, range, movement, power, speed, muscular endurance,
- 23:10Speaker 1: aerobic endurance or whatever, or what's the best way to
- 23:13Speaker 1: eat or what's the best whatever, what's the best supplement,
- 23:16Speaker 1: and so apart from the fact that that's not a
- 23:20Speaker 1: great question, but you would then go, well, for who,
- 23:23Speaker 1: because what's going to be optimal in terms of you know,
- 23:26Speaker 1: nutrition and recovery and exercise and all these various stimuli.
- 23:30Speaker 1: All these things that I'm going to do to my
- 23:31Speaker 1: body that might work great for me would be a
- 23:35Speaker 1: fucking train wreck for Simon because Simon ain't me and
- 23:38Speaker 1: I ain't him, and so you know that that's when
- 23:41Speaker 1: I'm I'm trying to help people to understand that. And
- 23:47Speaker 1: I've had a version of this conversation many times. But like,
- 23:49Speaker 1: for example, I've got a bunch of motorbikes. I love
- 23:52Speaker 1: riding motorbikes. For me, it's actually fun and it produces
- 23:55Speaker 1: like a good biochemical state in my body, and for
- 23:58Speaker 1: me it's healthy. But for somebody else it produces the
- 24:01Speaker 1: opposite response. It's actually doing something bad, you know. And
- 24:06Speaker 1: it's even down to you know, the music that I
- 24:09Speaker 1: listen to might create a positive internal state for me,
- 24:13Speaker 1: you know, on a psychological, emotional, and physiological level, but
- 24:16Speaker 1: the same music for someone else will create the opposite response,
- 24:19Speaker 1: right and so it's not like is this music good
- 24:22Speaker 1: or bad? Is this is this approach to nutrition good
- 24:25Speaker 1: or bad? Is this workout good or bad? But rather
- 24:29Speaker 1: how does your body respond to that particular thing? And
- 24:32Speaker 1: I think for me, I'm really excited to try and
- 24:36Speaker 1: help people to try and understand their own body and
- 24:39Speaker 1: the way that it acts and reacts around all these
- 24:42Speaker 1: different variables and go, well, you don't need to be
- 24:45Speaker 1: a scientist to do something scientific, So why don't you
- 24:49Speaker 1: leave everything else the same and for the next two
- 24:52Speaker 1: weeks do X unless it's something ridiculous, but try that.
- 24:55Speaker 1: Do two weeks of X, don't change anything else. See
- 24:58Speaker 1: what happens. Your body will tell you. You know, we
- 25:01Speaker 1: can do that, right right?
- 25:03Speaker 3: Yeah, I.
- 25:05Speaker 2: Think we're aligned in the way that we think about that.
- 25:08Speaker 2: So the way that I look at at least from
- 25:12Speaker 2: nutrition and to come to sort of come back to
- 25:15Speaker 2: your point about context, because you said for who, because
- 25:18Speaker 2: context is always overlooked and in nutrition it's it's for who.
- 25:22Speaker 2: So like, like you said, what's their goal? So like,
- 25:24Speaker 2: if you're talking about protein or who are you talking about?
- 25:27Speaker 2: What does their goal are?
- 25:29Speaker 3: They?
- 25:29Speaker 2: Are they an athlete that a strength athlete or are
- 25:33Speaker 2: they a fifty five year old woman, Like, who are
- 25:35Speaker 2: you talking about? And then in nutrition, if we're talking
- 25:38Speaker 2: about anything, whether it's a nutrient or if we're talking
- 25:41Speaker 2: about a food like eggs or red meat or fish
- 25:43Speaker 2: or beans.
- 25:45Speaker 3: Well, what dose are you talking about? How much are
- 25:48Speaker 3: we talking about?
- 25:49Speaker 2: And then also in nutrition it's it's it's not like
- 25:55Speaker 2: you can't have a placebo because when so when when
- 25:59Speaker 2: you make a food choice, it's usually coming at the
- 26:02Speaker 2: cost of another food choice. There's an opportunity cost, so
- 26:06Speaker 2: you have to consider compared to what. Okay, if I'm
- 26:09Speaker 2: going to eat two hundred calories of beans, is that
- 26:13Speaker 2: replacing ultra processed food or is that replacing red meat?
- 26:16Speaker 2: And now you start to see like this is why
- 26:19Speaker 2: the research can be very confusing, because even at a
- 26:22Speaker 2: neutrienter of a food level, you have to be considering
- 26:24Speaker 2: for who does compared to what?
- 26:26Speaker 3: Every time.
- 26:29Speaker 2: Or else you can find what seemed to be very
- 26:31Speaker 2: conflicting studies, conflicting findings. But to your point about personalization,
- 26:40Speaker 2: So I think one thing that I would put forward
- 26:44Speaker 2: is that I think I totally agree that people should
- 26:47Speaker 2: be able to play around and see what works best
- 26:50Speaker 2: for them, and we might need to find what works
- 26:52Speaker 2: best for them, Like what is that?
- 26:53Speaker 3: What are they measuring? Is it just the way they feel?
- 26:55Speaker 2: Or are they measuring things like in your area, they're
- 26:58Speaker 2: probably measuring strength or speed or something.
- 27:00Speaker 3: Like that as well.
- 27:03Speaker 2: But I do think that sometimes people can hear that
- 27:06Speaker 2: message and think, oh, right, we're all just so different.
- 27:09Speaker 2: There's no general principles. I think there are general principles,
- 27:13Speaker 2: like general heuristics that science has to have been tested
- 27:19Speaker 2: and we understand that they work most of the time.
- 27:22Speaker 2: And then from there you personalize so understanding that that
- 27:28Speaker 2: studies are really telling us the average or typical response.
- 27:32Speaker 2: And you can imagine like a bell curve. Okay, we
- 27:35Speaker 2: all fall somewhere on the Bell curve, right, but we're
- 27:39Speaker 2: not average. I mean we could be, but we're probably
- 27:42Speaker 2: not average right at the middle of the Bell curve.
- 27:44Speaker 2: We could be somewhere along there. So where our own experience,
- 27:49Speaker 2: what we get from making some dietary change or some
- 27:52Speaker 2: exercise change may not be represented in the average from
- 27:56Speaker 2: a clinical study. Does that make sense to you, Yeah,
- 27:59Speaker 2: So what we're putting forward at a public health recommendation
- 28:03Speaker 2: is based on the average. So then I think that
- 28:05Speaker 2: those are generally good guidelines, and from their people personalize
- 28:10Speaker 2: and find a way that's working best for them, and
- 28:13Speaker 2: then that brings us to what is working best, like,
- 28:16Speaker 2: how do you actually define that or measure it at
- 28:19Speaker 2: an individual level?
- 28:20Speaker 1: I love it. I've been taking a slight left turn.
- 28:25Speaker 1: But when I was when I was a kid, I
- 28:28Speaker 1: was morbidly obese. Right, So I was the fattest kid
- 28:31Speaker 1: in my school and my name at school was Jumbo. Right,
- 28:33Speaker 1: this is pretty political correctness. So as I sit here today,
- 28:38Speaker 1: I'm eighty one or eighty two kilos, and back then
- 28:42Speaker 1: I was around ninety ninety one ninety two when I
- 28:44Speaker 1: was fourteen years old, and about five inches shorter, right,
- 28:48Speaker 1: so I was a big kid and all of this stuff. Anyway,
- 28:50Speaker 1: I have this without boring you and my listeners for
- 28:53Speaker 1: the million at the time. But this, you know, this
- 28:55Speaker 1: moment in time, something happened wasn't horrendous, but it was
- 28:59Speaker 1: just like for me psychologically, emotionally and sociologically pretty uncomfortable,
- 29:06Speaker 1: and I just went fuck it, like a switch flicked.
- 29:08Speaker 1: And that's when and then I lost a whole lot
- 29:10Speaker 1: of weight in a relatively short time. And around that
- 29:15Speaker 1: was apart from the weight loss and all those good things.
- 29:18Speaker 1: And you know, I was fitter, and I was healthier,
- 29:20Speaker 1: and I was more aware, but mentally, emotionally and socially,
- 29:24Speaker 1: like my world changed quite dramatically. And so I've always
- 29:28Speaker 1: been interested in the psychology for one of a better term,
- 29:34Speaker 1: the psychology of getting in shape right, and understanding the
- 29:38Speaker 1: role that my mind plays in physiology and whether that's
- 29:41Speaker 1: nutrition or sleep or stress, anxiety or training or adaptation,
- 29:46Speaker 1: physical you know, strength, power, all those things, but trying
- 29:49Speaker 1: to understand my mind around all of this. And so
- 29:53Speaker 1: I always had this fucking tempestuous relationship with food, right,
- 29:58Speaker 1: because for me, food was like because I've never smoked,
- 30:02Speaker 1: never drunk never, I've never been drunk, I've never had
- 30:04Speaker 1: a beer, I've never been high, right, so whatever that
- 30:08Speaker 1: means good, bad, boring. But for me, like food was
- 30:12Speaker 1: like my drug. I would eat food all the time
- 30:14Speaker 1: that I didn't need because it made me feel fucking
- 30:16Speaker 1: great in the moment. You know, do you think that
- 30:21Speaker 1: apart from the knowledge of this is this is what
- 30:25Speaker 1: food is about? Or here's some information on micros and
- 30:28Speaker 1: macros and intimate and fasting and all of these other
- 30:31Speaker 1: things that we explore. Do you ever open the door
- 30:35Speaker 1: on what I call our relationship with food, like the sociology, psychology,
- 30:41Speaker 1: and emotion that kind of intersects with all of that
- 30:45Speaker 1: and in many ways for many of us, dictates what
- 30:48Speaker 1: we do and how we do it.
- 30:51Speaker 2: I mean, what you were talking about, I think is
- 30:54Speaker 2: a huge reason why there's so much quote unquote yo
- 30:57Speaker 2: yo dieting or way. You know, diets don't don't often
- 31:01Speaker 2: work long term, and you see that in the research
- 31:03Speaker 2: when you look at weight loss, you see, you know,
- 31:07Speaker 2: we're actually pretty good at losing weight in the first
- 31:10Speaker 2: three or six months we are, and there's it's probably
- 31:15Speaker 2: some short term willpower, right, But then what you tend
- 31:19Speaker 2: to see is that you know, by two years, most
- 31:22Speaker 2: of that weight has come back on off and often
- 31:25Speaker 2: more so. I you you just mentioned there that it
- 31:30Speaker 2: was like a switch flicked, So I'm interested, like, what
- 31:34Speaker 2: have you gone back and double clicked on that and
- 31:37Speaker 2: thought about what was that switch? What was what was
- 31:41Speaker 2: underlying that that led to sustainable changes to the way
- 31:44Speaker 2: that you were eating.
- 31:46Speaker 1: Yeah, So for me, it was uh, embarrassment, humiliation, I guess,
- 31:53Speaker 1: a moment of self awareness and like I just and no,
- 31:58Speaker 1: by the way, it was a hundred me. I didn't
- 32:00Speaker 1: get bullied or anything, but I just had this moment
- 32:03Speaker 1: in time at the year eight swimming sports where like
- 32:07Speaker 1: I had a bit of a wake up call. But
- 32:11Speaker 1: for me, that that very like I remember feeling. I
- 32:16Speaker 1: had this feeling that was and I know it's like
- 32:20Speaker 1: it's disproportionate when you look in the context of life
- 32:23Speaker 1: in the world and people with real problems which I
- 32:26Speaker 1: didn't have. But to me at that as that fourteen
- 32:29Speaker 1: year old fat kid, that was so fucking painful that
- 32:33Speaker 1: I just went, this is never happening again. I'm never
- 32:37Speaker 1: doing this again. I'm never going to have this experience again.
- 32:40Speaker 1: Like I associated more pain with staying in it than
- 32:43Speaker 1: getting out of it. So whatever I need to do
- 32:46Speaker 1: to not be this to not be. And for me, honestly,
- 32:50Speaker 1: it was more about aesthetics at that stage, because I
- 32:53Speaker 1: just to me anyway, I looked fucking hideous. And I
- 32:56Speaker 1: know people go, oh, no, don't say it, but that's
- 32:59Speaker 1: how I felt, right. So of course, the you know,
- 33:02Speaker 1: the physiological benefits were great, but I was actually driven
- 33:06Speaker 1: more by self esteem and ego or low self esteem
- 33:09Speaker 1: and and just wanting to be liked and loved and
- 33:12Speaker 1: valued and accepted, and to look not like I looked,
- 33:16Speaker 1: so that I'd be more normal. So that was for me.
- 33:19Speaker 1: It was like it was very much these internal emotional
- 33:23Speaker 1: and psychological drivers.
- 33:24Speaker 2: Yeah, so the the pain of the embarrassment outweighed the
- 33:32Speaker 2: instantaneous comfort that you were getting from eating. Do you
- 33:36Speaker 2: do you recall go back further? Do you recall when
- 33:42Speaker 2: you started to gain weight? How old you were?
- 33:45Speaker 1: Yeah, I was probably about seven or eight, and I
- 33:49Speaker 1: just yeah, I just I just ate everything that wasn't
- 33:52Speaker 1: nailed down.
- 33:53Speaker 2: And why do you think? Why do you think that
- 33:55Speaker 2: was that something that you've gone back and looked at.
- 33:58Speaker 4: That's a good question, doctor to fil So, you told
- 34:03Speaker 4: me at the beginning, just to be clear, grag you said, mate,
- 34:06Speaker 4: feel free to ask me any questions everyone.
- 34:09Speaker 1: I totally gave him, And in fact I liked that that.
- 34:11Speaker 1: I not that anyone needs to know about me, but
- 34:14Speaker 1: it's I did say to Simon, I said, everyone, let's
- 34:16Speaker 1: have a conversation. It doesn't need to be his question.
- 34:19Speaker 1: Here's an answer for an hour. No, but I think
- 34:21Speaker 1: they are good questions. Look, I really don't know, but
- 34:24Speaker 1: I think that, like, I went to something like nine
- 34:28Speaker 1: schools and my parents we moved a lot. I was
- 34:31Speaker 1: an only kid. I'm still an only kid. I was
- 34:35Speaker 1: by myself a lot. My parents were amazing, but they worked,
- 34:40Speaker 1: so I would get home from school at three thirty
- 34:42Speaker 1: or four and they would get home at six thirty
- 34:44Speaker 1: or seven or whatever. So I spent a lot of
- 34:46Speaker 1: time alone, and I was probably a little bit socially
- 34:50Speaker 1: disconnected and isolated, especially in the younger years kind of
- 34:54Speaker 1: you know, seven through ten, eleven, twelve, and I you know,
- 35:00Speaker 1: I just I just fed myself and it's like, you know,
- 35:03Speaker 1: that little dopamine kind of moment was pretty good, and
- 35:07Speaker 1: I'd feel.
- 35:07Speaker 2: Sure you were maybe getting some comfort, some comfort from
- 35:11Speaker 2: those foods in the moment.
- 35:13Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just I mean the simplest of answers is
- 35:17Speaker 1: I felt good doing that. So I did that, you know,
- 35:20Speaker 1: and it's yeah, but I that's why for me, when
- 35:24Speaker 1: I'm talking about weight loss for a body or body
- 35:30Speaker 1: composition or changing you know, changing how we look feel
- 35:34Speaker 1: functional that with I always say to people, yeah, I'm
- 35:36Speaker 1: excise scientists, but I'm also talking to you experientially and
- 35:40Speaker 1: not just with the thousands of people that I've trained,
- 35:42Speaker 1: but also as a person who is not genetically gifted,
- 35:46Speaker 1: does not have still does not have massive self esteem,
- 35:50Speaker 1: you know, for me to be you know, for me
- 35:53Speaker 1: to be at sixty one with not great genetics and
- 35:57Speaker 1: pretty fit and pretty strong and pretty lean. For me,
- 36:00Speaker 1: it's and I've created a you know, an operating system
- 36:04Speaker 1: that's automatic. So there's not a lot of willpower or
- 36:07Speaker 1: sacrifice or discipline. But it's taken forever to be able
- 36:11Speaker 1: to figure out how to make this thing that I
- 36:13Speaker 1: live in work really well, you know, And I think
- 36:16Speaker 1: that's one of the challenges is which we you know,
- 36:19Speaker 1: kind of talking about a minute ago, But how do
- 36:22Speaker 1: I build a you know, an automatic kind of operating
- 36:26Speaker 1: system that that just works for my body? Like, what's
- 36:29Speaker 1: the thing that I do sometimes when I'm in the
- 36:32Speaker 1: middle of inspiration or motivation or whatever that actually just
- 36:36Speaker 1: needs to be in all the time, non negotiable, you know.
- 36:39Speaker 1: So this is and when I do this thing, I
- 36:41Speaker 1: don't need a round of applause or a trophy or
- 36:43Speaker 1: an accolade. No, this is just me doing the thing
- 36:46Speaker 1: that I need to do. So, yeah, it's that that's
- 36:51Speaker 1: what it's been for me. Anyway. For me, staying in
- 36:53Speaker 1: shape is the first book I wrote was about the
- 36:55Speaker 1: psychology of getting in shape, and I didn't even really
- 37:00Speaker 1: understand fully what I was writing about, but I knew
- 37:02Speaker 1: that for me it was it was almost a psychological
- 37:05Speaker 1: emotional process with a physical outcome. Even though people would
- 37:12Speaker 1: think changing your body is all about your body, for me,
- 37:15Speaker 1: not really.
- 37:17Speaker 2: No, there's a there's a huge I mean, I think
- 37:20Speaker 2: I think anyone listening to this will will appreciate how
- 37:23Speaker 2: complex this is, right, because everyone has their own story,
- 37:26Speaker 2: and people are really struggling out there. People are really
- 37:28Speaker 2: really struggling. And sure, we live in an environment where
- 37:35Speaker 2: a food environment, where there is an abundance of indulgent
- 37:41Speaker 2: foods that hijack the reward centers of our brain. They
- 37:45Speaker 2: give us a reward that is unlike anything our ancestors
- 37:49Speaker 2: would have had, right, and.
- 37:51Speaker 3: We don't have to work for it. We don't have
- 37:53Speaker 3: to work for it.
- 37:54Speaker 2: And so if you, I mean, this is a bit,
- 37:58Speaker 2: this takes us to a whole another question. But you
- 38:00Speaker 2: mentioned the word willpower. Yeah, And a question that I
- 38:05Speaker 2: often get is do we lack willpower? Is that why
- 38:12Speaker 2: we're unhealthy? Is that why so many people are unhealthy,
- 38:15Speaker 2: and I don't know if I don't think I don't
- 38:18Speaker 2: think it is a lack of willpower.
- 38:21Speaker 3: You know, if you if you could take let's say
- 38:24Speaker 3: you take.
- 38:25Speaker 2: One of the healthiest populations in the world, like the
- 38:27Speaker 2: elders in Japan or some of there, like some of
- 38:30Speaker 2: the Greeks.
- 38:33Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't.
- 38:34Speaker 2: I don't think that they're healthier because they have fundamentally
- 38:36Speaker 2: that these are people that have more willpower. I think
- 38:39Speaker 2: they're healthier because they live in an environment that is
- 38:42Speaker 2: conducive to the healthy choice they're probably they live in
- 38:45Speaker 2: an environment that is arguably better for mental health, psychological wellbeing.
- 38:50Speaker 3: They live in an environment.
- 38:52Speaker 2: That's better for physical activity, that doesn't have the same
- 38:57Speaker 2: amount of century lifestyle that we have, and they live
- 39:01Speaker 2: in an environment where the convenient and cheap food choice
- 39:07Speaker 2: is also the healthy food choice, whereas we live in
- 39:11Speaker 2: an environment where people are under an enormous amount of stress.
- 39:17Speaker 2: So there's you know, mental health pandemic, there is you know,
- 39:27Speaker 2: sky high rates of loneliness and isolation. And then on
- 39:32Speaker 2: top of that, so you take these people who who
- 39:36Speaker 2: do not have optimal mental health and put them in
- 39:38Speaker 2: an environment where they're tempted by all of these very
- 39:43Speaker 2: high calorie dense foods that are ultra processed and contain
- 39:48Speaker 2: all sorts of additives that, as I said, hijack these
- 39:52Speaker 2: reward systems, and it's a recipe for chronic disease. And
- 39:56Speaker 2: so to unravel that, I agree with you. I think
- 39:59Speaker 2: to unravel that, A we have to think about the
- 40:03Speaker 2: way our society is set up to foster better mental
- 40:06Speaker 2: health from early age, from early age, and hand in hand,
- 40:13Speaker 2: you have to change the way society is set up
- 40:16Speaker 2: to reduce the century lifestyle that we're seeing, and to
- 40:20Speaker 2: change the food environment. Simply asking people to make the
- 40:25Speaker 2: healthy food choice. In a food environment like we live in,
- 40:30Speaker 2: it's hard, right. There is a small percentage of people
- 40:33Speaker 2: that can develop the willpower to do that, no doubt
- 40:36Speaker 2: about it. You can look around, you can find examples,
- 40:39Speaker 2: but most people can't. And so there has to be
- 40:44Speaker 2: sure there has to be effort at the individual level.
- 40:46Speaker 3: But in order to really.
- 40:48Speaker 2: Tackle what we're talking about here, there has to be
- 40:49Speaker 2: some very big, community wide, government led shifts as well.
- 40:54Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. What interests me too is, like you know,
- 40:59Speaker 1: with will power, self control, discipline, inspiration, motivation, all of
- 41:04Speaker 1: those variables, right, it's we kind of hot hold those
- 41:11Speaker 1: in high regard sometimes and I always say to people, look,
- 41:16Speaker 1: when you're inspired and motivated, ride that wave to the beach. Right,
- 41:19Speaker 1: that's great. But you know, I often get introduced corporately
- 41:25Speaker 1: as a motivational speaker, which I fucking hate. But anyway,
- 41:28Speaker 1: if it gets me work, if it gets me gigs,
- 41:31Speaker 1: keep doing it. Right. But people are surprised when I
- 41:34Speaker 1: say motivation is motivation is different things too, But in
- 41:39Speaker 1: the context of this chat, we're talking about that emotional,
- 41:42Speaker 1: heightened inspired state of motivation. You know, it comes and goes,
- 41:47Speaker 1: and for many people, when the motivation goes, the behaviors go,
- 41:50Speaker 1: so therefore the results go. And then there's three months
- 41:53Speaker 1: of fucking around and then they're like they have of
- 41:55Speaker 1: some kind of revelation and then they're inspired again for
- 41:58Speaker 1: three weeks and then and then they're fifty and then
- 42:01Speaker 1: they sit in front of me and say, this wasn't
- 42:03Speaker 1: my plan, And I say, can I see the plan?
- 42:06Speaker 1: They're like, what I go the plan of which you
- 42:08Speaker 1: speak grasshopper, can I see it? And there is no
- 42:11Speaker 1: fucking plan. There was just an idea of how things
- 42:14Speaker 1: would turn out, right, And so I say to people
- 42:18Speaker 1: all the time, you know, inspiration and motivation and even
- 42:22Speaker 1: discipline and self control will power all of those things.
- 42:24Speaker 1: They're definitely not bad things, of course, but they're not
- 42:26Speaker 1: the solution. They're not the answer. I'm more interested in
- 42:30Speaker 1: what you can do when you're not inspired and motivated.
- 42:32Speaker 1: I'm more interested in what you can do when you
- 42:34Speaker 1: don't feel like it, when it's inconvenient, when it's painful,
- 42:37Speaker 1: when it's not fun, when it's not quick, when no
- 42:40Speaker 1: one's looking, when no one's giving you a fucking round
- 42:43Speaker 1: of applause or a medal, and it's And I know
- 42:46Speaker 1: this is a little bit hardcore, but there everything that
- 42:50Speaker 1: you said about environment I agree with. But most of
- 42:53Speaker 1: us don't live in that environment, so we go all right. Nonetheless,
- 42:58Speaker 1: I'm in this environment that isn't conducive. So in this environment,
- 43:03Speaker 1: in this reality that I do live, and we don't
- 43:06Speaker 1: need to be fucking Olympians or live on lettuce and
- 43:09Speaker 1: meditate in a cave. But in the context of where
- 43:12Speaker 1: I am, what can I do?
- 43:15Speaker 3: Do you know?
- 43:16Speaker 2: Right?
- 43:16Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 43:16Speaker 2: No, I know exactly so, And I think I distill
- 43:21Speaker 2: this down to having intention So go back to what
- 43:24Speaker 2: I just said about those populations, where like it's just
- 43:27Speaker 2: naturally they're making the healthy decision without him thinking about it.
- 43:30Speaker 2: These people aren't listening to podcasts, right, it's just the
- 43:33Speaker 2: way it is.
- 43:34Speaker 3: So I like it. I like it. I kind of compare.
- 43:38Speaker 2: Our society to theirs by thinking about their society as
- 43:43Speaker 2: a labyrinth. So a labyrinth is designed it it's actually
- 43:47Speaker 2: a mindfulness practice. There's one way in and one way out.
- 43:51Speaker 2: You don't have to make any decisions, just walk through
- 43:53Speaker 2: it and you will you will find your way.
- 43:57Speaker 3: Out the other side.
- 43:59Speaker 2: Yeah, their society is like a labyrinth, whereas ours is
- 44:02Speaker 2: like a maze. Right, it's very easy to get lost, okay,
- 44:07Speaker 2: And so you need intention, you need you need some
- 44:10Speaker 2: information because like it, like you said, so, our society
- 44:14Speaker 2: is not going to change overnight. We live in a maze.
- 44:16Speaker 2: That's that's the cards we've been dealt. So you need
- 44:19Speaker 2: some intention so that as you get to that that juncture,
- 44:23Speaker 2: you have a little whisper in your ear. Turn right, okay,
- 44:25Speaker 2: turn right, okay, turn left, and so you have some
- 44:29Speaker 2: guide it so you can guide your way out of
- 44:31Speaker 2: the maze and achieve good health. Essentially, and I mean
- 44:38Speaker 2: I I developed a completely free program called the Living
- 44:42Speaker 2: Proof Challenge, and there's a PDF on my website. People
- 44:45Speaker 2: can people can go and download it. It's free, there's
- 44:49Speaker 2: no catches, no cost. And the whole premise of that
- 44:53Speaker 2: challenge was exactly what we're talking about, Craig. It was like,
- 44:56Speaker 2: what are the if you distilled it down from a lifestyle,
- 45:00Speaker 2: what are like, what are the handful of things that
- 45:04Speaker 2: would be good for people to test? Okay, so they
- 45:08Speaker 2: kind of understand where the hell's are today, and then
- 45:12Speaker 2: what are the handful of things that would be good
- 45:13Speaker 2: for people to in their lifestyle?
- 45:16Speaker 3: Adopt? Yeah, test, intervene, and then retest.
- 45:23Speaker 2: Just setting people up with a very simple essentially like
- 45:26Speaker 2: those whispers, to say, hey, you are your your unique,
- 45:31Speaker 2: so we're going to test you just so you can
- 45:32Speaker 2: see where you're at with these important things that we
- 45:34Speaker 2: know predict good long term health, and then you're going
- 45:38Speaker 2: to change some of your lifestyle, knowing that it doesn't
- 45:41Speaker 2: have to be perfect, right, there's no point being perfect
- 45:44Speaker 2: for two weeks. Let's commit to being imperfect for the
- 45:48Speaker 2: next three, four, five decades. Okay, we're all going to
- 45:52Speaker 2: have We're all going to have days where we fumble
- 45:55Speaker 2: whatever that we're human, and then a retest. And so
- 45:59Speaker 2: you have this model where you can just continually assess
- 46:01Speaker 2: how you're going with very simplified kind of template of
- 46:08Speaker 2: key things to measure that we know predict your risk
- 46:10Speaker 2: of chronic disease and longevity. Yeah, and so that was
- 46:13Speaker 2: my kind of simple, quote unquote simple solution to this
- 46:19Speaker 2: complex problem that you just describe so eloquently when you
- 46:23Speaker 2: said that this is the environment we have and it's
- 46:26Speaker 2: not changing.
- 46:27Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 46:27Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean we'll wind up in a minute
- 46:30Speaker 1: because you're a busy man, and so I appreciate you. Fuck,
- 46:33Speaker 1: I've got a hard crush on you. I don't want
- 46:35Speaker 1: you to be uncomfortable with that, but you're really good
- 46:37Speaker 1: to got a man crush. You know. Another interesting thing
- 46:43Speaker 1: Simon for me is when you know people can't get
- 46:45Speaker 1: their shit together right and they're they're struggling, and it's
- 46:50Speaker 1: like they start, they stop, they're in the zone, they're
- 46:52Speaker 1: out of the zone. They lose a bit, they gain
- 46:54Speaker 1: a bit, they get fitter, they get unfitter, and then
- 46:57Speaker 1: they do nothing for six months. And that was my dad,
- 47:00Speaker 1: and my dad had a heart attack at seventy two
- 47:04Speaker 1: and died and was revived multiple times. So he's now
- 47:06Speaker 1: eighty five. So that was thirteen years ago. And obviously,
- 47:09Speaker 1: having me as a son, I was always pestering him
- 47:11Speaker 1: about his habits, behavior's, lifestyle, you know, fat gut all that,
- 47:15Speaker 1: because I'm a sympathetic son in love of course. But
- 47:20Speaker 1: then the guy who was always like yeah, yeah, and yep,
- 47:23Speaker 1: and I did yeah. You know, as soon as he
- 47:27Speaker 1: had his heart attack, complete paradigm shift, complete thinking shift,
- 47:33Speaker 1: like internal reset. And even in the hospital he was
- 47:37Speaker 1: saying to me when he was recovering after open heart surgery,
- 47:40Speaker 1: which it was back then, he was saying, you need
- 47:43Speaker 1: to tell me what I have to do. Like he'd
- 47:46Speaker 1: never spoken to me like that in his life. Now,
- 47:48Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the dude, and then obviously he
- 47:51Speaker 1: comes out of hospital, he loses twenty five k's, he
- 47:54Speaker 1: starts walking every day, he goes to the gym, he
- 47:56Speaker 1: gets stronger, he changes his habits and behavior and outcomes.
- 47:59Speaker 1: He drinks les booze. It's fucking it's a new it's
- 48:02Speaker 1: him two point zero, right. I'm like, Buck, you could
- 48:05Speaker 1: have done this anytime. You didn't have to nearly die. Right.
- 48:10Speaker 1: That's the thing that frustrates me sometimes, mate, is that
- 48:13Speaker 1: that people actually have the fucking incredible potential to do
- 48:19Speaker 1: amazing shit now now, but they wait for the catastrophe,
- 48:23Speaker 1: they wait for the terror, you know.
- 48:26Speaker 2: Right, we take our health for granted. That's how I mean,
- 48:31Speaker 2: that's how you would distill that, right, Like where so
- 48:34Speaker 2: many of us wait for something to happen and then
- 48:37Speaker 2: we say, okay, let's get our shit together, right. I
- 48:41Speaker 2: Either that or you see someone very close to you
- 48:44Speaker 2: go through an experience where they have, you know, terrible
- 48:49Speaker 2: health or perhaps they even pass away from something, and
- 48:52Speaker 2: that is often a driver for people. It's similar to
- 48:54Speaker 2: me like seeing my dad have a heart attack when
- 48:57Speaker 2: I was when I was young. But what I would
- 49:00Speaker 2: say to the listener is that because not everyone's going
- 49:05Speaker 2: to have that direct experience, and we want people to
- 49:07Speaker 2: make changes earlier in life, I think you need to
- 49:10Speaker 2: think of it like essentially savings for retirement right now,
- 49:16Speaker 2: If you're going to retire at sixty sixty five, we
- 49:20Speaker 2: all know, like it would be far better if you
- 49:23Speaker 2: start saving at twenty five thirty. Yeah, correct, Look if
- 49:27Speaker 2: you haven't and it's forty five great, say from now,
- 49:30Speaker 2: and you'll still be in a much better position when
- 49:32Speaker 2: you retire. But this is the same thing when it
- 49:35Speaker 2: comes to your health and we talk about your risk
- 49:37Speaker 2: of chronic disease or you know, your risk of having
- 49:42Speaker 2: a fracture, and your bone density and your risk of
- 49:46Speaker 2: just having a fall and losing strength as you age,
- 49:52Speaker 2: we can we are all going to have a reduction
- 49:55Speaker 2: enbonement of density, We're all going to have a reduction
- 49:58Speaker 2: in the amount of skelidal muscle, we go going to
- 50:00Speaker 2: have a reduction in strength. But what we can do
- 50:05Speaker 2: is we can affect the rate of that reduction dramatically.
- 50:09Speaker 2: And the earlier we start in life, the higher we
- 50:13Speaker 2: are when we start to have that that decline. And
- 50:18Speaker 2: so that's the way that I think I like to
- 50:20Speaker 2: explain it to someone who's thinking, you know, why start
- 50:23Speaker 2: when I'm thirty or forty, I'll just wait until I'm
- 50:25Speaker 2: fifty and have more time.
- 50:28Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, And that's health span versus lifespan as well.
- 50:32Speaker 2: Right, exactly so, And for people that haven't heard of that,
- 50:38Speaker 2: I mean most people probably have now. But health span
- 50:41Speaker 2: is essentially speaking to the number of years you live
- 50:45Speaker 2: in good health. So you can do whatever it is
- 50:47Speaker 2: that you love to do right as opposed to lifespan
- 50:50Speaker 2: just being total years lived. But some of those years
- 50:52Speaker 2: you might be severely handicapped. And so we're trying to
- 50:55Speaker 2: compress that window of years where you are affected by
- 50:59Speaker 2: disease and able to do the things you love so
- 51:01Speaker 2: that it's a very small period at the end of
- 51:03Speaker 2: the life, and then increase all the years that you're
- 51:05Speaker 2: in you're in good health. But start early is to
- 51:10Speaker 2: take her message there as early as you can. It's
- 51:12Speaker 2: never too late, but earlier the better.
- 51:16Speaker 1: And so appreciate you. I could talk to you for
- 51:18Speaker 1: a long time, but I won't do that to you.
- 51:20Speaker 1: How can people connect with you? Find you, follow you?
- 51:23Speaker 1: Your podcast is the Proof, which is brilliant. How often
- 51:27Speaker 1: is that out?
- 51:28Speaker 3: Once a week?
- 51:29Speaker 1: At the moment, try harder, so do bad.
- 51:33Speaker 2: You know, my dad always says room for improvement, so
- 51:36Speaker 2: I can hear him right now.
- 51:39Speaker 1: That's all right.
- 51:40Speaker 3: You know what when you said, when you said you.
- 51:42Speaker 2: Do one and one a day, I did immediately. I
- 51:45Speaker 2: felt immediately, I felt a little lazy.
- 51:48Speaker 3: So thanks for that.
- 51:49Speaker 2: But yeah, you can search the Proof on any podcast
- 51:54Speaker 2: platform or YouTube and then on if you're on Instagram.
- 51:57Speaker 2: You can just search my name at Simon Hill and
- 52:00Speaker 2: you can find me there.
- 52:01Speaker 1: Yeah, gid up, Hey mate, thank you so much. We'll
- 52:04Speaker 1: say goodbye off air, but for the moment. Thanks for
- 52:07Speaker 1: being part of the You project and so nice to
- 52:09Speaker 1: meet you and I appreciate you.
- 52:11Speaker 3: Thanks Craig, you're a legend. Appreciate you too,