Latest / Real Estate for Real Life / Episode 13 • The Real Reason You Can't Stick to Healthy Habits with Jeff Siegel

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Episode 13 • The Real Reason You Can't Stick to Healthy Habits with Jeff Siegel · Real Estate for Real Life

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On Real Estate for Real Life podcasts, we sit down with
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standout business leaders to unpack what's actually working.
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How they scale, lead teams, win clients and build businesses
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that last. We're your hosts.
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I'm Courtney Gauchman. And I'm Ryan Wilson, thanks for
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tuning in. Welcome.
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We are here today with Jeff Siegel, men's Wellness coach,
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author, recent author and educator.
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Thanks so much for joining us, Jeff.
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Yeah. Thank you, Ryan.
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Happy to be here. Yes, we're, we're pumped to have
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you known you for a couple years now.
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Why don't you just get it, get right into it.
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Tell us a little bit about yourself.
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Tell us kind of how you got started and tell us about your
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book that just got published in October of last year, which is
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very exciting. Yes, I just released new book
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called Eating 2 Point O, How to eat confidently in an Ultra
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processed World. And the impetus for writing this
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book, look, it was actually totally tied into my own
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personal eating, you know, and having an eating disorder as a
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teenager. And so when I was 14, I
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basically, you know, starve myself almost to the point of of
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death and I had to drop out of high school.
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It was, it was a really, really difficult period for me, for my
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family, for my friends. You know, it's so confusing.
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And you know, that is when I knew that my relationship with
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food and eating was going to color the rest of my life.
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And it was kind of calming out of that experience.
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And I had so much support from my family, from therapists, from
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other coaches and friends that helped me kind of pull me up out
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of this dark place. And, you know, it was a long
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road to to healing. And you know, there is many
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years after that were in a kind of trying to find my footing in
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what I was eating and how do I take care of myself and how do I
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be healthy. And on one hand, I just wanted
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to be like a normal, strong, healthy teenage guy.
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And then on the other hand, I had such a disordered
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relationship with food and was really afraid of, you know, any
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sort of carbs and fats and sugars.
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And so, you know, it was it was this kind of initial incident
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that I think really wanted me to figure out what the heck
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happens. You know, why did my mind go to
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war with my body in this way that caused so many problems?
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And so after that, I went on to study neuroscience and
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behavioral biology and I got a really good understanding of
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kind of why the body does what it does from a physiological
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perspective and metabolism and nutrition.
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But I felt that that only kind of covered half the picture.
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So after college actually left the States, I moved out to Asia.
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First I was living in Malaysia, then I was living in Hong Kong.
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And while I was out there, I was starting my career as a teacher.
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And I was also then studying Buddhism and Eastern philosophy,
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really trying to understand like, what makes a life worth
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living, you know, because I was a little bit disillusioned by
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this Western scientific reductionist view of the body.
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And then ultimately I ended up back at Harvard as a place to
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try to integrate the sort of Eastern and Western, the mind
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and the body. How can we help people live
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healthier and happier lives? And ultimately, how can I help
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other, you know, people and especially men avoid some of the
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pitfalls that I fell into when it came into my disordered
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relationship with food. So that, you know, sort of the
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back story that leads up to this whole book, which, you know,
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there's so much in it about how can we form a better
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relationship with ourselves and with the food that we're eating.
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Wow, that is incredibly interesting and from your
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findings, right, I don't want to ask you something that's too
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personal, but ask. Ask.
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Away. We're here.
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We're open. Like as a as a 14 year old,
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right, struggling with with food and the eating disorder
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situation. Is it, was it physical in terms
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of like our like you wanted to be thinner or was it just more a
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control thing? Because I've heard a lot of
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different conversations about when people when their mind
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basically starts to, you know, react and like prevent them from
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eating food disorders can be a lot of different dynamics of why
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you're doing what you're doing. A lot of times with females, it
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has to do with dancers, gymnastics, It's a lot of the,
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you know, physically it's like what you're seeing, it's how you
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want your body to look. But I have also heard I have 6
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year old daughters, right? And for me it's, sometimes it
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can be a control thing. It's the, the, the one thing
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that you can control three times a day during your meals.
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And it's when the rest of your world feels very chaotic.
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That can be something that you lean into.
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So I'm just kind of curious like did did you find out like the
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root problem and the root cause I?
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Mean, I think both of the things that you named are very real and
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important pieces of it. And I think it's it's very
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layered. It's very multifaceted.
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Definitely there's a control piece.
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Definitely there is a body image piece.
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You know, I felt I felt both of those to be true.
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And obviously the body image piece is looks very different
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for men than for women, you know, and there's no question
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that I think our society is way more forgiving of male bodies
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being different shapes and hairiness.
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And also, you know, and, and there's way stricter, you know,
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social ideals that we place on women's bodies in terms of what
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is considered acceptable and sexy and desirable.
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And all that being said is yes, you know, man, I still think do
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sometimes struggle with, you know, especially when I look
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back at myself as a teenager and, you know, puberty hormones
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kicking in, you know, sexual desire kicking in.
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I'm looking around like my older peers, going to the weight room,
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building muscles. So like, on one hand, I just
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wanted to be one of these like strong guys, like cover of Men's
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Health and Fitness magazine. And then on the other hand,
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there was this control perfectionism piece, as you were
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saying, you know, as I am learning about the world and how
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enormous and crazy and how many things there are that I can't
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control. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I can
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control. I can control exactly what I
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eat. I can control exactly how many
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calories or grams of protein that I have in my day.
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And then what starts is sort of of like a fun little nutritional
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number game can easily start to spiral, you know, especially in
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the mind of a young teenager or I think I, you know, I didn't
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quite have the sophistication to be able to, to manage the, you
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know, the stress that I was having at that time.
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So and you're a men's health coach, right?
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Health and Wellness coach. What age are like your clients
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typically and like is there an age that's too young to start
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with something like that? It's a great question of, you
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know, too young. I don't think it's ever too
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young to have somebody show up in your life and say I'm here
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for you. I care about you.
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Like, I want to listen and how can I support you?
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You know, when I look back on my period of illness, there was a
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few people, some teachers, some coaches that that's all I was
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struggling. And that pulled me aside.
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And we're just there as like listeners and supports, you
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know, not trying to fix me, not trying to convince me other
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things, but like really just to feel like they could see me and
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understand that I was having a difficult experience and wanted
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to do something. So I think that kind of allyship
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and support is so vital. And especially for teenagers,
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Like, it's because that's such a tumultuous time.
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You know, as an adolescent, you're trying to figure out who
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am I? How do I fit in with my peers?
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Like this adult world suddenly is like this new thing.
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It's coming closer. You're like, I'm not a kid
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anymore, but I'm also not like my, you know, my parents, you
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know, And I think that's something our culture is missing
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is a lot of rites of passages for young men and women too.
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But, you know, I in a lot of other kind of more indigenous
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and traditional cultures, you know, the young men would go
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through some sort of ordeal that was guided by elder man in the
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community. And that was like an initiation
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to that. And I think that that's
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something that we've really lost in our society.
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And as a result, I think young men are kind of looking for some
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some sort of guidance and not knowing where to find it.
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And then especially now you look online into, you know, social
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media and there's the whole manosphere of influencers that
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are capturing, I think the attention of young men that are
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looking for some sense of belonging, trying to make sense
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of the world that they're in, which is a crazy world and not
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knowing what it means to be a man in today's world.
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And so I think that we could be doing a better job providing
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supports for young men in terms of mentorship, leadership, you
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know, and whether that is in sort of a one-on-one coaching
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thing or whether that's more of a community based thing.
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I know I didn't really answer your question of like, you know,
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who, who I, who do I work with? I work mostly with adult men,
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you know, professionals, fathers.
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I occasionally work with college students or people that are kind
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of right out of college. And that just, you know, tends
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to be a sweet spot in terms of, I think as a young kid,
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especially if we're talking about health issues, you know,
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unless you're like, I was, you know, at a point of really
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severely disordered behavior, you can get away with a lot,
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right? Like a lot of the poor eating
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habits, poor sleeping habits, not taking care of yourself.
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Like they're not going to show up when you're 19 or even when
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you're 29. But when you're 39, when you're
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49, when you're 59, like, all of a sudden, those things become so
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much more salient. And I think a lot of the people
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that I work with, right, begin to see that, hey, the path that
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I am on is not sustainable. And I think this is, I think
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actually a really great question.
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It's an important question for everybody.
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Listening is like to ask yourself, you know, if I stayed
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on this path for the next 2-3, five years, where would I end
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up, right? You know, and, and one thing
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that I was going to come back to is like if you repeated today,
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right tomorrow, the next day, again and again and again and
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again for the next three to five years, who would you become?
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Are you going to be the person that you want to be, or are you
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just going to be as kind of slow decaying version of yourself?
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That's really interesting. I mean, it's it's really cool.
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I know that you mainly deal with like high performing
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professionals and kind of help them maintain or improve their
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health without sacrificing, you know, their health essentially,
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which is really, really great. What would you go back to?
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Not go back to necessarily use it as a teenager, but looking
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back, like, what would you tell yourself knowing all the things
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you know now, obviously, you know, you need that, you know,
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help and support. And you said coaches and
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teachers and family gave you that support.
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But like, what would you tell yourself now that you are an
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expert in this field? Yeah.
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And a 14 year old. I love that question.
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It's something that I think about all the time.
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You know, it's like, what message would I want to give to
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my younger self and what message do I want to give to like just
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the younger generation in general of like, how can you
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show up as a, you know, a healthy, mature, compassionate,
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kind, wise. All of these things that I think
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we want are, you know, for those of us who are parents, like the
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things that we want our kids to become.
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You know, I think something that I would have really loved to
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hear was that it's not my job to solve the world's problems.
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And that started in my home of like, you know, things with my
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parents, like, you know, it's not my job to make my parents
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happy or if they're having a hard day, you know, that doesn't
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mean I can't obviously want to be there and do something for
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them. But I think as a as a young
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person is very easy to get enmeshed emotionally.
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And you take on more than you really need to take on.
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And then, you know, when you look out in the world and you're
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like, wow, there's a lot of things that are broken.
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There's a lot of things right now that are really seem like
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they're going sideways or backwards.
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And on one hand, I think that's incredibly motivating.
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Like that's important. And we need young people to to
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to pay attention to these problems and do something about
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and feel that initiative. But when you make it your whole
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identity to to solve that, then it can become really
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overwhelming. And I think that is way more
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pressure than any single person was meant to carry.
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And especially for men, where I think this kind of comes in when
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we think about the legacy of patriarchy and a lot of this
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sort of man mindsets around independence and self-reliance
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and individualism. And it's like, I can do this all
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on my own. And if I ask for help, I must be
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weak. And I don't want to be seen as
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weak. And so it makes it that much
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harder, I think, for guys to accept that, hey, I can't do
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this on my own. I was never meant to do this on
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my own. This was always meant to be a
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group effort. We need help, we need each
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other. And so I think breaking out of
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some of those boxes is really vital.
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Yeah, Wow, that's really inspirational for you.
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I love the way you said all that.
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So now you're obviously educating, you know,
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professionals, whether it be executives or entrepreneurs or
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typically people that are probably getting your your help
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and support are people that are in super, super high stress
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environments, right? And they're wanting to learn
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more about health in all aspects.
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It could be food and eating. It could be, you know, exercise,
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it could be mindfulness as we know you're, you know, professor
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at Harvard in in teaching mindfulness class at the
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Graduate School, proper sleep, all these different things.
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So let's get into at least a hot topic right now is food and it's
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all over the news as far as all of these different things and
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all of the food that we eat, frankly every day and the.
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Ultra processed foods it. Seems impossible to eat
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properly, you know, and. Then not just that, also like
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given our age range, right, like we're constantly hearing you
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need to be taking this supplement, you need to be
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taking that supplement up, you need this many grams of protein,
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you need this much, much water, you need this much fiber, right?
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Like it's like there's just this constant, constant consuming
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amount of conversation around health and Wellness.
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Yet the foods at most of our grocers are still filled with
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more, you know, chemicals and poor ingredients.
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And we're constantly seeing things are coming out as what
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carcinogenics or. Carcinogens.
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Carcinogens. The Cheerios we used to eat in
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the 80s it, they're still Cheerios, but they have 40 more
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ingredients now. Like, so how do you advise
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people while they're living these demanding lives and, you
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know, high performing professionals, let's say?
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How do you advise them on that? As far as this food specifically
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and eating healthy? Yeah, it's a big question.
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Huge question, right? And this is another reason I
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wrote the book because it's so obvious when you look out in the
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landscape of our food environment today.
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You know, I, I don't love the word toxic, but how challenging
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it is, as you said, like we're drowning in information.
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And 1st, some of that is sifting through like good quality
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information and then sort of like misinformation or just
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things that have become recycled so many times on social media to
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the point where like it's not quite true or not quite
14:54
accurate, you know, and I often joke that like everything in
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your fridge is either going to heal you or kill you.
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And sometimes it's even the same thing in just different
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quantities at different times can have drastically different
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effects on our body. So like, this makes it such a
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complex topic, which is why I love like, I love getting into
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it. And so let me just like bounce
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the question back for you too, because obviously, you know,
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like what, what is most challenging for you in terms of
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your own eating, you know, when it comes to this?
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For me, I my whole life have been highly addicted to sugar,
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like severely addicted. And now everywhere I turn and
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read it is saying that that is the number one cause for cancer,
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right? Because it allows cancer cells
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to just actually like breed off of that.
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So then you read things about, oh, if you do a 72 hour fast or
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if you do this or if you do that, you can actually help kill
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those like blood cells that are cancer causing cells or
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something. So for me, that's been something
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I've been trying to remove that from my diet as much as
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possible. And I do think it's helping.
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I think that it's, you know, the the less you eat it, the less
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you crave it, right? So it does help, but that takes
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an insane amount of the perfect storm energy, right?
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Like it's like, I can't be super stressed.
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I can't, you know, my menstrual cycle has to be in a perfect
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spot, right? For for me to not just cave and
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be like, fine, I'm going to crush all those peanut M&M's
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that I just had before you arrived.
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But you know, it's, it's one of those things where it's like, I
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don't know, ever since I was a kid, that's that's my sweet
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tooth and something not to keep going with this, but something
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that's really interesting for me is raising 2 twin daughters and
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just seeing that, OK, this isn't just me, Like I became this
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adult who's obsessed with sugar. One of my kids loves sugar,
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loves desserts. And my other kid is completely a
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savory like all she wants is healthy, good food.
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That's it. She doesn't even want desserts,
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doesn't even have an interest in them.
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Won't even take a bite of cake. Right.
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If we're at a birthday party and you start to see that it's like
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some of this like is definitely just them, like who they are,
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right? And like then a lot of it is how
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they're being raised too. So you know, you got to have
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this like healthy relationship on accepting that like you can
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have some sugar without feeling guilt.
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But then also at the same time, there's an excessive amount.
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And I think for me, when there's stress involved, that is
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absolutely, I'm not somebody who drinks a lot.
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I don't smoke. So that has been like my thing
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that, you know, they have like all these memes now that it's
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you have a tough day and you go outside and you just crush a
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cannoli or you crush a piece of cake, right?
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And it's like, that's more my thing.
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That's how I like manage my stress is go for sugar.
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Yeah, yeah. And like, how is that working
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out for you right now? I mean, I have diabetes now.
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I'm just, I'm kidding. Well, I almost had gestational
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diabetes when I was pregnant. No, but it's it's working out
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OK. I think it's more just the
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concern of I don't want my kids to have a ton of sweets and
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sugar in the house because I would love to try and help them
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to not have the same thing. I do feel like at times it's,
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you know, I can have like a sugar withdrawal when I'm really
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going through like a period of time of like eating a ton of
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sugar. And then as I get older and
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older, it's harder to maintain your weight And also you start
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to just feel sluggish and and not as good when you know that
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you're taking in things like that, that are just not healthy.
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You're not processing them well. And I think that it definitely,
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they say you are what you eat. So obviously I'm very sweet.
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But honestly guys, I just came up with it.
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But it is one of those things where I do think that as I'm
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losing energy, like as I get older and I'm losing as much, I
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guess like willpower that I used to have for maintaining such a
18:46
healthy lifestyle because I don't have as much time because
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I am a parent and I work hard. I think that for me, I've really
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learned diet has to be on point because I just don't have time
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for the other things. So like that's something again,
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I can control it. Like I can actually control my
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diet a lot better than I can control the time in my day or
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the ability to get a workout in or things like that.
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So. So many, there's so many good
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things like So what you just shared was really rich.
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So let me try to just kind of summarize maybe 3 or 4 like key
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points that I heard you say. And I wish I had some notes
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because now I'm now I'm taxing my cognitive memory.
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One is around parents, right? And how our kids are going to
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mirror back our own relationship with food.
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And for me, that was so salient. You know, I wanted to work on my
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relationship with food so that I didn't pass on any of these
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disordered behaviors to my son, you know, and, and so like that
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became an additional motivating factor, without a doubt, in
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making sure that I could, you know, raise him in a, you know,
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wholesome, healthy food environment.
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Second thing around, you know, I think the, the piece that you're
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talking about of stress and how that impacts our eating is so,
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so, so important. And another reason that I wrote
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this book was to try to shift the conversation because I think
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most of the time when we're talking about nutrition and
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food, we're talking about the food, right?
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Too much sugar, too many refined carbs, too processed, right?
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And we get hyper focused on good food, bad food, healthy,
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unhealthy. Right.
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And while, yes, the food matters, we miss the whole rest
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of the story, which is what's happening inside of us before
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that food ever even hits our mouth, right?
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And so I like to talk about not just what you're eating, but who
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you are as an eater. Are you the type of person that
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reaches for some peanut M&M's every time life gets really
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stressful? Right?
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And how are you eating that? Are you eating it in the
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stressed way? Are you eating it mindlessly?
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Are you eating it while you're doing something else?
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Are you eating it standing up in the cupboard, hiding, you know,
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that, you know, that sort of thing.
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So it's really trying to go upstream to think about, yeah,
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what is happening internally in me that then leads downstream to
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the food choices that I'm making.
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And I find that if we can work on that internal relationship
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first, then the downstream choices that we make just become
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so much easier. And there's less of this
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fretting and fighting over is this the right thing or not
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right thing? Which kind of goes to the next
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point of, I think this question of enough.
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What is enough? How do I know when I've eaten?
21:21
Enough is really essential and really, really difficult.
21:26
One is difficult because modern ultra processed food makes that
21:30
point of enough feel like this goal post that keeps moving
21:33
further and further away. And it's designed to be that
21:36
way. The food is formulated to give
21:38
us this huge sensation and pleasure in our mouth without
21:42
ever making us feel full. And I, you know, in the book,
21:45
the whole first part of the book, I really like go into the
21:48
mechanisms that, you know, food science uses to create foods
21:51
that are like that. But then a lot of it is also
21:55
psychological, right? What is enough is like, what do
21:57
I expect this food to make me feel in terms of portion sizes,
22:02
right? Like if I look at a tiny little
22:04
bit of food, I'm going to say, oh, that's not enough.
22:05
But if I look at a big bite, that's enough.
22:07
Or if I look at a steak, that's enough.
22:08
But if I look at a salad, that's not enough.
22:10
So our preconceptions of what enough is and what our
22:13
expectations are also play a huge role in how much we end up
22:16
eating. And then there's this piece of,
22:19
you know, eating to the point where you're no longer hungry
22:23
versus eating to the point when you feel full.
22:26
And those two things are actually different.
22:29
And I think most people, right, stop eating when either two
22:32
things happen, right? The food itself is gone, right?
22:35
Plate is clean, bag is empty, or they're getting like these super
22:39
clear signals. They're like, Oh my God, I'm
22:41
really full. Like, time to stop eating,
22:43
right? However, there is this whole
22:45
other Gray space before then when like that hunger is gone,
22:49
right? Your body has gotten enough
22:51
energy, information, calories, nutrients.
22:54
It's saying, OK, all right, but I'm still not really full,
22:57
right? And so stopping there in that
23:00
place of enoughness, I think is actually really a useful skill
23:03
to practice and develop. But most of us have never gotten
23:06
any guidance on how to do that because most of how we've
23:09
learned how to eat just either comes passively through our
23:12
families or through media. And so this is where thinking of
23:15
eating as a skill that you can actually build and refine and
23:19
improve, I think really helps people gain more agency of like,
23:23
oh, yeah, I can actually get better at this.
23:25
And as a result, I can do a better job feeding myself.
23:28
And as a result of that, I can wake up with more energy and I
23:32
can wake up feeling better about my body and how I look and how
23:35
it performs. Because as you said, the older
23:37
we get, like the more the impacts of these habits have on
23:41
our well-being. Like I said, you can't get away
23:44
with those things that you could get away with when you were a
23:45
lot younger. And so, you know, I think paying
23:49
attention to that, it's another thing that I think people really
23:51
struggle with is a lot of our eating habits, you know, were
23:54
the things that worked for us last year, five years ago, 10
23:59
years ago. It's very hard to update your
24:01
eating, you know, until something significant happens.
24:05
Either you get a diagnosis from the doctor or you start
24:07
developing some sort of heartburn or you have some sort
24:10
of insomnia or you have a child or something happens.
24:13
It's like there's these moments all the sudden where like your
24:15
body says, hold on a second, like we can't keep doing it the
24:18
same way we were doing it. Those are these kind of wake up
24:21
moments where it's then possible to go back and say, OK, let's
24:25
revisit. Let's what what needs to change
24:26
here? I love the way you describe the
24:29
difference between eating until you're full versus eating until
24:33
you're not hungry. Yeah, and that Gray area is
24:35
huge. I need to maybe do the not
24:37
hungry 1 instead of the full one from now on.
24:39
That would require you to stop ordering as many appetizers.
24:41
That's right, I. Don't know, no guarantee.
24:44
No, but you know what, sorry. But what's interesting about
24:47
that one thing that I wonder, and because you are coaching a
24:49
lot of different men from different, you know, careers,
24:53
right, like, so different industries and, and like their
24:56
day-to-day might look different. So for example, my husband, he's
25:01
he's in a hospital all day long. So he's in an operating room
25:03
quite often. And he can't just like bring
25:06
food with him, right? He can't bring a lunch.
25:09
There's nowhere to pack it. There's no options.
25:11
You basically can only get to the cafeteria if you can get to
25:13
the cafeteria. Whereas for us here, it's like,
25:16
Oh well, like I can graze all day long.
25:18
Like so I like grazing because that's my preferred method of
25:20
eating because I will overeat. Like I will clean that plate
25:24
because I came from household of like, you need to clean your
25:26
plate kind of a thing if you want dessert, which is another
25:29
thing. They treated it like a reward,
25:30
which I know I'm not supposed to do that with my kids, but so it
25:34
is something where as I'm trying to have more mindfulness towards
25:39
when I eat, right? Like I know if I get on the
25:41
phone, I could easily scarf down a ton of food while I'm talking
25:44
because I'm not paying attention.
25:45
It's mindless eating, right? I don't like to eat while I
25:48
watch TV. Mindless eating.
25:49
I know I'll just like endlessly eat because I'm doing two things
25:52
at once, right? So you're not focusing on it,
25:55
but what do you do with people that really truly do have a job
25:59
where it's like it's kind of a feast or famine type environment
26:02
where it's you have to eat, get really full because then this
26:05
might have to last you several hours because you don't have a
26:07
chance to graze or to have something small, a snack in
26:10
between. How do you manage that and
26:13
changing the mindset? You're asking on behalf of your
26:15
husband. Not just that, but like even
26:17
like there are days where, you know, I like, I'll even say to
26:20
my kids, right? They have these small little
26:22
tiny bellies and I'm like, well, we're going to be out for the
26:25
next 4 hours. Like you need to pack a snack or
26:27
you need to have this or you need to have that Because I have
26:30
this fear that they're going to have a mental breakdown in the
26:32
middle of wherever we are because they're hungry.
26:34
And for me, though, I also don't want to mess with their mindset
26:37
of food. But like, I want them to
26:39
understand that. Like you do have to make sure
26:41
that you're eating not to the point of being sick, but like
26:43
filling your body with the nutrients it needs to give you
26:46
the energy it needs, right? So I guess it's just trying to
26:49
understand how do you navigate that as an adult?
26:51
I'm, I'm curious, I'm just wondering like does your
26:54
husband, has he found a solution that works for him?
26:57
Like is this something that you think is a challenge for him or
27:00
does he complain about it? He doesn't complain about it,
27:03
but he definitely like, we'll go many, many hours without eating
27:07
and then he comes home and he'll like eat a meal and then snack
27:10
the rest of the night because it's like he hadn't eaten all
27:12
day. Look.
27:13
First and foremost, I'll say as a parent, right?
27:15
Like, I know the danger of leaving the house without
27:18
snacks. Seems like, Oh my God, what did
27:20
I just do right? And we've had those moments, you
27:23
know, where your kid is freaking out and hungry and you're like,
27:25
I don't have anything that happened yesterday on the
27:28
playground. And I want to kind of put this
27:32
in a little bit of a historical context.
27:35
You know, the the way we currently view eating as sort of
27:39
this constantly available around the clock is actually much more
27:44
of a modern trend that I think most people really realize that
27:48
for most of human history and even up until probably the 1970s
27:53
ish, right, snacks were few and far in between.
27:56
Like they didn't really exist. You know, snack was literally
27:58
just like if you had so much hunger, it was just a tiny
28:01
little something to tide you over to get to that next meal.
28:04
And now we've kind of entered this realm of what I call it
28:07
sort of the snackification of America, where now we have said,
28:11
oh, eating is not only appropriate but encouraged from
28:14
basically the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed.
28:17
You know, it's like you can be eating doing anything like
28:20
outside of maybe sex and I'm sure people even do it.
28:22
Then it's like you can basically be eating like while you're
28:24
working, while you're driving, while you know is.
28:27
That part in the book? I see the entire, I think it's
28:31
the third chapter. I talk a lot about how the, the
28:34
rhythms of eating have changed over the generations.
28:38
And so, you know, and to your, what you were saying of like,
28:41
Hey, you know, I kind of like to graze.
28:42
And this isn't about grazing or not grazing.
28:44
It's not about having three square meals or one meal.
28:47
It's just about understanding the context of like when food is
28:51
always available, we are just more likely to eat more.
28:54
That is just sort of the bottom line that is like, you know, as
28:57
supply increases, demand is going to go up whether you want
29:01
it to or not. And I think you can look at, you
29:03
know, look, just look at our, our nation and the data in terms
29:07
of body weight and other things over the last 50 years.
29:11
So kind of to get back to your question around, you know, what
29:14
do you do? I think it's really hard when
29:16
you have a job. And I'd love to hear more about
29:18
you 2 as well, because like you're out and about your own
29:21
calls, you're showing clients, homes, these sort of things,
29:23
right? Where you, it's hard to have a
29:25
regular eating rhythm, right? Like where it's like, Hey, I
29:30
know I'm going to, you know, have lunch every day, generally
29:32
between 12 and noon, you know, sort of thing where it's like,
29:35
oh, I might not have time for that.
29:36
What do you do, you know? And so this is the value of
29:40
one-on-one coaching is that I can work with people at the
29:43
hyper individual level of like, yeah, tell me what a day in, you
29:47
know, your life looks like. What does a week look like?
29:49
So how can we begin to get more proactive rather than reactive
29:53
around this food? And some of it is smart prep and
29:56
these sort of things. But to your point, it's like if
29:58
I can't bring my food with me, then I have another constraint.
30:01
So these are hard. I will say that the body is
30:04
incredibly adaptable, you know, and if you go back, you'll say
30:07
that, hey, you know, for most of human history, we lived in this
30:11
kind of feast and famine environment where there will be
30:13
periods, you know, where there was lots of food available and
30:16
sometimes that would last a day or weeks or months, and then
30:19
we'd be periods where there wasn't.
30:20
And our bodies are actually incredibly good at carrying us
30:23
through this. And we've sort of unlearned a
30:26
lot of that because of this snackification.
30:29
We're like, we're always eating, always eating, which I think is
30:31
one reason why fasting has kind of come back into vogue as a way
30:35
of reclaiming some of that. And there are some real
30:37
metabolic benefits we could talk about to like going through
30:40
fasting periods. But I think at the same, it's
30:42
sort of the psychological level, just being able to trust that
30:45
like, hey, I can go 6 hours, 10 hours without eating.
30:49
I'm going to be OK. I'm not going to die.
30:51
I think there's this feeling. I'd say most eating problems
30:55
start with the belief I'm not OK.
30:59
At some level I'm not OK, this doesn't feel OK.
31:02
Something is not OK. Then leads to all sorts of weird
31:05
things happening with food later on.
31:08
I'm not OK. I'm not going to be able to eat.
31:09
Let me eat a lot now. I overeat now.
31:11
Now I don't feel good. Oh, I'm still not OK.
31:13
Let me eat some more because I don't feel OK.
31:15
Right? Like it can spiral in a lot of
31:16
ways. The last thing I'll say is our
31:19
bodies are also incredibly good at getting what they need to
31:23
survive right. So to your husband's point, like
31:26
even if he doesn't eat all day, he comes home, he has a meal,
31:29
he's snacking. My guess is that his body has
31:32
figured out how to get the right amount of calories and the right
31:35
amount of nutrients to keep him at a pretty base level of
31:38
health. Is that true?
31:40
Yeah. OK.
31:41
Yeah. Right.
31:41
He seems like you know. It's like, so it's like, I think
31:45
coming back to that wisdom of like our bodies are really,
31:48
really smart. And when we try to get really
31:51
like heady about it. And I was like, I'm going to
31:53
manipulate this thing and try to control here.
31:56
I'm going to restrict here. Believe me, so many times I have
31:58
tried in the past of like, oh, I'm going to have this, you
32:01
know, super indulgent dinner, right?
32:02
So I'm not going to eat anything all day because I want to save
32:05
up my calories, you know, And then at the end, you know, not
32:08
only do I end up eating way more than I would have ate if I also
32:11
if I had breakfast, but like, you know, it's like when we try
32:14
to micromanage the calorie math, it often backfires, right?
32:19
And I'm, and this is something that I think obviously it
32:21
depends on the person and, you know, and if you have a disorder
32:24
relationship with food, is that much more important to really be
32:27
aware of when that tracking can become problematic.
32:31
You know, on the other hand, I do think I think it can be
32:33
really helpful for people to track how much they're eating,
32:35
to have a food log to get a basic understanding of like,
32:38
hey, on any given day, you know, where is my calories coming
32:42
from? So building that level of kind
32:44
of nutritional awareness, I think is another part of
32:47
becoming a more skilled eater. Off off of that you talk about I
32:52
believe in your book and and so on is like practical eating
32:55
without these rigid requirements that most diets have.
32:59
So what are some like practical things that you know anyone can
33:02
do to kind of make sure that they're being a little bit more
33:04
healthy compounding those healthy eating habits?
33:08
What? Can I do so in the book first, I
33:10
kind of give a a short little kind of three question test of
33:15
how do you know when a food has been engineered to kind of
33:19
hijack your best intentions? And is is it the food
33:23
irresistible, effortless and endless, right?
33:27
So is the food formulated right to be so freaking good right
33:32
that the flavored dust on the Dorito chips.
33:34
I don't know, Ryan, what's your? What's some of your?
33:35
Favorite Doritos are really good, but I could just go with
33:38
like crackers. I could do wheat thins all day.
33:40
OK, like just carbs, crackers, salt.
33:43
It's yeah, salt. So, you know, certain things are
33:46
designed, you know, at the very molecular level to be
33:50
irresistible, the way they kind of take over our pleasure
33:54
receptors in terms of the chemicals in our bodies that
33:57
they're helping stimulate both dopamine and endogenous opioids.
34:03
Like, we're literally getting this, this chemical rush of
34:05
like, oh, this feels really, really good.
34:08
And in my mouth, this tastes really, really good.
34:10
Oh, I want more. Right.
34:11
So is the food designed to be irresistible?
34:13
Is it designed to be effortless in the sense of.
34:16
Yeah, hand to mouth, hand to mouth.
34:18
I can be over here. I can be scrolling, I can be
34:21
watching, right? There's no preparation.
34:23
I just need to crack open another box.
34:26
So it's just so easy to consume. And then is it designed to be
34:30
endless? And endless can take a few
34:32
different shapes and forms. Endless in the sense of gigantic
34:35
portions, right? That family size bag of chips
34:37
that actually has like 58 servings in it.
34:40
Endless can be in terms of variety.
34:42
You know, like when you walk into the supermarket and you see
34:45
the yogurt aisle and there's like 35 flavors of yogurt, but
34:48
they're all essentially the same yogurt.
34:50
And it's really just, you know, some pretty actually incredible
34:55
modern food science. And it's a manipulation of your
34:58
senses, using natural and artificial flavors to just make
35:01
this one yogurt taste like Peach cobbler and this other yogurt
35:04
taste like cookies and cream, when it's basically the same
35:06
yogurt with different sorts of terpenes and flavorings and
35:09
other things. So that's another sign that the
35:12
food is kind of potentially going to be working against you.
35:16
And so I like to say is like, just take a look on any given
35:18
day and how much of the food that you're eating has been
35:21
designed to be irresistible, effortless and endless, right?
35:25
That's a sign that maybe the food itself is something that
35:27
you can work on. You can make some healthier
35:29
swaps and upgrades, right? Coming back to a more kind of
35:33
whole food diet now, this isn't about, you know, eliminating
35:37
ultra processed food. It's about how do we live in an
35:39
environment where this stuff is everywhere and relate to it more
35:43
skillfully because it's not going away.
35:45
And I think it's impractical to ask people to cut out, you know,
35:49
I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to take you away your
35:51
M&M's. I don't want to take away your
35:52
wheat Thins. Again, it's about what is how am
35:54
I relating to them? Because when we have foods that
35:56
are irresistible, effortless and endless, it essentially removes
36:00
all of the natural guardrails that our evolution has designed
36:05
to regulate our food intake. So now we're eating without any
36:08
natural, you know, regulation. And that just leads to more
36:12
complicated overeating and other problems.
36:15
So that's one thing that I kind of talk about in the book.
36:18
And then the other piece that I think is really crucial is just
36:20
understanding which part of you is doing the eating.
36:24
Who is eating? Is it the part of me that just
36:27
really wants some pleasure because I love the flavor of the
36:30
cracker in my mouth? Is it the part of me that is
36:33
just looking to survive because I haven't eaten all day because
36:36
I've been so busy working and I'm just ravenous?
36:38
Is it the part of me that is eating because the rest of my
36:42
family is eating or I'm out with other friends and there's a
36:44
social component, so it's time to eat because other people are
36:47
eating, so I must be eating too? Or other people ordered another
36:49
drink, so I must order another drink, right?
36:52
Or is there a strategic part of me that says, hey, you know, I'm
36:55
eating this because I want to get some more fiber in my diet,
36:58
or I'm eating this because I think, you know, I need some
37:01
more protein, right? So understanding which part of
37:04
you is doing the eating leads to this more holistic sense of
37:08
like, oh, yeah, I have these different parts.
37:11
They want different things. They show up at different times.
37:13
And I think the real challenge is that most of us are
37:16
completely unaware of any of this happening.
37:20
And yet when we can begin to see these parts, we don't have to be
37:23
them. And then we can actually lead
37:25
them to more skillful and wholesome ways of eating instead
37:28
of being drug around by every little impulse that says feed me
37:32
now, I'm starving, I'm hungry, give me pleasure, They're eating
37:34
right. And it's like this just leads to
37:35
this internal conflict. And so, you know, this is what I
37:39
described as eating 2 point O is coming into this new upgraded
37:43
relationship with ourselves in relationship to food, where we
37:46
can be the leader of our hunger, the leader of our urges, as
37:50
opposed to feeling like we're always being drug around by
37:53
them. It's.
37:54
Really good. I can see how you know
37:55
one-on-one coaching with you where you're teaching someone on
37:58
a very specific level how to rebuild their trust with food in
38:02
that regard and establish really good habits around food.
38:05
I can see how that would be very, very helpful.
38:07
That was good. It's also interesting too, as
38:09
you're talking about all this stuff.
38:10
It's similar to how even like we coach people on our team in
38:15
business, right? So what it is is it's you're,
38:18
you're training yourself to be a little less on autopilot, less
38:22
multitasking all the time, which we actually have just recently
38:24
had this conversation about it. And the more you're
38:28
multitasking, stressed and just kind of living on autopilot for
38:32
all things that you do, the more you're struggling with being
38:35
really good at all those things, right?
38:37
So it's, I think in general, like a lot of us are doing this
38:41
regularly now with every aspect of our lives because of the fact
38:45
that everything is so convenient.
38:47
I find for me, eating a lot of times is more an autopilot
38:50
thing. It's convenience.
38:52
So when you listed those three questions, I thought to myself,
38:56
oh, for me, it's, it's kind of the second one, right?
38:58
I think it was #2 of the questions that you had asked.
39:02
And I'm like, I'm going for the effortless all the time in a
39:05
sense of I've never really had time.
39:08
I'm always running out the door in the morning.
39:10
I, you know, don't have a ton of time when I get home or whatever
39:13
it might be. Also, it's not where I want to
39:14
put my time because that's the other piece of it too.
39:16
Like I don't want to sit there and chop up a bunch of fruit and
39:19
vegetables before, you know, I can eat something.
39:22
I want something that is convenient and effortless,
39:24
right. So I think it's just retraining
39:27
yourself like the meal prepping, pre cutting things.
39:29
When my kids were babies, I had to pre cut all their fruit.
39:33
Well, that was super convenient. Then it was easy to just grab
39:36
fruit and feed them the good vegetables and the good fruit
39:38
when it was already cut up ahead of time.
39:40
So I think it's just like reprogramming yourself to do a
39:44
little bit of that work so you then don't start continuing down
39:47
the same path that hasn't been working right.
39:50
And we kind of talk about this at work all the time too, where
39:52
it's like if you just continue to do the same thing on
39:55
autopilot and you're not evolving and you're not kind of
39:58
starting to change your techniques, you're never going
39:59
to see any difference. You're never going to see any
40:01
growth. And for, for this, it's, it's
40:04
lifestyle growth, right? Because I do think that whether
40:08
it's our age or whether it's the fact that foods are even more
40:11
processed than they ever were before, it's you just don't feel
40:15
as good if you're not feeding your body the proper, the proper
40:18
nutrients and actually like getting those Whole Foods.
40:21
And I think that again, it's probably because I'm pushing 40.
40:24
I'll be 40 next month, but it's one of those things where it's
40:28
like you just start to realize and like take an assessment of
40:31
your life of like, I don't want to keep doing this.
40:33
Like I could just do it better. Why not, you know, like, why not
40:36
feed my, my body like foods that are going to make me feel really
40:39
good. You know, you wake up feeling so
40:41
much better in the morning and like, it just gives you more
40:44
energy when you need it and stuff like that.
40:46
So I think it's just trying to make it now.
40:49
How do I make the food convenient, right?
40:51
How do I make it effortless? And it's going to take a little
40:53
bit more prep or things like that, but it will pay off in the
40:55
end. Yeah, I mean, I love what you're
40:57
saying. The the proof is in the pudding,
41:00
right? I mean, hopefully it's like
41:01
wholesome chia pudding, right? But right the.
41:04
Healthy pudding. The healthy pudding, right?
41:05
Of course, you know, but to your to your point, when you begin to
41:10
see what your life can be like when you actually feed yourself
41:15
in a way that works for your body.
41:17
And that might not be exactly what the media says is the right
41:21
way to eat or what your influencers are eating.
41:24
And you know, on online, it takes a lot of trial and error,
41:28
takes a lot of experimentation, and it takes a lot of awareness.
41:31
So your point about shifting, right, I talked about kind of
41:34
three shifts, right? Shift from autopilot to aware,
41:37
shift from reactive eating to proactive eating and, and then
41:42
also then shift from kind of living habitually to living
41:46
intentionally. And these things go way beyond
41:49
food, right? And this is where it's like the
41:50
coaching that I do, right? Focuses a lot on food on focuses
41:54
a lot on health. But this is really about
41:57
everything in your life, right? Because it starts with our own
42:00
relationship to our body. And when our body is feeling,
42:03
you know, in a place where it's like it's working with us
42:06
instead of against us, like then we're so much more capable of
42:09
going out and doing things for others, being of service, going,
42:14
doing good work in the world, like just showing up as our more
42:17
loving present cells. Like at the end of the day,
42:19
that's what really, really matters.
42:21
It's not about hitting some sort of perfect macros or doing some
42:24
specific workout. It's like having the capacity,
42:27
the energy, the presence to show up in the world in a way that is
42:32
aligned and feels like you are giving your best self to
42:34
everybody, including yourself, right, Including your body.
42:37
And I think we often shortchange our bodies and maybe we give so
42:41
much of ourselves to our clients or to our families, and then we
42:44
neglect our bodies. And to me, that's really just
42:47
undermining this whole endeavor. Right, That's that's really
42:49
interesting way you put it. It's like what you eat and what
42:52
you talk about in eating 2 point O your new book is how what
42:56
you're putting in your body can actually make a huge impact on
42:58
your life, not just health wise, but giving more energy, giving
43:01
more time to your family, all of those things.
43:03
It's just compounds so drastically.
43:05
And obviously you with you teaching graduate courses in,
43:09
you know, mindful leadership in psychology at Harvard.
43:12
That gives you just another layer of things to talk about.
43:15
It's not just about the psychology and the the actual
43:18
breakdown of food, etcetera that you can coach people on, but
43:20
it's also the mindfulness which plays so much into it.
43:23
So it's really impressive. Like what would you say we've
43:26
talked about a lot and I, we could talk about this for hours.
43:28
I'm like, I want to hear all the different things, whether it be
43:31
myths that we're hearing online or what's true, what's not true.
43:33
I'm sure there's we could talk for days about that.
43:35
But like what's one or two things that we maybe haven't
43:37
touched on that you would love our listeners to hear?
43:41
You know, regarding everything we've we've talked about or, or
43:43
something we haven't. You know, I, I think there's one
43:46
important piece that kind of under grids, all of this work,
43:49
you know, and I've spent the last decade helping people
43:53
develop healthier habits. And yes, it's important to have
43:57
the right systems and structures.
43:59
Yes, it's important to have the right foods around, you know,
44:03
but at the end of the day, none of this stuff sticks until you
44:07
feel safe enough in your body to actually do the thing that you
44:12
say you want to do. And this becomes really hard
44:14
because a lot of the quote unhealthy habits or the unwanted
44:18
habits that we do actually provide us a sense of safety.
44:21
And so we need to rewire our nervous systems to recognize
44:26
that we can actually let go of that behavior and do this other
44:30
one that we really want to be doing, whether that's, you know,
44:33
not mindlessly snacking at the end of the night or whether
44:36
that's going to bed earlier or whether that's, you know, some
44:39
sort of exercise or movement. It's like until that feels safe
44:43
enough to do that alternative, then we're going to keep
44:45
defaulting back to this old piece.
44:47
So there is a lot of nervous system healing that really needs
44:51
to happen. Otherwise we're always just
44:53
going to be working at the level of kind of behavior and
44:56
symptoms. And we never really get down to
44:58
the level of like, hey, there's a part of me that's choosing to
45:01
do this because it's, it's actually serving an important
45:03
purpose for me. It's helping me regulate.
45:05
Now that could be coming from something that happened a
45:07
really, really long time ago. It could be coming from part of
45:10
my childhood, from some story that I've been carrying, from
45:13
something that I inherited from family or other pieces.
45:16
So like there is a lot of that kind of cleaning up work that
45:19
comes into play here. And it's like when we can do
45:21
that cleaning up work, when we can help work with our nervous
45:24
systems to feel safe, and then we have the right external
45:27
supports and the good routines to support that healthy
45:30
lifestyle, then we can really create sustainable
45:33
transformation. And like, that is what I care
45:36
most about because otherwise the 30 day, you know, detox fix,
45:40
like you know, you can get some good things out of that, but
45:43
it's probably not going to stick, right?
45:45
And it's like, I want that version of both of you that we,
45:48
you know, 351030 years from now to be able to wake up and feel
45:53
healthy and happy about who you are and what you're doing in the
45:55
world. Wow, brilliantly said.
45:57
I know honestly, there's been so many amazing takeaways from this
46:01
conversation. I also have a million more
46:03
questions that I'll ask you after the fact.
46:06
But I do think that ultimately, if somebody wants to get in
46:09
touch with you and they want to continue a conversation like
46:11
this and learn a little bit more because like you said, there's,
46:15
there's so much that you kind of need to actually put into the
46:18
intention behind a healthy lifestyle and eating, you know,
46:22
unprocessed living, right, like that kind of thing.
46:25
So you can live your best life. I think that that's something
46:28
where whether it's the coaching, whether it's reading your book,
46:32
you know, let us know how can, how can someone get in touch
46:34
with you? What's the first step?
46:35
Yeah, first step is checking on my website, Jeff Segal Wellness.
46:40
I've got a lot of resources there.
46:42
You can shoot me a message and you can set up a time to chat.
46:45
I love to get to have conversations with people and
46:47
really just I want to understand where you're at, what's getting
46:51
in the way and then if working together would be a good fit.
46:54
That's awesome. So reach out Jeff Siegel,
46:56
wellness.com or at Jeff Siegel Wellness on Instagram.
47:00
It's been a pleasure you coming in.
47:02
We can't tell you much. We appreciate it.
47:04
I learned a lot and you did as well.
47:05
And it's it's inspirational stuff you do.
47:07
And thanks for sharing your story.
47:10
We really appreciate it. So thank you so much.
47:12
Thank you so much, this is great.