I'm going to be completely honest with

you here. It's important. I thought that

subject matter of glucose was boring

until

I read your book and then I was like,

"Oh my god."

Jessie Inchauspé, the glucose goddess,

is a biochemist, an author, teaching us

the best hacks to eat right

without giving up the foods that we

love. Glucose is your body's favorite

source of energy. Your brain cells are

using glucose to think, speak, move. So,

when you flood your body with too much

glucose too quickly, what happens is

what I call a glucose spike. The more

spikes you have, the faster you die.

In your book, you talk about these 10

hacks.

Yeah. Eat food in the right order.

Yeah. After you eat, move.

Drink vinegar before you eat. Yeah.

You're such a weirdo.

Learn the glucose hacks and then just

eat everything you love. Like that's the

thing you have to understand.

Why do you care about this stuff? Well,

I went through my own sort of health

journey. It was

awful and

I was like, "I need to figure out how to

fix myself. Like I need to understand

what's going on because otherwise I just

don't want to live anymore." It was

really to that point. I was like,

"Either I figure out how to fix this or

this is just too painful of an

existence."

Before this episode starts, I have a

small favor to ask from you. 2 months

ago, 74% of people that watch this

channel didn't subscribe. We're now down

to 69%.

My goal is 50%. So, if you've ever liked

any of the videos we've posted, if you

like this channel, can you do me a quick

favor and hit the subscribe button? It

helps this channel more than you know

and the bigger the channel gets, as

you've seen, the bigger the guests get.

Thank you and enjoy this episode.

Jessie.

Steven.

What is it that you do and why does it

matter?

I teach people about

how food impacts their body.

And it matters because most of us are

unknowingly

eating in a way that causes many of the

symptoms that we suffer from on a daily

basis.

So, it matters because once people

understand

how their dietary habits are impacting

them and once they make change,

their whole universe upgrades.

All of the things that they thought were

just who they were, you know, the poor

energy, the cravings, the acne, the bad

sleep, the hormonal issues, all of a

sudden they can vanish. And so, they

kind of reconnect with their true selves

once they're past all of those symptoms.

Why do you care about this stuff?

Many different reasons. Um one is a

personal story.

The other is because I see a lot of

people suffering from diseases that they

don't understand and that unknowingly

they're making worse. Right? One big

example is from One big example for me

is people who have type 2 diabetes

and a lot of people who have type 2

diabetes

are eating in a way that's making it

worse, but they think they're eating in

a way that's good for them and that

breaks my heart into pieces. You know, I

want to give people the power back. I

want to give people the information back

because the landscape we live in, you

know, the the marketing messages about

food, all the confusing packaging, the

confusing advice, the fads,

that's really destructive. And so, I

want to help people like

clean all that up. And the personal

reason?

Well, I went through my own sort of

health journey

um that got me to a point where I

realized that health is the most

important thing in the world and if you

don't have have that, you really don't

have much.

And um I mean, we can go into some

detail into this and so, I guess we have

some time.

And I don't usually go into detail about

this topic. I've sort of learned to, you

know, brush over it and just give the

short version. I'm not interested in the

short version.

Okay. Okay.

Um long version.

So, I grew up super healthy, happy kid,

no health issues. Nobody in my family

had any health issues. It was very, you

know,

easy. And then I'm 19 years old and I'm

just, you know, becoming a teenager

where I'm at I'm at the peak of this

kind of phase where I really want to be

cool and I really want to show that like

I'm a badass, you know?

And so, I went on vacation with some

friends in Hawaii, of all places, and

it's four of us.

My current best girlfriend and two guy

friends and we go into the jungle

just for a hike.

And the two guy friends who are like

super fit

guys decide to jump off this waterfall.

This like 30 ft

30 ft waterfall.

And um they're like, "Jessie, you should

do it, too." And so, I was terrified and

I did not want to do it, but I really

wanted to be cool. I really wanted to be

like,

"I don't care. Like I can do whatever.

Yeah, I'm not scared." So, I decide to

also jump off the waterfall. Spoiler

alert, it was not a good idea.

So, I'm at the top of the

the rocks and I'm looking down and I'm

like, "Oh my god." And my two friends

are down there and they're like,

they tell me to land in the water

really straight. They say, "Just

make your body like a stick and make

sure your feet touch the water first."

And I as I'm in the air, as soon as I

leap off the edge of the cliff, of

course, when you're falling, you get

that sensation in your stomach. They're

like,

and I feel that and I just freak out.

Like I am terrified.

And so, midair, instead of landing

really nice and straight, I kind of like

try to stop the fall, so I I sort of

bend my knees a little bit, but like

we're talking a really small change and

as soon as my tailbone hits the water, I

feel a huge pain in my back. Like cha.

Like a really intense pain. And so,

I go into the water, I come back out and

I'm like swearing. I'm like, [ __ ] [ __ ]

[ __ ] Ow ow ow ow ow ow. And my friends

like, "Oh my god, what's happening?" So,

I manage to climb out of the water of

the pool and I'm in so much pain, but

there's nothing visible on my body.

There's no blood, there's no bruising.

My back looks normal.

So, I'm like, "I don't know what

happened. I'm in so much pain." They're

like, "Okay, well, let's walk back to

the car, you know, don't know what

happened." So, I walk back a mile

in the jungle, you know, with what I

ended up learning was a broken back, um

which was super dangerous.

Yeah. Through adrenaline, everything was

um

just pumping and allowing me to do that.

24 hours go by, I don't know what's

happening. I'm at home with my parents.

I'm like, "I don't know, I'm in so much

pain." But you couldn't see anything on

my body, so it was like, I know. So, I

decide to just sleep it off. The next

day I wake up, I'm like, I know.

Um next day I wake up, I'm still in a

lot of pain, so I get taken to a like a

osteopath or I don't know, chiropractor

or something and um

he sees me arrive and he puts like a

finger on my back and I'm like, "Ow ow."

He's like, "No, no, you have to go to

the hospital." So, 24 hours later I get

to the hospital. They finally do a scan

and they say, "Yeah, one of your

vertebrae is in 13 pieces. You need to

not move anymore. Here's a corset you're

not allowed to move until it gets fixed

because if you move, if one of the

pieces of your vertebrae

like dislodges a little bit, you could

rupture your spinal cord and then you're

paralyzed."

So, I was like, "Okay."

I spent 2 weeks at home in the house in

Hawaii. We're trying to figure out where

to get surgery. So, I'm just in bed. I'm

not allowed to move basically, just to

go to the bathroom.

End up being flown back to Europe on

like a medical plane to a clinic in

Zurich, an amazing place. Once I get

there, another week of waiting until the

surgery arrives. So, at this point I'm 3

weeks in, 3 weeks with a broken back,

terrified about what's going to happen.

I haven't been able to move my body,

haven't been able to move any stress

from my body. I'm like really not okay.

They're giving me painkillers. Like the

whole thing is intense.

You can't move your body for what, two

two two weeks or so? 3 weeks before the

surgery. I was not allowed to move. I

had to stay in bed because of the risk.

As we were figuring out what to do, as

my parents were like, "Okay, is she

going to get surgery in LA, in Zurich?"

Like, you know, you have to figure out

cuz then I had to stay in the hospital

after the surgery. So, it's a real

decision of like where are you going to

have the operation?

And so, I'm in the clinic in Zurich and

this doctor comes up to me. He's like,

"Okay, so listen, this is what's going

to happen.

Um

we're going to open your body from the

side. We're going to take some organs

out, clean up the vertebrae, close the

side, flip you over, open from the back,

open the spine, put metal cage in, put

the broken bones back in, drill six like

3-in nails into your spine, and then put

some rods, and then we'll close you

back. Oh, by the way, there's a risk

we're going to perforate a lung, but

like hopefully, you know, it won't

happen." I was like, "What the fuck?" I

was so scared.

Yeah. So, anyway, all this to say that I

was really really really really really

really scared of dying.

It was [ __ ] awful and

I was like, "If I just wake up, if I

wake up on the other side of this, I

will be filled with gratitude for like

the rest of my life." You know, that was

the feeling.

So, anyway,

surgery happens. I wake up and instead

of gratitude, I start feeling a

humongous amount of pain. Like a hundred

X the amount of pain from the actual

break in my back. My entire body is on

fire. All of my legs are just like

inflamed like crazy. They're giving me

like sleeping pills and [ __ ] I'm having

the craziest nightmares. A nurse comes

into my room every 3 hours to inject,

you know, like opioids in my leg. I

mean, it's just like [ __ ] nightmare.

Like total total nightmare. I can't move

at all because if I move my body, the

scars feel like they're going to rip

open.

I lose like 20 pounds in 10 days. I

haven't eaten any I don't eat anything

for like 2 weeks.

Anyway, so

horrible physical stuff. But, the good

news is the physical bit actually heals.

Like in 3 months,

I'm totally fine. No more pain, feeling

strong, exercising again, no problem.

But, then

the real problem starts happening. My

brain starts not feeling okay. I start

feeling like I'm a bit

like in a dream. Like the head this

weird sensation of like every instead of

everything being 3D, it's now 2D.

And I'm kind of feel like I'm in a movie

and I look at my hands and they don't

look like mine and I start having panic

attacks when I see myself in the mirror.

So, like my brain starts

breaking. And I had never experienced

any mental health issues when I was

younger. So, I I super clueless.

So, anyway, um

Is there a term term for that? A medical

term for that?

Yeah, the closest thing that I found is

depersonalization, which is losing touch

with reality and yourself. And I always

felt like when those episodes happen, I

feel like I leave my body.

Like I'm kind of looking from above. And

also, I become super super scared of

just existence.

So, being alive becomes the scariest

thing

I can ever imagine. And that still

happens today?

Very very very rarely. When was the last

time it happened?

Actually, 2 days ago I had like 10

minutes of it.

Because I had just taken the plane all

the way here to California and I felt

quite ungrounded and I could tell there

was some stress in my body that was not

moving. But, now when it happens, like I

know how to fix it. I know what's going

on. But, back then I had no clue. So,

for a year I felt like that.

Super clueless. And I didn't understand

what in my surroundings or in how I was

living was making it better or worse. I

was completely clueless. I was like, I

have this horrible thing happening to

me. Nobody understands it. I feel crazy,

but I also feel like

[ __ ] this might be the rest of my life.

Like this might just be my life now.

This immense pain and terror at just

existing.

So, out of all this nightmare,

um emerges a very clear thought in my

head, which is if you don't have your

health,

you have nothing. Like it's health

first. Like this is the number one most

important thing in life. And bear in

mind, I'm 19 years old, which is kind of

a young age to have that realization.

And Stephen, I was like, I need to

figure out how to fix myself. Like I

need to understand what's going on

because otherwise I just don't want to

live anymore. It was really to that

point. I was like, either I figure out

how to fix this or this is just too

painful of an existence.

Isn't it such a shame that it requires

often a traumatic event where our health

is tested or um

we realize the fact the

fallibility of it? Is that the right

word?

Yeah. Um for us to start thinking and

caring about it. I think about this all

the time. You know, one of the most

pivotal shifts in my life occurred

during the pandemic where I vicariously

saw the entire world struggling. Um and

one of the

factors that exacerbated that struggle

or increased your chances of being

susceptible to the illness was your your

health. And I watched vicariously from

this

from this

lockdowned apartment in the north of

England through the TV screens as all of

these people were being rushed to

hospital, etc. And it was it was the

moment that the wake-up call I needed. I

didn't need something to fail in my

health. I needed to watch the world

struggle because of health for me to go,

"Oh my god, okay. So,

my health is my first foundation. It's

not the business. It's not this. It's

not my dog, my cat, my girlfriend,

whatever. Because if you remove my

health, I lose everything." And it seems

like you had that because of a tragic

incident at 19 years old where you go,

"Oh, you like put your priorities in

order." It's a bit like they say, you

know, you have two lives and your second

life starts when you realize you only

have one. Interesting. Yeah. And that's

a beautiful beautiful saying. And

yes, it is tragic that that kind of

stuff needs to happen. I think that life

should be lived backwards.

We would have such a better time. We'd

be so much more grateful if we started

our life, you know, at a hundred years

old with a body that's breaking down,

less energy, more difficulty. And if you

just got younger, you know, every year,

you'd be so grateful. Like, "Oh my god,

like I'm getting, you know, I don't

know, my biceps back or my energy back

or whatever." And it's so tragic that we

just go through life never realizing the

you know, the the wealth that's just in

front of us and complaining about what's

wrong and then not realizing that in 10

years it's going to get worse and worse.

But, listen, yes, the

the tragic incident

is often

a jumping-off point for realizing how

important health is. Yeah.

You wrote a book called The

Glucose Revolution.

The life-changing power of balancing

your blood sugar. We got that book last

year. Why did you write a book about

glucose of all the things in health and

food you could have written about? Why

glucose?

Right. It's so interesting. Essentially,

after having this realization that I

needed to figure out how my body worked,

I went on like a quest, you know, with

different chapters. And so, first

chapter was I was living in London

before. I was studying mathematics and I

moved to Georgetown in the US,

Washington DC to study biochemistry in

grad school to learn about how the body

worked. And then I went to Silicon

Valley to work in genetics because I

wanted to understand our DNA. You know,

I was trying to like piece together as

much as I could to try to understand how

my body functioned.

Uh so that I could feel better. So that

in the morning I could wake up not

terrified of being alive. That was the

bar, you know. The bar was quite low.

And

even though DNA and studying it was

interesting, it actually your DNA

doesn't give you a lot of information

about what you need to do to feel good.

Your DNA can tell you, you know, where

you're from, what your traits are, maybe

if you have an increased risk of a

disease in the future, but your DNA

doesn't tell you exactly what you need

to do.

What really matters more in terms of

determining how we feel on a daily basis

and how quickly we age and if we can

just still kayak when we're 65, has much

more to do with how we live, you know,

how we eat, how we move, our

environment, what we do. So, I learned

that as I was in this genetics company.

And when I was there,

something incredible happened. I

discovered the world of glucose. And now

I'm talking about this, you know, on a

daily basis and writing books about it.

I discovered

that my mental health

got worse when my glucose, also known as

blood sugar,

was not

healthy, steady, and balanced. I

discovered that when my

blood sugar levels were kind of like a

roller coaster, these episodes of

depersonalization happened much more

frequently. There was even this one

instance where

I had and I was able to see my blood

sugar levels with a glucose monitor that

I wore for a couple weeks.

I was able to see one of the spikes in

blood sugar actually triggering the

episode. I was like, "Whoa, I'm finally

understanding a clue.

How I'm eating and how that affects my

glucose levels

is then in turn affecting how I'm

feeling and my mental health." And for

me, that was like the jumping-off point.

I was like, "Whoa, this is

fascinating." And I just dove really

deep into it and I studied it, you know,

for 4 years. I've been talking about it

for that long and ended up writing a

book about it because it's actually

really important for all of us

to know about this molecule and to learn

to manage it. They call you the glucose

goddess. I call myself the glucose

goddess. And now they call you the

glucose goddess.

Yes. Yes, exactly. I wanted to find a

catchy name after, you know, 2 years um

talking about this on social media.

At first, my account was just my name,

Jessie Inchauspé, which is really hard

to um write and pronounce and spell. So,

I needed a catchy name. So, I was like,

"Glucose girl, glucose gal." And then I

thought,

"Glucose goddess."

You said there that, you know, watching

your um glucose monitor, presumably on

your phone, it was connected to your

phone. Um you could identify that the

cause causation between a spike in your

glucose and mental health implications.

Mhm. But,

okay.

What else why else does glucose matter?

Yeah, it's a very good question because,

you know, not everybody has these

depersonalization episodes. So,

when I first got that piece of

information, I was like, "Okay, glucose

is affecting how I'm feeling. Let me see

in the scientific papers what else

does glucose matter for." And I went

into like a massive deep dive into all

of the scientific studies about glucose

that I could find. I had like a thousand

tabs open on my computer browser. I I

just went really really really deep.

And I discovered some amazing things.

So, first, I discovered that I was not

alone. That most people

who don't have diabetes still experience

these blood sugar spikes

potentially on a daily basis without

knowing it.

And that's a really good piece of

information because for years we thought

only if you have diabetes should your

glucose levels be of any concern to you.

You know, it was kind of like, either

you have diabetes and you need to learn

how to manage glucose or you don't have

diabetes and like don't even worry about

it. Now we know that everybody

can be suffering from these spikes

without knowing it. So, that was a huge

revelation for me. And that study was

very recent. I think it was from 2018.

So, when I discovered it, you know, 4

years ago, it was it had just come out.

So, I was like, "Whoa, like stuff is

changing on this topic. We're realizing

the importance of it for everybody."

Second, I was like, "Okay, let's look at

all the symptoms that are associated

with these spikes

from the scientific studies, right? So,

the most common symptoms of glucose

spikes are things like cravings for

sweet foods. Yeah. Multiple times a day.

Um

You looked at me as if you know that I

have that problem, and you're right.

But you should have just said it. I

don't like it being indirect.

was just like I was just curious like

No, you were looking at me as if you

knew. And as far as you probably heard

me talk about the sweet drawer in my

house that I used to have. It's gone

now, but um none of us perfect, Jessie.

I'm not perfect, either. When you say

cravings, are you is does that kind of

explain why when I have one cookie, I

don't have cookies these days, you know,

I'm a changed man. But say I were to

have one cookie, why I then want another

cookie?

Yes. But sometimes

I'll get into a I'm a changed man.

Sometimes I'll get into a cookie week.

Ooh.

Where like I'll want I have a cookie on

Monday, and because I've had that cookie

on Monday

like Tuesday I'm showing up or Wednesday

I'm showing up for a cookie. Wow.

I can fall out of a like a sugar cycle

where

um because I've not had sugar in a

while, I don't I don't want sugar. Yeah.

So, what I'm asking there is does that

sugar craving How long does that last?

Good question. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, absolutely.

Cuz I've wondered if it was like a

couple of day like if I've not had sugar

for 3 days, then I don't have the

cravings anymore. Or is it shorter than

that?

Well, listen, from the studies we know a

few things. We know that one, like if

you have a cookie

so, cookies contain

you know, sugar and starches. And sugar

and starches are what increase your

glucose levels in your blood.

So, when you have a cookie, up glucose

spike, okay?

Increasing concentration, and then a

glucose drop after the spike. This drop

has been shown to activate the craving

center in your brain, literally telling

you

Uh-huh. Steven

find something else to eat that's sweet

ASAP.

Go back to the drawer. Yeah, so your

brain

controls

that part

of your psyche. Like your brain is

telling you to go find something else

that is sweet.

And so, when people have cravings, you

know, they often may feel something

like, "Oh, I feel guilty. I feel

ashamed. I have no willpower. Like I'm

so weak." I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no. It's not your fault.

It's absolutely not your fault. The

craving you're experiencing now might

have been caused, usually by breakfast,

by the way, by the breakfast that you

had or the thing you ate a couple hours

ago. And I call that sort of starting

the the sugar addiction cycle, right?"

So, let's say it's just one day. You

have the cookie, spike, drop, you crave

something else. Then, if you keep having

spikes for 1 day, 2 day, 3 day, 4 days,

it's very possible that on day 4, you

know, that particular drop for some

reason is making you want to have a

cookie. Most of us are on this glucose

roller coaster and have cravings

multiple times a day.

I knew it wasn't my fault. It's not your

fault, babe. I knew it wasn't my fault.

It's not your fault. And then something

else that makes that even less your

fault is that when we eat something

sweet, it releases a molecule called

dopamine in our brain. And dopamine is a

pleasure molecule. It's the molecule

that gets released when we have sex,

when we play video games, when we do

like illegal drugs.

Humans love dopamine. And so, when you

eat sugar or something sweet, it's a

really easy way to get a hit. And

dopamine is is addictive. So, you have

those two things happening

that Definitely, you know, when you cut

out sugar completely, you realize those

cravings go away because you no longer

have the spikes and the dopamine

addiction going on.

Some people will hear that and go,

"It sounds like my body is sabotaging

me."

Mhm. Do you see what I mean? It's cuz

that's kind of how

Absolutely. And that breaks my heart.

Your body just wants you to stay alive.

Like your body is not sabotaging you.

But unfortunately, when we don't realize

that the way we're eating is causing

some of these symptoms, we might feel

like our body is fighting us. We might

feel like, "Oh, my body hates me. My

body's always doing this." Blah, blah.

I'm like, "Listen, your body is speaking

to you. All those symptoms you're

feeling, those cravings, the acne, the,

you know, irregular energy levels, all

these hormonal issues, whatever, those

are actually messages coming from your

body telling you, 'Hey, Steven, there's

a glucose roller coaster happening here.

Like help me fix it.'"

I think your body wants you to work in

partnership with it and is trying to

alert you with all of these symptoms.

So, instead of like blaming our body or

feeling like, "Ugh, bad body for doing

this and that." If you shift it a little

bit, you're like, "Okay

let me balance my glucose levels and

learn how to do this in an easy way."

And then, as you balance them, you see

that all these symptoms go away.

And you feel like, "Oh, I'm a friend

with my body now. I'm taking care of it.

It's taking care of me." And that was a

big realization for me in my health

journey. Because when I was having those

mental health issues, I felt exactly

like that. I was like, "Why is this

happening? Like what did I do?" You

know, and it was actually my body trying

to tell me that there was lots of things

that were going wrong. One of them being

my glucose levels. So, anyway, yes.

Am I right in thinking that

my body is not built or designed for the

world that it currently lives in, and

that's part of the

the battle like

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because it just

if you look at, for example, glucose

levels, right? Like

the way nature intended us to consume

glucose was in plants, right?

And when we consume something sweet, it

was usually in a piece of fruit.

But pieces of fruit back in the day when

nature created them, they were much

smaller, much less sweet. They had way

more seeds and fiber in them. So, they

didn't create that big of a glucose

spike. But human beings, because of this

desire for sweetness and pleasure, have

been breeding plants and fruits to be

extra sweet, extra juicy. So, the

bananas and the oranges you see today

are not natural at all. They're the

results of millennia of breeding. A

little bit like how we took gray wolves

and we bred them into Chihuahuas for

fun, basically. Chihuahuas are not like

natural animals, right? They're the

result of breeding. We did the same

thing for a lot of pieces of fruit. And

then, humans were like

"How can we make this go even further?

How about we extract the sugar from the

fruit, get rid of all that fiber and

water stuff, and concentrate it into

table sugar? And then how about we put

that in drinks and make like sodas or

fruit juice, you know?" So, as human

beings, we've created a food landscape

that is 100% causing all these glucose

spikes. And my philosophy today is not

get rid of sugar, don't eat sugar

anymore. I'm more like, "Okay, sugar is

everywhere. We love it. It gives us

pleasure. Let's learn to eat it in a way

that doesn't cause these spikes and

doesn't harm our physical or mental

health so much."

We're going to get into exactly how to

do that. I want to go a little bit back

upstream. We were talking about the

symptoms.

Absolutely. So, we you've covered the

cravings. Mhm. Um what are the

Give me some of the the short and the

long-term symptoms of these

the glucose roller coaster. And then I

want to know what glucose is cuz that's

probably a better place to start.

No, no, I think symptoms is cool because

most people will recognize a lot of

these in their own lives. So, cravings

is the most common one. Then unsteady

energy levels.

So, feeling tired throughout the day,

maybe you have chronic fatigue, maybe

you need a lot of coffee to get through

the day, you know, maybe playing with

your kids is is exhausting, picking up

the groceries is exhausting. Just like

you're tired, you know, you're eating,

but you're tired. Very common symptom.

And we'll get into why that happens

maybe in a bit.

Those are the two most common short-term

ones.

Then What about memory?

Ah, that's a good question. So, the more

glucose spikes you have, the more the

neurons in your brain

are going to work like less well. So,

one of the most common symptoms of

glucose spikes on the brain is actually

brain fog. Ah, okay. So, feeling like

you can't really remember stuff too

well.

Um everything's a little bit blurry.

That's basically your neurons not being

able to communicate as quickly as they

usually do. And it's often felt as brain

fog. But then, there's a huge link

between glucose and long-term brain

problems like dementia and Alzheimer's.

Some people even call Alzheimer's type 3

diabetes because it's so linked to your

glucose levels. So, the brain If you

want your brain to be in optimal top

shape steadying your glucose levels is

really key. What if I want to sleep like

a baby? Yeah, absolutely, also. So, the

more spikes you have, the less restful

and deep your sleep will be.

So, if you want to sleep like a baby,

absolutely. If you're somebody going

through menopause and you want to reduce

menopause symptoms, also looking at your

glucose levels is a very important place

to start because the more spikes we

have, the worse those symptoms get.

Talking about hormones, there's also a

huge link between glucose levels and

fertility.

So, in females today, you know, there's

more and more rates of infertility.

There's something called polycystic

ovarian syndrome, which is more and more

common. That also is extremely linked to

your glucose levels. And again, the

first place to look if you want to fix

your hormones is balancing your glucose.

Other stuff, and there's a lot of

symptoms here because glucose affects

every single system in the body. So,

there's not a single disease or

condition that doesn't get better when

you balance your glucose levels,

essentially. But I'll go into a few more

um

examples. Skin.

So

inflammation

is a direct consequence of glucose

spikes. And on the on the skin,

inflammation can be seen as acne,

eczema, psoriasis. I have no idea what

You know, there's two words that I've

just exploded into like popular

conversation over the last I'm going to

say 12 months. But you know, I'm not

that deep to to know how long this

conversation's has happening. But one of

those words is the word glucose. I've

just seen it everywhere all of a sudden,

and the second word which I've seen even

in more places is that word you just

used, inflammation.

Yeah. What is inflammation?

Inflammation is a is a stress response

from your body that is supposed to help

you and clean things up. So, for

example, when you get sick when there's

a virus or bug that's attacking you,

your body

essentially creates inflammation to

combat that enemy.

The problem is

inflammation now often happens against

your own body or just like chronically

at a low level, and that causes many

many many issues. So, it's a state of

stress of the body.

And it happens in all of us It can It

can happen in all of the cells in our

body. Absolutely. And today three out of

five people in the world will die of an

inflammation-based

disease. Three out of five?

Three out of five. The World Health

Organization calls inflammation like one

of the biggest problems of our century.

It's basically just

a way to say that your body is not

healthy. There's problems going on

within cuz inflammation can be caused by

so many things, you know, by like

smoking, alcohol, glucose spikes,

stress, environmental toxins. It's just

like a state

of unhealth of your body, if you will.

And so, on the skin the most common sort

of visible consequences of that

inflammation are acne, psoriasis,

eczema.

Um and then talking about skin, so

the more glucose spikes you have in your

body, the faster you age. And that shows

on your skin as wrinkles, but also on

the insides, things slowly

deteriorate and break down.

And there's a funny uh image for this.

So, from the moment you're born,

your body is slowly cooking.

You slowly cook.

Let me explain. Like a chicken in the

oven from the moment you're born. And

then when you're fully cooked, you die.

Your face.

This concept of cooking is basically

aging, and it's the technical term for

it is called glycation.

And the more glucose spikes you have,

the faster this process happens. So, if

you want to age less quickly, and if,

you know, when you look at two people

who are 65, one is clearly younger than

the other like biologically, right? And

you can affect you can impact how

quickly that aging is going on. One of

the ways being through reducing your

glucose spikes.

Okay, and then long term we talked about

type 2 diabetes being the leading sort

of long-term condition linked to glucose

levels. So, the more glucose spikes you

have, the faster you'll develop

prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. And

then finally, I'll also mention that

glucose levels are linked to cancer and

heart disease. So, essentially to to

give you a summary,

if you have a lot of glucose spikes,

things are not going to go super well.

You're going to have lots of symptoms

short term, medium term, long term.

If you currently feel

if you're like, I could I could feel

better than I do,

you know, which most of us probably

feel,

then balancing your glucose levels is a

really really freaking important place

to start. It's like the the base

It's the base layer of your physical and

mental health. It's really key. But most

of us don't have that sorted.

So, to summarize

Yeah. the short and long-term symptoms

there

that I've written down here.

Short-term symptoms cons If you If we

aren't able to flatten our glucose

levels, Yeah. then we face the chance of

having constant hunger and cravings,

chronic fatigue, poor sleep, colds.

We talked You talked a little bit about

the immune system and the implications

there. Men- Brain fog you described as

long-term brain fog. Um longer-term

effects, acne, aging, arthritis,

Alzheimer's, dementia, cancer risk,

mental health, infertility challenges.

Yeah, and to be clear like glucose is

not everything, right? There is many

things that matter in our health like

emotional connection, medical care, you

know, sleep, stress, exercise, but

learning to balance your glucose levels

is like

learning

Okay, I have a fun I have a fun image to

use for this. It's like imagine you're

walking into an airplane,

and before you go sit to your at your

seat, you kind of peek into the cockpit

and you're like, "Whoa, lots of buttons

in that cockpit, on the ceiling, on the

sides. There's all these levers." You're

like, "Ooh, I'm happy I don't have to

fly this plane." You're the passenger,

right?

You're happy the pilots know what

they're doing.

In the case of our our body,

it's interesting because we're both the

passenger. We feel what's going on, you

know, we're kind of victims to what's

going on, but we're also the pilots.

We're in charge of our decisions. We

decide what we eat, what we do, but

often we have no clue how to fly the

plane. We have no idea how our body

works. So, it becomes very complicated

to figure out where to start, and we

have all these opinions, there's

marketing, blah blah, and it can be

really confusing and and and quite

daunting. So, to me, learning to balance

your glucose levels is like learning

about the most important lever in the

cockpit of the plane. It's like, if you

know about this lever,

you can take off, you can fly, you can

land. It's like the most important

thing, and it will help you get to a

point where you're kind of cruising and

you're like, "Okay, I kind of have a

handle on things. My symptoms are kind

of getting better." So, to me that's

that's the way to to think about it.

So, this begs the question, which I

probably should have started with, which

is what is glucose? Now, in my brain,

Yeah, tell me what you think.

which is a slightly um undeveloped brain

on this subject matter. Um I've just

always thought of it as sugar. Yeah. So,

I've just thought of it as the sugar I

eat is turned into this thing called

glucose,

and then the glucose runs around in my

body in my blood and seeps into

everything. Yeah.

Well, that's a pretty That's a pretty

pretty good

um like high-level

definition.

Um and I think that's what most people

who know a little bit about the topic um

think. So, let me explain so you know

exactly what it is because that

definition, while it's what most people

think, it's actually a bit incomplete.

So, I'm going to give you like

the 101 basics Please. so you understand

what's going on.

Explain it like a 10-year-old.

Absolutely. So,

glucose

is your body's favorite source of

energy.

Every single cell in your body uses

glucose for energy. So, you know, right

now both of our heart cells are using

glucose to pump, your brain cells are

using glucose to think and speak, my you

know, hand cells are using glucose to

move, etc. So, every part of your body

uses glucose for energy. It's really

really important.

And the main way that us as human

beings, we give our body this important

substance is through eating foods, and

specifically through eating two

categories of foods.

Starchy foods, so that's like bread,

pasta, rice, potatoes, and sweet foods.

Anything from your favorite cookie to a

banana to a Coca-Cola, anything sweet.

So, starchy and sweet foods contain

glucose, and when we eat them, the

glucose is given to our body.

So, now you might think, "Okay, I want

energy, right? My body I want to give my

body as much energy as possible, right?

I want I want to feel good. I want to

have energy." So, you might think,

"Okay, I should eat as much starchy and

sweet foods as possible to give my body

as much energy as possible.

The cookies are good for me.

Well, this is where the whole logic

thing breaks down.

It's a bit like plants.

So, let's say I go on vacation and I'm

like, "Steven, can you please take care

of my houseplants?" You'll be like, "Of

course, Jessie. My My pleasure. I would

love to help you." So,

you would go to

So, you would go to my house and give my

plants a little bit of water, right? Cuz

you know the plants need some water.

But if you gave the plants too much

water,

they would end up drowning and dying,

and I would come back from my vacation

and my my plants would be dead. So, the

plant got a bit too much of a good

thing, and that caused issues. The human

body is the same. Some glucose is good.

Too much glucose causes all these

issues. And most of us are eating in a

way that gives way too much glucose too

quickly to our body, and that's why we

feel all these symptoms.

So, what's going on at a cellular level

when I flood my body with

glucose?

So, there are three sort of main

processes that I want to tell you about

on this topic. So, when you flood your

body with too much glucose too quickly,

what happens is what I call a glucose

spike. So, a glucose spike is just

simply a sort of rapid increase in how

much glucose is in your system. So, it

goes If you have a glucose monitor, you

can kind of see it. It goes like whoop.

Just goes up really fast, the

concentration.

And so, the first thing that we need to

look at is your mito- mitochondria.

So, your mitochondria are like little um

sort of oval organelles inside of your

cells, and they kind of have this

squiggly line in the middle when we

represent them in drawings. These

mitochondria are in charge of turning

glucose into energy. They're super

freaking important. They take the

glucose from the food, and they do some

magic and outputs energy so you can do

stuff like, I don't know, walk, run,

think, whatever.

So, when a glucose spike happens,

all of that glucose heads straight to

the mitochondria because that's where it

gets processed, right?

And your mitochondria, unfortunately,

while they like a steady influx of

glucose,

during a spike, when you give them way

too much glucose way too quickly, they

kind of like shut down. They're like, "I

just

too am TMI. I cannot Too much

information. Like, I can't deal with

this." They sort of go on strike. They

get stressed out um and they kind of

break down. So, that's a real problem

because you just ate all this food cuz

you were like, "I want to give my body

energy, right?" Sugar in the morning,

energy. Actually, on the inside, your

mitochondria, the very things

responsible for making energy, they

break down when you give them too much

glucose to handle. So, that's the first

thing that happens. And when your

mitochondria break down,

it increases how much stress there is in

your body. And it increases that thing

we talked about, inflammation, which is

not good and creates a lot of like

terrain for a lot of diseases to happen.

So, that's the first thing that

happened. Glucose spikes, mitochondria

break down, and you get tired.

Not good.

Second thing that happens is this thing

called glycation that I explained, which

is aging. The more spikes you have, the

more glycation happens quickly, the

faster you age. On the outside with your

wrinkles, but also on the inside. So,

the kayak when you're 65 is going to get

harder and harder the more glycation

happens when you're young, for example.

And then finally, so your body really

wants to keep you alive, as I mentioned.

Like, your body is pretty freaking

awesome and it's really trying to

protect you. And so it has a technique

that it deploys when a glucose spike is

happening to get that level of glucose

down because it knows like, "Oof, when

glucose is very high, like all this bad

stuff happens. So, let me get that to go

down."

Your body releases something called

insulin, which comes from your pancreas,

and we love insulin. She's dope. She

grabs all the extra glucose and she

stores it away into your muscles, into

your liver, and into your fat cells. And

that's one of the ways that you gain fat

on your body is by having insulin take

this extra glucose and store it away.

Can't she not just put it in my muscles?

Unfortunately,

I'll call her and ask, but no,

unfortunately, you can't decide where it

goes. Um

and then while insulin is cool, like

long-term, too much insulin is the cause

of type 2 diabetes. So, while she's

helpful in the short term, long-term,

she causes all sorts of issues,

especially connected to fertility, which

is also

um

something that we might want to talk

about, really fascinating topic. Is Is

that Is that therefore conceivable? You

know, I've got a friend that had um

polycystic ovaries

and

um she said on a podcast that she has

recently that she used to have a problem

with um binge eating. Mhm.

She talked about and I as you said as

you said that I kind of connected the

two dots that her insulin spikes

from her binge eating challenges might

have had an impact on the polycystic

ovaries Mhm.

and the infertility challenges she'd

had. She'd um

She had very, very irregular periods to

the point that at one point her period

stopped completely. And I was just

wondering if there's obviously we can't

diagnose someone we don't know, but I'm

just saying is there is there a link

there potentially?

Well, listen, it's hard for me to say,

but um

what we do know is that, you know,

polycystic ovarian syndrome is very

tightly linked to glucose. So, the more

spikes you have,

I mean, potentially from the eating

disorder, but also just a lot of people,

even without an eating disorder, have

enough spikes to cause this issue. The

more spikes you have, the more insulin

you have in your body, and then the more

insulin you have in a female body, the

higher testosterone levels get. Uh-huh.

And so PCOS, polycystic ovarian

syndrome, is kind of like a grouping of

symptoms. So, um polycystic ovaries,

missed periods, balding on the head,

hair growth on the face, acne, etc. that

we kind of put into this package of

like, "This is PCOS." Actually, a lot of

these are symptoms of just excess

testosterone in a female body.

Testosterone being the male sex hormone.

So, again, if you have PCOS, it's very

important to balance your glucose levels

to get that testosterone down. It's like

the first thing to look at, the first

thing to fix. And I get on a daily basis

messages from readers who had PCOS, used

the hacks that I share, don't have PCOS

anymore, got their periods back, were

able to conceive naturally, etc. So,

very tightly linked, glucose and

hormones.

This This

drug insulin, so it takes the

takes the glucose and it's

And by the way, it's not really a drug.

It's like something your body makes. But

then you can also take it um

as a drug if you have diabetes, for

example. So, this chemical insulin, it

stores stores the glucose in my my fat,

in my muscles, in my liver.

Yeah. Um how does that how does it have

an impact then on weight gain and weight

loss? Mhm.

I've just had a glucose spike, insulin's

been deployed. She's doing her work.

She's storing it in all those places.

Does that impact my ability to gain and

lose weight?

Absolutely. So, when there's a lot of

insulin around, insulin, when she's

around, she's like, "Okay, everybody,

stop. We're only going to be putting

stuff into fat cells. Nothing can come

out of fat cells." So, when

when there's high insulin levels, your

fat cells become like a one-way street.

Things can go in

to make them grow in size and quantity,

so it's one of the ways you gain fat on

your body, and nothing can come out. And

we when people say like, "I want to lose

fat on my body," what they're really

saying is, "I want to empty my fat cells

so that, you know, my waist size reduces

at the same time." So, yes, the more

insulin, the harder it is to actually

lose any fat.

I get it.

I I think I get it now. Um is there

anything that's like missing from that

that picture you've painted for me? I I

now understand the relationship between

what I put in my mouth, the impact that

has on my glucose levels. It causes

spikes and dips. That causes a bunch of

short- and long-term consequences

because of what's going on in my

mitochondria and insulin. Is there Is

there a next step in that process that I

need to be aware of? So, my insulin is

now raised, right? She's She's shut down

my fat cells. She's doing her thing.

She's storing it away. Mhm.

It Is it the chronic So, the chronic um

deployment of insulin is what I think

they call the type 2 diabetes, right?

Yeah, it's called insulin resistance.

So, when you have a lot of insulin, it's

a bit like

stops working, basically. Exactly. It's

like coffee.

Right.

Right? Like, first thing you drink

coffee, you're like, "Whoa!"

And then over time, the same amount of

coffee doesn't do as much to you. Same

with insulin. So, over time your body

becomes less sensitive to it. It doesn't

really obey it anymore very well. And

that's called insulin resistance, and

that then leads to type 2 diabetes. But

I think you got a pretty good overview

of, you know,

we eat food,

creates glucose spikes, all of these

biochemical processes, then our body

experiences these symptoms, right? We

experience these symptoms of glucose

spikes. And I think the important thing

to remember is that these symptoms,

again, they're messages, right? They're

not something that's happening randomly

just to be annoying. Your body is not

against you. Your body is just trying to

keep you alive. But as a consequence of

maybe some of the ways you're eating,

all these symptoms are taking place.

Quick word from one of our sponsors. I

have to say, I've been on a bit of a

journey with this brand because when I

started my business in new territories,

when we first moved Social Chain to the

to New York City, the first place we

went to was WeWork. We moved four of our

team members out to New York City and we

built the business from there. Um

I have to say there's something magical

about WeWorks. I've spent the last two

or three weeks in LA in a WeWork, and as

you walk in the front door every day,

it's almost like that sense of

community, that sense of magic,

excitement, camaraderie is tangible. And

you don't get that when you're working

at home. You don't get that often when

you're sat in your bed on your laptop.

There's something about getting out and

getting into a WeWork that makes me feel

a sense of entrepreneurship and and

creativity and building. And the way

that WeWorks are designed, both both in

the way that they offer subscriptions so

that you can work, you know, on demand,

but also that the flexibility of the

contracts means that it's just the

perfect place for businesses to scale

their companies. And if you haven't

checked out WeWork and you want to, you

can go to we.co/ceo

and there you can get 50% off a trial

day at WeWork close to you. Ladies and

gentlemen, our newest brand partnership

will come as no surprise to regular

listeners on this podcast. The first

episode of 2023,

I was joined by the incredible Professor

Tim Spector to hear more about his work

at a company called Zoe using data to

understand our bodies better so that we

can live more fulfilled, higher

potential lives.

Zoe was born from the truth that our

overall health is impacted by our gut

health. By helping you to understand how

your body's working, Zoe can help you to

reduce your risk of long-term disease

and increase your energy levels. For me,

this is the future, and that is why I

became an investor in the company, and

that is why they are now a sponsor of

this podcast. You can read up about

everything they're doing, and you can

pre-order your Zoe program at

joinzoe.com,

and they've been kind enough to offer an

exclusive 10% off code CEO10. So, you

can put that code in at checkout, CEO10.

Thank you so much. Let's get back to the

episode.

If this gluco roller coaster is bad for

me,

Yeah. the spikes and the crashes, how

does one flatten the glucose curve? In

your book, you talk about these 10

hacks.

Yeah.

Can we go through some of these hacks to

That's for sure. I think that's the most

important, really, because

So, hack one. Hack one, yeah. Eat food

in the right order.

Yeah.

What did you mean by that?

So,

to give some context, like all the hacks

in my books,

they're just summaries

of scientific studies. So, when I was

going really deep into all the science,

I found, you know, all these symptoms

and conditions linked to spikes, and I

found also these amazing ways we could

still eat everything we loved,

but without creating these spikes,

right? So, still eating everything you

love, but reducing any symptoms or any

problems you might be having physically

or mentally. Okay, so eat your food in

the right order.

So, next time you're faced with a meal,

listeners, next time you're faced with a

meal,

there's something amazing that you

should know. If you eat the ingredients

in the meal in a specific order, you can

reduce the glucose spike of that meal by

up to 75%

without changing

how much you're eating, what you're

eating. Just the order has a massive

impact on your glucose. So you can still

eat the same meal with way less spikes

and way less consequences. So the right

order is

veggies first. I should make a t-shirt.

Veggies first.

Proteins and fats second and starches

and sugars last. So Let's take an

example of a meal maybe.

Steven, what's a typical meal you have

and then we'll add stuff for the

example.

Cookies. Okay, so let's say cookies.

That's your sugars. Let's say you're

having cookies. Let's say I don't know,

you eat fish?

Yeah. Okay, let's say

everything to be honest. I just I'm so

other than snails. I still got a little

bit of a psychological issue there, but

I've never tried snails and I'm French.

Really? I just it just grosses me out.

something you need to figure out.

Okay, so let's say you have like some

fish, some broccoli, some pasta, some

olive oil and avocado and a cookie. So

the right order for your glucose levels

is going to be the broccoli first, then

the fish, then the pasta and the cookie

and the avocado and olive oil you can

kind of have it like with the with the

fish.

Now this is an interesting like

theoretical

thing to understand. It might not always

be very practical to just separate out

your meal and be like, okay, this first,

that then, that then. But there's a few

things you should know. Number one, you

don't actually have to wait between any

of these foods. You can just eat them

one after the other and still get the

amazing impact on your glucose levels.

And number two really the most important

thing here that we need to learn from

this scientific study is that the

veggies should come first. So what I do

now and what you know, my community does

is that we all have always have a veggie

starter at the beginning of a meal

and then we just eat the rest of the

meal kind of normally. And that already

has a massive impact on your glucose

levels and how you're going to feel. A

lot of people when they

do it in the

do it very much in the opposite order in

terms of like kind of they leave the

veggies on the side of the plate.

You know, I think when I was a kid I'd

go for whatever was tasty first and then

Yeah. when the

whatever the green stuff

I always went for the pasta first.

Yeah, exactly. And then it was like a

requirement. So often parents will say

eat the [ __ ] greens as well before

you get your dessert, you know.

That's interesting. I mean although in

restaurants obviously dessert comes last

which is probably And in restaurants

also, you know, bread usually comes

first. Oh yeah. Let me explain why it's

so important to avoid having the bread

first. So bread is a starch.

And as I explained, you know, there's

starches and sugars and those are the

two things that turn into glucose when

we digest them. And so when we eat

something that contains glucose on an

empty stomach, so when we eat it first

like a piece of bread

the starch breaks down into glucose

molecules in your stomach and then it

shoop makes its way super quickly into

your intestine and your bloodstream cuz

there's nothing stopping it. There's

like, hey, just like roller coaster

So it goes straight from your mouth to

your bloodstream. So very quickly the

glucose makes its way to your

bloodstream and increases the

concentration and causes a spike. Now if

you start your meal with veggies

instead, this is what happens.

Veggies contain another

superwoman

and I I love how all my molecules and

substances are female, but anyway, she's

a superwoman fiber.

Have you heard of fiber before?

You love fiber. So veggies contain fiber

and fiber when we eat it at the

beginning of a meal, she does something

absolutely amazing.

When she arrives first in your stomach

and digestive tract she makes its way

from your stomach to your upper

intestine and there she deploys itself

like onto the walls of your intestine

like in a cool viscous protective mesh

and just stays there protecting you.

That viscous mesh that fiber has created

is then going to reduce the spike of

your meal because all the glucose

molecules arriving later on from like

the pasta for example are not going to

be able to make their way as quickly and

as much through your intestine into your

bloodstream because of the fiber shield

the glucose molecules are going to take

way longer to make their way into your

bloodstream. As a result you get a

smaller spike. But you still ate the

same food.

What a woman.

veggies first. I know, she's amazing.

So I so I

when I go to a restaurant, you know, you

go to some restaurants they give you

bread, others like the Japanese ones

give you like edamame.

Yeah, that's much better, yeah. That's a

that's a veggie, right? So

any type of veggie is going to be really

helpful. And I try to make it make up

about like 30% of my meal and it can be

anything. They can be raw, they can be

cooked. Um in my new book I have like 35

amazing veggie starter recipes. You can

dress them, you can put you know some I

don't know, olive oil, vinegar, lemon,

cheese, whatever onto it to make that

veggie starter feel really delicious

because it's going to protect you so

much. And if you're somebody who suffers

from cravings in the afternoon

or unsteady energy, I think this hack is

a really powerful one to try out. I

often you know, I'm a speed eater, I'm

going to be honest. I'm not going to I'm

not going to lie to you. I am I tend to

eat my meals super quick and I think the

excuse I tell myself [ __ ] or not is

that because I'm busy I just like

Yeah, I inhale them.

yeah, yeah. And when I'm I I know

because when I if I eat something say

with my girlfriend or whatever she's she

she I mean she like literally blesses

the food with her hands first and then

she like takes her time. I eat super

fast too. I like actually like it's a

competition. You know, like

um

and she's often said to me, she's like,

"Pete, just slow down. Like just

and um

one of the points that someone raised to

me at some point about my like super

fast eating habit

was that it is bad for me. Mhm. Now I'm

wondering from what you said there if

the speed in which we has an impact on

our glucose spikes as well. If I ate

slower, could I flatten the curve?

Absolutely, baby. Yes. Really?

Yes. She's right.

Well, yes. Then again, listen, I'm a

very strong proponent of like pick your

battles, right? And like yes, we could

all do better in so many different ways,

but also, you know,

you're a speed eater, that's fine. Maybe

you just deal with that.

trying to live my best life.

Okay, so if you want to slow down aging

and do all that. So you can do two

things. You can either

just eat as quickly as you want, but add

a veggie starter at the beginning of

your meal, right? That already is going

to have very powerful impact on your

glucose.

I would argue it probably will have a

stronger impact than just eating the

same meal more slowly cuz you're not

going to eat the meal over like two

hours, right? You might go from like

three minutes to eight minutes.

It's not that big of a difference. The

veggie starter will have a much bigger

impact on your glucose than just

increasing that by a few minutes.

Do you remember hack number three from

your book? Uh stop counting calories?

That's a ghost writer check.

I can confirm I can confirm you wrote

your book.

I did. I had so much fun writing the

book. Uh yeah.

that one? Well

so what do you know about calories?

Very little. Yeah, it's fine. But tell

me tell me like the what I what I what I

think they are.

Yeah. Or just generally like

It's a thing, yes. thermo

I'm talking like a much simpler

definition. Like what's a calorie?

Oh sure, you can if you want.

Please.

It's like a thermonuclear reaction where

a calorie is the measure of how much

heat is required to break down a

molecule of

food. That's really not bad. Thank you.

Wow. You really should give yourself

more credit cuz when before we started

you were like, I know nothing about food

and biochemistry. Actually you know some

pretty good stuff. Well, yeah. I I know

from just like doing this podcast. So

and it's

this is why I really do it cuz I'm for

very selfish reasons and I realize that

it's helping a lot of other people that

are also idiots. Um but but that's

that's what I know from guests I've sat

here. So that's my definition of a

calorie. Fantastic. So I think a lot of

people will also say like, oh yeah,

calories are bad. Like I need to eat not

too many calories otherwise bad stuff

happens and I gain weight or whatever.

So I want you to know

how calories were actually invented and

measured because

it is completely

mind-boggling.

So the way that scientists first started

measuring the calories in a food is the

following.

Okay, so let's use our imagination here.

The scientists, they took a box, okay,

and they put a food in that box. Let's

say that cookie. They put the cookie in

a box.

Then they put this box with the cookie

in it

under I mean in another box that

contains water. So they submerge the

cookie box in water, okay? And then

somehow they light the cookie inside the

small box on fire.

They burn the cookie and they measure by

how many degrees the water the

surrounding water increases in

temperature.

That is how we measured calories.

Literally measuring how much heat

happens when we burn that food.

So as a result you might say, okay,

well, you know,

you might test a cookie in this setting

and you might test it against I don't

know, an avocado.

And you might see that the temperature

in that big box

ink sorry, increases by as many degrees

for both the cookie and the avocado. So

you, you know, from a calorie

perspective you'd say these two foods

contain the same number of calories.

But that's a really reductive way of

thinking about food. It's almost like

thinking these two books are both 500

pages, therefore they're the same.

You see how that's a problem?

The number of pages in a book doesn't

tell us anything about what the book is

about, who wrote it, what are the words,

what's the message, no clue. The

calories in a food also gives us no

information about what's actually in the

food. How is that food going to impact

how I feel, my physical health, my

mental health, my glucose levels?

So

I want to teach people about the

in the food. So they actually start

recognizing like, "Oh, that food is

going to make a spike. That food is

not." And teaching them hacks so they

can, you know, improve their health. And

so hack number three is called stop

counting calories because essentially

what I found is that if people just

focus on balancing their glucose levels

and using the hacks to do that

and just completely stop counting

calories, their health improves

significantly.

And it's a much nicer world to live in

than a world of calorie counting.

Because something else you should know,

two people can be eating the exact same

number of calories. Let's say, you know,

2,000 calories a day.

But if one person is eating in a way

that causes all these spikes

and the other one isn't, the spiky 2,000

calorie person is going to be full of

cravings, exhausted,

inflamed, aging faster, not sleeping as

well, could have mental health issues,

could have PCOS, yeah, could be gaining

weight, like

it's not the same thing. The calories

are not really what matters. We need to

learn about how the food is actually

affecting us.

Interesting. I find that so interesting

because

I was thinking as you were speaking, you

answered it there at the end, that a lot

of the the reason why people do count

calories is for weight loss or weight,

you know, gain reasons.

Mhm.

Um but because of the glucose spikes in

one set of 2,000 calories, one meal that

will give me 2,000 calories,

it'll have a significant impact on the

insulin Yeah. levels

on how you're feeling and how you're

doing and how difficult you know, that

fat loss is or not.

How much of a good time you're having

along the way.

Mhm. That's the nuance that really, you

know, people use calorie counting as a

tool, I guess, but that's the nuance

that's really missing if you really want

to achieve any of those goals for

whatever reason you have.

Absolutely. And then, you know,

restricting calories

of course, like if you go from 2,000

calories to I don't know how many, but

fewer than that, you're essentially

reducing how much you're eating, right?

So yes, it's possible that'll lead to

weight loss.

But like one, um that's not really

sustainable. Like do you really want to

count calories

for the rest of your life? Like that

just

I don't know, that feels really

difficult to me. Um and second, it

doesn't tell you again like what you're

eating. So you're reducing quantity. So

yeah, that can lead to consequences, but

it might not be improving your health at

all. You might be losing weight on your

body, but actually, you know, increasing

the problems and the symptoms and the

conditions. So I really hope people stop

counting calories and through this

science just kind of learn

how to approach the food landscape and

how to approach food habits in a way

that heals them from everything they

want to heal from without the sort of

calorie thing.

Breakfast. Yeah. What do you have for

breakfast, Steven? Today? Yeah.

Uh nothing yet today. I I was going so I

was actually I ordered food, right?

To this this wonderful studio here in

London. Um

at 10:30 a.m. And it said it would take

a half an hour to get here.

And it got here when you arrived.

Mhm. Now I looked at it and I thought if

I eat this

then I'm going to have some kind of like

dump halfway through this conversation.

So it's just sat.

Can I ask what you ordered?

No. Okay.

Because some foods some breakfast foods

will have that impact and make you feel

tired.

Um

so I ordered a

breakfast

wraps. It's got like eggs, avocados,

bacon

in it and it's like a gluten-free

wrap

thing. And I was looking at it thinking

cuz of this bread, I think the bread is

probably going to make me have a dump

and I don't ever want to have like a

energy dump halfway through a

conversation. I don't want to fall

asleep, you know, that's rude.

That would be yeah. Midway through the

conversation. So I've not eaten yet.

Interesting.

I had coffee. So actually, you know,

your choice is is a pretty good one in

terms of glucose. So the main thing we

want to do to steady our glucose levels

is have a savory breakfast instead of a

sweet one.

So we want to have a breakfast that

contains protein, you know, like eggs,

fish, meat, protein powder, maybe some

fat like the avocado, that's fantastic,

and maybe some fiber if you want to add

some veggies in there. And then any sort

of like breads or starches or potatoes

should be there just for taste. It

should not be the centerpiece of the

breakfast. And then importantly,

for a savory breakfast that keeps your

glucose levels steady,

we shouldn't eat anything sweet

at all for breakfast except whole fruit

if we want some. What's the difference

between whole fruit and whatever isn't

whole fruit? Ooh. Well, you know, as I

explained like fruit has been bred by

humans for a super long time to be extra

sweet, extra juicy. So today when you

look at an apple, for example,

it's really been pumped full of

sweetness and sugar and made really easy

to eat. I had this conversation this

week with my partner. Um

she was offering me some fruit. And

because now I'm like a food, you know,

arrogant little food guy cuz of all

these conversations I've had, I was

like, "Babe,

it's got sugar in it and they've bred it

and and then she was like, "Really?" And

we had a conversation about it and I

Googled it and I said um I Googled like

the historic banana and apple and the

pear and I showed her and she was like,

"What?" Mhm. Because they they

obviously, you know, the fruit we have

today is so bright and big. Absolutely.

And easy to eat.

yeah, exactly. You peel it, but you

know.

And then I showed her some of these

pictures of these old bananas and

they're like tiny and they're like full

of seeds and stuff.

Full of seeds and tiny and actually

quite tart, you know.

Yeah, you would You wouldn't really eat

that many of them.

want to, yeah. And so even though fruit

has been bred for a super long time to

be extra sweet,

if you want to eat something sweet, it's

still the best thing to eat because of

the fiber that fruit contains. And as I

explained, you know, fiber is

protective. In whole in whole fruit.

fruit. So now here's the thing. While a

piece of whole fruit is the best thing

to eat if you want to eat something

sweet, the problem starts when we

denature that piece of whole fruit. When

we blend it, when we juice it, when we

dry it, when we puree it, so many

different things. So let's take for

example when you juice a piece of fruit.

Juicing is essentially

taking away all the fiber, get it

getting rid of all the fiber. The fiber

is like the the hard stuff, you know,