Begin Again Moments: Your Health Matters!

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0:44American Express Business Platinum. There's nothing like it. Based on total potential value of statement credits on select purchases and other benefits, enrollments required, monthly and other limits and terms apply. Learn more at americanexpress.com slash business dash platinum. I have said, and I knew it'd be a controversial line, but I really did mean it. Cancer saved my life. I was living at breakneck speed. Couldn't have children, IVF. What's at that job? Find a way. Phone somebody, you know, talk to your agent, hustle, you know. We can't have that job. Can you orchestrate this job? If you can't, Somebody won't commission that programme.

1:24Can you co-develop that series?

1:29Need to be in four different places? Yes, okay, we can do that. We can get a car on standby, then we can get on a plane. Revencible. Can do it. You can do it all. I lived that life. Sugar. Loved it. Loved sugar. Breakfast, lunch, in between lunch, dinner, after dinner. Sugary cereal, 11's donut, brownie on the road, pasta, carbs, refined sugar. You would have called yourself healthy though, right? I called myself healthy because I was slim and I exercised every now and again and I didn't have a problem with weight. Now I know I was far from healthy. So I know that you've had an issue with sugar as well.

2:08And I cannot impress upon people, the more experts you talk to about sugar and refined carbs. So the pastas and the pizzas and the breads, those are refined carbs that turn to glucose very, very quickly. Is that white bread or brown bread? Is bread fine? Refined bread. Sourdough, you might have, sourdough is fermented, so there's a difference and it has benefits. And people talk about that, but it's not what you want to do every day. No. So I have to tell you what sugar does to you. Sugar affects your immune system. Your immune system is present in every cell of your body. when you eat something refined, a refined sugar, a message comes from your gut.

2:49This is very simplified forms. I'm not a doctor. This is stuff that I've learned as well from a host of experts. It sends out a message and your immune system doesn't understand this onslaught of refined foods because that's not what we've evolved to eat. Whole foods, vegetables, nuts, seeds, meat, fish. I mean, there's a whole, you know, we could go vegan or not. There are all these debates you can go down. But whole foods, our bodies understand. Refined foods, sugars, sugary drinks, the immune system doesn't understand. So it has a choice. It can either break up the cell, which causes inflammation, or if it understands the food, the whole foods, it can replace and it can repair and replace.

3:31That's the good thing. No inflammation with that. Right. So it's inflammation that is causing the damage. And these foods cause long-term inflammation. And the only way I can describe it is sugar makes your blood sticky like Velcro, and then it doesn't work properly. And what you need to be doing is your immune system, we've all got thousands of cells, cancer cells to deal with every day. Your immune system needs to be working on those. It's busy with all the other stuff that you're doing, the toxins, the sugar. You're making your blood sticky. The immune system isn't working properly. You're clogging up your liver and other bits of yourself.

4:11You're basically jamming everything. By the way, also has an impact on your brain health. They're talking about diabetes three being Alzheimer's, sugar. And if you're constantly full of sugar, if your blood levels are very high with glucose because you're snacking the way I did, and it's always a refined carb or sugar, then you're also feeding your brain your brain needs glucose refined carb yes well and they're fried and they're fried food it's not great you can get I mean I hardly eat crisps anymore but I was just thinking that's also yeah it also affects your brain so not at the same level but what you've got is this inflammation going on everywhere and that is when disease makes its way into your life diabetes type 2 diabetes is on the rise it's going up and up and up it costs about 3 000 pounds a year to take care of somebody with type 2 diabetes and at the moment you've got people as young as 30 who are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and their life cost you can go blind it affects every organ in the liver you think that's the thing that people are like well it's you

5:20Davina McCall:know you can treat diabetes you can you can kind of take something for it but actually there's a a lot that goes on other complications from diabetes. You're at a much higher risk of cancer if you've got type 2 diabetes. Oh, really? So I went, okay, I'm not going to snack anymore. So I'm not going to eat in between meals because I don't want that sugary roller coaster and I don't want that constant flat line of sugar. So I stopped snacking, which I found easy to do after three weeks. It was hell for the first three weeks. So when you feel the pain, go for a walk or do something else. Jump up, do star jumps, phone a friend.

5:50It's sort of like an addiction, isn't it? It's like, distract yourself a little bit. Do something else, but don't succumb to the stacking. Stacking helps really moderate your spikes. So that's good. And change your breakfast. I do a double breakfast. I have eggs. I have avocado. I'll have a bit of protein for the night before, maybe some leftover chicken, free-range chicken, or some sustainably caught fish or a little bit of that. And I'll put that on my plate with my veggies. I drizzle my olive oil because it's good for my cancer. Polyphenols, high in polyphenols. Squeeze some lemon. great for the veggies mixed of greens big plate love it then my pudding is blueberries yes and berries my yogurt um i do a coconut yogurt and nuts and seeds and i but i love it and i eat about 11 and i really and people go where do you put it but they've always said to me you eat so much but i love that that carries me through till the evening amazing and i don't get sugary cravings it took about four weeks for that to become a habit yes and for that to make sense now when i have a sugary craving.

6:52I only eat the dark chocolate after I've eaten my main meal. Yes. And I will use dark chocolate and blueberries. And there are some really good keto things out there that are low carb. And they are naughty and they have got sugar in them, but they've got honey maybe or maple syrup. And I'm not saying they're healthy, but if you do want that sugary thing they're so much better than than zero cocoa milk bars which have got all this crap and emulsifiers and texturizers and all that in it cortisol is driven by stress and if you've got an inflamed body environment that's going to drive the cortisol as well so stress is something that isn't spoken about enough when it comes to health.

7:44One of my close friends who was diagnosed with breast cancer, her very old school oncologist, who's not into the nutrition and the genetics, all the stuff I care about. But he said to her, stress, handle your stress. Don't be stressed.

7:59Davina McCall:I wonder if you're a bit like me in that we're very busy. You've got lots of things, hustle, hustle. I don't think I'm stressed. But you are. I don't know. Am I stressed? Yes, we are stressed. We are. We are because of our lives. Show me somebody in today's world that isn't stressed. If you've got social media, you're stressed. If you've got emails, you're stressed. If you've got a career, you're stressed. If you've got a family to look after, you're stressed. If you're not sitting around. I mean, our tribal ancestors were stressed. Any moment there would be an attack or they have to get up and move because another tribe is coming to take their territory.

8:37They might be not eating for days and they don't know where the next bit of food is coming. Stress is a part of life, but it's that resilience and it's that handling it, but also accepting it and trying to find a way of dealing with it. So our tribal ancestors walked all the time. They were outside most of the time. They ate a very healthy diet, which had no refined carbs, no sugar, you know, apart from the fruit. they were they were counteracting their stress with this outdoor moving lifestyle we don't do that we stay inside we look at blue screens we don't move as much I know exercise is incredibly important to you um but is there a certain type of exercise that make you more stressed and couldn't and get your heart rate going yeah do you do the other non-stressy exercises do you do the yogas?

9:23Do you do the walking? I have sort of an exercise jigsaw now. I do weight training twice a week, really important. Muscles, as you know, are not just to look the way that they do. They actually, they now know that muscles pump proteins, healthy proteins into your blood. The muscles have been redefined as an endocrine system, part of your hormonal buildup. We need muscles not just to look the way that we do. So really important to stay strong. Signs of longevity, strong legs, grip strength and can you do the farmer's carry can you carry more than half your body weight in both hands can you hold that for more than a minute sign of longevity getting up off the floor without using your hands sign of longevity all of these things people go oh I can't I'm 60 why not

10:16Davina McCall:your sleep score is low are you getting enough fiber it can stop You might remember when Dr Rangan Chatterjee was on this show and he said, knowledge isn't enough. I mean, there's more information and data available to us than ever before. And somehow we've ended up actually checking an app to find out if we're tired. I know when I'm tired. Knowing isn't the same as knowing what to do. The product Dr Rangan Chatterjee has created to solve exactly that problem is now a sponsor of this show. Do Health tests your blood three times a year. It builds you a personalised weekly plan based on what your body actually needs in the here and now.

11:01Davina McCall:I've actually done the test this morning, quite looking forward to getting my results because for the first time it feels like knowing something will actually help me know what to do about it. So take this health journey with me. The waitlist is open. Begin Again listeners get fixed early access pricing when they sign up today at dohealth.co slash beginagain. Use code BEGIN AGAIN, all in caps. Go, go, go!

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12:32Davina McCall:I am talking, and I'm sure you talk to a lot of people in the medical field or who, like you, started training as a conventional GP or doctor or even specialist, but who become disillusioned and exactly the same if you see, there must be a way of preventative medicine becoming more of a thing. Does it drive you nuts that there does seem to be a much better way of treating people? And what an enormous difference it would make if we could do this on a much larger scale. I mean, I know you've reached 250 million people that is amazing but I do feel like the general public are still out there not making the changes that they could make that would really change their lives.

13:21Yeah it used to drive me nuts okay because when I first started particularly when I started talking about this in public you know when I look at old videos or someone sent me my TED talk the other day which I haven't seen in years and I watched it I'm like wow and you were young and passionate back then and um I'm a lot calmer these days so yes it drove me nuts back then because I thought there is a better way and I want people to see this I want to help people and I still do but it doesn't drive me nuts anymore I feel I'm a lot more emotionally grounded these days and I just feel that there is a lack of understanding like we believe that when we have a set of symptoms that we have a thing, that we have, let's say, a disease, right?

14:08Without understanding that that disease or that set of symptoms is an expression of a variety of different things. So yes, your genetics, right? So we're all born with certain genes. But then along with genetics, you have your nutrition, your movement, your sleep, your stress, what I call the four pillars of health, food, movement, sleep, and relaxation. You've got your environment, your relationships, how you think about yourself, all those things interact with each other. And the expression of that is your symptoms. And so whilst diagnoses can be helpful for some people, I'm never a big fan because if you label someone, they feel that, okay, I've got that hat now.

14:52Okay, I've got depression. So everything they see then is through the lens of the fact that I have depression. Whereas if a patient came in with symptoms consistent with depression, I may not use that word. I might say, for example, look, in your lifestyle, there are all these things going on. I think they're contributing to the way that you're feeling. Would you like help? Would you like me to help you understand what those things are and how we can start changing them. And then often, if they're able to, and if I can connect well enough with them, they change those things, and they don't have as many symptoms.

15:33So, but the whole medical model, the modern medical model relies on us labeling people. And I've always had a slight problem with that. I understand why it's helpful for some people, why it can be necessary. But I think it also means it's harder for some people to heal, because they think, well, I've got the depression hat now, and I'm stuck with it for the rest of my life.

15:53Davina McCall:How many people do you think, because I think this was definitely me due to, I think, my upbringing, was that I was in a constant state of high alert, like all the time, but to the point where I thought it was my superpower. I felt like I'm so on it. I'm so, oh, go, go, go. My leg's always going. Like, I'm like, what's about to happen? And I used to think I can, like, work harder. I was ambitious and I love all of those things and I like being ambitious. I like loving working, all of that. But I have come to realise that my constant state of high alert was making me ill. It was actually having a physical effect on my body.

16:41Davina McCall:How many people do you see or do you meet who are in this? I mean, I've worked hard to try and help myself change that with some of the things that you've talked about, thanks to you. How many people do you meet like that? It's very common. It's more common that I think many of us think. We think we can keep pushing and keep working and keep checking emails on Saturdays and Sundays and keep doing it week after week, month after month, year after year. But that genuinely, for most people, there will be a cost, right? Because I see it. I've seen it time and time again. People thought they could keep pushing and then they come in with depression, with their marriage having broken down, with an autoimmune disease.

17:35for many years to be in it i have um spent a lot of time seeing people with autoimmune illness and i can tell you more than 95 percent of the time because i take a very extensive history i don't just look at the symptoms i look at what's been going on in the last 20 30 years that's led to you having this condition today because it doesn't it doesn't just start the week before or the year before it's a slow build-up and almost always within the six months preceding diagnosis there is some significant stressor almost always so i think for people to really understand this you've got to understand what the stress response is right so and i'd always explain this to my patients because stress is not good or bad right a little bit of stress is actually really good for us.

18:29It helps us perform at our best. It's that chronic, unrelenting stress that we don't recover from that causes all the problems, right? So let's think about what the stress response is, because it's one of the most important responses in our body. So let's imagine it's 200 ,000 years ago, and we're just hanging out in our hunter-gatherer tribe, doing our thing, right? If I had just seen a predator, a lion approaching the camp, in an instant, I would activate my stress response. Okay, so certain things would happen. So what would happen? Okay, my blood pressure would go up, so more oxygen can get to my brain.

19:10My blood sugar would go up to deliver more glucose to my brain. My blood would become more prone to clotting. Why? Well, if that line was to attack me and cut my skin, instead of bleeding to death, my blood would clot. That would save my life. My amygdala, the emotional part of my brain, would go onto high alerts, which means I'm going to be hypervigilant. I'm going to hear every single pin drop because this is an emergency situation. These things are bloody fantastic in the short term. The problem is, for many of us these days, is our stress responses are not being activated by wild predators.

19:53They're being activated by the state of our daily lives, our email inbox, our to-do lists, the multiple social media channels we're trying to stay up to date with, the lack of boundary between work and home, where we're constantly working now for many of us on Saturdays and Sundays. But if that's your state because of your daily life, well, that's what we call anxiety. right right so the stress response is about the right amount of stress and for many people that chronic stress is what is really really affecting us i'd go as far as say it's killing us and we know that 80 to 90 percent of what comes in to see a doctor in any given day is in some way related to stress and just to finish your stress for a moment i mentioned the things that um that that get activated when our stress response is triggered.

20:45What about the things that get switched off? There's two big things that get switched off, right? Which I think will really resonate with people. Number one, your gut function, right? How many people around the UK and around the world have problems with their guts? One study suggested that 80 % of UK adults experience some form of gastrointestinal complaints every year. And yes, diet plays a huge role. But in my view, and in my experience, the number one role is stress. Because if you're stressed out, your body has switches off digestion. Because the focus is on getting out of the emergency situation.

21:25We should be digesting foods in a really relaxed and calm state, right? Which many of us are not. I mean, terrible. The other thing that gets switched off is our libido. Now, this is really, really common, right? More and more people are complaining of low libido. I'm seeing it in younger and younger age groups. Over the last five years, I would say I've seen so many young men and women, late teens, early 20s, complaining of low libido, right? Which is remarkable there's many potential causes but the number one cause is stress because if you think about it if your body thinks that actually you're in danger your resources go to running away from the lion they don't go to thinking about you know chilling out and procreating with your partner so managing chronic stress is arguably one of the most important things that people can do And here's the thing, people are struggling with their diets and wondering how they can make changes.

22:28And I think, although I'm a huge proponent about making changes to your diet, actually, if you manage your stress levels first, you'll find the dietary changes much easier. Because a lot of the time, we manage our stress levels with sugar.

22:44Davina McCall:Yes. Right? So we keep reading, we keep doing the sugar detox or hearing on podcasts or reading, oh, I need to cut out my sugar. And you can apply this to any behavior, frankly, Davina. And this is kind of really what I've tried to tackle in Make Change at Last is basically this idea that you'll never change your behavior unless you understand the role that behavior plays in your life. Right? Take alcohol. In January, how many people are trying to quit alcohol? they can do it for two weeks for three weeks but if alcohol is your way of managing the stress in your life right you can whine knuckle it for three weeks and quit but you'll end up going back to the levels you were drinking before because the underlying root cause of your alcohol um was your stress levels so a sort of big thing that i talk about in chapter one is that knowledge is not enough, which I think is going to be quite controversial for some people.

23:44We think that if we give people enough knowledge about sugar, about alcohol, about stress, then they'll change their behaviors. But I've seen it time and time again, knowledge by itself is not enough to facilitate change. You need self-awareness. You need insight. You need to understand, oh right that's why I go to sugar that's why I go to alcohol oh that's why I spent three hours scrolling Instagram in the evening when I keep trying to stop I didn't realize what role that was playing in my life does that make sense totally