Want Better Sleep & Overall Health? Talmage Johnson’s Optimal Eating Window | Be Well Moments

0:00Welcome to Live Well Be Well, a show to help high performers improve their health and well-being.

0:10Now, the big thing I think that shocks people, and it shocked me when I first spoke to Brian, was his eating window is kind of four hours, four to five hours. What's your eating window? It's a very similar window. Oh wow, so you've reduced it. Yeah, it's four to six hours. I have my first meal around 8am and last meal. sometime between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. And it takes a while to get used to it because we're not used... The majority of people have dinner, or at least in the U.S., around 5, 6, 7 p.m. close to bedtime. Five is not close to bedtime. It's relative, yes. And so people are uncomfortable with the feeling of being hungry before going to bed.

0:57And it takes some time, but I began to associate being hungry with good sleep. And so the reason why I've shortened my eating window and pushed it earlier in the day is because I started tracking my sleep and I found that when I eat earlier in the day and specifically a lighter last meal, then my sleep stats are much better. So it's also to our question earlier about tracking our sleep. So I eat earlier in the day And then I do a combination of fruits, veggies, nuts, berries, legumes, plant-based protein powders, creatine, collagen, and basically the full supplement stack that Blueprint has built.

1:44And how many supplements? I do, I believe, 10 pills per day. Okay. Because when I first interviewed Brian, he did 100. yeah he the idea behind creating blueprint products is that when blueprint first went viral most people said like the most common response was this is too expensive and too complicated make it easy and so it wasn't the plan was not to make it a business venture but there was a high demand from people that basically to make perfect health easy and affordable and so that launched the blueprint company and the goal is for it to be the most nutritious protocol in human history and have the data to back it up you finish around two yeah around yeah noonish around noonish okay yeah um and you symbolize being hungry with better night sleep yes it's like hunger isn't the issue it's the association that we attribute to hunger and so the most common association people have is oh I should eat but when I think of hunger I associate it with a lower resting heart rate my digestive system has gone through all of the necessary processes so my body can focus on sleeping so it's just a matter of shifting your perspective of how you look at it.

3:09One billion people worldwide are deficient in this nutrient that so many of you guys might not be aware of. And women, if you're listening, you are more at risk of being deficient in this nutrient. So I'm going to first of all explain what the physical symptoms are. If you have cold hands and feet, pale skin, extreme lack of energy or fatigue, then you might be suffering with iron deficiency or anemia. Now, first off, please go to your GP to get your iron levels checked. Secondly, please explore a good iron supplement. Many people that come to me are worried about taking iron supplementation because it can cause constipation or GI distress.

3:49That's why I'm so incredibly proud to be partnering for this episode with Spartone, the number one iron-rich water supplement. Now I've personally been using these for years. The reason why is because they are naturally sourced, highly absorbable iron. That means it's much more gentle on your stomach. There's no harsh tablets. It's just one naturally sourced ingredient that works very well. You can pick it up in Boots or buy online at Amazon, but please do not ignore this. It is really critical to make sure your iron levels are in check. I do have to say that if I don't eat, so this morning I fasted because I just didn't have time.

4:31And by the end of my first interview, I had such bad brain fog. Like I couldn't, I couldn't compute as well as I normally do. It's definitely going to be hard, I think, for people to digest it in the sense of how you're talking about it. I'm trying to think about what the listeners might be kind of thinking about right now or saying and how they're going to approach this because I guess a lot of them would say, well, I get so much pleasure for coming home and still having a healthy meal, but not feeling hungry. And so to try and making it more adaptable to what you said, like, well, how can I do this in a way that's achievable?

5:08For most people, finishing at 12 takes away maybe a lot of the joy that food can bring and the hunger pain that might not be so fun to compensate for a better night's sleep. Yeah, this is, Brian has said this all the time, but, oh, my dad, but yeah, I use his name. It's, I don't have an exact format for it. It's interchangeable right now. Say your dad. my dad yeah he says this all the time I say it too but people don't have to do what we do so you don't have to stop eating at 11 a.m. or noon you just have to take small steps in the in a more healthy direction so one frame of mind I like to use is instead of eating three bowls of cereal eat two bowls of cereal It doesn't matter what the current state is.

6:07It just matters the trajectory. And so if that means people eat right up until bedtime, try stopping your last meal an hour before bedtime or two hours before bedtime or three hours, but experiment. But most people think they have to go all in. That's not the case. Oftentimes that launches people in the complete opposite direction. And so I've gotten to a point where I thrive in this extreme but for a lot of people it's the best method is baby steps and that's how I got into it initially so definitely not an all or nothing pursuit you don't have to stop eating at 12 p.m you don't have to be in caloric restriction you don't have to be vegan it's a matter of taking small steps that are manageable towards a healthier lifestyle and then experiencing those benefits and then deciding from there, do I want to go further with this or am I happy with where I'm at?

7:08I agree with that for sure. And I think I'm very interested in the nutrition side, being a scientist, being a nutritionist. I think the hard thing that I, and maybe this is coming from a woman's perspective and it's different because you're men and maybe you don't see this, but do you feel there's part of an addiction to it? Because there was a big rise and there's kind of a new area that's coming up called orthorexia, which is about kind of being very clean eating and not going off that path. And I then worked and specialized in that area. And I saw that when I was modeling, that I would be scared to come off very healthy food, you know, to have a day that I was grabbing some chips, or which I didn't normally do.

7:54But when I did, I'd feel like really ashamed and really guilty about it because my body was a temple and I earned my money via that. And then I went and studied nutritional science and understood the impact of food and how it fueled your body. And I still eat very healthily, but I don't eat restrictively. And there's a difference of mindset there for me. And I maybe was around at your age, a very similar mindset of discipline, like heavy discipline. And so I guess that's what I'm trying to understand because there's a lot of it from what I've studied and researched on in this very, because this is kind of the very specific area that I look at is the psychology of it.

8:40And I find that we can become very restrictive and it can be quite an addictive mindset to be in. What's like your take on that? food is very complicated when we talk about the pillars of prioritizing health the first step is typically health i mean sleep and then exercise and then diet because when you sleep well then you have more energy to work out and when you work out you feel like eating healthy food and food is it's so complicated because it's like a a drug and you can't cold turkey you have to micro dose it in a way and it's a very ambiguous line to walk and so there are tons of different approaches to one achieving their healthiest state so it could be mindful eating or not being restrictive or being incredibly disciplined or setting a bunch of rules for yourself so there are lots of different paths towards health I don't think there's a best one I think there's just different options depending on how one can have the highest success rate so for me the easiest path is to be completely disciplined 100 % because I can't give myself any wiggle room if I do then it goes all over the place and so I need very strict guidelines that I can follow and it reduces the complexity but for other people that's unrealistic and it doesn't work for them and it's just easier to be mindful about what they eat so yeah I don't think there's a singular best path but rather choosing among the different ways one can go about it and doing what's best and what is most suited for them yeah it's interesting because I wouldn't feel ethical if I didn't raise that conversation around food you know I think food is I believe is hyper complex, it's hyper emotional.

11:00And I think it can be an addiction. It can be a health addiction at the same time. Do you feel that that's an analogy that you connect to, that it's quite an addictive space? Like say if you did end up eating later, how would you feel a lot of shame guilt or would you go okay that day I just just messed up it probably stems from doing eating late or eating that cookie or staying up enough times where at a certain point I come to the conclusion that it's never ever worth it and no matter what I don't want to make that trade-off because Because there's never been a time where I've done it and I tell myself, I'm glad I did that.

11:54And so based on the historical data that I've had for myself, I've never walked away feeling better about myself that I did it. And so I would prefer to learn from that and not put myself in that scenario again. thanks so much for listening to hear the full episode there's a link in the description