The FAT MYTH DEBUNKED: Discover WHY Fat Doesn't Equal Fat | Dr. Mark Hyman EP 569

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11why fat is the key to sustain weight loss yeah who would have good health who would have thunk it right aren't we not supposed to have fat in our diet isn't it bad for us doesn't it create heart disease and high cholesterol and all these other things that yeah are bad for us or is it that's what we were all taught right that's the whole line our government told us to eat six to eleven servings of red rice cereal and pasta today to eat a low-fat diet. And fats and oils were sparingly only at the top supposed to be eaten. And yet that advice led to the worst obesity epidemic and diabetes epidemic in the history of mankind.

0:45That's like the food charts that we all saw in school, right? Completely opposite of what we should be doing. And so the science has caught up with this bad advice. And the advice, unfortunately, Lewis, was based on really shoddy science, on very weak evidence on a few population studies, not really experimental studies. In fact, all the experimental studies that told us to eat low-fat diets, they actually didn't tell us that we should be doing that. They were actually contradicting the recommendations that were developed in 1980 by the UK and the USA. So basically, if you looked at the actual randomized controlled trials, there weren't that many, but there was a few of them.

1:22They all said that eating low-fat wasn't beneficial. These were outside of the US trials. No, trials all over. They just didn't look at that evidence So the guideline committees who were working on it Didn't sort of dismiss that evidence And they had this theory And they went with the theory Because it made sense, right? If you look at calories, for example Fat has 9 calories per gram Carbs and protein have 4 calories per gram So you think, well gee If it has more calories per gram If you eat less of it, you're going to lose more weight Logical But unfortunately, metabolism is not a math problem It's a hormonal problem It's not energy balance.

1:59The whole idea of calories in, calories out. This is the biggest crock of, you know what, that's been pushed on the American public because there's a message implicit in that, which is if you just told someone to lose weight by eating less and exercising more, if they don't do it, it's their fault. Right? Just eat less, exercise more. If you don't, you're a lazy glutton. So it's your fault you're fat. Okay. Right? But the truth is that it's not. It's not just about calorie balance. In fact, that's what the Global Energy Balance, quote, Global Energy Balance Network, which was actually funded by Coca-Cola.

2:34And they actually funded university scientists to kind of be the front people for this nonsense that's all about calories in, calories out. It has been completely discredited. The New York Times wrote a big expose of this. But what we've been taught is that all calories are the same. They're actually not. So food is not just energy. It's actually information. right so this is like a big breakthrough in science right so food is not just calories it's actually information so the information in food communicates with your body every single minute so every bite you take it turns on or off genes that create health or disease that make you lose or gain weight it turns on or off hormones that make you lose or gain weight or create health or disease it's like a feedback for you it's direct instructions and it works minute by minute it's not something that takes a long time.

3:21It regulates inflammation. It regulates your hormones, as I said. It regulates your brain chemistry. It regulates even your gut microbiome. All the flora in your gut that we now know are linked to everything from weight gain, diabetes, to heart disease, to cancer, to autoimmune diseases, and so many other things. Even depression and ADD and autism may be linked to changes in your gut flora. So we now know that when you eat food, it's not just about the energy in it. Because if that was true, then you could just survive on soda all day and it wouldn't matter as long as you only eat 1 ,800 calories of soda.

3:55And I had this argument with the vice chairman of Pepsi. We had dinner together. No way. And I said to him, how can you say that eating 1 ,800 calories of soda is the same as having 1 ,800 calories of broccoli or almonds? He says, well, as long as you have that amount of calories, it's not going to be any different. I said, this is just not how the body works. You're not getting the nutritional value from that, right? Right. I mean, when you, so just like look at 1 ,000 calories, let's say 750 calories of broccoli is 21 cups, 35 grams of fiber, half a teaspoon of sugar, and tons of phytonutrients, phytochemicals that upregulate your genes that actually help you prevent cancer, that improve hormone metabolism, so many things, right?

4:36Same calories from a big gulp, 750 calories, 46 teaspoons of sugar, high fructose corn syrup, upregulates your liver to turn on a fat production factory that makes high triglycerides. Stores fat more, right? Stores fat. Raises triglycerides. Lowers the good cholesterol. Causes a fatty liver. Raises hormones that make you, in women, make them grow hair on their face and have lost hair on their head. Men, they drop their testosterone. They have no sex drive and they lose their hair on their bodies. All this from the same calories, right? The number of calories. The calories are the same, but the information in the food is very different.

5:12So now we have this concept that is actually really about the hormonal, I call it the hormonal hypothesis that I talk about in Eat Fat, Get Thin, which is how do you change your hormones so you're not hungry all the time? The typical advice, you eat low fat, and your fat actually makes you satisfied. Because if you eat fat, you're not craving all the time. You're not hungry. And it actually is a brain actually food because it actually stops the addiction center in the brain from turning on. So you never feel hungry or have any cravings. It also speeds up your metabolism. Fat speeds up your metabolism.

5:45Yeah. So it helps you burn more fat at the same time, right? It helps you burn more fat. It releases fat from the fat cells. Interesting. Right. So it makes you less hungry. It makes you burn more fat, and it liberates the fat from the fat cells. So it's really powerful. Whereas if you eat sugar, the opposite happens. You get hungrier because you increase insulin. I was addicted to it. All of us were. I mean, I was too. I was a vegetarian. I ate tons of whole wheat bread and sugar and honey and everything. I mean, grape nuts and ice cream for breakfast. When did the research become known or the facts or the data become known?

6:18It's not even. It's honest. Because you're a doctor and you're eating sugar. It's not even. When did you start to realize it? When did this information about fat become? Well, it's been mounting for decades, right? So it's building on a mountain of evidence. And in the book, I reviewed over 1 ,000 studies or 500 quoted in the book that I referenced. They wouldn't let me put more because there was no room in the back of the book. Yeah, yeah. and it's all well documented and the science of this is very powerful one of my colleagues David Ludwig wrote a book called Always Hungry he's a Harvard professor he's done a lot of the research that this is based on he gave two groups of people same calories same calories but changed the percents of fat and carbs and it was a very well controlled study and in the first group they had 60 % carbs 20 % fat 20 % protein The other group switched it.

7:0760 % fat, 20 % carbs, 20 % protein. So it's the opposite. And the group that had the high-fat diet burned 300 calories more a day by doing nothing else. Really? Just by having more fat? By eating more fat. Their metabolism sped up 300 calories a day. Same amount of calories, though. They ate the same amount of calories in. They burned 300 more. Right, because their metabolism sped up. Right. So in other words, it's like running an hour a day without getting off the couch. That's powerful. Very powerful. Yeah, and I know for me, as I've seen myself and my patients, transformation is amazing. And their cholesterol gets better.

7:41It's totally contradictory. Fat is supposed to raise your cholesterol. Eating cholesterol is supposed to raise your cholesterol. But for the first time since the Dietary Guidelines came out in 1980, the U.S. government in 2015 completely reversed their stance on fat. They said, forget about fat. You can eat as much as you want. And it made me laugh. They said, cholesterol is no longer a nutrient of concern. quote, nutrient of concern. Like, well, we got it wrong for 35 years. No way. Yeah. They also said that we should, for the first time, they said we should reduce sugar. Now, the policy advisors who are the scientists said we should limit sugar-sweetened beverages because they're proven to be linked to obesity and diabetes.

8:22But the government, because of the food lobby, changed the wording to say we should be restricting added sugar. So we should eat less added sugars. Now, what's an added sugar? It doesn't say added sugar on the label. Right. So how do you know? Because the food labeling from the FDA is also influenced by the food lobby. Right. So it should say added sugar on the label, not just sugar. Right. So you don't know. Right. Interesting. So it's designed to totally confuse people. The truth is that this is a huge advance. And now we actually have come to realize that this is not true. So the science around fat and how your body burns fat and what makes you fat is all really clear now.

9:00And it's all based on this hormone idea of insulin, which is a fat storage hormone. So anything you eat that increases insulin, which is sugar, refined flour. I mean, white flour raises your blood sugar more than table sugar. So if you had two slices of white bread, it raises your blood sugar more than a tablespoon of table sugar. You're like, I'm eating whole wheat bread. It's just as bad. Food is the cause of most chronic disease. It's the cure for most chronic disease. And yet doctors know nothing about food. And they just medicate a lot of the time. I mean, listen, it's so bad. I mean, I use food as medicine.

9:30And that's what I, food is the most powerful drug on the planet.

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10:32Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.