The science of weight loss – and why calories don’t count! | Prof. Giles Yeo

26:59And that's because it's physics. It's a function of physics. How you get there really depends on who you are. Clearly, there is an energy balance equation, and that is true. The complexity is not in the physics of it. The complexity is, because that's the how, how you get to where you are. The complexity in terms of weight loss, weight maintenance is in the why. So why do some people eat more than others, for example? Or why do some people appear to be more efficient with their food in terms of burning versus storage versus how fast you would actually burn the food? Let me give you an example.

27:33Why do some people stop eating when they're stressed, like work stress or what have you, whereas other people start eating when they're stressed. So for example, I'm a comfort eater. If I'm stressed, suddenly my face is in a bowl of noodles. I don't want to back myself into a stereotype, but that's what I do. My wife, however, is someone who the moment she's stressed at work or something like that, she goes, I have no appetite. It's literally diametrically opposite, but it's the same hormone that goes up, the stress hormone, cortisol goes up, but yet we behave entirely differently. That is just one behavior and the world is split into those who eat after stress and those who don't eat after stress.

28:14So that's an example of the why, right? Other people, why do some people appear to be hungrier than others all the time? And, you know, or how come some people take more to get full? And these are not imagined behaviors. They're just not, okay? Where, yes, clearly they're gonna be cultural, sociological underpinnings about why, where, how much and what we eat, clearly. But there are also huge biological underpinnings driving our appetite, driving what we eat, driving who we like to eat with, driving, you know, where, when, all these things. And all of that integrates eventually into some form of energy excess or energy deficit.

28:59And so you either gain weight or lose weight depending on these innate drives, myriad of different reasons about why you end up eating more or eating less. It's really interesting. I never thought about the idea that some people might be a comfort eater and some people might turn off. I think if I'm really stressed, I often want to eat less, actually. Yeah, exactly. It's just, oh, dude, don't even talk about food. Whereas I do eat. I'll sit there and it comforts me. And so I know, I know that I do it. And you try and organize your life so you don't do it, but sometimes you just do it. Could you tell us a bit about the science of appetite?

29:37Because one of the things I'm really struck with my journey with Zoe over the last eight years is that I ate a completely typical like British or American diet eight years ago. And one of the interesting things, having followed sort of my diet now for quite a few years is that it feels as though my appetite has changed a lot and that I don't have the same level of, I don't quite know how to even describe it, like sudden hunger bursts in the same way. But what's going on there, Giles? So appetite is an interesting term because it's actually quite a, we sort of understand it, We talk about appetite, but it's actually quite a complex concept because it's an integrated concept.

30:25What do I mean by this? In my head, I simplify appetite into sort of a triangle, okay, of which there are three points. One is hunger. So how hungry do you feel? I think we understand what that means. One is how full are you? Now, that is not the same thing, okay? How hungry you and how full you are are different circuits within the brain and the reward elements of food. how nice or lovely does the food taste to you? Okay, now those three all speak to each other. They're not mutually exclusive and they involve different parts of the brain. And if you tug on one side of the triangle, the shape of the triangle changes, correct?

31:03And so in other words, if you are more hungry, for example, you're gonna take more food to get filled up. And if you're more hungry, the food has to be less rewarding for you to enjoy the food. If you're really, really, really starving, a bit of bread, a bit of cheese, a bit of rice, okay, it's like the simplest foods are the best. If you are not hungry, suddenly the rewarding element of the food has to be really, really big for you to continue eating. It is the concept of the dessert tummy, where why after a full meal, you're never going to order another steak after a meal or whatever it is you're eating, but chocolate comes and you eat it.

31:42My son has explained that he's got a separate ice cream stomach for the last decade. Yes, and he's right. He's right, is he? He is right. Where is it in, he thinks it's in his legs, or at least when he was six, he did. I think now, I mean, he's 16, I think he probably isn't there. Where is his dessert stomach and how does that work? So the dessert stomach is this integrated concept where the fuller you are, okay, the more rewarding the food has to be. So let me give you an example from an evolutionary perspective, okay? Take the grizzly bear, okay? Pacific Northwest, Oregon, Washington area, hitting the salmon run, preparing for hibernation.

32:21And Giles, just to be clear, the salmon run isn't like a running race or a ski race. The salmon run is... Is when the salmon are swimming up the river in order to spawning their spawning grounds. And the grizzlies know this. And so they kind of park themselves in between the spawning ground and where the salmon are coming and eat the salmon. At the beginning of the salmon run, the bear eats the whole salmon down to the bone. He just eats it and you can see it as just a whole pile of bones. But as the bear gets fuller and fuller and fatter and fatter, because he's trying to gain fat, the bear only eats the skin of the salmon and the fat underneath the skin of the salmon.

32:57Why? Because this is calorically wise, calorie wise, or even though they don't count, is the densest part of the fish. And you can do this. And this is what the bear does because he is trying to make sure that he can continue stuffing he or she is trying to continue to stuff as many calories into his body as possible, even when he's now completely full of. So he's eating the really fatty bits because that doesn't take up as much space with calories you were talking about before. Exactly. So it's like bear chocolate. It's bear chocolate. it. Now, clearly desserts are a human-specific cultural underpinning.

33:35So the bear is not having dessert. But this concept of which the fuller we become, the more dense the food we want to eat before we actually will bother doing it, before it tickles the reward parts of it, is a conserved thing. So this is not a human, your dessert tummy is not a human-specific thing. It is a conserved behavior. So it's got to be high in energy density, okay? And so what are foods that are naturally, So in other words, that for every given gram of food you eat, you get more energy in it. So what are those? Those are going to be foods that are high in sugar, free sugars, or high in fat.

34:11And what are foods that are high in sugar and fat? They're desserts. And so that primarily is the big driver. So fatty foods or sugary foods, you know, 50 ,000 years ago on the savannah, you know, we're not going to be eating a tart or citron and a muscat, but it might be honey. It could be really ripe fruit. it could be making sure you eat the fat bit of your steak or bison or venison or whatever it is you're actually eating. Today, it's a tart au citron. But the whole thing is you're looking for something high in fat and high in sugar so that you can continue stuffing food into all the nooks and crannies even after you've eaten 2 ,000 calories worth of venison.

34:54Because you have to remember that aside for the past 30 or 40 years of human history, most of the time we never had enough food, broadly speaking. And so the primary driver, the existential driver, is to make sure you ate when the food was there, because we are designed for a feast famine environment. That's the natural way of, sometimes there was antelope, sometimes there's no antelope, sometimes you found a turnip. Other times you didn't find a turnip. Okay. Even with agriculture, it was a scrabbling existence. And so our drive has always been to make sure you continue eating when the food was there.

35:33I mean, the main issue today is that while we are designed for a feast famine environment, we are living in a feast feast environment. And I think ultimately that is probably the main problem. What happens in our body when we start to lose weight, given what you were just saying that We're used to a world where maybe you suddenly didn't have any antelope and turnip or whatever it is. So your appetite is driven by the brain. It's top-down control, which then directs your body to act. The motivation, therefore, to actually drive you towards food. And so it hates it. Your brain absolutely hates it when you begin to lose weight.

36:17because it considers it a big red flag that you are less likely to survive. Put simplistically, okay? So in your brain, the moment you start to lose weight, and it doesn't matter really whether or not you've just lost five pounds or whether or not you've lost 50 pounds. Your brain senses it and going, and so what it does is it then begins to put all kinds of mechanisms in place, which are completely subconscious, I want to point out, to drag yourself kicking and screaming back up to where you were before you tried to lose weight. This is a natural biological driver. There are mechanism circuits.

36:55This is what I actually study as my day job. You know, what these circuits are, how do they turn on when you're actually eating too much or eating too little. So your brain makes you feel hungrier. So anyone who's gone on any type of diet, just by eating less, the moment you lose, yeah, the first few pounds are easy. Oh, it's wonderful. It's fantastic. And then suddenly you plateau, and then suddenly you're thinking, geez, I'm hungry. So we don't know every single circuit and hormone and molecule that's there, but we know a lot. So we know certainly far more than we did, say, 10 or 15 years ago about these molecular changes within the brain, which, you know, happen.

37:34And subconsciously, it's not like I'm sitting there, you know, willing, you know, this hormone to go down in my brain, to go down, go down, make me feel less hungry. It won't, because these are natural responses that happen in response to, you losing weight. Just to be clear, however, not everyone will respond exactly the same way. So for example, the molecules in your brain might change, same as mine, but yours may change a little bit more, a little bit less than me, which means that we may very well behave differently to a specific diet or a specific type of food. Your brain, broadly speaking, needs to know two pieces of information in order to influence your feed intake.

38:13Third, if it's how nice it actually makes you feel. But too broadly, it needs to know how much fat you're carrying. How much fat you're carrying? Because how much fat you're carrying is how long you would last without any food. So if your food sources stop today, how long would you live for? That's your long-term energy stores. Your brain also needs to know what you are currently eating and what you have just eaten. Those signals are going to come from your stomach and your intestines. As the food go, every mouthful of food we eat, depending on what we eat, goes down. And the further down the gut it goes, different hormones from the guts get released.

38:48Your brain senses these long-term signals from fat, short-term signals from the gut, and then interacts, integrates, and influences your next interaction with a refrigerator or with a menu. So where the differences come in is primarily really in the gut hormone section of it because the fat is the long-term energy stores that happens a little bit later because depending on what we eat i guess there's some simple rules that we can follow the the longer something takes to digest the farther down the gut it goes and different hormones are then released and gut hormones tend to make you feel fuller okay and so they tend to there are 20 different gut hormones that we know about from the intestines 18 of them make you feel fuller.

39:34And they change depending on how much protein or carbs or fat or fiber that you might be eating. This signals then go to your brain and your brain senses, I'm still hungry. I'm full now. Stop eating, you know, what have you. And so the type of food we eat really influences how your gut responds, what hormones are released. And so how you might then behave differently to different types of meals. And interestingly, how you and I might behave differently to exactly the same meal that we're eating based on how our personal guts may actually respond to it. So Giles, this being Zoe, I have to obviously, now you've brought up gut hormones, I'm going to have to ask the follow-on question, which is, is our gut microbiome involved in what You just said that like there's 20 hormones, 18 of them make you feel fuller.

40:27Is my microbiome involved in that? It is the front line, right? Because obviously it's what our food hits first before it gets to the intestinal wall and before it gets absorbed. So yes, the gut microbiome will always play a huge role in how the food that we're eating is being digested and hence absorbed. And hence, the hormonal milieu, the hormonal secretion is going to differ depending on the type of bugs we have in our gut. You know, I was brought up as just like, it's the amount of calories. And now I'm in this world where it seems that there's this huge shift to the focus on the quality of the food.

41:02But this is, you know, we haven't talked a lot about appetite on this show. Like, is that there's this link here to appetite? I think the microbiome definitely plays a role. I think that it's not the, I would have thought it's not the actual primary driver of the pandemic of diet-related illnesses we actually have today, but undoubtedly it has played a role because your microbiome is immensely sensitive to the environment in which we live in, which includes the type of foods we eat. And if you don't keep it happy, if you don't give it enough nice and fiber and things to keep it nice and diverse, then you begin to change the microbiome.

41:43And ultimately, it does begin to change some of the, it certainly influences the hormonal release and therefore will influence your appetite. If you don't have a microbiome, that's healthy. So, Jars, I'd love to sort of switch out of all of this to therefore sort of what you can do. And I quite like to pull back to like the bear story that you're talking about at the beginning, which I'm now really thinking about, like just eating the fatty salmon and the equivalent for me of my special stomach that works for chocolate. it makes me immediately think about like ultra processed foods and all these sorts of foods that we sort of know we can't stop eating.

42:22Does that tie into this appetite you're talking about? And what therefore should we be wary of? And what should we be thinking that we can change that might adjust this appetite control that you're saying is so important? We've just focused here on weight loss. There's many different reasons why people change their diet, but for the sake of here, let's talk about weight loss. So what is the easiest way to lose weight? The easiest way to lose weight is just to eat less. That's difficult. What's the easiest way to eat less? The easiest way to eat less is to feel fuller. And so ultimately, what strategies do we have in play, both from a diet perspective or a pharmaceutical perspective, but we're here talking about food, can we actually do to make us feel fuller?

43:06Now, if you remember what I said about the fact that the longer something takes to digest, the farther down the gut it goes, and therefore gut hormones get released and you feel fuller. I think if you use that as a principle to explain what is going on in our world today, I think it begins to make some degree of sense. So clearly, if you ate whole foods, the macronutrient that takes the longest to digest just happens to be protein. It is chemically the most complex compared to fat, compared to carbs in that order. OK, so a calorie with all the weaknesses we're talking about, but a calorie of protein makes you feel fuller than a calorie of fat, than a calorie of carb.

43:47Largely because of the amount of time it takes to digest. Second, the amount of energy it takes to metabolize each of those. Okay, I'm for that. So if you actually thought about that, then foods that are higher in protein and higher in fiber, because fiber comes out the other side, we don't digest it at all, will naturally have a certain repertoire of gut hormones that are released and naturally make you feel fuller. The issue with ultra-processed foods is that because of the ultra-processing that has gone into the food, it is naturally lower in protein and or fiber, depending on fiber only comes from plants.

44:24So depending on what you're actually eating. Hence, it's actually very, very easy to absorb the calories within ultra-processed food, the energy in ultra-processed foods, because it doesn't have a lot of protein. It doesn't have a lot of fiber. So it digests very, very quickly. It also doesn't have a lot of flavor because it's been ultra-processed, right? And where does flavor come from? Flavor comes from the holy trinity, sugar, salt, fat. Okay. So because it doesn't have flavor, you have to add in flavor, which is sugar, salt, fat. So ultra processed foods, not all of them, but most of them are typically low in fiber and protein and high in sugar, salt, fat, which means that it's a flavor bomb and it's very quick to digest.

45:06And so this does end up driving appetite and end up having you to eat more because you're feeling less full when you eat ultra processed foods. Because one way to think about it is just it's sort of passively less filling than other things. But another way to think about it, which I guess I've been starting to think about it more, is it's somehow almost like hacking into some of these responses. And I was thinking about your description of the bear only eating the salmon. And you were saying these sort of hardwired things you're looking for. Is there anything going on there with this ultra-processed food?

45:42or is it just simply that it's easy to digest? So there's two things. It's easier to digest. So that is a more visceral effect, shall we say? A colleague of mine, Dana Small, she did this work when she was at Yale. She's now up in McGill in Canada. But she did this, I thought, really quite interesting study. She works on human beings. She's a brain imager. Just to quickly summarize the experiment, what she did was she took human beings and she got them to try and predict how many calories, what the energy content of something that was a high in carb, something that was high in protein and something that was high in fat.

46:19Okay. And what happened there was that people were actually quite good at trying to judge how many calories there are in fat, something that was high in fat. Less good at how many calories were there in carbs. Less good. The moment, however, you mix the fat and the carbs together, and if you think about it, everything delicious is a mix of fat and carbs. Human beings have no concept of how many calories are there. None. It's a big, you know, there is no regression line, nothing. She did this, but then she fed these items of food in a brain scanner, okay? And then looked at the brains of these people.

46:57And so clearly carbs, ooh, and the little part of the brain that's reward goes lights up fat oh the moment you mix fat and carbs together whoop whoop your brain suddenly lights up because it then hijacks the systems coming up and really from a not only does it make you feel hungrier or less full pardon me it's a different thing but it also really lights up the brain the part of the brain which says oh food is delicious um and lights it up like a christmas tree that's crazy. So you're saying, yeah, literally I can, you can put my brain in a scanner and it has like a bit of a response to some like carb and a bit of a response to some fat, like a piece of cheese.

47:36But once you mix the two, like pizza, my brain goes wild for that. And on top of that, we are terrible at trying to predict from a natural perspective, imagine you in the wild, in trying to predict how many calories they might be in their pizza. There is an, okay, why might this be the case? So clearly, why does the brain respond in this way? It's always useful to sort of go back to evolution and think about what this might be the case. And I guess an issue here is that there are very, very, very few foods that are naturally high in both fat and carbs mixed together. Okay, very, very, very few.

48:15Yes, you can have a roast potato, but that is potatoes sympathetically introduced to fat. That's very different. You've put it together. Pretty much the only or one of the very few ubiquitous items of food that is high in sugar and fat is milk. And we are baby mammals. So what happens when we're born? What is our prime aim? To grow as quickly as possible to avoid becoming tiger food. Correct? And so you latch on to the closest source of food, which is obviously the boob. And the sugar that's there is lactose rather than necessarily any other kind of sugar. but it's high in lactose and it's high in fat, which is what milk is.

48:52And so there is a hypothesis, difficult to prove, that part of this circuit is to make sure that the hard wiring is there to really make sure we drive and go towards the milk and drink it the moment we come out, latch on. And that's still true today. And so this is one of the hypotheses. I'm not saying it's difficult to test, obviously, but this is one of the evolutionary explanations that are out there about why this mix of fat and carbs is so, you know, why lights your brain up like a Christmas tree. It's fascinating. We've had a few podcasts talking about sort of this really recent research looking at how ultra processed food can affect your microbiome and some really interesting studies about this.

49:33But what you're talking about is that you can actually measure these responses in the brain where it's just really responding differently to these sorts of foods than anything else and explaining, which I hadn't appreciated before, that this sort of mix that you're getting in these ultra-processed foods, it's not something that we normally get. It's not some food that you can pull off a tree or dig out of the ground or even like an animal that you eat that has that mix of fat and carbs. Very, very few coconuts, but that is very geographically specific. Maybe an overripe avocado, you know, but generally speaking, you have foods that are high in protein, You have foods that are high in fat.

50:13Fat and protein, because they come in an animal together. But carbs tend to come from fruit, which has no fat in it at all, largely speaking, or honey. And once again, there's no fat in there either, right? In terms of natural sources that are actually out there. If you eat a potato, it's got no fat in it either. So the whole concept of fat and carbs is something which is a human intervention to cook something in fat. The term ultra-processed foods, I still think is too broad a church. I think it's too, there are a lot of foods I think we should eat less of. But I think the umbrella is so big, it sort of sweeps in a bunch of foods that are probably don't need to be there.

50:52I mean, we'll go to the yogurt example, okay, where, okay, natural yogurt. But if you put natural yogurt with a bit of jam in it, suddenly it becomes ultra-processed. Now, they are completely ultra-processed constructed from foods. But I think there are some foods that sort of slip in under the net. But the other thing famously, and I'm on the record for saying this, where supermarket bread, okay, taste aside, is still made largely of flour, salt, and yeast, and some water. And taste aside, it's probably not as bad for you as some people make out to be. It is more calorie-dense, et cetera, et cetera.

51:26So I think we do need to be careful in a sense where we want to make sure we eat less of certain things and we want to quantify that better so that we don't demonize all the foods which were there. But undoubtedly, it is true that the majority of ultra processed foods we should be eating less of. Do you know someone who's always counting calories? Maybe they're disciplined, but having listened to this, focusing on the wrong things. Why not share this episode with them right now and give them the science-backed tools to sustain a healthy weight long-term? I'm sure they'll thank you. That makes sense.

52:04We're actually doing a lot of research at the moment to try and better define these gradations of ultra-processed food because there's really interesting data that we're collecting through these huge number of people who are Zoe members and see with the microbiome because this is quite new science, right? And I think for people listening, one of the things that I've discovered is this is a process, isn't it? Like you just can't for something new, a bit like you were telling the story a hundred years ago, right? Of understanding better what's going on with calories or sort of understanding better what ultra processed food is.

52:33It's not just like anything that has anything, any processing is bad. There's clearly a scale. And it seems to me pretty clear now there's quite a few foods in the grocery store that I don't want to eat and I don't really want anyone else to eat. The issue is that there's still pretty much the cheapest foods you can get in the supermarket because of their shelf life and because of their industrial processes. So here is the issue. How do we therefore improve the diets of people in addition to your Zoe customers, okay, equitably, right? Because at the moment, the healthiest foods are not the cheapest foods.

53:08So how are we actually going to fix this problem? So the other thing which I'm slightly uncomfortable with, even though I understand the problems of ultra-processed foods, is how do we avoid, if we don't make healthier food cheaper and the ultra processed foods are available, how do we avoid demonizing people who can't afford the healthier food at the moment when they're eating? I think there needs to be an adult non-hysterical discussion about how we improve the food environment we're in, but in an equitable fashion. I just thought I'd have to say that. I think that's right. And one of the things, one of the reasons we do this podcast, among other things, is that we believe a lot of that starts with demand.

53:45I think it's not as true really that it's not possible to make food that is whole and healthy at prices that can work. I agree with you. But if there's no demand for it, then it doesn't matter. So hopefully some people are listening to this and it will have some impact on how they think about what they should do as they're thinking about, we taught this mix between weight loss and weight management. I think there's a lot of people who like me suddenly realize, well, I've got to make a change or otherwise I'm going to just keep putting on this weight. And I have found, in fact, since I met Tim, interestingly, my weight has been really stable for the last seven years, I guess, without worrying about it.

54:30Is there any other actionable advice you'd want to give for people who are looking to lose weight or maintain weight better other than that? Okay. I think there are three numbers that I would think that people think about. The first is 16, okay? And this is the percentage in terms of energy of protein that you should be consuming. And there is a sweet spot for the amount of protein to eat, unless you're an Olympian or unless you are ill and ITU. If you're a relatively healthy human being here, you should be aiming for 16 % of protein in your diet. Too much, your liver and kidneys begin to stress out.

55:13Too little, you don't get enough. And I'm not only talking steak, just to be clear, tofu, beans, any source of protein, vegetables or animals will work. So 16. 30, the next number. This is the grams of fiber we should be aiming to consume in our diet. At the moment, on average, in this country, in the United States, we're looking at maybe only 15 at the stretch, 20 grams of fiber a day. We need to double the amount of fiber we're eating. Fiber only comes from plants and from fruits. So I mean eat more fruits and vegetables. And the third number is five. And this is the percent that we got to keep under of the free sugars in our diet.

55:59So free sugars are sugars that are not tied up in fiber. So eat as much fruit as you want, okay, please, because it's tied up in the fiber. I'm talking about anything that's been extracted. So yes, the white powdered stuff, honey, algarve nectar, maple syrup, and yes, they're all the same thing, even though they taste differently. We want to keep this added sugar to 5 % or less. So to my mind, those are the three numbers to think about. 16 % for protein, 30 grams for fiber, 5 % or less for free sugars. apply that to whatever dietary approach, whatever church you worship of the diets, of the dietary gods.

56:39And I think that's going to be good for you. Giles, that's amazing. Thank you. And I love your little like pricey at the end for your rules. Everyone has some, you know, Tim has his six and you know, that's all the rest of it. At Zoe, we obviously have our own. Can I try and do a quick summary of what I heard? And then And you correct me when I get it wrong. Okay, let's do that. So, you know, I think we started by basically explaining calorie counting doesn't work. And you described this wonderful lady, was it Lulu Hunt Peters? Lulu Hunt. Google her. Lulu Hunt Peters. I will be Googling her after this, who basically created the first ever MyFitnessPal.

57:19Pretty much. Had a four-year New York Times bestseller and basically invented this idea that here are the calories and you should count them. And if you reduce them, that's the secret to losing weight. And basically we've been talking about this for a hundred years, but it doesn't work. And what you said is the easiest way to lose weight is to feel fuller, right? So the reverse of counting calories, forget about that. It's like, how can you feel fuller? And what that means is you need to change the sort of food that you're eating. And what it also means is it switches is this focus suddenly to the brain.

57:55And what you're saying also is like you and your colleagues like have literally imaging these brains and seeing what's going on. Appetite is this real thing in your brain. You are like figuring out the particular circuits of how this works. And it's very complicated because you talked about how there's hunger, but also how full you are, but also how like delicious it tastes. And basically the food that we're eating now is sort of messing with all of this over time and causing these problems. And I know we didn't really get into these new drugs like a Zempik, but I guess you can see how over time this leads us to a point that the brain is so damaged that you end with this.

58:35But interestingly, I took away two things. The first is my dessert tummy and my son's dessert tummy is real, but it only works for particular sorts of food. And this is not like something we've invented in the last 100 years. You were giving this brilliant example of like bears have the dessert tummy as well, but it works for particular sorts of food. And the reason why I crave chocolate, I guess, at the end of the evening is it's one of those foods which has got sugar and fat. And you said to me, the only thing in real life that has that was like my mother's milk. So I'm like built to like that from a small child, but all of this modern ultra processed food triggers this.

59:12And so you're saying my brain goes off like a Christmas tree when I see it, and it's not supposed to happen. And so this explains why, in some sense, it's not your fault you want this stuff, right? This stuff has been built to overcome your natural desires. And then I think the other thing you talked about is that sort of the gut hormones have this huge impact on how hungry you feel. And so it's not just that you want to eat this stuff more because of the sort of food. If you aren't eating this food that has lots of fiber, that is sort of supporting the right microbiome that is going down into your gut, then basically you're not getting, you said these 16 different gut hormones that - 18.

59:5318. I'm sorry, 18 gut hormones that come off and into your brain that sort of affect your hunger. And so, another example of just how important sort of the gut is on the way that you feel. and that in a sense, we should all be a bit easier on ourselves because the final thing, I guess I remember is you're saying, as soon as I start to lose any weight, like a big red alarm goes off in my brain that's just basically pushing me to eat more because I might be going to starve to death. And so this whole thing is just very, very different from what Coca-Cola taught me when I was at school about, it's just simply like kick the ball, It's just the energy in, calories in and calories out.

1:00:36Completely different thing than we had understood 25 years ago. Man, it's like you've done this before. Yes, correct. Giles, thank you so much for coming in. I really enjoyed that. I hope we can tempt you to come back again in the future. Absolutely. Thank you for having me on your platform. It's a pleasure. Now, if you listen to the show regularly, you already believe that changing how you eat can transform your health. But you can only do so much with general advice from a weekly podcast. If you want to feel much better now and be on the path to live many more healthy years, you need something more.

1:01:10And that's why more than 100 ,000 members trust Zoe each day to help them make the smartest food choices. Combining our world-leading science with your Zoe test results, Zoe is your daily companion to better health for life. So how does it work? Zoe membership starts with at-home testing to understand your unique body. then Zoe's app is your health coach using weekly check-ins and daily guidance to help you shift your food choices to steadily improve your health. I rely on Zoe's advice every day and truly it has transformed how I feel. Will you give Zoe a try? The first step is easy. Take our free quiz to find out what Zoe membership could do for you.

1:01:51Simply go to zoe.com slash podcast, where as a podcast listener, you'll get 10 % off. As always, I'm your host, Jonathan Wolf. Zoe Science in Nutrition is produced by Julie Pinero, Sam Durham, and Richard Willow. The Zoe Science in Nutrition podcast is not medical advice. And if you have any medical concerns, please consult your doctor. See you next time.

1:02:33I'll leave you with one final thought. What if there was one simple habit that, when repeated, could change how you feel for the better? I'd like to tell you about something that I do daily for my own health. It's called Daily 30, the gut supplement developed by our scientists here at Zoe. Daily 30 is made of over 30 hand-picked plants, including seaweed, fungi, and different types of fiber. It's a source of plant protein, omega-3, and vital minerals. You simply add a scoop to any meal once a day to support your health and increase the plant diversity in your diet. And unlike synthetic supplements, Daily 30 actually tastes great.

1:03:12It's designed to be enjoyed because when a habit brings you joy, you're far more likely to stick with it. So next time you feel like your plate is missing extra plants, do yourself a favor. Try Daily 30. It's a delicious and healthy habit that you'll feel good about and one that your gut will definitely thank you for. By the way, whenever we talk about Daily 30 as a good source of fiber, we're required to say that it contains four grams of total fat per serving. Obviously, that's all amazing healthy fats from plants. So, order yours today at zoe.com slash daily30. See you next time.

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