Willpower vs. Systems: Why Your Diet Fails & How to Fix Your Relationship w/ Food | Sohee Carpenter

People tend to struggle less with exercise than they do with diet. Exercise is something you do in a finite period of time and then you can move on with your day, whereas nutrition is you have opportunities all day long. Eating behavior is so complicated. For me, it was about the control of the food to then look a certain way, to then be accepted in a certain way and proceed a certain way. Another big reason why people struggle with binge eating, a lot of it is poor stress coping mechanisms. When you have poor emotion regulation skills, every time you're stressed, you're bored, you're something, you turn to food. A big reason why a lot of people will take GLP ones is that it eliminates food noise. I cannot tell how you, how freeing it is to be able to eat a meal, feel actually satisfied and move on with your day and going like four or five hours without having to think about food. It's amazing. It's so freeing and a lot of people have never experienced what it's like to not have food noise. What is this psychology of when we restrict something makes us course correct the opposite way? The key to behavior change is not in relying on willpower. I think the smarter way to do it is I'm going to use willpower to form new habits. The key feature of habits is that they are cognitively not fatiguing. They're automatic. That is fascinating. So, he carpenter. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Fun fact. I've been following you for, you've been a coach, not a PhD since. Technically 2012. Okay. You've had also a very interesting journey. Yeah. And I'd love to hear for the audience a little bit about you. You studied human biology. Biology. Yeah. Humbio. Yeah. Very popular major at Stanford. Okay. So, no slouchy school. No. And then just finished your PhD, just got your PhD. A couple months ago. And one of the things that I thought was so interesting is I've actually been following you for a really long time. Yeah. And you were working and also doing your PhD in all of these things in combination, which is unusual. I was in a really fortunate position where I was in a distance program, a virtual program. I don't know if you felt this way, but for I first got my, you know, bachelor's degree, obviously, I worked for four years. And then, you know, a few years later, I was like, I need, I need a bit more. So I went back and got my master's degree in psychology. That was a two year program. By the end of my master's degree, I was so not really enamored with academics from my personal experience that I was like, I don't think I think I'm done. And then I found out that Eric Helms, who we know, I call him the industry, was, had gotten his PhD from AUT, Auckland University of Technology. And he was, he was at the time taken on PhD students as an advisor. And there was also, there was also at the time, which I believe they don't do anymore, they had a distance program, a virtual program. So I was like, wait, if Eric Helms has taken on students, he's willing to take me on. I've met him before I get along great with him. We have overlapping areas of interest. And I can do this while staying in California, staying from staying home, because you know, I was working from home, I was like, this is the only way I think I would ever do my PhD. So I was super fortunate that I was able to stay home, keep running my business, which was a personal decision of mine. I like staying busy. I like having more going on. So yeah, I was running a full time business, while also pursuing my PhD at the same time, which was a little bit tricky when it came time for data collection, I won't lie, especially because the, I kind of, it was because of pandemic and other variables, I ended up moving quite far away from my satellite school, while the, the ethics approval process was still happening. So by the time it was approved, I was living 80 miles away from campus. So if you are doing a satellite program for Plesche, and you did it in sports science, if we lay out the framework for the audience, with a bachelor's in biology, then you did a master's in psychology, which is, is kind of interesting. And then did a PhD in sports science. Okay. So take me through why psychology, and I do want to touch on, if you're open to it, a little bit of your struggles and I mean, that's, that's where it all stemmed from was my own personal struggles with especially eating behavior. So to rewind a bit in my early teens, I struggled with anorexia and bulimia for a little bit. And then I was able to thankfully recover from the anorexia within a year or so, but I struggled with binge eating for years and years, probably into my early 20s. And you know, we've heard this story, which is fascinating. A lot of entrepreneurial, successful women, we hear in their past, it's that it's very common. I think it has to do with a lot of like high achieving perfectionist tendencies, as well as, at least for me, as a teen, I really cared as many people do, I cared a lot what other people thought. And as is still the case today, when you enter your teen years, that's when you start hearing more chatter about, Oh, she's pretty because she's, she's skinny, and she's, you know, she's popular. So that messaging or, you know, at least where, where I grew up, there was a lot of unsolicited commenting about people's body size. And where did you grow up? At the time I was living in Korea, actually. And even though I know in US, diet culture is a big problem, I would say, I don't know about now, back then it was in Korea, it was worse. The standards are much higher or different is I was talking to one of our other colleagues with Adidas, Giselle, and she's from, she's from Shanghai. And she was talking about her struggles. Yeah, beauty standards are different. She was saying that the beauty standards are different culturally. Yes. And then I would also even argue that a lot of the maybe like the red flaggy diet culture behavior is more normalized there too. At least, at least back, back when I was living there, obviously this is now 20 plus years ago. So I don't know how much times have changed since then, but that was my experience growing up there. So there was a heavy emphasis placed on, especially girls, women being thin, where I would have a friend's mom say, Oh, I haven't seen you in a while, you look great, you look even better if you lose 10 pounds, or like, you know, four kilos or whatever, like, and I was 14 years old, 14 years old. And at the time, of course, you're not old enough for your brain. Your brain's not like the level yet where you're like, Oh, you're the problem for saying this to me, you think, Oh, you must be right. Maybe. And then the next day you stop eating lunch. Was it like that for you? Or did it happen? When did you come to the US? How old were you? It was a long story. I moved around so much. I so I was born in Korea. And then I left an house too. I lived in my dad. He was in international corporate world. Everyone thinks this military is international corporate world. And he was very willing to move from country to country when I was growing up. So I've lived in probably 17 or 18 different places. So I left one house too. I lived in Indiana for a while, then I can go through the whole list, but as long bounce around, bounce around, move to Chicago, moved out back to Asia. So then I moved back to Korea when I was 12 to 15, I think. So I was only there for three years. I was by then I was because I'd grown up internationally and always went to international schools or American schools. I had a very heavy American background by then. So I went to international schools even in Korea. And then when I was 15, I left for boarding school to California. And I've been in the US ever since. Okay. And are you an only child? No, I have a brother, older brother. You have an older brother. When you got to the US, that's when your first encounter and again, we're talking about how you got really interested in the psychology of health and wellness. Yeah. So I struggled with, I continue struggling with binge eating, as I said, through all my high school years. And then even into college, it was less of a struggle, but I was not understanding the importance of behavior change and psychology. And so basically by the time I was 18, I had discovered the world of lifting weights and clean eating, right? That's usually people. Is that when you started? I'm trying to really think back when I first saw you. And it was, yeah, I didn't start, I didn't have an online, any presence until late 2011 is when I started my first free WordPress blog. I was a senior in college. And I basically had gone through my four years of college, trying to be a clean eater and sticking to rigid meal plans that my online coaches had provided for me, but struggling to adhere over and over, working out really hard, foregoing my entire social life, isolating myself, which I think a lot of people can relate to, but not understanding why. Why am I trying so hard? Why am I putting in so much effort when I'm high achieving and basically every other area of my life, you know, I graduated top of my class in high school, I went to a prestigious university, I'm doing well in that regard, but why is it my diet that I am continually struggling with? So by the time I got to my senior year, I was like, there has to be something I'm not understanding, because I was seeing all this messaging about, you know, fitness is about hard work and sacrifice and discipline. And I'm like, but I am, I am hardworking, I am disciplined. I know these things like I wake up at 530am to take the gym before classes, like I'm disciplined. So what, what am I missing? And finally, I was like, maybe it's like, maybe let me look into psychology. Right. So that's when I started, this was when I was 21. I started my first introduction into learning more about, okay, I want to understand what it is about psychology, I'm not understanding and help bridge the gap between the behavior and application that I'm obviously not getting right. So that's kind of where my interest in psychology started from. And then of course, throughout my college years, and I don't know if you remember back in the late 2000s, early 2010s era, fitness blogging was very big back then, before Instagram. Yeah, and there were the, there were like the online communities, the threads, there were fitness forums, that was all of I was, I was a master lurker in multiple different fitness, I would never comment. I was like, I would obsessively read everything. I loved it. And at this point, I had actually quit the premed path. I was premed. I was on the sportsman track, because I was like, I'm going to be an orthopedic surgeon. Turns out, I didn't like it very much. Yeah, and then I kept coming back to fitness as a hobby. And then yeah, late 2011 was the first time I had realized, Oh, maybe I can do something with this interest of mine. You've heard me say before, muscle is the organ of longevity. Now I'm putting the playbook in your hands. My new book, the forever strong playbook is your roadmap to building real strength, not just in your body, but in your health, your energy, your life. This isn't theory. Inside, you'll find the exact workouts, protein forward recipes, recovery strategies, and mindset tools I use with my patients and live by myself. This book is for anyone and everybody who wants to age powerfully, stay vibrant for their family and show up strong every single day. When you preorder, you're not just getting a book, you're joining a movement, the links in the show notes, and I cannot wait for you to dive in. Again, I'm trying to remember when I first saw you, but it was, I mean, it was way before Instagram. It was definitely online, blogging, Twitter, or Wordpress. I'm sure it was Wordpress. I'm sure it was a long time ago. You had longer hair and I missed my long hair, but yeah. But you were talking about clean eating and macros at the time. Oh my gosh, how funny. I don't remember if you had opened up about having eating this or that. I was pretty forthcoming about that earlier. My first question as I think about it, was there a moment where you were like, you know what, I am going to share, because you were really ahead of your time. So right now, you and I are seeing social media and Instagram and maybe for the last, I don't know, when did it get big, 2015? Yes, I really, I think it took off. But you were doing stuff before that. Before that. I was blogging. I was on Twitter. But there's not, that's not common. No. It's also very exposing, right? Yes. Yes. And typically, I mean, I remember the first time I posted something, my armpits were sweating. There was a reason that I did it. Yeah. Did you, was there a driving reason? Yes. I think for me, again, it was the only thing that I came back to interest wise. I was in the middle of, I have no idea what I want to do after I graduate college. I'm bouncing around different career paths. I gave up pre-med. That was a really hard decision. Just because you didn't like it. Yes. And it was that, it was, that was, I think, maybe towards the end of my junior year. So when I was 20. And I mean, it was a several month long decision. Because obviously, you know, it's very common. You grow up your whole life and I'm going to be a doctor. I'm going to be a doctor. And then you start doing the thing and you're like, I don't know what it's going to be about. You're like, organic chemistry sucks. You know what it was? It was physical chemistry that did me in. That was the straw, the straw that made physical. Pekam, I was like, I absolutely hate this class. Really? I, I'm going to, I was like, I'm going to fail. I don't understand any, it was so abstract to me. I hired private tutors. I was getting extra help, etc. And, but obviously, we know it's not one class that's going to, it's not like you, you have to know physical chemistry in, as a practicing medical doctor. And even my, my aunt, who's a doctor, she's like, you will never, she's like, you don't have to know O.K.M. You don't have to know Pekam. There are classes sometimes, sometimes they do classes, they kind of like thin the herd. And I was like, well, I didn't make it. But, but besides that, it really made me think about, okay, am I actually even enjoying this? Or am I following this? Because I think this is what I'm supposed to do. And a third of my graduating class are all pre-med, or they're all like, you know, the human biology major is a popular path. And you never had a backup. It was always, no, I had no backup. You were, you were going to be a doctor. When I quit that, I was, I was completely lost. I was like, I have nothing else. And I hadn't considered fitness as a career. Because again, at the time, having an online career, or being something other than a full-time personal trainer, which I didn't want to do, wasn't really a well known or even well accepted concept. So even when I would kind of talk about it, I would get pushed back. Not because they didn't understand. They'd be like, wait, you're going to go to Stanford to become a personal trainer. You know, you better get a scholarship. There was a lot of like, why are you doing that? Why are you wasting your, you don't need a four year bachelor's degree from a, you know, a well known college university to do that? Or why don't you become something more pristine? There's always that kind of pushback. But then I started seeing from all the vloggers that I was following and whatever, I was like, first of all, when I'm not seeing a lot of females in the space, female voices, mostly men, which is common, very male dominated industry. The growth sphere. Yes. And two, especially with my budding interest in psychology, I'm like, I'm also not seeing a lot of people talking about the psychology of fitness and the psychology of like eating behavior. And even though I feel obviously very new to the space, I think there's a gap there. Is it safe to say that you went to psychology to solve what you felt was your own problem? I wanted to understand myself better and I wanted to take what I learned and then translate it back to the general public. One of the things that I think is really interesting is that some people, in order to understand a challenge, they want to, they learn all about it. You know, there's some people that are like, tell me what to do. And then there's other people that are faced with a challenge and then they want to learn everything about it. I want to understand. So that they can overcome it. Yes. When you decided that you weren't going to medical school, and the reason I'm asking this question is because I think there are moments of transitions and transitions in life, they are predictably difficult. You have always been driven and naturally entrepreneurial, whether you knew it or not. Yeah. And all of a sudden your path, you know, you're very stoic in terms of the direction. I'm picking this, I'm doing this, got into Stanford junior year, pulled a plug on medicine. Yeah. At that time, big transition moment. Yeah. Oh, I was, I had meltdowns, I was crying all the time. So this is my question for the listener relating, okay, maybe they're in a transition. Yeah. Did your eating disorder pick up during that time? I don't know that it did, actually. I think I was, I was, I mean, I was in this, I was struggling, but I think it was a consistent struggle for me. I know that for a lot of people, stress levels do exacerbate disorder eating symptoms or behaviors. I don't think that was the case for me necessarily. I was always kind of like the same binge restrict over exercise cycle over and over and over. As these things happened, how did you or how would you recommend maybe first start with how you began to manage it? Okay. So it was a very gradual process for me. And a lot of it was actually before I went back to get my master's degree. And it was while I was learning more about habits and understanding the psychology of eating behavior, I started understanding, okay, it's actually not about trying harder, like we've been told. So I'm not actually the problem. If anything, I've probably been trying too hard and that's been backfiring on me. And I think a lot of people will relate to trying to be too restrictive with your diet, slashing your calories too much or cutting out too many food groups and then not being able to sustain that and then eventually binge eating. So that was my cycle over and over again. And for so many years, I legitimately believe it's because I'm not being strict enough when I was already so, so straight. So I would keep my target calories really low relative to my body weight around around. So I was, I was like in my like body weight wise in my like 124 was I was like hovering there for a number of years, which I know for a lot of people is like, they're like, Oh, that's really low. But it was a reflection of my binge eating behaviors. But I think it was also offset by how much exercise I was doing too. And I was trying to consume like 1300 calories a day. And I thought that was high. And how much what I should have done. Were you training at the time? Probably like hour and a half, two hours a day. Looking back and from what I learned since then, I probably could have had closer to like 2000 calories a day or maybe even more and still actually lost body fat. But what was happening was I would try and again, this is very common. A couple days, 1300 calories, 1300 calories, can't do it, can't do it. I feel terrible. I binge and binge and binge. And then my calorie intake from the days I would binge would be so high that it would then blow me up into either maintenance or calorie surplus. And this continued for years. Okay, so let's let's talk about this because one of the things that you value very much as evidence based protocols. And we don't we as a collective as the show feel that that's very important. Yeah, yeah. Just, you know, scientific integrity is important. The things that we know things that we don't fake science versus the not so good science. When you were designing a program, you were eating at if you just want to kind of take us through how we can think about designing a program, let's say for because I know that you were competing, right? I did for a number of years. I won't do it again. But it was yeah, I did. How do you think about designing a plan for individuals for nutrition? Yeah, or you can maybe start with yourself. How you were thinking about back then or now because they're very they're so different. Tell me back then. Okay. And then tell me and then tell me now. So back then the way that I had learned from other fitness people as well was, you know, there's a body, there's so many different equations. The simplest way was a body weight multiplier, right? So you take your current body weight times a certain range depending on your goal. So the numbers that I was given at the time, which in hindsight, I'm like, you know what, there's actually it could be actually quite a bit higher was your body weight in pounds times 10 to 12 is your calorie intake. So if you're like 200 pounds to keep it easy, you would consume between like 2000 to 24 is that math, right? 2400 calories a day. And I actually learned it took me a number of years to learn that actually if your activity level is higher, you can actually bump that up by quite a bit and still lose body fat and probably feel better while you're doing it too. So when I had hired coaches, because I would learn a lot by studying the plans that I was provided from my fitness coaches at the time, and then I'd be like, because I want to understand, right? So every time I'd be like, okay, so that's relative to my body weight, that's like roughly this number. And then over time, I can tell they're dropping the calories, because I do the calculations and this and that. And then you can see a pattern, right? So that's kind of what I had learned. And so that's kind of what I use for myself. I was like, okay, like 120 something times like 11, because I want to be a bit more aggressive or something like that. And then you get the number that pops out. But then I'd be like, I can't stick to this. So you were having around 1300 calories, which is even like that. And let's let's talk about this. When we design diets in our medical practice, we think about we get an estimate of the resting energy expenditure. Yes, for people that are listening, resting energy expenditure is the amount of energy that it takes to just live. It's kind of your floor. We don't believe in going below that. And that is the absolute minimum would have been my RMR probably. Right, right. And that is, I mean, you should never know one, at least from our perspective, needs to be that low. This episode is sponsored by our place. 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They also have a 100 day risk free trial with free shipping and returns. So there's literally no reason not to try it. The average American based on the data eats between 500 and 1000 more calories than they need a day. So the resting energy expenditure is the floor and you let's just say you were basically there. You were there. Yeah, not accounting for my activity or anything else that you were doing. You must have been very hungry. Oh yeah, but I was like discipline. You got a lot, you know, all the messaging that we were told. Okay, okay. Time soda. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that because if people are listening and let's say now we have OZMPIC and GLP ones, which did not exist back then for weight loss. Yes. Which can you imagine if they did the generation that's growing up now will not have to experience. Oh yeah. Have you thought about that? They don't have to experience that. I also 100% would have tried to get my hands on that even though I'm actually not a good candidate for GLP ones. Right. I would have found a way to get it. Definitely is transformative for people in terms of appetite regulation. So for someone listening, if you are under eating calories, because that is the first thing that people do, they don't increase their exercise. They reduce their caloric intake. And I did this in college three, four days and then by the weekend or yeah, like Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I was at the University of Illinois. There was not much to do there. Yeah, you're partying or you're so deprived by them that you or you want to reward yourself. I was definitely not partying. I was a nerd and I sat in the first row because I needed to get an A in Don Laman's class. I will also say that some of my counterparts who we know, Lay Norton sat in the back and I definitely did better than him. That is so funny. Did you know I used to work for him? I do not know that. I was his, actually this is basically my career. Maybe that's how I found you. So in 2013, so basically what had happened was in 2012, I was an intern at a strength and conditioning facility right after right out of college. And I had been blogging for like six months by then seven months. And I reached out to him via email. This is back when he was replying to every single email on his own. And I was like, Hey, I would like to do, I'd like to interview you for a blog post about intermittent fasting. And he replied and answered my questions. So he knew me from there. And then a year later, I was living in New York. I reached out to him and I was like, Hey, do you need a virtual assistant? And he was like, Yeah. And then he hired me right away. So I was running my online business, blogging, personal training and doing his admin work for about two years. Well, let's just bust his chops and she sat in the back and I was definitely a better student than and certainly Don layman's favorite and still am lean. Anyway, so by the third or fourth day, people are starving and they're probably trying this now. Rest the energy expenditure is at the baseline. You hit the fourth day, you're doing a refeed, a not purposeful refeed. How did you recover? So let me, let me say one more statement, restrict binge, feel terrible. Yeah. Go to the gym on that. So Friday, let's say you're overeating Friday pizza, you were partying. I wasn't eating pizza and smoothies, whatever, dorking out and they didn't even have Netflix. And then were you at the gym the next day? How cognitively were you managing it then? I mean, there's a lot of cognitive dissonance, of course, because you're like, this is, this is not the behavior that I want to be engaging in. So you'd be like, Oh, this is a, this is a refeed. You know, you tell yourself, this is a refeed. Oh, I needed the extra calories. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do an extra hour of cardio tomorrow. It's fine. It'll burn all off. You tell, you tell yourself whatever you got, tell yourself, or this is definitely the last time I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this and I'll never do this again. I'll be, I'll be harder on myself next time. But it's, you tell yourself the same thing every single time. And at some point, at least for me, I was like, you know what, this isn't working. I'm putting so much mental bandwidth into, into this and I'm getting with, I'm going backwards. I'm not, I'm not seeing the results that I want to see. And I'm frustrated. And so it wasn't until after I graduated college, and it was a very gradual process, where I was like, I'm starting to understand more about the psychology of eating behavior. I think I'm trying too hard. I'm being too strict. So I'm going to loosen the reins. And of course, it was scary. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be more inclusive with my diet. I'm going to stop. What was your diet like at the time? I was like, I was a, you know, I put in heavy clothes. I was a clean eater. It was like, is this chicken grilled or fried? Or what kind of oil did you use? Did you use spray or did you pour the oil on? What kind of rice is it? Oh, this, this, this, these vegetables can't have any oil in it. It was, it was very restrictive. I can have, I can have a protein shake and four almonds. It was like that. I was with you. Yeah, that's probably how I found you. I was like, well, how, what is she doing? Yeah. How do you, okay. So you said it's a very gradual process, very gradual process. So I slowly started, I was, you know, I was like, I'm gonna stop tracking my calories. I'm tired of it. It's not, it's not working. Some is not working. So I stopped tracking, but I was still eating, you know, like protein at every meal, but what was so interesting is over, I don't know how many months it was, but like he was less than a year, I stopped trying so hard. I stopped binging eventually. And again, it wasn't trying so hard for the listener. They're probably thinking, okay, so we've heard other people on your show that have talked about eating disorder. We had, do you know Michelle McDonald, Joan, Trini Joan? Yeah, I know. Okay. She suffered with an eating disorder pretty severely for many years. And she's still very aware of impulses and how to restrain that. But for you, it seems like it's a little bit different. Yes. And I think the thing I do want to emphasize is that binge eating can have multiple triggers, you know, eating behaviors so complicated for me, a lot of it, because for a lot of people, it's not actually about the food. For me, it was about the control of the food to then look a certain way, to then be accepted in a certain way and perceived a certain way. The reason why my binge eating persisted for so long for me is that it was the extreme level of rigidity with my diet. So as soon as I let myself actually eat more calories on a day to day basis, and also feel less deprived with my food choices, when I started liking the way I eat more, right? And then I felt because I felt less deprived, I didn't have the urge to binge one away for me. And when I did that, of course, my actual day to day calorie intake actually dropped. And then over the course of like, I want to say eight months or so, I lost like 10 pounds without trying. And this was about 10, maybe 10 plus years ago. And I was so amazed because I was like, I'm actually trying, I'm putting in less effort and I'm getting, I'm losing weight when I'm trying less. And I was like, oh my God, I feel like I'm, I'm, I'm, I've understood something that I really didn't get before. And that was a moment. Oh, it was huge. Yeah. And it really changed a lot of my messaging. And I have continued to evolve my messaging since then, but it really highlighted to me, okay, it's really not about trying harder. Which is counterintuitive, basically to, I think a lot of messages out there. This episode is brought to you by FourSigmatic. If coffee is what gets you through the morning, but also what leaves you jittery, unfocused, or crashing by mid afternoon, you're not alone. A lot of people are using coffee to push through. I might be one of them, but not actually support their brain. And that's why FourSigmatic's focus, organic dark roast is different. You're getting a premium organic Arabica coffee blend with Lion's Mane and Hey, I'm talking Mufasa style and shaga mushrooms. Lion's Mane supports focus and mental clarity. And because it's adaptogenic, it helps smooth out the spike and crash cycle that caffeine alone can cause. If you're thinking, gross, does it taste like mushrooms? The answer is no. Five, it's smooth, full-bodied, dark roast with subtle chocolate notes. It tastes like real coffee. And if flavor wasn't enough, FourSigmatic third party tests their coffee from mold, mycotoxin, pesticides, and heavy metals. It's also one of the best selling functional coffees at retailers like Target, Whole Foods, with over 100,000 five-star reviews. And right now, listeners of this podcast can get a free bag of their best selling dark roast ground coffee. Just pay shipping and handling. Go to FourSigmatic.com slash Gabrielle. That's F O U R S I G M A T I C dot com slash Gabrielle. When you were and you work with people, you have online coaching and do this stuff. What is it for most people? Is there a theme that you see? In terms of the nutrition mistakes that they make? Yeah. So if someone's listening to this and they're going, you know what? I have been trying so hard and I don't want to do a GLP one. I want to do it with nutrition and training and increasing my activity. So back like the old school way, we could call it the old school way. How can they, what would be the first step in beginning to unpack or reposition their mind around dieting to overcome that particular aspect? Yeah. One thing that, okay, so this really changed my perspective a lot for me. What clicked for me was understanding. It's not about, because I used to believe that the stricter I was, the more miserable I was, the better the results I was going to get. I now think, and this was about 10 years ago, I had this revelation. It's not about making things as strict as possible. It's about removing as many pain barriers as you can and removing as many obstacles while mitigating how much extra effort you have to exert to see the results you want to see. Do you think about food now? Only in like, I'm really excited to eat dinner. Like that sounds great. But not in the obsessive food noise way that I had before. So I can, and a lot of people will relate to this, and a lot of, a big reason why a lot of people will take GLP ones is that it eliminates food noise, you know? And when I was binge eating, my food noise was constant. I do not have that anymore, where I can, I cannot tell how you, how freeing it is to be able to eat a meal, feel actually satisfied and move on with your day without, and going like four or five hours without having to think about food. Isn't that, it's amazing. It's so freeing. And I know, and a lot of people have never experienced what it's like to not have food noise. Is there sustainability in the way in which you are thinking about nutrition? Now? Yeah. Absolutely. I would say I would describe myself as an intuitive eater. Now I wasn't even 10 years ago. I was still heavily macro tracking. I was all about flexible dieting. That's also anti, but now let's, let's take a pause. Intuitive eating, and again, you went to Stanford, also have a master's in psychology, also just completed your PhD. Congratulations. Thank you. I have always believed in evidence based, right? Don has trained me. If I say something wrong, he'll call me like, why did you say it that way? And then comes along intuitive eating, which by the way, think about that just conceptually is it doesn't make scientific sense at all. But there is a level of freedom that comes from being able to trust. And I say this cautiously because it's a skill, by the way, it's a learned skill. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the thing with intuitive eating sounds, that doesn't work. Sounds like we need some tarot cards, 50 pounds heavier, tarot cards and essential oils. Yeah, like Fru Fru. But the thing is, there is actually growing body of research in support of intuitive eating, not for weight loss. It's not, the purpose is not for weight loss, which a lot of people say, I'm intuitively eating my way to weight loss. That's not true. That's not intuitive eating. But what is intuitive eating? There's a really, so intuitive eating, I'm gonna, in the simplest terms, is a huge principle is, is of course, honoring your physical hunger and fullness cues. But another, there's, there's multiple principles to it. A lot of, one principle that a lot of people do not know about actually is the concept of gentle nutrition, which is one of the last steps. Gentle nutrition. Yes, it's the last step of the intuitive eating process. And that's the part that I think is really important where you are still actually making choices that honor your health, while also honoring your, your personal preferences. So for example, have you heard of the concept of like ad-done restrict in nutrition? No, and I've never heard of gentle eating. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah. Oh, great, we're talking about it. So the idea of ad-done restrict, a lot of dieticians love to talk about it. I didn't come up with it. But I love, I'm a huge proponent of it is the idea that they say, have what you want, add what you need. And you, you don't have a food restriction mindset. And so for example, let's say I want a pizza, we know that pizza is not like the most nutritious meal necessarily, but maybe you'll add, if you're making your own pizza, you'll be like, I'm going to add some bell peppers, I'm going to add some mushroom and add some onions, I'm going to have a side salad with it so I can get in some extra veggies. And maybe, you know, it's got like two slices of pepperoni, I'm going to add some more protein on that. So you're adding in the nutrients that you need. And I love this because from my learnings from food psychology, we want to keep people out of the restriction mindset as much as possible with nutrition. So it's not necessarily about actually, so obviously we know people have like dietary, legitimate dietary. Basically what you're saying pizza is not its own food group. This is not your ideal choice. But that's also like not a rule either. So I am like, okay, if you do that like a lot of the time, and they occasionally you have a cheese pizza, a greasy cheese pizza by itself, that's also fine too. Because again, I don't want to have rigid food rules. But a lot like this is my this is my approach is what we teach our clients, if you have, you know, a wrap, and there's one slice of thin deli meat, can you be like, can I get some extra protein on that? Can this is add don't restrict, add don't restrict, or like, I'm going to add some like one of them, I love eating ramen, for example, but we know it's not like, I would not recommend an all ramen diet. Right? Yes, she does any sponsors for ramen. But sometimes they'd be like, I'm going to add an egg, I'm going to add another source of protein, like a handful of chicken, I'm going to add some beans to it for the fiber, you know, okay, so then what is this psychology of what is it that we're that when we restrict something makes us course correct the opposite way more intense. There's a lot of different theories out there. The big one I'm going to go with and again, it's very complicated. My my interests with all of this, I really honed in on the idea that of willpower, right? Everyone said you need more willpower, you need a motorist plan. The problem is willpower feels fatiguing. Willpower feels fatiguing. And the way the analogy that a lot of scientists use is that you have one source of willpower, like a battery that gets drained by multiple sources. Do you believe that? So there's a lot of concerns. I'm controversy now. But basically, that's why I and there's also some research saying the key to behavior change is not in relying on willpower willy-nilly with brute force. It's about being more strategic about when you use willpower. And I think the smarter way to do it is I'm going to use willpower to do to form new habits, to form the healthy habits that I want to have in my life. Because the key the key feature of habits is that they are cognitively not fatiguing. They're automatic. So the more healthy habits or the more, you know, pro goal habits you have in your life, the easier it is for you. That is fascinating. How does someone begin to instill a habit that requires a lower cognitive load? Yeah. There's a lot of ways to do this. So the most effective way that you have seen, especially when it comes to body weight and nutrition. Yeah. So I would first first do an nutrition, I would do an audit first of all, like, because everyone's going to have a different thing. And what I would do is probably identify a few key behaviors we can modify in your life that I think will make a big difference without like excessive amount of effort. Okay, give me an example. Someone wants to lose 30 pounds. They've never they don't know anything about protein. They've never done a proper like a reasonable diet in their life. They have a history of crash dieting and they go from extreme diet to completely give it up. Right? That's pretty common. And then you're like, okay, tell me about what you eat. And they're like, okay, from for breakfast, I have a pizza. I have a pizza and I have a venti extra large latte with all the sugar and this and this and this. And then for lunch, I have a box of donuts. And then for dinner, I have a lasagna and then a tub of ice cream or something like that. And while it's dead, sound extreme, we do have clients coming up to us where that is their normal diet. And I would say, okay, how about this? We're going to do and I think it's important to give them a certain level of autonomy of autonomy as well and be like, okay, here are some some things that we can do. What do you want to choose? I think how about would you be willing to instead of 12 donuts in one sitting, would you be willing to reduce it to to six and then instead of remove the six donuts and then add in. So you have six donuts, take away the other six, then we're going to add in like a protein shake or a meal replacement shake or something that's going to, you know, give them a little bit more protein because we know their protein needs work. Their sugar intake is through the roof. Fiber intake is like non-existent, you know, things like that. You're like, okay, there's so much move for improvement that even the most modest changes will actually elicit a lot. How about instead of your extra large latte in the morning, how about a small, you don't want, okay, you don't do a small, how about a medium? I get the picture. Yeah. How long does that phase last? Depending on the person. It can go weeks, it can go months. This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. When the holidays wind down, what you usually want isn't another planner or productivity hack. You want sleep. I mean, I know I do. And if you're a parent, you want sleep that doesn't feel like a negotiation. For me, a fresh start begins at home. And one of the easiest resets I've made going to the new year is upgrading our bedding with Cozy Earth's Baja Bedding Set. It's a complete matching set, which I'll show you if you look at some of my videos with sheets, duvet cover, quilt inspired by the textures and colors of Baja California. The fabric is incredibly soft, breathable, and has a reversible design. Listen, you just slide in there even when the rest of the house is crazy. And here's the thing, when you sleep better, you recover better. And that doesn't matter whether you're training hard or working long days, we need recovery and we do need rest. So what I appreciate is that Cozy Earth stands behind their products. You get a 100 night sleep, free trial, no pressure, tenure, warranty. And if you don't think it's comfortable, you can send it back. So start the new year's right. That is not with partying, but with rest. Go to CozyEarth.com, use my code DrLion for 20% off. That's CozyEarth.com. And then you use the code DrLion. My thing is I don't want to make drastic changes unless I have to. And if we can see, if we can get you to see the progress that you want to see, if we can get you moving in the right direction while things still feel easy, why would I want to make things harder? That's my take. I, you know, oftentimes people will come in and again, as people are learning more and listening and getting more information, a lot of people will come in and say, okay, I want the best diet plan, give me the best diet plan. Yeah. Or they're like, if it's not extreme, it's not worth doing. And if it's too much, they're like, yeah, I won't do it. But it was just how I used to think too. Yeah. Exactly. Perhaps in order to set people up for success, what you're saying and what it seems like some of the evidence supports is depending on where someone starts, the standard American diet and all of those things that you mentioned are very high in the standard American diet. I think pizza is one of the number one foods eaten. I think that it's the number one source of saturated fat. It's so good. I really like pizza. Really? No, I haven't been eating it. I know. But instead of, you know, as I reflect, I think because as we are now, you know, professionals, if you think back to when you started, when I started working with people, actually started working with people, by the before I was in, was I in med school? With their fitness? Yeah. Okay. And nutrition, because I studied nutritional sciences in my undergrad. Okay. And then when I graduated, I started doing programs for people. Okay, cool. And instead of doing it that way, I would say, okay, here's your boiled chicken. Here's your chicken breast. Yeah, that was the norm. And it probably would have been so much more effective to start where people are. What I think is very eye opening is that the longer you go in practice, like you and I have been, the more perspective we have for all of the patients or people that we have treated. You look back and you're like, oh, I shift on this, shift on this. Right. And it's this kind of evolving experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you don't know what you don't know. That is one way to do it. So this is the adding not subtracting. Yep. But when it comes to fat loss, specifically, the way that you would use the add don't distract, not subtract, or the add don't restrict, the goal of that would be addition by displacement by addition, right? So you displace the calories by adding in more, more filling like protein and veggie. Talk to me through that a little bit. And we're talking about changing habits. So basically, when it came down to so what you're doing is you're integrating the science of nutrition plus the behavior change. Yes, right. And the habit is not to completely obliterate someone's plan because the reality is it's like if someone wants to start a workout plan, maybe they shouldn't start a CrossFit as their first ever workout. If they, if they, if they're like, I really hate sprinting and you're like, well, too bad, you're doing sprints day one and every day they're like, they're not going to stick to it for a long time. And the same, the same idea applies to nutrition where the norm is to cut out all their favorite foods because I think they're automatically bad and have to go. And I'm like, no, I want you to keep your favorite foods as much as you can. But can we be a little bit more judicious about a little bit more intentional about our portions? So step one is really repositioning, portioning, as well as adding in, for example, protein. And then the other easy thing you can do too is again, when you talk, when you do an audit, you're like, Oh, I see you like to eat this handful of the candy bowl at your desk when you're working. Are you even paying attention to the candy when you're, they're like, no, I'm in a meeting and I'm putting it in my mouth because I'm bored. And you're like, okay, so they're actually mindless calories that you don't even enjoy. If you're not going to miss them, if we take it away, why don't we get rid of, why don't we move again from a behavior change standpoint, why don't we move the candy bowl to somewhere that is more inconvenient for you to access, even simple things like changing it from a clear bowl to an opaque bowl and putting it at the back of the closet where you can't, it's not an arms reach anymore where you have to stand up, open the closet, grab a steps to a da da da da da, you make it harder for you to get to the easier thing is to not eat it. So why don't you make the default behavior, the thing you actually want to do and the thing you don't want to do less of, can you, how can you make that behavior more inconvenient for yourself? How can you make that behavior more convenient? Yep. That's that is a good strategy. Do you have another, another habit changing tip or a way of thinking about it? So basically what you want to do is this is not my quote, you want to design for laziness. Okay, my husband will love hearing that. Yeah. Yeah. So there's an example, this is not mine. I think I write it in a book that real I was like, Oh, that makes complete sense. So there was a anecdote of a guy who want to practice his guitar more often. And he was like, Oh, I'm gonna do like 20 minutes of data today. That's great. He put the guitar in his closet. That was enough for him to completely forget that it was there. Because visibly there's there's no the visual cue is gone. Right. So the way a habit works is you have, you have the weight habit loop, right? You have the cue or the trigger or the prompt. This is the thing that says do this now. So if you pick up your phone, it might be because someone's ringing you, right? That's your trigger in terms of the guitar playing that she needed the visual cue of like, Oh, I see it. He didn't have the cue. He put it away. He forgot it was there. So because the trigger was removed, the behavior doesn't happen. And he was like, Okay, this isn't happening. What am I missing? Okay, what I did was, okay, I pulled the guitar out of the guitar, oh, sorry, out of the closet and I put it in the living room where I would pass it every day. So now I can see it. I became a lot better at remembering to practice because the cue was there. So what can you do to whatever it is you want to do? For example, if you are in the you want to get in the habit of taking creatine or your daily medication, but you always forget because it's in the cupboard. What I do with my prenatals right now, because I'm pregnant, I didn't know if we were going to talk about that. I'm going to use my own example. Okay. I went a period of time where I was so spotty with my prenatal daily intake. And I was like, duh, I can use my own knowledge of behavior change to make this better. I put it on my coffee machine because it was away in the cupboard. You mean you put it on your coffee machine, look at your coffee machine that you can only have 200 milligrams of caffeine a day when you're pregnant in case you are listening or someone is pregnant, which is the biggest mistake ever. And then from my perspective, because and then what I did was now a very popular term is called habit stacking where you pair a new behavior that you want to turn to a habit with an existing daily habit. Right. And what do I do every single day at home is I'm in my kitchen either making breakfast or making lunch. So as I'm getting ready to make make my meal and sit down, I see my prenatals and I'm like, I'm going to take those out and sit down with me and I'll pop it in before I eat. So yeah, someone thinking about how they are going to change their diet. Would you have them pretend it's not a supplement, right? What if it's, I mean, you're not going to put a chicken breast on the counter, but how would they start to think if they are someone who is not really interested in eating healthy, but we know that we have to get them there. Okay. So I'm going to tell you about two really cool studies that kind of that illustrate this point. So there was one study where they took a hospital cafeteria. Okay. And what they did was all they did was very quietly, they changed the placement of bottled water versus soda and other no calorie-related drinks in the cafeteria. So they moved the water bottles to the front, or they had them in the back where you had to open the fridge and literally go like this, reach a little bit more to access the water. That was enough to significantly change water bottle, water consumption, fluid consumption. There was another study where there was, you know, those ice cream freezers where you there's the sliding door and whatever, leaving it open. People grab more. If you leave it shut and they have to do this, they're like, yeah, we're really simple people. We're simple, not people. We are simple creatures. So this is what I mean when I say design for laziness. And it sounds negative. It's really not. How can you use that to your advantage? Okay. How can you, in your fridge, can you make the foods you want to eat more of, put them at eye level and marketing psychologists know this already, put it at eye level, put it where it's easier to reach, not behind the, you know, the fried food and this and that or the sodas, put them in front. Your protein shakes readily as soon as you open your fridge, I want to see it right away. So there's the visual cue, and it's also easier for me to grab it, make it more likely. If I have my protein powder, you know, on my counter, I'm more likely to meet my protein target versus if it's in the back of my pantry. Because I think of it, I'm like, I don't want to do that. If someone has tendencies towards, let's just say binging, or they, for example, Friday night comes along and they have done really well all week. And they have movie night with their kids. It's like popcorn movie night. Love it. I know totally. And it's not on their plan. And they fall off their plan. How do you reorient people to get right back on there? Because now we haven't taken them in a very restrictive way, which I can really appreciate that. And it takes a lot of pressure off of people. And then they don't, they're not failing all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. So my very first thought when you were bringing up that example was, how can I incorporate the popcorn into your plan? And my next thought was, why can't I be part of your plan? You know? And so there are ways to, small things like, okay, you could have your popcorn, but does it have to be a bucket size? Because we know that the more of a certain meal that you eat, the less you enjoy it over time. Okay. Right. That is, yes. Can you pause there? Because I want to tell you a little story, which I've never, I've never even, oh, I'm interested. I don't even know if I'm gonna keep it in the podcast. When I was in college, I competed. I competed in fitness. Okay. And after a show, you're, at least for me, I was like off the rails. 100%. I had dieted down so low. And I, I wouldn't even say it was this dysmorphic association with my body. I'd like starved myself. So I went, do you remember insomnia cookies? Yes. Do they still around? Yeah. Okay. I probably got 12. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And sitting in my room in college, totally feeling terrible that I'm eating a got to three. And then by four, I was like, this doesn't even, I can't even believe this. Number one, it's not even enjoyable anymore. Yep. My stomach hurts. I'm still eating it. It doesn't taste good. There was diminishing returns. Yeah. I fully relate to that. Okay. What is that? I don't know the answer to that, but I would be curious to know. I wonder how to do with dopamine responses or something similar. But it's, it's, I mean, I think we can all really like, oh, I get that. Because if we know that's going to happen, then that fourth cookie, it's not even me happy. Yeah. But I think there's a lot of all or nothing mentality there where you're like, well, one, I've already committed to this. I've already bought all this, whatever. Two, tomorrow I'm never going to, I'm not, I'm going to go right back to my strict diet anyway. So this is my last chance, last chance syndrome, right? This is my last window of opportunity to eat as much as I can. So even if I'm not enjoying it, I should eat it because this is my window right now. And I think that's a very, very calm. I had that I would, I would remember in the middle of a binge, I had this logical thought where I'm like, I'm not even enjoying this. This isn't even young. This is dry. This is stale, but tomorrow I can't eat it. So you better eat it now. I did that too. And I wonder, you know, I'm curious for the people that are listening, I would love to hear if you guys have experienced this because maybe it's an age thing when you're in your twenties. I don't know. Do you have more mature clients that suffer from this now? Yes. You do. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So it's not necessarily just an age thing and it can be a restriction thing. But yeah, but I do think that in general, I would say mindless eating is a huge problem. And especially if you're, there is research when you're distracted, you are more likely to eat a higher calorie intake. Is there any data or have you had any experience or would you have any advice for someone who is in the middle of a binge or a behavior and they just happen, God willing, to turn this podcast on or watch it on YouTube. And they're listening to this and they're kind of in an out of control cycle. Do you think is there something that we could tell them to stop them in their track? The thing that's so hard about binge eating is that when you're in the middle of a binge, there's almost no reasoning with you. You're not being logical and you know it and you, it almost feels like an out of body experience. I would describe it as for me, I felt like I was watching myself from above like an aerial view and I had no control of what my body was doing. Right. And so even you can see all the logical things that you want. No, you're in this mode is hard to snap out of it. But when you're not binging, when you're not actively binging, but still struggling with binge eating is easier to be like, okay, let's get to get to the root of why you're struggling. One, you're not the problem, which can be really validating for people who continually think, why am I so weak? Why am I like this to another, another big reason why people struggle with binge eating actually has nothing to do with food itself. A lot of it is poor stress coping mechanisms. When you have poor emotion regulation skills or non-existent emotion regulation skills and every time you're stressed, you're bored, you're something, you turn to food as a self soothing behavior. Right. So we go back to the habit loop. We have the cue or the trigger in this case that cue is an unpleasant emotion. The behavior is the binge eating. You turn to food as a distraction. The reward is that you're temporarily, uh, you don't experience the negative emotion temporarily, but of course it perpetuates the problem because and the problem in this case is that the cue is always going to happen. I don't think it's ever realistic to say, never be sad again. Do we become more resilient to the cue? We want to expand our toolbox so we're a better able to handle the emotions. So the goal is not to never feel the emotions again. The goal is to have better tools in our toolbox. So if I'm stressed, I'm not immediately turning to cookies. Maybe I'll call a friend. Maybe I'll go for a walk. Maybe I'll go, um, do a hard workout, you know, something that's and then you have multiple options. That way it's not always, every time I'm stressed, I eat two of a thousand extra calories. Do you think there's a way to lower the, the salience of the stress or meaning your mom is annoying? Not my mom. Mom, I'm not talking about you. But when you're in college, just say you get a family member annoying call in your twenties. It could throw you off. It's a huge deal. It's a huge deal. Give a big reaction to it. Huge reaction. Uh-huh. Eventually, you hope that over time you mature out of that. And that's just one example. How can someone change the interpretation of the cue? Yeah. So the reframes are super important, right? And basically, uh, okay. So going back to that, it would be like the trigger would be you get an annoying phone call from a family member. Your reaction is huge stress response. And if, how can you reduce the stress response is, is going back to the reframes. And I think one thing too, you can say, okay, you're having all these thoughts in your head. So we have what we call cognitive distortions, right? We have them all the time. There's all different types of cognitive distortions. I never do. That's a joke. That was fun. Okay. Uh, where you have, for example, like, I'm not, I can, I never get the pronunciation right. Catastrophization, right? That's an example of one. I'm great at it. Right? Tell us what that is. Yeah. So, um, you know, you know what a catastrophe is, is when you, in your mind, you're like, Oh my God, everyone, whatever, this is going to happen. And this, and this, you blow your perception of something completely out of proportion or like, you know, if I don't get a straight A's on my report card, my, my world is going to end. Life is not worth living anymore. Da da da da da. Big, big, big reactions, right? Um, there's also, there's a lot, but like another example is like monkey-mindedness or, or, or, um, believing that like you, you know exactly what other people are thinking about you. Everyone hates me. They're all judging me. They hated my talk. They're this and that. And you're like, you don't know that that's true. Right? So what you can do is what are your thoughts in your head? What is the evidence that that's true? And when you do a little bit more digging, all times you find, okay, um, I'm actually making this up. Where's this coming from? Oh, it's because I'm sensitive to this and that. I really care about what other people think. Um, you think that, um, you know, you think Dr. Gabrielle hates you. Why do you think that? Oh, because of this. Okay. But what other evidence is there? There isn't really. Have you ever read Byron Katie's work, the work? Um, I know I'm familiar with her though. Okay. No, ever. She, I'm probably going to get this wrong, but I'm going to just go with it. Yeah. It goes something like this. You, and there's a, you know, it's a, I think it's a four step process, but it is the statement. Okay. Dr. Gabrielle, you know, doesn't like me. And then the, the statement is, do you know it's true? What evidence do you have? Yeah. How would you respond if it wasn't true? Yeah. And then there's one more thing. There's like a turnaround. Yeah. If people do that, do you think that then that lowers that cognitive load of the queue? I think it can. I think it's easier for some people than others, depending on, you know, how much of a hold that has on them and how willing they are to, to change. And I think it can be like a several year long process for some people. And another thing too is, you know, taking a step back and having a bit of a more of a bird's eye view of, of life in general, like is, is this really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things? Like for example, for me, a huge, something that used to strike a trigger, a huge stress response is, uh, if I didn't get to do my workout exactly the way that I planned, like for example, if I, something happened in my day and I had 20 minutes less for my workout than I wanted, I would have a meltdown, right? And then that might then maybe turn me to like, I'm not going to do my work at all. I'm going to turn to food instead, whatever, right? So obviously now you self sabotage. You've had a, you're, you're, you're very upset. You're snappy. You're moody. I was, I would get very moody, you know, and I didn't do any of the things that I wanted to do. So how can I break myself out of that? So then I realized, okay, it took me a long time to learn this. A 40 minute workout is still better than zero minutes, even if it wasn't the full 60 minutes that you wanted. And really learning to understand, accepting that a good enough is still good enough. And you can actually get quite far with good enough consistently done. Yeah. And when you were studying psychology, did you have these breakthroughs or were these things that, because your PhD is, why don't you tell me what your PhD is in? Resistance training in women. Yeah, it was not psychology. There wasn't a psychology. Yeah, it was, I kind of switched. Yeah. I mean, listen, you probably mastered, do you know, I did psychiatry for two years. And then I was very interested in the mind as well. And over a period of time, it either becomes the path, right? So maybe you go become a psychiatrist, or maybe you become a therapist, or you use that in your toolbox to then really help people begin to find their strongest, most resilient self. Was there one thing that you really learned? So it sounds like the habit reframe was huge for you in terms of how a habit is formed. So it's a cue response. What's after that? Reward. Reward. And then the cycle and then it goes in. Was there something else or anything else in your studies or something that is like, man, I wish I had known this and I wish everybody knows that. So actually, my master's thesis was on dichotomous thinking towards food, which is the all nothing mentality towards food. And again, stem from my personal interests and from my own personal struggles for years and years and years. And I administered a survey and my survey, and the conclusion was, and people who have gone through this will not be surprised. The more all or nothing mindset you have towards food, the higher the likelihood of binge eating. We want to be more flexible. We want to sit in the gray, I like to say the gray area more. This makes me worry about the diets that we're seeing, the novelty. So there's the carnivore diet. It just makes me think for those that are on the carnivore diet, that is really restrictive. And all of these diets are potentially, if what you're saying is true, going to set people up for a really rough patch. Yeah, it's there's a lot of things happening that are quite concerning nowadays. But in general, I'm very skeptical of diets that exclude food groups, barring medical restriction, like if you have an allergy or something that's obviously different. And obviously, if you have a genuine preference to not eat something that's also different, right? Because there's a difference between like the vegan diet. Yeah, like there's a genuine preference between like, I difference, there's a difference between genuinely not wanting to eat something like I don't really like, for example, like I'm not a doctor or a person. So if I never eat it again, I'm not going to be sad about it, right? But if I am, if they're like you could never have lattes ever again, and I'm like, Oh my God, then I'm going to feel deprived. Right. So for me, it's about minimizing the feelings of restriction, not about what are you actually excluding from your diet. That to me is really important is how are you doing mentally and also how mentally satisfied do you feel from your food? That is a really good perspective. You know, on this show, we talk a lot about the evidence base, you know, Don and I talk all the time, we talk about this study, we talk about the anabolic threshold. But we don't talk very often about the psychological infrastructure that is required for people to be successful for the long term. And one of the things that that you've said before is that motivation isn't the secret, but systems are. Can you? Yeah. Yes. And by motivation, I'm specifically work referring to there's different types of motivation. I'm referring to extrinsic motivation, right? So when we're like, I don't want to do my workout, but let me let me go pull up this, this, this YouTube video that's going to get me amped up and whatever, like that's a sort of form of extrinsic motivation. Does it work? Does that work? Short term, it can work short term. Or if I'm like, I really hate the style of workout and I hate this diet, but I have this huge really important gala coming up that I want to I want to fit into this dress for this event. And so I'm going to do this thing that I don't enjoy for the sake of this other goal. That's more being as stringently motivated or extrinsically or as stringently, or I'm going to the gym only because my, my, my friend is forcing me to go and I don't want to be there, right? She's forcing me to do it. Versus we have again, different levels of intrinsic motivation where I'm like, I love the way it makes me feel. I genuinely like the exercise by itself, or I have a deeper why it's more than about like, I want to fit into these changes, maybe like, um, for example, for me right now, I have, even though I've been exercising consistently for over 20 years, my motivation for exercising is even more meaningful now because it's, it's about a healthy pregnancy too, right? We know exercise is so good for pregnancy. And so it's yet another reason for me to keep doing what I'm doing with my resistance training and with my running. And so I'm like, my why is so, so deep, right? And I want to just pause on that. It's, it's extraordinary how much we're able to do for someone else, not ourselves. Yes. Can I tell you something? Yes, please. I had exactly to your point when I was doing the day collection for my PhD, my training study, right? I was studying resistance training in women, as I said, so I would go to the campus lab and train women. And I had one participant in particular, she said at the end of the study, she said, you know what, I was really struggling with my exercise adherence before when I was by myself. But as soon as I heard about your study and I volunteered, it was really easy for me to show up because I was doing it for you. She said, I was contributing to your PhD and to your research, and it was so easy to show up for you. I couldn't show up for myself consistently. I thought that was so interesting, even though I had never, I didn't know who she was before. She only knew me from online. And she was like, oh, I'm doing this for the greater good of someone else. I think that that's where community, you know, in medicine and in health and wellness, and maybe it's just human behavior, a lot, there's a lot of division, but the division, you know, if we really think about what it is that we're doing, we want a better, stronger world, right? It's not about dividing. And I think that it's so much easier when we show up for others and a movement, you know, like what we're doing here for a house of strength. It's not about, I mean, you girls are working really, really hard. And you're pregnant. So you're also working exponentially hard, but it's, it's easier because you're showing up for other people. How do we move to intrinsic motivation like that? I don't think extrinsic motivation is useless. It's still useful. For example, I'll be an example, you're in a race, you're in a 5k, whatever, you're getting tired, you're in the last like little 100 meter sprint, whatever. And you're like, I want to give up. And then you see, you see your parents, you see your boy from your heart, whatever, you see people in the crowd screaming your name and all, you get this burst of energy, right? You're like, ah, you have this hero dash to the finish. That's extrinsic motivation. It is helpful, but it's not enough as lasting for lasting behavior change to happen, right? So the intrinsic, it's more about, I think, getting people to be a little bit more introspective. And sometimes they have a deeper why, but they don't know it. About what matters, about why they're doing. And for a lot of parents, a huge part of it is I want to be around for my kids. I want to be, I want to be able to keep up with them as they grow up, you know, I want to be able to chase them up and down the stairs, run across the field with them. That's super meaningful. It's not motivation in order to have this desire, this ability to take the next right step, the discernment, you have to understand where it's coming from because you'll always be able to fall back on that. Yes. And one, there's one exercise that you can do, which a lot of people like this is really annoying, but I'm like, but it can be really eye-opening is, it's called the five why's. Sometimes I would pull it back to the three why's where you say, you're like, oh, I want to lose 20 pounds. Why? Because I'll look in this dress. Why does that matter to you? Because I will get compliments from others. Why does that matter to you? Why is that important? You need to keep going, you keep going, you keep going. And sometimes they get down to the root of whatever it is, then my mom will stop, whatever, my mom will stop criticizing me. Who knows what it is? It's always different for people, right? There's always a reason. Do you use it? Yes. And I always kept, I'm like, you might roll your eyes at this, but bear with me. Let's do this together. Because some people are like, this is stupid. Why would I stop asking me these questions? But it's uncomfortable because you're forcing them oftentimes to think about their reasoning at a level that they're not used to, you know, they're not used to that level of introspection. And again, what you're talking about is something we haven't really talked about this in, I don't know, we've been podcasting for three years or so. We, I mean, I've touched on psychology, but not really. This is good. This is really good for people. I mean, there's, I mean, there's so many directions I can go in. Another one you can do to instill behavior change without relying on discipline is where you change your perceived identity of yourself. So you say like, yeah, like, I want to be a runner, right? I want to be a marathon or whatever. As an example, you're like, cool, what does a marathoner do? They do XYZ things. Cool. They will plan their workouts in advance. They'll lay out their clothes tonight before they'll eat in this and that way. They'll plan out their like these, these are my running sessions and do da da da da da on these days of the week. Okay, cool. Then you go do that thing. So the next step is, okay, if you say you want to be a marathoner, why don't you now identify, you identify now I'm someone who runs a marathon. I'm someone who transfer marathon. You're that person now, even if you're not there yet, if you already perceive yourself to be that way, you're more likely to act in alignment with that identity. That could be actually very fun. Yeah, it's really effective. If you, if you tell yourself I'm not a morning person, you're more likely to hit that snooze button. If you say, no, I'm a morning person, I love getting up before the sun is up, you're more likely to do it. You know, I heard a quote a long time ago and it was, if you can talk yourself out of something, you can talk yourself into it. Yes, it is absolutely super effective. We're going to switch to exercise. Cool. Because you've been studying exercise for a really long time. Yeah. And you and I were talking at dinner, which was very fun. And we were talking about women and training and strength training. Yeah, it's important. It is important because you did your PhD in this. And I want to talk about what is important for women to know about strength training. And that's, I know that's, it's very wide open, but I do want to touch on it from an evidence piece, an evidence based perspective because it's so important for women. I mean, arguably it's so important for everyone, but for women. Yeah, well, we're definitely on the same page with our views on resistance training for women. Everyone should be lifting. The good news is there's no one specific type of lifting you have to do. You don't have to do nonstop circuits, if that's not your thing. You don't have to train like a bodybuilder if not that that's not your thing. As long as you are doing some form of challenging your muscles on a consistent basis. And I know you had a question the other night about like how, how often does that mean? Obviously that's, there's like a lot of variables involved, but I would agree with you that probably like two to three days a week is a really great starting point. And even if one day a week is all you can do, you will still see health benefits from one day a week. So yeah, and do the same mental tools work when you're changing a diet for nutrition? Do they cross over to exercise? Yes, yes. I will say from my personal experience and my practical experience, my observation is that people tend to struggle less with exercise than they do with diet. I think part of it is that exercise is something you do in a finite period of time and then you can move on with your day. Whereas nutrition is you have opportunities all day long, isn't turn off. That's my thing. And also a lot of people actually do enjoy exercise, right? And they might feel less resistant to it. No, of course this doesn't apply to everyone. Doesn't apply to everyone. Some people still struggle, but there's a lot less, there's a lot fewer complex feelings with exercise all the time. That's fair. Yeah, that is really fair to say that you know, in the nutrition space and in food is very emotional for people. I mean, I guess one would say exercise can be emotional. Yeah, of course, of course. But it is less complex. If someone, and I'm sure some of the strategies for good habit building work, make it easy, avoid, you know, I guess people talk about putting your shoes out and your... Yeah, those things can help. Yeah, those things probably help. Yeah. Do you think there's anything else? Whatever your mental resistance is to exercising consistently, reduce, do whatever you can to reduce that barrier. If the barrier is I am afraid of being judged by people at the gym watching me, several solutions. One, can you go, do you have the flexibility to go when it's less quiet? Can you train at home? You know, can you either set up a home gym situation or carve out a corner of your living room where you can do it without people watching you? Or if you are into people watching you, you could probably set that up too. Yeah, that too. Or if you're like, I'm a woman and I'm intimidated by these loud grunting men, can you join like a women's group class? You know, where you feel safer unless judged or whatever. There's so many different ways to tackle it. If time is your barrier, which is a huge one, is I don't have time or the perception of I don't have time. And you're like, tell me more about it. What do you think is enough time? Oh, I think I need to drive 30 minutes to the gym and spend an hour doing my workout and then drive 30 minutes back home. Okay, you're like, okay, one is there a closer gym you can go to two if there's not. Let's can we make something work at home where you can get rid of the entire commute? That way you get a whole hour back, maybe more of your time. Do you find from a behavior perspective, people will stick to that? Yes. But sometimes it takes some trial and error to find the best system that works for the person, which is why I'm a huge fan of individualized one on one and coaching on an ongoing basis. It's really important. I have a coach and I've been training for a long time. I mean, since I was 17, so just yesterday. But yeah, because I know my weaknesses and I like to do things as a team sport. I like to have friends. I like to talk to people. I'm very social. I don't want to train by myself versus that one's huge too, the accountability. Or so that's my mom. She will train if it's social. She will exercise. She will go golfing with her friends. Right. So she's walking a ton. She'll train if it's with me or my dad, you know, but she will she will not do it on her own. She'll go to Pilates class if she's in a group. Will not do it on her own. So whatever the barrier is or the sticking point is for what are different for everyone, right? So you have to know your weaknesses and you have to acknowledge it because they will show up. Yes. Okay, let's address the barrier. Let's reduce the barrier. Whatever that is. Lots of myths out there. Oh, by the way, I got to tell you, do you know I created a national holiday? What is that? Are you ready for it? I don't know if you're ready for this. And this is we're announcing it right now. Okay. And this is a real thing. I applied and we have a legitimate national muscle health month. I didn't know you could do that. I did it. And it's November. That's incredible. Coming up. So you, Adidas, is going to help bring awareness to muscle health. And it's not, listen, you can have November, November and Mo muscle. There has to be a moment that we recognize the importance of skeletal muscle beyond strength, beyond, which is so important beyond strength, beyond just all the external or, you know, physicality, but really as the pillar of health. And hopefully, which I think in the next five years, it is going to be so impactful. We are entering, don't you think that we're entering in the era of strength or muscle, muscle health in some ways? Absolutely. Especially for women. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know that the percentage of women lifting weights is has been increasing. What is it now? It depends on the survey depends on the paper, I would say, and it depends on the country, right? And the demographic. But I can tell you the data that I have, but you know, again, people might say, yeah, the research usually puts at somewhere between like 20 to 28%. So I had 17%. That's low. Yeah. You can say like one in five or one in four for the US for resistance training. Yeah. And then also that also depends on how you're defining consistent adherence. Oftentimes is two or more times a week of resistance training. And if you have like spotty adherence, they won't really count you there, right? So anyway, proportion is low, but you know, 20 years ago, when we were in the gym, you were probably the only one of the only women in the weight room. For sure. Yeah, I was a freshman at Stanford, like Serana by a bunch of dudes early in the morning in the weight room, you know, they're like, what they don't be like, what are you training for? And what do you bench? I'm like, I'm not lifting like that. Like, you know, but for them, it was so novel. Universal chest. I'm like, I'm lifting for myself. And they're like, you're not training for a whatever. I'm like, not necessarily, I don't know. And obviously, I did eventually go on to compete in bikini and whatever, but it was an ongoing thing. But but now, now you go to the gym, you see way more women on the gym floor. Can I ask you a couple? I don't want to say true or false, but questions that I think are important. Okay. Number one, do women have to lift heavy? Heavies relative to the individual, right? I would say the way that it is, maybe the way that you're interpreting is different from the way that I'm interpreting it. We actually know that you can see a lot of muscle and strength gains from a variety of different rep ranges. So in terms of heavy, like, do you have to lift a one rep max or a three rep max? No. But even if you are lifting lighter weights for higher reps, you still want to be pushing close to muscular failure. And that is the key. And that's also what my research, my PhD, one of my, the chapter is my manuscript found that as long as you're pushing close to technical failure, you can see muscle and strength gains with a variety of different rep ranges and a variety of technical or muscular failure. I was actually, I was a muscular, yeah. And I believe, don't quote me on this on the exact number. I want to say it's there's research showing that you can stop like two to three reps shy of failure, one to three reps shy of failure, maybe, and still see significant gains, which is nice because who wants to train a failure every set? I've seen the same research and I also get concerned. The reason I asked you that question is, and I appreciate you expanding on the nuance is do women have to lift heavy? And the answer is no, but heavy relative to the rep range that you're doing. Yes. And it is not a, I wouldn't want my mom doing three to five rep maxes. No. Also, there's no reason for her to do that. Yeah. Right. But I think the space, and I'm not sure where it's coming from, the idea that we have to, I have never lifted that heavy. I used to, I did, I did two powerlifting weights, which is so funny because I'm like, my squat is so average. But like, for example, I don't enjoy pushing my one rep max. I would hate trying to do a three rep max back squat. So then that would be a barrier to make me not want to lift if that was what I did. And that's why I wanted to ask you that question. Because we do hear that. Are you hearing that in social media that women have to lift heavy? Yeah, sometimes. Yeah. I hear a lot. And I don't think that that's true. I'm like, but if you hate it, why would I try to force you to do it? But what I'm worried about is as women are postmenopausal, getting more, you know, I trained in geriatrics, once they're injured, it takes them out. If they have not been someone of a lifelong athlete, and again, I'm not talking about from a data perspective, I have seen thousands of patients, they're, they're done. You mean mentally? Both mentally because they, so let's say they're listening and they feel that they have to lift heavy, they go and they tear their light room, or they tear up their shoulder or bust their knee because they injured from lifting. Yes, because they are hearing that they have to lift heavy. Then there's, then there's the fear factor then. And now they don't want to even try anymore. So this is what, so this is what I have seen. Your answer was no, but, but heavy is relative. And you're talking about two to three reps in reserve. Yes, it totally agree with that. It doesn't have to be heavy per se, but it should still be challenging. And I think the thing I see, and I probably, you'll probably agree is that with a lot of women, and even the women that I trained in my study, even though they consider themselves experienced lifters, almost every one of them would say, and I would say, I watch your set and I said, you can lift a lot more than that. You can go heavier, again, relative to the right range, and you can go closer to failure. And they would say, Oh, I wasn't sure about my form and I didn't want to get hurt. So I was being conservative. I was being cautious. And so a lot of women, or, or they simply don't know how hard they're supposed to push. And so what they do is they end up leaving so much in the tank. So even if they are being consistent, maybe they're not pushing themselves to the level that they should. And that's highlighting an important point because we, it sounds like we both agree that that does happen. And that's where training with a friend or a coach or someone to be able to feel to get to the point where you're like, we're like, that's how it should feel. That's how it should feel. Or that's how your rep should look, you know? Yes. Do you want, do you have a myth that you want to dispel? I heard growing up, and I would repeat this because I heard it so much that circuit training is not effective for body comp changers. Oh, talk to me. Talk to me, Goose. And I, and even a couple years ago, I had a friend say that to me and I was like, I have research. I have to do a new collection. And we're not seeing that actually. And so what we found was we compared circuit training with traditional strength training. Can you define it for those? So we specifically actually did is called, we called it high intensity or high resistance circuit training, where you would do exercises in a back to back fashion, right? Let's say you have, we have six exercises, you do exercises one, two, three with little rest back to back to back, and you go back to one, two, three, one, two, three, then you rest, right? After you complete all sets of those three exercises can be four can be five, the exact number doesn't matter. And then you go four, five, six, four, five, six, four, five, six, you rest. That's what our heavy or circuit training group did heavy and high intensity means, as I was mentioning, every set was pushed close to failure. So it wasn't like I'm casually lifting this and we're having a com, I'm laughing. Haha. It wasn't like that, which is what we see a lot. Then we compared it to traditional strength training where it's the same six exercises, but they completed every exercise one set at a time. They would do leg press one set, push close to failure, rest three minutes. Set number two of leg press, rest three minutes, set number three of leg press, and then they fully finished that they move on to the flat double bench press. Same thing. One set, rest, one set rest, and so on. So one, the obvious thing is there's a huge time difference, right? Duration difference. So the circuit training group, they were done roughly 20, 25 minutes faster, which is significant when we see that time is such a big barrier, perceived barrier to exercise adherence. They were done faster to surprisingly, we did not, we saw similar gains in muscle, and strength. We did a three-room max testing pre and post and dexa scan pre and post, similar, similar gains in both groups, which I thought was pretty remarkable and really, to me, it's really good news. Okay. That means from a practical application perspective, you don't have to do one modality over the other. I think, okay, a couple of variables, a few variables, one is your personal preference. I'm not a circuit training person. I don't like it. I would much rather, if I want to do, if I want to make my lifting a bit more conditioning style, I'd rather do, I'd rather do a speed run intervals, right? I want to separate it personally. I enjoy the longer rest periods way more. So I would be like, I'm a traditional training person. I don't like it at all. I love circuit training. Really? I love circuit training. But the good news is you're like, you're not going to get inferior results. Now we know, as long as you're pushing yourself as close to failure. Okay. Two is your work, individual work capacity. Do you have the level of fitness to keep up that level of fast paced low rest circuit training while pushing every set close to failure? Not everyone does. It's very taxing. It's a lot more metabolically demanding. Of course, when you have such little rest, okay? And last thing is, from a logistical standpoint, does your gym setup allow you to even train in a circuit fashion? Cause you might be at a busy gym and you're like, I can't take up three pieces of equipment at once. Now, of course you can get creative with your exercise selection where you're like, all I need is these two pairs of dumbbells in this corner and I can make work. Absolutely. You can do that. Um, but even then you're still a bit more restricted with exercise selection and whatnot. So take those factors into consideration. You can also, the other option too is you can do a combination, right? You can do like your first two or three exercise is more traditional style. And then you finish with a short, a short circuit. I've done that for many years. Yeah. So that's also a vial, you know, obviously we didn't study that, but I think it's not a big jump to then say that's probably fine too. One more question and then you're off the hook. Cool. Fasting. You hear women, have you heard this? Women should not train fasted. Uh, yeah. I actually addressed it in my talk today. It was a really, as I was like, this is one of the common, uh, misconception that I do want to address. I think there's a bit more nuance to that than what is often preached online. Um, so I don't know. So my take in general is that there are fewer differences, exercise differences between men and women than we have been led to believe. Again, to me, this is good news. Okay. Yes. We have more similarities than differences. Okay. Even our training recommendations are very similar. When it comes to training fasted, um, I'm not aware of research that shows that training neccess, training fasted necessarily needs, leads to negative health outcomes. Uh, I will say I would not recommend training fasted on a two hour run. But does that, is it a sex difference? Right. It's not, it's not specific to women. That's, I would not recommend that for, it's not a smart strategy for anyone for obvious reasons. Yeah. And also training for any kind of two hour runs, not a good strategy. I'm just kidding. I have a long run tomorrow. I should be, and by the way, you are pregnant and I took a video of you and here you, you're coming down. Yeah. I'm training for a marathon right now and well done. I'm still, I'm like, I, how I need is like, what, what are we at? 16 more days and I need to cross the finish line. I'm so close. It's amazing. So that's the goal. It's amazing. I think it's cool. And I think my, my, uh, um, and I have a lot more to say about that and I won't get into it too much, but I think it's really important to, um, show women that even when you're pregnant, you are very capable. And if you are, you know, medically clear, if you don't have medical accommodations and you want to do something like a marathon and you have a level of fitness for it, do it. Pretty awesome. I think that's so cool. It is. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very cool. Yeah. Um, and, you know, there's a myth out there that exercise, even like marathons are harmful to the baby. That's actually, we've, they're actually quite resilient and also people think your baby's bouncing around and they're, they're actually not, they're sitting, they're, they're floating in your amniotic fluid. They're not doing this for four hours straight. Um, which is another, I get that comment a lot too. Baby's bouncing around. No, that's not how. And you probably spend a lot of time researching cause you love to. Oh, of course. As soon as I found out, I was like, can I still run the marathon? Let me find out. And there's lots of women who have completed marathons and been fine while pregnant. And I think it's so cool. And again, if you don't want to do it, no one's forcing you to do it, but this is something I really want to do. I think it is, you know, I train throughout both pregnancies. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. But everyone's like, oh, I don't know. You're squandering a lot. I was like, nah, listen. And it's great. It's great. And I think it's inspiring. And I also think on a side note, it's really important for the mom to continue doing things that make her happy. Would you train fasted? No, you should not train fasted if you are doing a hard workout, a very long and or very intense workout session. Absolutely not. If you're going for a light jog in the morning, you're fine. You are not going to have negative metabolic consequences as a woman. If you're training fasted. And I think the thing that people forget is when you wake up fasted, you have food in your system. You have glycogen stores from the day before, you know, and when we talk up, talk about post workout and recovery nutrition, your pre-workout food impacts your post workout recovery as well. So I remind people, I'm like, you don't wake up completely empty. You're not an actual car. Well, like people like to use the car, you know, fuel and the tank is analogy. I'm like, they can work in some ways, but it's not like your tank is completely empty every morning. So E-carpenter, this has been really fun. And I want to close it out with three things that you want everybody to know. And it could be habit. It could be you pick it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. First thing that came to mind is a 20 minute workout that you can do a few times a week is going to be so much better than the hour long workout, the perfect looking workout on paper that never gets done. I love that. Any incremental change you can make to your diet to, I like to say, nudge yourself in the right direction, because it seems a bit more gentle and less aggressive, whether it be having a next swapping your Coke for a glass of water or adding a serving of protein to one meal or adding a half cup of vegetables to one meal, all of that does add up and makes a difference over time. Last one is health is about more than what you eat and how you exercise. Your relationship with food and your body also is vastly important. Your quality of life matters to your mental health matters to your social support has a huge impact on your health. And so it's important to look at health from a more well rounded holistic view rather than food and diet only. Yes. Very well said. This was a blast. Hopefully after you run your marathon, have your baby. You probably won't take much time off. And then maybe we talk about pre-pregnancy, post pregnancy. Oh, that'd be super fun. Nutrition. Yeah. All right, my friend. Let's do it. Thank you so much. Thank you.